TENDERNESS: GENERAL COMMITMENTS OF LITERARY TRANSLATION

Abstract

AbstractInspired by the Nobel Lecture of the 2018 Laureate in Literature, the Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk,the paper discusses the keynote notion of Tokarczuk's text, rendered by the Polish word czułość, as a complexof principles that jointly constitute the commitment of the translator. The author claims that the tender translatorshould work on the premise that in translation "foreignness" is taken to imply difference, without implyinglack of understanding or empathy.RésuméThe paper, inspired by the Nobel Lecture delivered by last year's laureate, the Polish novelist OlgaTokarczuk, is an attempt to adapt the key notion of the lecture to the position and role of the translator.The title of Tokarczuk's speech is Czuły narrator – 'The tender translator', which means much morethan the English tenderness, which Tokarczuk's translators used as the translation equivalent.The paper argues that the many meanings of the Polish word, when taken together, describe whatare the translator's commitments. Contemporary translation theories focus upon translation seenas a process rather than a final product. It is precisely the process-sensitive analysis that makesit possible to reveal the competencies of the tender translator. Crucially, when translating texts produced by 'the other', they should be sensitive to the fundamental distinction between 'otherness'and 'foreignness'. While the former calls for understanding, the latter does not imply the wishto overcome the barriers – historical, political, social or cultural.In his/her search for meanings, the tender translator should be aware that all translationmeans interpretation, and that all interpretation is subjective by definition. The paper claims thata significant contribution to translation studies could come from philosophical hermeneutics,especially the theory of translation-as-interpretation as presented by the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer.While translation studies focus upon cultural sensitivity of individual culturemes, the paperargues – in agreement with cognitive theories of language – that cultural values are encoded in andtransferred by grammatical structures. It claims that some grammatical items, traditionally classifiedby grammarians as 'optional', do in fact carry meanings that only the tender attitude makes it possibleto fully grasp. Two illustrations of this point are provided: the use of proximal and distal deicticpronouns (tu and tam) to imply emotional distance of the speaker, and the singular dative reflexivepronoun sobie used as an artistic device to render psychological experiences of characters in a theatreplay. In conclusion, the author claims that the competence of the tender translator requires that theystrive to reunite what is familiar with the non-hostile strangeness of the other.