An Analytic of Making: Translating Berman’s Twelve Deforming Tendencies

Abstract

The possibilities and complications of making and interpreting intersemiotic translation are broader even than those of interlingual translation, partly due to the paucity of literature offering insight and guidance for encountering such work. It is the contention of this text that Antoine Berman’s Translation and Trials of the Foreign, written for translators of literary fiction, offers a yardstick for makers and interpreters of intersemiotic translation. Considering Berman’s ‘twelve deforming tendencies’ allows the difficulties and opportunities of intersemiotic translation to be tested and reflected upon. This process is valuable to makers and critical audiences of intersemiotic translation and provides a useful pedagogical tool. That the terms must be re-thought for non-interlingual translation results in a widely applicable and generative framework; an analytic of making.