The “Matrix of Culture”––George Steiner’s After Babel and the Outlines of a Semiotics of Translation and Adaptation

Abstract

The present article aims to draw attention to the fact that George Steiner, in After Babel, a book now more than forty-five years old, makes statements that are still valid today not only with regard to translation in the narrow sense (translation proper), but also concerning the genesis and intercultural transfer of non-verbal or po­lysemiotic artifacts. In contrast to what has been done so far, Steiner can be con­sidered a pioneer of a comprehensive semiotics of translation, along with Ro­man Jakobson and others. The following remarks pursue this idea primarily on the basis of Steiner’s sixth chapter, entitled “Topologies of Culture”, and show that there are still points there that can be taken up today and in the future.