Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation by Sharon Deane-Cox

I have just downloaded the thesis version from the website mentioned above by Yancy and so I haven't read it yet. It could well be that the author's approach to "retranslation" is too theoretical to be of any value to the more practical field of Bible translation.

OK. I have been reading the downloadable version and already see the value for Bible translators. The obvious application to Bible translation is that the Bible is the most retranslated book in history. But first, you have to recognize that this book is part of an ongoing theory debate. Or, well, this book puts the final nail in the coffin of Berman's Retranslation Hypothesis. RIP. The challenge to the retranslation hypothesis is valid for both first translations as well as retranslations, since, for the expat who is aware of other Bible translations and traditions, a sense of rivalry and relatedness to previous translations is a given. According to Deanne, the phenomenon of retranslation itself (the repeated translation of a given work into a given target language) is widespread in practice, and yet its motivations remain relatively underexplored. One very prevalent justification for this repetitive act is encapsulated in the work of Antoine Berman who claims that an initial translation is necessarily "aveugle et hésitante" (1990: 5), while retranslation alone can ensure "la « révélation » d'une oeuvre étrangère dans son être propre à la culture réceptrice" (1995: 57). This dynamic from deficient initial translation to accomplished retranslation has been consolidated into the Retranslation Hypothesis, namely that "later translations tend to be closer to the source text" (Chesterman, 2004: 8). The book draws on paratextual material (Genette, 1987) such as prefaces and advertisements, and on extra-textual material, namely journal articles and reviews, in order to locate specific socio-cultural influences on retranslation, as well as highlighting the type and extent of interactions between the retranslations themselves. Why are retranslations done, for whom and under what constraints or ideologies? Ultimately, this thesis argues that the Retranslation Hypothesis is untenable when confronted with the polymorphous behaviour of retranslation, both within and without the text.

Yancy, thank you for your quick response! This issue about retranslation reminded me of a quote from the Pakistani poet Zulfikar Ghose who stated "I find it curious that Homer remains Homer all the time. But each of his translators is doomed to become out of date. And I find it curious that we can still read Alexander Pope with great pleasure, but very few of us read his translations with any pleasure." The quote is taken from Maurice Friedberg's Literary Translation in Russia (1997). Friedberg himself says: "New translations become necessary when the gap between the language and cultural associations of the original text and those of the target language have become too wide." (p. 9)