Table Of ContentTRANSLATION
IN THE PUBLIC
SPHERE
Sergey Tyulenev
Translation in the Public Sphere
Sergey Tyulenev
Translation in the
Public Sphere
Sergey Tyulenev
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Durham University
Durham, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-78357-4 ISBN 978-3-319-78358-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78358-1
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C
ontents
1 A Missing Link 1
2 Meet Translation 25
3 Mediating a Compromise 47
4 How Translation Works 75
5 Public Debate on and as Translation 99
Conclusion 123
References 127
Index 135
v
I
ntroduCtIon
This book is about translation in the public sphere (PS). It shall be noted
that it is neither about translation nor about the PS, but about translation
in the PS. This implies that the book should be less expected to engage
exhaustively with either of the subject areas and more with their intersec-
tions. In fact, the lack of the engagement with translation in the PS litera-
ture and with the PS in Translation and Interpreting Studies was the initial
motivation to write this book. It seemed to me that it is obvious that the
one subject can hardly be discussed without taking the other into consid-
eration, and yet there has been little discussion of the two ‘in tandem’, in
their mutually influential interactions. I will examine the situation in
greater detail in the chapters that follow; in this brief introduction I make
some necessary clarifications.
Сейоло […] протянул нам руку. Жена его смотрела на нас […] Я отдал
Сейоло табак и сигары. […] Потом мы молча стали разглядывать друг друга.
[…] Они с любопытством следили за каждым нашим движением и изредка
усмехались […] Нам хотелось поговорить, но переводчика не было дома.1
—И.А. Гончаров
1 Seiolo […] held out his hand to us. His wife looked at us […] I gave Seiolo tobacco and
cigars. […] Then we silently began to examine one another. […] They watched with curios-
ity every movement we made and occasionally grinned. […] We wanted to talk, but the
interpreter was not at home. (Ivan Goncharov; translation mine—S. T.)
vii
viii INTroDUCTIoN
The term ‘public sphere’ is used in the most general sense, including
both a more or less unified PS of a nation-state of the Westphalian model
(as theorized by Jürgen Habermas) and any other type of PS regardless of
its size or configuration. Kate Nash (2014: 61–65) questions the existence
of the Public Sphere, rather, she argues, the definite article is a vestige of
Habermas’s theorizations of PS bearing in mind the Westphalian world
order with nation-states having their unified PSs. In today’s world, the
picture is much more complex: there are numerous smaller and larger PSs
and the existence of a unified PS in which there is a unified deliberation is
questioned by many PS theorists.
PS is understood here in its broader meaning blurring the divide
between state and publics as theorized by Nancy Fraser (1992). Indeed, as
it will be shown, PS debates unfold not in isolation from state officials’ or
professionals’ inputs where both the officials and professionals act or are
perceived (at least by some) as acting in their non-private capacities.
Sometimes one and the same participant in a PS discussion says different
things depending on the overall socio-political context. Therefore PS
debate should be theorized broadening its ecology.
The book has a dual audience. on the one hand, it is addressed to PS
theorists alerting them against taking translation for granted as a transpar-
ent screen and interpreters or translators as mere conduits, bilingual
machines who are noticed only when they make a slip or an error.
Translation is hardly ever transparent; it is an interface of many factors and
allegiances that influence the resulting mediation. Translation is also ubiq-
uitous in the PS (as well as in the society at large). Translation manifests
itself in different guises, sometimes very well disguised indeed. It is mis-
leading to associate translation only with interlingual or any lingual trans-
fer for that matter, and with an individual or a piece of technology between
the two (or more) communicators.
I hope the book will also be of interest to students or scholars of trans-
lation. There have been publications in Translation and Interpreting
Studies that considered translation and interpreting in settings that could
be classified as belonging to PS. But it would be useful to discuss such
matters from a clearer sociological perspective and with the help of a spe-
cialized conceptual and terminological apparatus. The PS theory has a
well-developed toolkit that can be applied when discussing translation’s
behaviour in public debates, offering a better chance to appreciate simi-
larities to or dissimilarities from its behaviour in other settings.
INTroDUCTIo N ix
The predominance of examples from russian PSs in the present study
is quite naturally explained by the fact that russian is my mother tongue
and the russian sociocultural climate is familiar to me better than any
other. It goes without saying that the discussion is not limitable or to be
limited to the russian PSs. rather all the russia-related examples are to be
viewed as case studies or illustrations constituting the basis for theoretical
generalizations that are to be verified in other sociocultural settings.
The structure of the monograph is as follows. Chapter 1 is a diagnostic
chapter where it will be shown that in the broad PS literature intra- and
interlingual translation is at most mentioned, hardly ever discussed, let
alone problematized. Such a conspicuous absence will also be questioned
there. In Chap. 2, translation will be presented as a capacious genus with
many varied species. The most PS-relevant ones will be discussed in detail.
Chapter 3 shows translation as a key mechanism of negotiating compromise
in public debate. Chapter 4 will look into how translation works in the PS:
on the one hand as a catalyst of social interactions and on the other hand
as a factor in intersocietally staged communication. Chapter 5 presents
translation as a topic of public debate and as a methodological tool for
theorizing public debate. Finally, in the Conclusion, the findings of the
study are summarized.
CHAPTER 1
A Missing Link
Слона-то я и не приметил.
—И.А. Крылов
Abstract This chapter introduces the notion of the public sphere.
Theorizing PS and the communicative ecology has been enriched since
their earlier days, yet an important factor, translation, is still missing.
Dialogue is identified as a way of socializing in the sense that it is getting
out of one’s own ‘bubble’ (one’s own worldview), and contacting another
person, another ‘bubble’, another worldview. Dialogue requires a means
of bridging the gap between the two ‘bubbles’. This means is translation.
Translation should also be considered as a fourth layer of communicative
ecology, together with communicating actors, the technology they use
and the topics they discuss.
Keywords Public sphere • Communicative ecology • Dialogue •
Translation • Fourth layer
‘I did not notice the elephant’ (Ivan Krylov; translation is mine—S.T.)
© The Author(s) 2018 1
S. Tyulenev, Translation in the Public Sphere,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78358-1_1
2 S. TYULENEV
Enriching thE PalEttE
Let us begin with the following picture:
In an arena a number of speakers communicate with each other, observed by
an audience seated in the gallery. […T]here are mediators (that is, journal-
ists) who organize the exchange between speakers […] In the catacombs
below the arena is a backstage area in which speakers and mediators prepare
their communications and seek advice […] from public relations coaches.
The entire complex of arena, gallery and backstage area can be called a
forum.
To be sure, this is not a description of the Coliseum or the forum in Rome
or an arena in another ancient city. The description comes from Wessler
et al. (2008: 4), a book on the modern Public Sphere (PS) and this is a
metaphorical description of PS.
Theorizing PS (as any subject of scholarly interest) can be compared to
enriching the palette of a painter. More and more is learned about the
subject at hand. As a result, the palette required for expatiating on all vari-
ous aspects becomes richer and ever more sophisticated.
PS is definable as the sphere of public life that serves as a platform in
which a range of multifarious and multifaceted topics, considered socially
important, are conferred about. In this sketchy definition it is already
obvious that PS and its existence depend on several factors.
Firstly, there should be a public ready, willing and enjoying a possibility
to exist in such a sphere, more or less actively partaking in its discussions
and debates and more or less successfully influencing the course of social
and political life through publicly staged parleys or deliberations. This
kind of public is different from social agents who participate in other types
of discussion, such as authorities, that is, state or governmental officials, or
professionals, for example, lawyers, scientists, experts in other fields. This
does not mean to say that a president, a past master of an organization or
a savant cannot act as a private individual. As we shall see in the chapters
that follow, politicians comment on different personages and events; they
intervene in the public dialogue about all sorts of issues that find them-
selves in epicentres of public interest or concern; professionals may be
invited to explain the phenomena that come into the public purview. A
great deal depends on how they position themselves and how they are
perceived by the audience they address. One and the same statement of
