Translating the ideology of science: the example of the work of Alfred Tomatis

Abstract

At the start of my translation classes, I ask students if they want to translate for love or money. They answer money. Then I tell them that that is why we don't do literary translation. This is misleading, because it implies that people do not translate science for love, and this paper is, if not exactly about love, about attachment to particular views and the translating of science. To support my arguments, I am going to refer to the translations of some very famous scientists, and I realize that it may seem peculiar to mix examples from the work of scientists who are household names with examples from the work of Alfred Tomatis, who is not. So to begin, an introduction: Alfred Tomatis, a medical doctor working and living in France, is known on at least three continents as the father of the Tomatis method. This approach to the clinical treatment of learning and psychological disorders is based on the belief that listening is central to human growth, and that the therapeutic protocol is built around training the individual to listen. Some of Dr. Tomatis' work has been translated, but interest in this method has grown in recent years as a result of general interest in learning disabilities and the efforts of practitioners of the method, rather than through the translations. The reason, then, the translations are being used to illustrate this paper is that one of the ways in which they have proved to be inadequate is in recognizing and dealing with the ideological content of the original text. The fact that the rhetoric of scientific texts is determined by and interpreted as ideology is not always obvious.Translators working with 103