Translation’s Added Value

Location: Room A130, College Building, Northampton Square, City University London, EC1V 4PB.

Translations add value to the texts they represent because they communicate about these texts even as they represent them. Starting from examples which show translators voicing reservations about the works they are reproducing, I will suggest that all translation, whether dissonant or consonant or indifferent, has the translator's value judgements inscribed in it.

The model I propose views translation as reported speech, more particularly what Relevance Theory calls 'echoic' speech. It casts the translator's intervention as the main communicative event, accounts for the shift in perspective characteristic of translation but leaves room for the translator's subject position in the translated text.

This lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.