Between the ethics and politics of translation

Abstract

In these pages, we aim to reconstruct the main stages that, over the past few decades, have enabled the shift from a scientific approach to an ethical, political, and poetic one in translation studies - leading to a true philosophy of translation, capable of highlighting both the necessity of cross-cultural exchange and the imperialist and colonial risks inherent in perpetual assimilation. In the first part, we examine the innovations introduced in the field of translation studies by George Steiner and the ethical and foreignizing approaches of Antoine Berman and Lawrence Venuti. In the second part, we analyze the emerging field of the politics of translation and studies on untranslatability, comparing the perspectives of Pascale Casanova, Emily Apter, Barbara Cassin, and Tiphaine Samoyault. Finally, we conclude our discussion by returning to Henri Meschonnic’s poetics of translation, which today can provide us with valuable tools to counter the assimilative risks of Globish and machine translation.