The Other in Translation: To Welcome or Not to Welcome

Abstract

This article is devoted to the ethical and political dimension of the thought of translation, here being considered as a problem place where the relationship to the Other is the question. First, the study shows the principles of translation theories centered on the welcoming of the Other and it analyses the relationship between the notions of “proper” and “foreign”. Then the drifting that can be borne out of “non-ethical” translation which undervalue and/or ignore the asymmetrical links between dominant and dominated languages. Finally, the article sets into perspective the problems surrounding the question of the welcoming of the Other in translation in confronting them with the theses Tiphaine Samoyault puts forth in her book Traduction et violence (2020). The point is not to condemn translation under the pretext that it would only be violence, but to take into consideration the fact that it is a place full of tensions which one should learn to manage in a tactful manner. Therefore, to replace the notion of “truthful translation” Samoyault offers the concept of “just translation” which allows to reunite in the same phrase the notion of “justness” (to find the just word) and that of justice (to adjust the translation, to adapt to inequalities). In short, the article undertakes the examination of the problem of the Other in translation while referring to Ricoeur’s idea that the foreigner is neither the same (identical to us) nor the other (different from us) but the similar, that is to say the conjunction of the identical and the different.