تويت
<span style="font-weight: bold"><a name="str"></a>Translation and the Philosophy of Language: Appraisal and future perspectives<br />Strasbourg, France<br />9-10 March 2007<br /><span style="color: rgb(255,0,0)">Deadline for proposals: 1 September 2006 (closed)</span><br /></span>Translation practices and theories reveal many approaches to language, defined according to the way the individual apprehends himself and the world. The language used by translators is based on a philosophy of language which has changed over the centuries. In the Middle Ages, it was the topic of a debate around dialectics, and was then taken up in nominalism, the theory of signs in the 18th century, and by German idealists in their reflections on the origins of languages. Nowadays, some linguists consider language as an autonomous system of internal dependencies. However, translation, and in particular literary translation, raises an essential question: the relationship between language and those logical operations that cannot be reduced to a given language structure. Thus, if the main problem of language is the reference to something other than itself – if it has a symbolic function – then translation, which is located at the juncture between human and social sciences, implies 1) reflecting on the solidarity between the theories of language, literature and philosophy, and questioning the ontological difference between writing and translating and the substance/form dichotomy in poetry; 2) taking into account the alterity of other cultural and philosophical traditions and the marked move towards an intercultural perspective in translation, and the resulting challenge to western categories, in particular through the opening up to the Orient. <br />These two problematics may be tackled from different philosophical points of view, be they diachronic or synchronic – an analytic understanding of the philosophy of language that seeks to clarify language (in this sense, descriptive translation studies’ attempt to systematize observable phenomena could be construed as a current form of logical positivism); the philosophy of ordinary language, with authors such as Ludwig Wittgenstein or J.L. Austin; the phenomenology of language, based on Husserl (language would then be considered as an experience preceding language itself) and Merleau-Ponty for whom linguistic structures are at the service of expression. Other questions may also be addressed, such as the consequences of the Marxist legacy for translation, where meaning cannot be considered an ideal object or an essence residing in the materiality of the sign (what happens then to such issues as equivalence or faithfulness?); or the ideal model of translation arising from the hermeneutic approach, with its emphasis on the signified and beyond, and on the intention of the text and its author. The debate could also delve into semiotics and lead to revisiting the five concepts – sign, signified, metaphor, symbol and code (Umberto Eco) – from the point of view of translation practice.<br />The following scholars have already agreed to take part in the conference:<br />Henri Meschonnic, Lawrence Venuti, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Jean-René Ladmiral, Françoise Wuilmart, Lance Hewson, Laurence Wong, Andrew Parkin, J. Schmidt-Radefeldt, J. Takachi.<br />Please send your abstracts (either in French or in English) before 1 September 2006 to Annie Cointre: cointre@noos.fr<br />To register for the conference, please contact: marielle.seichepine@univ-metz.fr.