Is (Translational) Hermeneutics of any Use for the (Cognitive) Analysis of Translation Products?

Traditionally, translation scholars have analyzed translation products by putting emphasis on the purely linguistic phenomena of a target text as related to a source text. However, the author of this paper claims that in order to analyze a translation product in all its facets, it is necessary to add a phenomenology-oriented approach to it, along with the accounts of the translators who translated the text in question. The aim of the article is to present how a standard way of the analysis of a translation product, including a cognitive one, might be enriched by considering the phenomenological and hermeneutic points of view. By analyzing a fragment of a women’s fiction novel, the author tries to demonstrate how a translation critic might evaluate translation products in order to gain insights into how translators go through the translation process. As well as that, the paper aims to refrain from regarding the act of translation and translation products as purely ‘objective’ phenomena but more on stressing the need for taking into account the subjectivity and inter-subjectivity of the act of translation as embedded in the relationship between a text and its readers (translators).beatapiecychna@o2.plBeata Piecychna is an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Philology, University of Białystok, (Poland). She holds a PhD in Translation Studies. Her research interests include the relationship between the act of translation and philosophical hermeneutics, the status of translators in the light of Bauman’s liquid modernity idea, and translation teaching. She is also a member of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS).University of BiałystokBrzozowski, Jerzy. 2011. Stanąć po stronie tłumacza. Zarys poetyki opisowej przekładu. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.Cercel, Larisa, John Stanley & Radegundis Stolze. 2015. Hermeneutics as a Research Paradigm. In: Cercel, Larisa, John Stanley and Radegundis Stolze (eds.), Translational Hermeneutics. The First Symposium, 17-40. Zeta Books: Bucarest.Gadamer, Hans-George. 1960. Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.Gadamer, Hans-George. 1990. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad.Gallagher, Shaun. 2004. Hermeneutics and the Cognitive Sciences. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11. 162-174.Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. London: SCM Press Ltd.House, Juliane. 1997. A Model for Translation Quality Assessment. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Iser, Wolfgang. 1978. The Act of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore/London: John Hopkins University Press.Langacker, Ronald W. 2013. Essentials of Cognitive Grammar. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.Nida, Eugene. 1964. Towards a Science of Translating. With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill.O’Loughlin, Ann. 2015. The Ballroom Café. Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing.Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1997. On the different methods of translating. In: Schulte, Rainer & John Biguenet (eds.), Theories of Translation. An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, 36-54. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Stolze, Radegundis. 2011. The Translator’s Approach – Introduction to Translational Hermeneutics. Theory and Examples from Practice. Berlin: Frank & Timme.Tabakowska, Elżbieta. 2000. Is (Cognitive) Linguistics of any Use for (Literary) Translation? In: Tirkkonen-Condit, Sonja & Riitta Jääskeläinen (eds.), Tapping and Mapping the Processes of Translation and Interpreting. Outlooks on Empirical Research, 83-95. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Tabakowska, Elżbieta. 2015. Myśl językoznawcza z myślą o przekładzie. Wybór prac. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. London/New York: Routledge.Venuti, Lawrence. 1998. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London/New York: Routledge.Wills, Wolfram. 1996. Knowledge and Skills in Translator Behaviour. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophische Untersuchungen: Kritisch-Genetische Edition. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.29-4511 (4/2015)294