Second Year Hon. Mention: Murder, Murder! The Murderous Translator’s Power in Contemporary Translation Studies by Dismantling the Writer-Text-Translator Relationship

WRIT 2003, Genre for Professional Writers. CD: John Spencer.

Abstract

This paper offers a fascinating exploration of the writer-text-translator dynamic as it forms, reforms, and transforms itself throughout the translation process. As the translator gains ascendency over the writer, forming their own connection to the text, issues of content integrity, subjective interpretation, creative/literary license, and cultural context become important components of meaning-making and fidelity to the original author’s creation. Referencing Barthes, Benjamin, and Gadamer, the author paints a persuasive picture of the ever-more tenuous link between the author, their creation, and the translator, whose vision may dangerously impose on the text unless they recognize and reign in the rhetorical power and privilege they wield.