Re-reading Jacques Derrida’s ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une traduction “relevante”?’ (What is a ‘relevant’ translation?)

Abstract

Within translation studies, Derrida’s (1999a/2012) lecture ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une traduction “relevante”?’ (What is a ‘relevant’ translation?) has been read as being a lecture that is about translation. However, the recently published Le Parjure et le Pardon [Perjury and Pardon]shows that Derrida recycled a large portion of the material from his two-year seminar on forgiveness. In this paper, I explore the possibility that Derrida’s lecture is not really about translation in any theoretical or general sense at all. Instead, I suggest that the primary interest of the lecture for today’s translation studies scholars lies in Derrida’s act of prowling around the French word ‘relever’. This word–which Derrida terms a ‘translative body’–is crucial to Derrida’s exploration of the system of exchange and redemption within which mercy itself is inscribed. A close reading of the section of the lecture in which this translative body is put to work underscores the ability of translation to serve as catalyst for philosophical enquiry.