The translatorial middle between direct and indirect reports

Abstract

The article begins with the previously observed fact that there is a shifting middle ground between direct and indirect reports, in order to argue that that middle ground is occupied and complicated by translation. This case is pursued through a look at translations of four example passages: (1) the problem of translating tonality from Aleksis Kivi’s Finnish fiction; (2) the problem of translating argumentative slippage from Aristotle’s Rhetoric; (3) the problem of translating grammatical gender from Friedrich Schleiermacher; and (4) the problem of translating prosodic features from Volter Kilpi’s Finnish fiction. The conclusion is that our sense of the difference between direct and indirect reports is organized “icotically,” through the power of group normativization/plausibilization.