Table Of ContentUNSETTLING TRANSLATION
This collection engages with translation and interpreting from a diverse but complementary
range of perspectives, in dialogue with the seminal work of Theo Hermans. A foundational
figure in the field, Hermans’s scholarly engagement with translation spans several key areas,
including history of translation, metaphor, norms, ethics, ideology, methodology, and the
critical reconceptualization of the positioning of the translator and of translation itself as a
social and hermeneutic practice. Those he has mentored or inspired through his lectures
and pioneering publications over the years are now household names in the field, with many
represented in this volume. They come together here both to critically re-examine transla-
tion as a social, political and conceptual site of negotiation and to celebrate his contributions
to the field.
The volume opens with an extended introduction and personal tribute by the editor,
which situates Hermans’s work within the broader development of critical thinking about
translation from the 1970s onward. This is followed by five parts, each addressing a theme
that has been broadly taken up by Theo Hermans in his own work: translational epistemol-
ogies; historicizing translation; performing translation; centres and peripheries; and digital
encounters.
This is important reading for translation scholars, researchers and advanced students on
courses covering key trends and theories in translation studies, and those engaging with the
history of the discipline.
Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Uni-
versity of Oslo, Norway, and co-coordinator of the Genealogies of Knowledge Research
Network. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at
Shanghai International Studies University, and Adjunct Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies
University, China. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation and Translation
and Conflict: A Narrative Account; editor of Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian
Revolution; and co-editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies and the Routledge
Encyclopedia of Citizen Media.
UNSETTLING TRANSLATION
Studies in Honour of Theo Hermans
Edited by Mona Baker
LONDON AND NEW YORK
Cover image: Getty
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Mona Baker; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Mona Baker to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has
been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No
Derivatives 4.0 license.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Baker, Mona, editor. | Hermans, Theo, honouree.
Title: Unsettling translation : studies in honour of Theo Hermans /
edited by Mona Baker.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021056856 | ISBN 9780367681999 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367681968 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003134633 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting. | LCGFT: Festschriften. | Essays.
Classification: LCC P306 .U57 2022 | DDC 418/.02—dc23/eng/20220316
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056856
ISBN: 978-0-367-68199-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-68196-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-13463-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003134633
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
The rather smooth, unruffled picture of translation that I have just painted has an
‘other’ to it, a more unsettling but also a much more interesting and intriguing
side. The smooth, unruffled picture may be part of the conventional perception and
self-presentation of translation, but it papers over the cracks. I want to try and poke
my finger into at least some of these cracks. And the reason for doing so lies in the
recognition that translation, for all its presumed secondariness, derives its force from
the fact that it is still our only answer to, and our only escape from, Babel.
Theo Hermans, ‘Translation’s Other’, Inaugural lecture,
University College London, 1996
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements xi
Illustrations xiii
List of contributors xv
1 On the folly of first impressions: a journey with Theo Hermans 1
Mona Baker
Part I
Translational epistemologies 13
2 Translation as metaphor revisited: on the promises and pitfalls of
semantic and epistemological overflowing 15
Rainer Guldin
3 The translational in transnational and transdisciplinary
epistemologies: reconstructing translational epistemologies in
The Great Regression 29
Rafael Y. Schögler
4 Translation as commentary: paratext, hypertext and metatext 48
Kathryn Batchelor
Part II
Historicizing translation 63
5 Challenging the archive, ‘present’-ing the past: translation history as
historical ethnography 65
Hilary Footitt
viii Contents
6 Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s tailor and significance in translation history 81
Christopher Rundle
Part III
Performing Translation 95
7 From voice to performance: the artistic agency of literary translators 97
Gabriela Saldanha
8 Gatekeepers and stakeholders: valorizing indirect translation in theatre 112
Geraldine Brodie
9 Media, materiality and the possibility of reception: Anne Carson’s Catullus 125
Karin Littau
Part IV
Centres and peripheries 143
10 Dissenting laughter: Tamil Dalit literature and translation
on the offensive 145
Hephzibah Israel
11 Gianni Rodari’s Adventures of Cipollino in Russian and Estonian:
translation and ideology in the USSR 162
Daniele Monticelli and Eda Ahi
12 Retranslating ‘Kara Toprak’: ecofeminism revisited through a
canonical folk song 180
S¸ebnem Susam-Saraeva
Part V
Digital encounters 195
13 Debating Buddhist translations in cyberspace: the Buddhist online
discussion forum as a discursive and epitextual space 197
Robert Neather
14 Intelligent designs: a corpus-assisted study of creationist discourse 217
Jan Buts
Contents ix
15 Subtitling disinformation narratives around COVID-19: ‘foreign’
vlogging in the construction of digital nationalism in Chinese
social media 232
Luis Pérez-González
Name index 249
Subject index 256
