Death of the translator and birth of the interpreter

Abstract

In the spirit of the post-structuralist announcement of “the death of the author”, this article discusses the rhetorical “death” of the translator and birth of the interpreter from three angles. I shall start with a discussion of the fluidity of meaning which results from the “death” of the author. I will then argue that the translator, as author of the translation, will also “die” and have no control over the production of meaning from the translated text. There will also be a brief discussion of translation failure, to support the notion that, technically, translation in the sense of precise reproduction of meaning is impossible. The last section of the article will announce the “birth” of the interpreter and discuss what inspiration his/her birth will provide to the profession. I am concerned with translation as a process of precise reproduction of meaning from one language to another and with interpretation as a process of presenting one’s own understanding of the meaning by such means as active reading, construing, paraphrasing and explaining.