Translations as Strangers

Abstract

Metaphors are indispensable to everyday communication as well as to scientific discourse. They convey implicit assumptions underlying our theoretical concepts (Blumenberg 1960, Lakoff and Johnson 2003). In translation studies, metaphors, aside from being treated as problems of translation, have been used in a hermeneutical manner to define prevailing conceptions of translation at different times and within different cultures.

This paper aims to construct a metaphor, that is, to metaphorize translations as ‘strangers’ in line with sociological concepts of the stranger (Simmel 1950, Nassehi 1995, Stichweh 1992, 1997, 2002, 2004). The objective is to stake out an imaginary field in which the interrelation between translation and the receiving system can be conceived. This epistemically ‘productive’ analogy may offer a glimpse into how translation processes may not necessarily be the result of intentions of certain actors, but may instead be the outcome of a complex and dynamic interrelation between a text and its receiving system.