Considering the language as something that is never neutral, and inspired in the notions of ideology and power as proposed by Lefevere (Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame), Carbonell (Traducción y cultura. De la ideología al texto) and Foucault (Vigilar y castigar), the contribution aims to set out a theoretical and empirical digression regarding traumatic events’ representability through intra and interlinguistic translation. Representing the enforced disappearances in Argentina (during the last military dictatorship), a short story by Luisa Valenzuela (Simetrías, 1993) and some testimonies from the Nunca Más report (1984) will be used in order to underline the relationship among language, memory and identity. (LaCapra, History in Transit. Experience, Identity, Critical Theory). Literature functions as a mediation giving the possibility to convey, understand and elaborate an unspeakable reality. Indeed, trauma writing challenges the atrophy of language and builds itself starting from the power of words and, particularly, from the “noise” caused by what is “not said” and which precisely represents the real challenge for the translator. In the space of intercultural communication, translation is destined to be one of the most important sites for the negotiation, understanding and/or contestation of the relationships of power and knowledge, not just across cultures but also across memories. Examining the lack of innocence of translation as the principle medium of intercultural communication, the paper focuses on its role in the construction and/or distortion of different memories. Starting from an interpretative approach, the contribution uses a purely empirical and experimental method arriving at a definition of the key challenges and problems of trauma translation and of a model which could help us to conceive new perspectives of analysis addressing “otherness” and “memories” through a very particular use of language (Vidal Claramonte, Traducción, manipulación, reconstrucción). The power of a translation to manipulate a memory, the relations or ‘not relations’ between victims and perpetrators, traumatic and post-traumatic language are the key elements from which it is possible to re-think translation as a bridge between past and future memories in a society full of individual and collective traumas.

Tradurre esperienze traumatiche: il rumore delle parole tra passato e futuro

Rossella Michienzi
2018-01-01

Abstract

Considering the language as something that is never neutral, and inspired in the notions of ideology and power as proposed by Lefevere (Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame), Carbonell (Traducción y cultura. De la ideología al texto) and Foucault (Vigilar y castigar), the contribution aims to set out a theoretical and empirical digression regarding traumatic events’ representability through intra and interlinguistic translation. Representing the enforced disappearances in Argentina (during the last military dictatorship), a short story by Luisa Valenzuela (Simetrías, 1993) and some testimonies from the Nunca Más report (1984) will be used in order to underline the relationship among language, memory and identity. (LaCapra, History in Transit. Experience, Identity, Critical Theory). Literature functions as a mediation giving the possibility to convey, understand and elaborate an unspeakable reality. Indeed, trauma writing challenges the atrophy of language and builds itself starting from the power of words and, particularly, from the “noise” caused by what is “not said” and which precisely represents the real challenge for the translator. In the space of intercultural communication, translation is destined to be one of the most important sites for the negotiation, understanding and/or contestation of the relationships of power and knowledge, not just across cultures but also across memories. Examining the lack of innocence of translation as the principle medium of intercultural communication, the paper focuses on its role in the construction and/or distortion of different memories. Starting from an interpretative approach, the contribution uses a purely empirical and experimental method arriving at a definition of the key challenges and problems of trauma translation and of a model which could help us to conceive new perspectives of analysis addressing “otherness” and “memories” through a very particular use of language (Vidal Claramonte, Traducción, manipulación, reconstrucción). The power of a translation to manipulate a memory, the relations or ‘not relations’ between victims and perpetrators, traumatic and post-traumatic language are the key elements from which it is possible to re-think translation as a bridge between past and future memories in a society full of individual and collective traumas.
2018
Translation Studies, Spanish Literature, Trauma, Terminology, Cultural Pragmatics
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11770/289301
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