Translating Schleiermacher on Translation: Towards a Language-Internal Enlargement of the Target Language

Abstract

This article examines the practice of translating Schleiermacher’s seminal text on translation, Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens (1813) into Danish. It aims at showing how the use of older Danish language (1700–1950) in translations from German into Danish can contribute to a widening of the target language. In this recent translation, published in the literary periodical, Kritik, in April 2014, I translated in view of and with the intention of applying Schleiermacher’s theoretical approach to translation, which he presents in the very same text. After discussing this complex path from theory to practice and defining a translation strategy, the article presents an analysis of lexical and syntactical aspects. These show that this particular language pair holds certain possibilities for the expansion of the target language, since a significant number of German words, which do not have a direct equivalent in modern Danish parlance, proved to have a similar form in older Danish language. The method of incorporating older Danish language might even serve to be appropriate in other translations of contemporary literary, philosophical and religious texts from German into Danish. It altogether thematizes the meaning of diachronic variability of languages and the temporal relativeness of what is foreign.