A few words on moving beyond in Translation Studies

MARÍA INÉS ARRIZABALAGA

Victoria

Conferencia; 26th Conference of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies; 2013

Victoria University

We are definitely moving beyond in Translation Studies [TS], especially in terms of theoretical frameworks and modeling of “new” objects of study. In this presentation I would like to discuss i) the general implications of using the term Post Translation Studies (Arduini & Nergaard, 2011) to name recent “turns” in the discipline; ii) the specific implications of using the term in Argentina – especially considering that TS is a vacant research area in the country, as stated by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council –; iii) the idea of a post hermeneutic move in TS. This latter term i) puts on the spot a rooted tradition of looking at translation from the perspective of translatability vs. untranslatability (Gadamer, 1998 [1993]; Ortega & Gasset in Vega, 1994; Steiner, 1995 [1975]); ii) is framed in the fact that TS is increasingly going multidisciplinary, to a point in which the empirical evidence required by and used in the fields countering TS (such as cognition, contrastive grammar, artificial intelligence, history, lexicology…) are turning the discipline less and less speculative; iii) connects to the metaphoric uses of concepts and relations coming from Life Sciences and Hard Sciences as applied in TS. At the end of the day, this is a discussion over what and how we know through the practice of translation and as translation scholars. An event to talk about “science in translation” cannot leave aside the connection between epistemology and history. In other words, it cannot skip the fact that the way in which translation is “modeled” affects how it is conceived both by people in general and the translation scholar. In turn, the way in which the discipline is “called” influences whole perspectives of translation, with an impact on education programs, government policies, estate budgetary issues. It is an undeniable fact that the knowledge produced around translation and TS is of major consequence in the history of the discipline and in History. Furthering the discussion into why it is necessary to argue over translation matters moving away from speculation and getting closer to the basis for knowledge creation in, for instance, Life Sciences and Hard Sciences could be of benefit to TS. This is specially and potentially so in a country like Argentina, where TS is currently either considered a vacant research area, or at its best grouped by research agencies under umbrella areas such as “Linguistics, Literature and Semiotics.”