Literary translation through the lens of poststructuralism

Abstract

The dichotomy between the writer and the translator is de-stabilized with the announcement of death of the author. This paper applies Gadamer's and Barthes's theories to literary translation in an attempt to reappraise the role of the translator. It is believed that the translator is involved in a triad act of transcodification. As the reader of the source text, he is an interlingual transcodifier, and as the writer of the target text, he acts intercontextually and intraliguistically. The given triad task pinpoints the limitations of some of Barthes's notions, specifically the inefficiency of his distinction between 'readerly' and 'writerly' texts. Viewed as such, the freedom of the reader/translator in the playfield of signifiance is challenged by the translator's interlingual and intercontextual transcodification. In a Barthesian key note, the act of translation is performance-based. Hence, the translator is involved in a doing-translation process. Utilizing Barthes's view on the processual nature of reading/writing, the present paper suggests a constant reassessment of the already-translated texts which is necessary for keeping pace with globalization. © 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.