Über-Setzung als diskursive Dominanz

Paul Ricœurs Übersetzungsparadigma neu gelesen

Yvanka Raynova

pp. 62-76

in: Yvanka Raynova (ed), Philosophy as Hermeneutics and Commitment, Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 16 (1), 2014.

Abstract

Putting into question the idealized interpretations of translation as an ethical paradigm and model for Europe (Paul Ricoeur, Domenico Jervolino), the author aims to reveal some negative aspects related to the politics of translation, specially the use of translation as a transfer of a dominant discourse. This negative phenomenon is analyzed by mean of the neologism of Über-Setzung (superimposition) designating an overlap of a discourse or an idiom over another through the abuse of the linguistic hospitality of translation. On the base of diverse examples and narratives the author offers a descrip-tion of the eidetic structure of Über-Setzung, and argues that the dominating language and its dis-course intervene in the mother language and its culture by putting itself "on" and "over" them as something primary, absolute and universal. The dominant discourse, that is established by means of translation, requires mindfulness, comprehension and acceptance; however, because it is a kind of anti-giving, the dominator who use it refuses to recognize the dominated as a partner; he treats him as non-equal and even as "retarded". In conclusion the author displays the intercultural potentialities of hermeneutic phenomenology in regard of a new European ethos of translation.

Cited authors

Ricoeur Paul

Jervolino Domenico