chronotopos – A Journal of Translation History

A conference mosaic – History & Translation conference Tallinn 2022

2024-03-24T19:45:20+00:00

How can a conference as large and diverse as the first conference of the History and Translation Network in Tallinn in May of 2022 be adequately represented and remembered? To archive, share, and promote the multiplicity of topics and approaches that came together, we invited panel chairs and, in some cases, panelists to write short texts about their panels. These now form a conference mosaic as tiles. As is often the case with a mosaic, the tiles vary in size and style, with some leaving a blank space. From time to time, tiles in different languages remind us of the multilingual reality of the research subjects, the researchers, and also the conference. The texts have been arranged in three overarching categories: methods & approaches, actors & themes and time & space. We thank all contributors for their efforts and hope readers enjoy browsing the mosaic.

Edited by Chronotopos, contributors of texts are named below each text.

Lehmstedt, Mark (2022): „Uebersetzungsmanufactur“ und „proletarische Scribenten“. Buchmarkt und Übersetzungswesen im 18. Jahrhundert. Leipzig: Lehmstedt Verlag.

2024-03-24T10:38:06+00:00

Kita-Huber, Jadwiga & Makarska, Renata (eds.) (2020): Wyjść tłumaczowi naprzeciw. Miejsce tłumacza w najnowszych badaniach translatologicznych [Meeting the Translator Halfway. The Place of the Translator in Recent Translatological Re-search]. Kraków: Universitas.

2024-03-09T13:44:59+00:00

Gipper, Andreas; Heller, Lavinia & Lukenda, Robert (Hg.) (2022): Politiken der Translation in Italien. Wegmarken einer deutsch-italienischen Übersetzungsgeschichte vom Risorgimento bis zum Faschismus. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag

2024-03-24T18:54:31+00:00

Language For Trade

2023-12-10T09:32:30+00:00

This article uses a case-study of a Dutch translation of a Russianbook of tariffs and trading laws from 1724 to examine how language shaped and was shaped by global trade. In the early modern period shifting trade routes brought new commodities with new names, imperial expansion reified imperial terms as the norm for imperial-control/ed products, and both joined old terms for the technica/ities and legalities of international trade. All those terms had to be arranged within texts, tables, and books, and rearranged in translations vital to international trade. Such mercantile texts aimed not for definitive and lasting translations, but rather translations that worked in the immediate and fleeting context trade required. Comparing these two books shows how the semantics of commerce were shaped not only by linguistics but the expediencies of trade. Examining this unexpected and as-yet unused textual pairing demonstrates the interconnected nature of linguistic, mercantile, and material changes in the early modern global world.

Invisible Mediators: Interpreters of German Occupied Greece (1941–1944)

2021-12-14T09:23:56+00:00

Recent years have seen the creation of a complex and multifaceted body of scholarly work examining the role of translators and interpreters in conflict situations. More is yet to be discovered, however, about these significant individuals and their functions and contribution to past and current wartime situations. Using data collected from oral histories gathered as part of the digital archive project by the Free University of Berlin, and the written testimonials provided by the Center for Neo-Hellenic Studies, this study focuses on the underexplored role of interpreters in German Occupied Greece (1941–1944). The digital archive offers key information regarding issues beyond what has been recorded so far regarding interpreter ethnic and ideological allegiances, for instance. Issues connected to the interpreters’ background, with a special emphasis on acquisition of linguistic skills, shed light on broader anthropological and sociological issues, such as their level of education, which may be linked to social class. Gender is another aspect discussed, as a result of the finding that a large number of interpreters in Occupied Greece were women.

This paper includes an annex with excerpts from testimonials (in Greek).

Histoire de la traduction dans les Cours constitutionnelles de l’Europe de l’Ouest

2024-02-27T17:04:18+00:00

Cet article traite de la question de la traduction dans les Cours constitutionnelles des Etats unilingues de l’Europe de l’Ouest: France, Italie, Espagne, Portugal et Allemagne. Cette recherche, débutée en 2019, a permis de mettre en évidence la particularité des “traductions cognitives”. Une fois la notion définie, nous avons décidé de mener une enquête socio-historique (PAYRE / POLLET 2005) en envoyant un questionnaire aux Cours constitutionnelles concernées. Trois Cours ont répondu (France, Allemagne, Espagne); un article a été écrit sur la question à propos de la Cour constitutionnelle d’Italie et nous avons pu nous entretenir avec son auteur, Paolo Passaglia (PASSAGLIA 2017); seule la Cour constitutionnelle du Portugal n’a pas été joignable. Les données récoltées ont permis de mieux comprendre l’histoire de la traduction dans ces Cours : comment elle est née, de quelle manière elle s’est développée ; quelles sont les pratiques passées et actuelles. Ce travail empirique a pour ambition de porter à la connaissance les usages de traduction au sein des Cours constitutionnelles de France, d’Allemagne, d’Espagne et d’Italie, tout en réfléchissant à leurs transformations présentes et à venir.

Literary Translations in the Book Production of Estonian Exile Publishers

2023-09-08T10:31:09+00:00

The article treats the activities of Estonian exile publishers in the Soviet Union (1918–1937) and in the West (1944–1991), concentrating on the publications of translated literary works. The analysis includes the study of the motives for publishing literary translations and the functions these publications were supposed to fulfil in these two different contexts of production and reception. The publishing of Estonian-language literary works in the Soviet Union is studied in the framework of national and cultural policies of the 1920s and 1930s, which determined the development of minority publishing. The output of translated literature by Estonian-language publishers is compared with the all-union translation policy and its preferences in the selection of authors for translation. The treatment of the Estonian-language publishing in the West focuses on the activities of Andres Laur and his publishing house Orto that issued most of the literary translations. The translation publications by other publishers (Vaba Eesti, Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv) represent alternative modes of selection, illustrating the variety of motives.

Das erste wissenschaftliche Übersetzungprojekt?

2021-11-22T12:00:44+00:00

Während es Übersetzungen der De Architectura Libri Decem des antiken Autors Vitruv bereits zuvor gab, entwickelte ein erst jüngst als Accademia de lo Studio de l’Architettura identifizierter Kreis vieler Gelehrter und Architekten ab ca. 1531 in Rom ein umfassendes Programm zur wissenschaftlichen Begründung der Architektur und insbesondere zur Erforschung der als vorbildlich angesehenen Architektur der römischen Antike. Für dieses Programm war Vitruvs Text der Ausgangspunkt und von zentraler Bedeutung, weshalb er neu ediert und übersetzt werden sollte. Dieses bisher als unrealisiert und sogar als unrealisierbar angesehene Programm – 1531 erstmals skizziert, 1542 schriftlich fixiert und 1547 publiziert – stellt einen bemerkenswerten und vermutlich sogar den ersten wissenschaftlich zu nennenden Versuch dar, einen antiken Text nicht nur zu emendieren, zu edieren und zu übersetzen, sondern mit Hilfe zusätzlicher Quellen, die ebenfalls systematisch erfasst, dokumentiert und analysiert werden sollten, zu verstehen bzw. zu interpretieren und für Gegenwart und Zukunft nutzbar zu machen. Aus diesen Arbeiten gingen zahlreiche Manuskripte, Zeichnungen, Einzeldrucke und Bücher hervor, die heute zu den Grundlagen verschiedener historischer Wissenschaften gezählt werden und deshalb – wie das trotzdem weitgehend vergessene Projekt selbst – besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdienen. Der Artikel erläutert das Programm und seine Ergebnisse vorrangig unter dem Aspekt ihrer translationshistorischen Relevanz.

Philosophical Tradition in Translation

2023-05-25T12:47:00+00:00

While reflecting upon the intrinsically multilingual and translational history of philosophy, philosophers and philosophy scholars frequently argue metaphorically in terms of a tradition. The perspectives vary in emphasizing either the tradition’s continuance or its transition, whereas translation is perceived of as the central or an auxiliary force in both processes. Four approaches where a philosophical tradition is differently poeticized are discussed in the paper. They reveal specific operations of transfer and transformation which are claimed to be supported or accelerated by/in translation. Such tradition-related operations appear to qualify for being traced and pinned down in a given philosophical translation. The paper seeks to work out this heuristic potential within the selected poetics of tradition and draws upon the paratextual comments on the first Russian translation of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” to eventually illustrate the translation-induced shifts of whatever might be called a philosophical tradition.