Translatability–Untranslatability Aporia as an Object of Discursive- Manipulative Games in Modern Theory and Methodology of Translation

Abstract

Within the framework of the cognitive-hermeneutic approach to the implementation of modern theoretical and methodological translation strategies and tactics, this article suggests taking the heat off the centuriesold confrontation between adherents and antagonists of the theory of untranslatability. Once we realize that the translatability–untranslatability dichotomy, which consists in the lack of an equivalent to a linguocultural phenomenon in the recipient language, is of academic nature, we will be able to remove this antinomy by means of a two-pronged cooperative transposition of the source text (ST) into the target language (TL) at the discursive-communicative level. The concept of translatability is linked with the use of regular translation equivalents, i.e. translation proper, while untranslatability is overcome using quasi-translation in the form of discursive-manipulative games. The latter are understood as a “free” communicative rendering of the ST content into the TL by means of translation manipulations, which are perceived as a positive phenomenon based on the cognitive-hermeneutic translation methodology. In the modern translatological interpretation, translation is presented as an alternation and a combination of translation techniques proper and manipulative games to ensure adequate adaptation of the ST content by means of the TL, while taking into consideration the linguistic and extralinguistic features of the ST. The basis for overcoming untranslatability and verifying the adopted translation decisions is a transdisciplinary approach to the procedure for generating the target text, which is expropriated by the potential recipient, at the discursive-communicative level. Discursivemanipulative translation games should not distort the semantic and stylistic parameters of the ST, even in cases where “it is difficult or impossible to find a concept that would be close to that of the source culture”. The main task of these games is to turn translation from the art of failure into the art of concordance between the cultures of the language pair in contact.