What Do We Translate when We Translate?

Lutter, Christina

doi:10.1515/9783110333800.155

The Trans/National Study of Culture 2014

DOI: 10.1515/9783110333800.155

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What Do We Translate when We Translate?

Christina Lutter¹

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2021

2024

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Cultural Translation as a Multidirectional Process in the Seventeenth-Century Madurai Mission

Nardini

2021

Übersetzungskulturen Der Frühen Neuzeit

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In the seventeenth-century missionary context of South India, the Jesuit Roberto Nobili (1577–1656) engaged in a multi-directional process of translation, translating his Catholic mission, doctrine, and literature for a Tamil audience and adapting it to local Tamil beliefs, practices, and literature for the Roman Catholic context. Adopting theories from translation studies (Frege, Nida, Lefevere and Venuti), this paper suggests a model of “cultural translation” not only as a metaphor but as an analytical tool. Straddling the binary notion of orthodoxy-unorthodoxy, this mechanism pursues two goals: (1) it uncovers the role of translations in the construction of religions and social identities; (2) it applies the theoretical framework of “cultural translation” to illuminate the historical context of Jesuit missions in India and beyond. In doing so, it contributes to the analysis of transculturality and challenges the traditional master narrative of a homogeneous Christianity.

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Cultural Translation as a Multidirectional Process in the Seventeenth-Century Madurai Mission

Nardini

2021

Übersetzungskulturen Der Frühen Neuzeit

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The Translucence of the Missionary Translation in Seventeenth-Century South India: Cultural Filters, Translation Policies, Textual and Conceptual Grids

Nardini

2024

Übersetzungskulturen Der Frühen Neuzeit

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This article investigates how religions are based on the process of translating religious concepts and practices, and how different translations have brought about different understandings and representations of religions in the past and may continue to do so in the present. Proceeding from the notion that the construction of religions is based on a constant process of translation, the focus of the analysis is on the translation process itself. I examine the translation of religious concepts and practices in the missionary context of South India in the sixteenth century, employing “cultural translation” as an analytical tool. In order to analyze the translation process, I apply a theoretical ‘tool kit’—a combination of theories from different translation studies, to a pivotal source, Roberto Nobili’s (1577–1656) Informatio. This Latin treaty was composed for the purpose of translating and accommodating the Tamil Sanskrit Brahmanism of South India so as to explain it to a Latin-speaking Roman audience.

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What Do We Translate when We Translate?

Cited by 2 publications

References 3 publications

Cultural Translation as a Multidirectional Process in the Seventeenth-Century Madurai Mission

Cultural Translation as a Multidirectional Process in the Seventeenth-Century Madurai Mission

The Translucence of the Missionary Translation in Seventeenth-Century South India: Cultural Filters, Translation Policies, Textual and Conceptual Grids

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