Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

ISSN: 0907-676X (Print) 1747-6623 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmps20

Translation, philosophy and deconstruction

Peter Florentsen

To cite this article: Peter Florentsen (1994) Translation, philosophy and deconstruction,
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 2:2, 225-243, DOI: 10.1080/0907676X.1994.9961239

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 225

TRANSLATION, PHILOSOPHY AND DECONSTRUCTION

Peter Florentsen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract
Translatability in a traditional sense assumes that the original meaning of the text can be
determined and re-presented in translation. It is built on the philosophical premise that language
is a transparent mediating system. The deconstructive approach displaces philosophical discourse
within a general textuality which takes literary language as the model for all reading. Character-
ising literary language in terms of the differential signifying processes of figurative language, de-
construction criticises understandings of translation in terms of communication, reception or re-
presentation. Instead, translation is characterised as untranslatable metaphor.

Introduction
Translation not only presents a philosophical problem. More fundamentally,
translation poses the question of the nature of philosophical enquiry itself. In the
words of Jacques Derrida: "With the problem of translation we are dealing with
nothing less than the problem of the passage to philosophy [Avec ce probleme
de traduction nous n'aurons affaire a rien de moins qu'au probleme du passage
a la philosophic]" (1982a: 50/1972a: 80).
The first part of this article briefly outlines and contrasts some of the promi-
nent approaches in contemporary translation theory and, more extensively,
focuses on the influential theory of Eugene Nida. The purpose is to set the scene
for a presentation of the deconstructive idea of translation as performance, per-
formance in at least two senses of the word: in the sense of a linguistic act, and
in the sense of "an enactment of the possibility of philosophy" (Andrew
Benjamin 1989: 1).
The second part thus explores the deconstructive displacement of the opposi-
tion between philosophy and literature and its implications for translation as pos-
sibility.
The third part focuses on the explication of the translator's task in terms of
the "Babelian performance." It comprises an interpretation of Derrida's central
article on translation, "Des Tours de Babel" (1985), which, in turn, is a decon-
226 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

structive reading of Walter Benjamin's "Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers [The Task
of the Translator]" (1955).1

Contemporary approaches to translation

In the dominant tradition, translation theory is based on some concept of
equivalence.2
American New Criticism is an approach that regards the text as an object -
an autonomous aesthetic object - separate from the perceiving subject and
possibly even at variance with the intention of the author. The goal of the
translator is the rearticulation of the aesthetic experience of the original in the
translated version.
Partly incorporating Noam Chomsky's theory of syntax and generative gram-
mar, Eugene Nida's theory (1964) assumes that the message of the original text
can be determined, and translated into another language in a form that will pro-
voke a response equivalent to that of the original receptors. His theory centers
on the pragmatics of communicability, and emphasises functional or dynamic
equivalence, not formal correspondence or literal expression.
This contrasts with the translation studies of the Manipulation School in the
1970's (James S. Holmes, Raymond van den Broeck, Andr6 Lefevere) which,
influenced by Russian formalism (Roman Jakobson, Jiff Levy, FrantiSek Miko),
focus on surface-structural features in order to analyze and determine a text's
literariness (specifically literary features) with the purpose of retaining a
corresponding literary function in the translated text.
Sceptical of the traditional prescriptive approach to translation which privi-
leges the source text, Polysystem theory and the translation studies of the
Manipulation School in the 1980's (Itamar Even Zohar, Gideon Toury) are both
oriented towards a descriptive methodology. On the premise that the translated
text must be socially acceptable, these scholars study the target culture, its social
norms and literary conventions, which affect the aesthetic presuppositions of the
translator and thus influence the process of translation.
Despite their fundamental differences these approaches assume that the origi-
nal meaning of the text can be determined and re-presented in translation. This
assumption is problematic from a deconstructive point of view.
Eugene Nida's 'scientific' reorientation of translation marks a significant de-
velopment in translation theory and his approach remains very influential today.
 Piter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 227

For additional reasons of clarity and depth I will concentrate on his translation
theory, on the basis of Edwin Gentzler's deconstructive reading (1993).

The message in function: Eugene Nida's theory of translation

Gentzler notes that Nida's practical experience with Bible translation formed
his early thinking on translation (in Message and Mission (I960)) which is based
explicitly on religious presuppositions. The preservation in the translation of the
spirit of the original divine message is of fundamental importance from a missio-
logical point of view. The response to the message provides a crucial measure of
success. Therefore, the meaning of the message should remain the same in order
to effect the same response in a person receiving it in a different cultural and lin-
guistic context.
Privileging functional equivalence in this way reduces the particular form of
the message to a secondary complication. Words and symbols may be changed
or adjusted if this furthers the overriding goal of elucidating the original inten-
tion. Since the original religious message precedes language, its linguistic realisa-
tion may take on a multitude of forms.
Gentzler posits that this theological motif implicitly underlies Nida's later
translation theory as it is presented in Toward a Science of Translating (1964).
In this work, Nida seeks to develop a scientific framework for his translation
practices. A significant part of this framework is a simplified version of Noam
Chomsky's theory of generative transformational grammar, which, it must be
added, is not a theory of translation. Employing Chomsky's concepts of deep
structure, transformational rules and surface structures, Nida claims that all lan-
guages are united by common deep structures which can be transformed in diffe-
rent languages.
In marked contrast to Chomsky but in accordance with his own early work,
Nida is interested in the way meaning functions in cultural contexts. He achieves
the inclusion of his central pragmatic element of reception by defining a deep
structure level which "grafts" the Chomskian idea of determinable syntactic and
semantic structures with the idea of the universal experience of receiving a
message.3
Although Nida ostensibly takes difference of context into account in his defi-
nition of meaning in terms of functional and dynamic equivalence, his theory, in
fact, rests on a static concept of the message and its reception.
228 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

In Nida's model, the translator's task is (a) to identify the meaning of the
message at the deep structure level through an interpretation of its linguistic and
cultural context, (b) to determine, on that basis, the reception of the message, and
(c), finally, to translate the meaning identified into a new context in a way which
allows for all the linguistic changes which are necessary for the target text to
function (be received) exactly as the source text is.
However, the claim that an original message can be decontextualized (distin-
guished and determined in its essence and universality and abstracted from its lin-
guistic form and circumstances of origin) and recontextualized (translated into an-
other language preserving its communicable content and its communicable func-
tion across time and space) is a metaphysical proposition.
In a deconstructive view, meaning is determined by context and, at the same
time, context can be limitlessly extended. To explain that view, I want to intro-
duce, very briefly, Derrida's reading of J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with
Words (Austin 1975, Derrida 1982b). Austin's speech act theory treats language
on the model of speech acts or performatives, divides a performative into a locu-
tionary act, an iterable formula of linguistic signs, and an illocutionary act whose
meaning (illocutionary force) is a function of conventional procedures and con-
text. However, Austin's theory fails to provide a sufficient specification of these
factors and, therefore, in Culler's words, shows that "meaning is context-bound,
but context is boundless" (Culler 1983: 123). Meaning is determined by context
but context cannot be mastered. Derrida writes in 'Living On: Border Lines':
"This is my starting point: no meaning can be determined out of context, but no
context permits saturation. What I am referring to here is not richness of
substance, semantic fertility, but rather structure, the structure of the remnant or
of iteration" (Derrida 1979: 81).
In its rejection of the importance of spatio-temporal or historical change or
difference of meaning, Nida's theory of the original message and its reception is,
in effect, a rejection of the notion that meaning is determined by context.
Nida describes his translation methodology in the following way:
It is both scientifically and practically more efficient (1) to reduce the source text to its struc-
turally simplest and most semantically evident kernels, (2) to transfer the meaning from
source language to receptor language on a structurally simple level, and (3) to generate the
stylistically and semantically equivalent expression in the receptor language.
(Nida 1964: 68)
Nida's method seems to be one of starting with the surface structure of the
original text; from this he deduces its deep structure which is then transferred to
 Peter Floremsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 229

the deep structure of the target language; and it is from the new deep structure
that the surface structure of the second language is finally generated. Under-
standing and translating a text is seen as a question of decoding and recoding in
which the origin and truth of the message abstracted from the surface signs is
preserved all through the process.
In the understanding of deconstructive literary criticism, meaning and lan-
guage do not coincide. In its reliance on rhetorical figures and figurative lan-
guage, language exceeds meaning, the signifier exceeds the signified. The pres-
ence of the word is not equivalent to the presence of meaning but entails a cer-
tain absence and indeterminability. However, the establishment of the dissociation
of written sign and inscribed meaning is not something new in the understanding
of literature. Understanding literature has never been a question of decoding by
fixed codes. In poetry, in particular, a series of signifiers may only vaguely cir-
cumscribe a signified space in an indefinite suggestion of meaning.4 In Geoffrey
Hartman's description, "a received text means more than it says (it is 'allegori-
cal'), or...it subverts all possible meanings by its 'irony' - a rhetorical or structur-
al limit that prevents the dissolution of art into positive and exploitable truth"
(Hartman 1979: viii).
The difference in the deconstructive approach to literature lies in the rejection
of the idea that it is at all possible to pass through the signifier to a signified
meaning, in the sense of the truth and origin of the sign.
Gentzler points out that Nida never shows the way in which - once a text is
reduced to simple structures - the transfer across languages and across time,
from one deep structure to another, is to come about. This is a fundamental
weakness in his 'scientific' approach. Nida's theory revolves around an intuitive
concept of kernel constructions:'
It may be said, therefore, that in comparison with the theoretical possibilities for diversities
of structures languages show certain amazing similarities, including especially (1) remarkably
similar kernel structures from which all other structures are developed by permutations, re-
placements, additions, and deletions, and (2) on their simplest structural levels a high degree
of parallelism between formal classes of words (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) and the
basic function classes in transforms: objects, events, abstracts, and relationals.
(Nida 1964: 68)
In conclusion, Nida's theory is not really based on linguistics. In his theory
an empathetic understanding of the original author's intent is a crucial require-
ment. Translation is fundamentally a question of interpreting and explaining the
230 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

original message of the text Gentzler claims that, by letting his concept of trans-
lation approach exegesis, Nida lays bare his missiological point of view.

Misreading intention and readers' response

Deconstruction does not reject the relevance of authorial intention in textual
analysis. In Derrida's readings, the determination of the authors' stated intentions
is important as these provide insight into the text's organizing structure. But as
I hope I have demonstrated above, firstly, their intentions do not determine the
meaning of their writings and, secondly, it should be understood that the
identification of intention is the identification of a textual construct, it is an
artifice of reading. Deconstructors agree with the new critics that intention is not
a preverbal origin which determines the meaning of the text. They differ in their
understanding of intention as a textual effect which is always exceeded by the
text itself.5
A text makes claims and subverts these claims at the same time. In the defi-
nition of Barbara Johnson, a prominent American deconstructive critic,
a deconstructive reading is an attempt to show how the conspicuously foregrounded state-
ments in a text are systematically related to discordant signifying elements that the text has
thrown into its shadows or margins; it is an attempt both to recover what is lost and to ana-
lyze what happens when a text is read solely in function of intentionality, meaningfulness,
and representativity. _, (1985: 74)
Different readings or misreadings are the effects of the text itself, as a mani-
festation of its self-conflicting or heterogeneous signification.
In other words, in a deconstructive understanding, the work is not a work in
the sense of an autonomous whole of structure and meaning: it is a text, or a
writing, whose identity is always already differing and deferred in its construc-
tion, deconstruction and reconstruction by prior, present, and future readings in
a potentially endless series of repetitions and proliferations.
The problem of locating the origins of literary meaning may be approached
from another angle by posing the question: Is reading a process of creation or a
process of discovery? Is literary meaning a property of the text or does the reader
essentially fill out a textual 'void'? It may be argued that it is the same question
confronting science in the light of Thomas Kuhn's notion of science as a series
of incommensurable interpretive paradigms. Does the scientist discover objective
properties in nature such as, for example, gravitation or black holes in the uni-
verse, or does his conceptual framework make them? Richard Rorty characterizes
the difference between the two phrases 'making' and 'finding' as a rhetorical
 Peter Floremsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 231

choice of image which is without natural foundation. Likewise, the choice

between defining the text in terms of unchanging properties of meaning or in
terms of the creation of the reading process is a non-choice (Rorty 1980: 3). 6
If reading is always partial, translation is always partial. A text may always
be retranslated.

Philosophy, literature and untranslatability

In general terms, deconstruction is concerned with the conditions or founda-
tions of interpretation, meaning, and truth. It is a radical critique of traditional
ideas of the goals and nature of philosophical and critical enquiry. The critique
centers on the relation between philosophy and literature. Paul de Man states the
main issue:
The critical deconsttuction ... leads to the discovery of the literary, rhetorical nature of the
philosophical claim to truth ...: literature turns out to be the main topic of philosophy and
the model for the kind of truth to which it aspires .... Philosophy turns out to be an endless
reflection on its own destruction at the hands of literature .... What seems to be most diffi-
cult to admit is that this allegory of errors is the very model of philosophical rigour.
(de Man 1979: 115, 118)
Deconstruction abandons the traditional philosophical concerns based on the
idea of the mind as a mirror of nature. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
(1980) Richard Rorty writes that since Descartes the fundamental presupposition
of philosophy has been the idea of a dualism of mind and body. The philosophi-
cal project has been a description of the foundations of knowledge in terms of
explanations of the way in which the mind, as a separate entity, is able to
construct accurate representations of the outside world. In other words, the
fundamental project of philosophy has been the establishment of adequate
grounds for claims about knowledge, reason, and truth through a theory of
representation.7
Derrida and Rorty see the epistemological problem (theory of knowledge in
terms of the mind-body problem) as a false one. They criticise the notion of pre-
linguistic knowledge, the notion that language in general is in need of epistemo-
logical foundations. Reality is inseparable from linguistic structures and processes
of signification. In Derrida's central statement, J7 n'y a pas de hors-texte [there
is nothing outside of the text / there is no outside-text] (1970: 227/1976: 158).
This, in fact, implies that the difference between 'just meaning' and 'true
meaning', between 'just saying' and 'really saying', or between 'fiction' and
232 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

'fact', is not representational or expressive of an extralinguistic referential mean-

ing but rhetorical within language.8
Central to deconstructive thinking is the idea that language is a differential
sign-system, an idea derived from Saussure.9 To account for his notion of lan-
guage as a play of differences or a decentered system, Derrida introduces the
portmanteau term difference. He uses the spelling ance as in a verbal noun to in-
dicate, simultaneously, a (passive) structure of differences and a movement, an
(active) production, or play of differences. Differance thus becomes a silent fu-
sion of the French noun, difference, which means difference, and the French verb,
differer, which means to differ and to defer. It combines the meanings of diffe-
rence, differing and deferring. The term concentrates the significations that signi-
fied meaning is never present as an identity of inherent features, as its signifi-
cance is derived from its differences from other signified meanings. At the same
time meaning cannot be said to be absent, either. Instead, any spoken or written
utterance consists of traces of references to non-present forms of utterances. The
effect of having a self-present meaning at any given moment is a consequence
of its differences from these non-present forms of meaning. This effect of a de-
terminate, or decidable, present meaning turns out to be an illusive trace as the
differences are deferred in the play of language (Derrida 1981: 27/1972b: 37-38).
This implies that the Saussurian difference between signifier and signified is
not one of substance, because what is at one point identified as a signified is also
a signifier which needs to refer to other signs for its meaning.
The abandonment of the notion of language as a transparent mediating
system through which thought is communicated means that philosophical thinking
cannot extricate itself from the contingencies of language and expression, from
the forms of linguistic signs.
This displacement of philosophical enquiry has crucial implications for the
practice and possibility of translation.
If no rigorous distinction between the Saussurian concepts signifier and sig-
nified can be made, translation in the traditional sense becomes impossible:
That the opposition or difference [between signifier and the signified] cannot be radical or
absolute does not prevent it from functioning, and even from being indispensable within cer-
tain limits - very wide limits. For example, no translation would be possible without it. In
effect, the theme of a transcendental signified took shape within the horizon of an absolutely
pure, transparent, and unequivocal translatability. In the limits to which it is possible, or at
least appears possible, translation practices the difference between signified and signifier.
But if this difference is never pure, no more so is translation, and for the notion of transla-
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 233

tion, we would have to substitute a notion of transformation: a regulated transformation of

one language by another, of one text by another. We never will have, and in fact never have
had, a "transport" of pure signifieds from one language to another, or within one and the
same language, that the signifying instrument - or "vehicle" - would leave virgin and un-
touched. (Denida 1981: 20. My brackets)
[Que cette opposition ou cette difference ne puisse Stre radicale et absolue, cela ne
l'empeche pas de fonctionner et meme d'etre indispensable dans certaines limites - de tres
larges limites. Par exemple, aucune traduction ne serait possible sans elle. Et c'est en effet
dans l'horizon d'une traductibilite absolument pure, transparente et univoque, que s'est
constitud le theme d'un signifie transcendantal. Dans Ies limites ou elle est possible, ou du
moins elle parait possible, la traduction pratique la difference entre signify et signifianL
Mais, si cette difference n'est jamais pure, la traduction ne Test pas davantage et, a la notion
de traduction, il faudra substituer une notion de transformation: transformation r6gl£e d'une
langue par une autre, d'un texte par un autre. Nous n'aurons et n'avons en fait jamais eu
affaire a quelque "transport" de signifies purs que l'instniment - ou le "vdhicule" - signifiam
laisserait vierge et inentame, d'une langue a l'autre, ou a I'interieur d'une seule et meme
langue.] (Denida 1972b: 31)
Translatability in the traditional sense presupposes a prelinguistic meaning
as a prerequisite for transfers of semantic content from one language to another.
If meaning is considered exclusively as the effect of language, signified meaning
cannot survive the material substitution of signifiers involved in translation.
An illustration of how untranslatability breaks down philosophical rigour can
be found in the section of Derrida's Dissemination called "Plato's Pharmacy."10
Derrida shows how the etymological and morphological connections of the word
pharmakon create a strange logic of meaning. The word pharmakon can be trans-
lated as both 'remedy' and 'poison.' The "undecidability" between these two sig-
nifications undermines the metaphysical system established in Plato's Phaedrus.11
Socrates sees direct speech or the dialectics of dialogue as the method for reach-
ing Truth. Writing is condemned as an artificial addition to speech and referred
to as a pharmakon. Knowledge (epistemen) is also referred to as a pharmakon by
being described as the most effective of all medicines (ariston pharmakon) sanc-
tioned by the Gods. The connection established between writing and logos (the
philosophical epistemology), through the word pharmakon produces a reversal of
the conceptual order of Plato's text. Derrida's analysis detects a gap or a void
within the pharmakon as it combines two incongruent economies of meaning in
an undecidable movement or play of difference (Derrida 1982a: 127).
In "Des Tours de Babel," Derrida traces the confusing detours of meaning
caused by the undecidable significations of the proper name. As an illustration
of how translation inscribes itself in a "double bind" of simultaneous necessity
and impossibility he recounts the myth or narrative of the tower of Babel.
234 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

The word "Babel" has the complementary functions of a proper name and a
common noun. In its function as a common noun, it 'signifies' (has meanings)
in several ways: it can mean confusion in at least two senses: the confusion of
tongues or languages, and the confusion of the architects of the tower as they
could not complete their construction. In the original language, "Babel" also re-
fers to "father" and "God." Consequently, it can be rendered: the name of God
the father.
In its function as a proper name it cannot be translated. Babel names at least
three different things: the myth, the tower, and the event.
In the story of the tower of Babel, the Semitic tribe wants to settle and build
a city and a tower in order to make a name: they want to create a unique and
universal family and, most important, a single and universal language. Babel
names the event in which, in the words of Derrida, God the father "deconstructs
the tower" by proclaiming his name, Bavel, confusion, disseminating the Semites
and creating a confusion of languages.
It is Derrida's point that the narrative of Babel is a translation of 'transla-
tion', in other words, it paradigmatically enacts the condition of translation. By
his Babelian performance God imposes translation and forbids it at the same
time. Being the father of a multiplicity of languages he renders translation neces-
sary. At the same time there is no equivalent for "Babel." It can be commented,
explained, or paraphrased, but it cannot be translated. The polysemantic con-
fusion operating within "Babel," and which is constitutive of the whole Babelian
event, renders translation impossible. Derrida sums up in the following manner:
This story recounts, among other things, the origin of the confusion of tongues, the irreduci-
ble multiplicity of idioms, the necessary and impossible task of translation, its necessity as
impossibility.
[Cette histoire raconte, entre autre schoses, l'origine de la confusion des langues, la multipli-
city irreducible des idiomes, la tache necessaire et impossible de la traduction, sa ne'cessite'
comme impossibility.] (Derrida 1985: 171/215)
The name of God, confusion, triumphs. In another formulation by Derrida,
God, the father of language, "poisons the present (Gift-gift) [empoisonne le
present (Gift-gift)]" (Derrida 1985: 167/211).
As a consequence of the Babelian condition, the law of translation takes the
form of a debt which must be repaid but cannot be repaid in terms of transparen-
cy and unequivocality.
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 235

The task of the translator

Derrida deliberately does not present his views on translation theory and
practice in a systematic way: "No theorization, inasmuch as it is produced in a
language, will be able to dominate the Babelian performance [Mais aucune thdori-
sation, des lors qu'elle se produit dans une langue, ne pourra dominer la per-
formance babelienne.]" (Derrida 1985: 175/219).
In "Des Tours de Babel," his views characteristically emerge in a process of
close reading. His writing is, in Barbara Johnson's formulation, "inscribed in the
margins of some preexisting text," in this case, Walter Benjamin's text, "The task
of the Translator," in a French translation by Maurice de Gandillac (Introduction,
Derrida 1982: x).1 Displacing the traditional distinction between commentary and
translation, Derrida calls his reading of Benjamin "a translation."
Derrida's description of the Babelian condition in terms of the translator's in-
debtedness sets the scene for Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator." According
to Benjamin, the translator is a fallen man. His "Aufgabe" (duty, mission, task,
problem) is therefore to seek redemption by rendering and thereby restituting the
meaning that was once given. However, seen in terms of the restitution of mean-
ing, translation, in Derrida's words, becomes an "insolvent debt [dette insolv-
able]" (1985: 175).

Translation as sur-vival and growth

In a reversal of traditional notions of rendering the content of the original
text, Walter Benjamin introduces vitalist and genealogical motifs to describe what
is at stake in the translational process. On the presupposition of an essential kin-
ship between languages, translation ensures the "sur-vival" of language through
the maturation and transmission of a family seed. In Benjamin's understanding,
survival (Oberleben) becomes synonymous with translation {Obersetzeri):
Just as the manifestations of life are intimately connected with the living, without signifying
anything for it, a translation proceeds from the original. Indeed not so much as from its life
as from its survival [Oberleben]. For a translation comes after the original and, for the im-
portant works that never find their predestined translator at the time of their birth, it charac-
terises the stage of their survival [Fortleben, this time sur-vival as continuation of life rather
than life as post-mortem]. (Quoted by Derrida, 1985: 178. Derrida's brackets)
[So wie die AuCerungen des Lebens innigst mit dem Lebendigen zusammenhangen, ohne
ihm etwas zu bedeuten, gehl die Ubersetzung aus dem Original hervor. Zwar nicht aus
seinem Leben so sehr aus seinem "Oberleben." 1st doch die Obersetzung spater als das Origi-
nal und bezeichnet sie doch bei den bedeutenden Werken, die da ihre erwahlten Ubersetzer
niemals im Zeitalter ihrer Entstehung finden, das Stadium ihres Fortlebens. In vollig unmeta-
236 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

phorischer Sachlichkeit is der Gedanke vom Leben und Fortleben der Kunstwerke zu er-
fassen.] (Walter Benjamin 1972: 10-11)12
Derrida notes that Benjamin places his notion of the sur-vival of works
within a Hegelian framework signifying sur-vival in the sense of spirit and histo-
ry as opposed to biological survival. Benjamin is thus concerned with the surviv-
al of works, not translators or authors. As the demand for sur-vival, for transla-
tion, is immanent in the structure of the original text, it consequently becomes
independent of the survival of authors or translators. The bond of debt exists be-
tween the original text and its translation.
The law of translation is inherent in the demand of the original text to be
translated. What constitutes this demand?
What is at stake in translation is neither explicable in terms of reception, nor
in terms of communication, nor in terms of reproduction or representation.
For Benjamin the model of translation, which describes the general condition,
is the poetic or sacred text. A poetic text has no essential communicable content
which can be isolated from the linguistic act of communication and thereby trans-
lated.
It is necessary to return to Benjamins's metaphor of the organic growth of
the original text through maturation to understand why translation does not in-
volve the restitution of meaning in terms of representational correspondence.
Benjamin writes:
For in [the original text's] survival, which would not merit the name if it were not mutation
and renewal of something, the original is modified. Even for words that are solidified there
is still a postmaturation. (Quoted by Derrida 1985: 183. My brackets)
[Denn in seinem Fortleben, das so nicht heiBen diirfte, wenn es nicht Wandlung und
Erneuerung des Lebendigen ware, andert sich das Original. Es gibt eine Nachreife auch der
festgelegten Worte.] (Benjamin 1972: 12)
By being a seed of the "holy growth of languages," the original text is trans-
formed in translation.
Implied in the original text's demand for sur-vival, maturation, or growth, is
a lack in the original text which needs to be replenished in translation. This
means that, as exemplified in the Babelian event, the law of translation involves
"double bind." In its need for supplementation the original text is also indebted
to the translator. It requires translation and yet also forbids translation. So we are
dealing with a double indebtedness between original text and translation, which
is, more precisely, a double indebtedness which "passes between names [passe
entre des noms]" (Derrida 1985: 185/228).
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 237

In Babelian terms, the task of the translator becomes a struggle for the sur-
vival of the name. The original text can only be translated "as the signature of
a kind of proper name destined to ensure its sur-vival as a work [comme la sig-
nature d'une sorte de nom propre destined a assurer sa survie comme oeuvre]"
(Derrida 1985: 180/224).
The untranslatability of "Babel," which means that it is impossible to decide
to which language "Babel" belongs, makes Derrida describe the double indebted-
ness in terms of a "contract," a contract which does not essentially involve
authors as living subjects but "names at the edge of language [des noms au bord
de la langue]" (Derrida 1985: 185/228). The commitment entailed in this transla-
tion contract is not to communicate or represent but to be a contract in a trans-
cendental sense of being the condition of possibility of all other contracts.

The promise of pure language

Essential to Benjamin's idea of a transcendental translation contract and the
notion of translation as survival is the notion of affinity between languages. This
affinity which defines the essence of the literary text should be "expressed" by
translation, that is, rendered present by translation, as it cannot be present in the
translation:
To redeem in his own tongue that pure language exiled in the foreign tongue, to liberate by
transposing this pure language captive in the work, such is the task of the translator.
(Benjamin, as quoted by Derrida 1985: 188)
[Jene reine Sprache, die in fremde gebannt ist, in der eigenen zu erlOsen, die im Werk
gefangene in der Umdichtung zu befreien, is die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers.]
(Benjamin 1972: 19)
In the following central metaphor, the rejection of translation as a reproduc-
tion or representation of meaning combines with the notion of the growth of lan-
guage in the ideal of a pure language:
For, just as the fragments of the amphora, if one is able to reconstitute the whole, must be
contiguous in the smallest details, but not identical to each other, so instead of rendering
itself similar to the meaning of the original, the translation should rather, in a movement of
love and in full detail, pass into its own language the mode of intention of the original: thus,
just as the debris become recognizable as fragments of the same amphora, original and trans-
lations become recognizable as fragments of a larger language.
(Benjamin as quoted by Denida, 1985a: 189-90)
[Wie namlich Scherben eines GefaBes, um sich zusammenfugen zu lassen, in den kleinsten
Einzelheiten zu folgen, doch nicht so zu gleichen haben, so muB, anstatt dem Sinn des
Originals sich ahnlich zu machen, die Ubersetzung liebend vielmehr und bis ins Einzelne
hinein dessen Ait des Meinens in der eigenen Sprache sich anbilden, um so biede wie
Scherben als Bruchstiick eines GefaBes, als Bruchstiick einer gro'Beren Sprache erkennbar zu
machen.] (Benjamin 1972: 18)
238 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

In this way translation promises a completion of the original in allowing its

growth. This promise of totality is never fulfilled, however.

Translation as metaphor
To mark incompleteness as the essential structural property of translation,
Derrida reintroduces the metaphor of contract. He invokes a marriage contract,
a hymen. "Hymen" is a semantically undecidable term." It can mean both mem-
brane and marriage signifying both virginal intactness, a difference or separation
between the touchable and the untouchable, and the abolition of that difference
through the intercourse of self and other. Hymen marks both a fusion of desire
and accomplishment and their reason for separation: it is, simultaneously, a
distinction of opposites and a fusion of opposites. Thus two concepts are grafted
together in hymen: the term signifies, on the one hand, the consummation of
marriage, which results in the achievement of a translation produced. On the
other hand, the marriage is unfulfilled as the original text is left virginal, essen-
tially untouched, despite the efforts of the translator.
An original text distinguishes itself from its translation by containing an un-
touchable {unbenihrbar) essence. Benjamin illustrates the essential untouchability
of the original text by translating 'translation' as 'metaphor'. The classical rhetor-
ical term for metaphor is, in fact, translatio (from Latin, from Greek meta-
pherein, to transfer).
The fundamental difference between an original and a translation lies in the
relation between, in Benjamin's words, tenor and language, which is a difference
between content and language, form and substance, or signifier and signified. The
original text as a natural indivisible whole is invoked in the metaphor of core and
shell, fruit and skin. On the other hand, the unity between tenor and tongue in
translation is symbolic:
the language of the translation envelops its tenor like a royal cape with large folds. For it
is the signifier of a language superior to itself and so remains, in relation to its own tenor,
inadequate, forced, foreign. (Benjamin as quoted by Derrida 1985: 193-94)
[so umgibt die Sprache der Ubersetzung ihren Gehalt wie ein KOnigsmantel in weiten Falten.
Denn sie bedeutet eine hohere Sprache als sie ist und bleibt dadurch ihrem eigenen Gehalt
gegeniiber unangemessen, gewaltig und fremd.] (Benjamin 1972: 15)
Containing an untouchable core which both attracts and resists translation,
the original is always retranslatable. Conversely, there can be no translation of
translation. Benjamin's understanding of translation in the sense of metaphorical
displacement in which the promise of a purer language is present, but in an in-
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstnction 239

adequate and forced way, makes further transference impossible. In Derrida's

interpretation:
if the translation "transplants" the original onto another terrain of language "ironically" more
definitive, it is to the extent that it could no longer be displaced by any other "transfer"
(Ubertragung).
[si la traduction "transplante" 1'original sur un autre terrain de langue "ironiquement" plus
deTinitif, c'est dans la mesure ou Ton ne pourrait plus le deplacer de la par aucun autre
"transfert" (Ubertragung).] (Derrida 1985: 195/239)
As Derrida notes, Benjamin's transcendental concept of a pure language is
dependent on an absolute distinction between original and translation. The pro-
mise of a "language of truth" requires that the original be identified in its un-
touchability.

The kinship of languages

Benjamin speaks of a kingdom at the same time "promised and forbidden
where the languages will be reconciled and fulfilled" (Benjamin as quoted by
Derrida 1985: 191). This promise of a language of truth is founded on the notion
of an original affinity between languages. To explain the nature of this affinity
Benjamin uses the phenomenological distinction of Brentano and Husserl between
the intended {Gemeinten), and the mode of intention {die Art des Meinens). Lan-
guages are characterized not only by having different intentional modes but also
by having complementary intentional modes. In its modes of intention, incom-
plete and deficient in themselves, each language is geared towards the comple-
mentary completion of all languages in the attainment of pure language (as in the
image of adjoining fragments of the amphora).
The different intentional modes of the things intended mean that they cannot
be represented in another language. The task of the translator becomes one of
producing complementarity of the different intentional modes, and of producing
their "harmony" (Harmonie) in which the pure language can emerge.
The theological motifs of Benjamin's text are quite explicit: in so far as "har-
mony" is produced, translation signifies the holy and eternal regeneration of lan-
guages promising or proclaiming a messianic end. Still that end is unrealized.
Derrida argues:
Translation as holy growth of languages, announces the messianic end, surely, but the sign
of that end and of that growth is "present" (gegenwanig) only in the "knowledge of that dis-
tance," in the Entfernung, the remoteness that relates us to it. One can know this remoteness,
have knowledge or a presentiment of it, but we cannot overcome it. Yet it puts us in contact
with that "language of the truth" which is the "true language." This contact takes place in
240 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

the mode of "presentiment," in the "intensive mode" that renders present what is absent, that
allows remoteness to approach as remoteness.
[La traduction, comme sainte croissance des langues, annonce le terme messianique, certes,
mais le signe de ce terme et de cette croissance n'y est "present" (gegenwartig) que dans le
"savoir de cette distance," dans l'Entfernung, Viloignement qui nous y rapporte. Cet
eioignement, on peut le savoir, en avoir le savoir ou le pressentiment, on ne peut le vaincre.
Mais il nous met en rapport avec cette "langue de la v6rit6" qui est le "veritable langage"
("so ist diese Sprache der Wahrheit - die wahre Sprache"). Cette mise en rapport a lieu sur
le mode du "pressentiment," sur le mode "intensir qui se rend present ce qui est absent,
laisse venir l'dloignement comme gloignement.] (Derrida 1985: 202-203/246)
It is revealed most clearly in all its absence in the model of original untouch-
ability, the literary or the sacred text.
As the ideal model of translation, the sacred text as a Babelian text both de-
mands and forbids translation. It thus announces itself as as an event of pure
transferability: in its organic union of meaning and literality (Wortlichkeit) it is
an event of pure language, the language of truth. In the formulation of Derrida,
which characteristically combines two incongruent economies of meaning (the
word pas functions as negation and means 'step' at the same time): "What comes
to pass in a sacred text is the occurrence of a pas de sens [Ce qui se passe dans
un texte sacre", c'est l'e've'nement d'un pas de sens]" (Derrida 1985: 204/247). A
translation of the sacred text is an act of language in which nothing is represented
or communicated beyond the event itself. The sacred text lets itself be translated
as untranslatable.
In his understanding of translation as the temporal and historical disclosure
and concealment of truth in the growth and promise of pure language, Walter
Benjamin abandons traditional notions of translation defined in terms of
reception, communication and reproduction. However, his concepts of pure
language and language of truth are metaphysical terms. Benjamin presents pure
language as a theological idea of ultimate presence. Derrida follows Benjamin's
critique of the traditional foundations of translation, but rejects Benjamin's
foundations of language in terms of teleology and theology.

Conclusion
It cannot be taken for granted that translation is possible. In general, decon-
struction emphasizes the change and difference of meaning and context involved
in the operation of translation.
Translatability in a traditional sense presupposes prelinguistic meaning as a
prerequisite for transfer of semantic content from one language to another. It pre-
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruction 241

supposes, in other words, that a distinction can be made, on firm grounds, be-
tween the conceptual opposites: expression/expressed, signifier/signified,
form/substance. It is Derrida's important claim that the identification of the origi-
nal as original depends on it.
However, as a performance in which substance is essentially inseparable from
linguistic form, translation cannot be understood in terms of the recovery and re-
expression of the original content of the original text. In terms of the concepts
of sameness, identity, equivalence, or fidelity, a text is untranslatable. In a decon-
structive understanding, translation involves a transformation of the original text
In his reading of Benjamin, Derrida points out that a translation is no more
in a situation of indebtedness than the original text. Meaning is not localized and
contained in the source text. This connects with the idea of intertextuality: em-
bedded in every text are other texts in an assimilation of dissimilarities which can
be analyzed rhetorically. Meaning remains in an intertextual sphere. This ulti-
mately breaks down any transcendental distinction between original and trans-
lation.
Another fundamental limitation to translatability in the traditional sense is
implied in this: translation necessarily involves misreadings of a text. Firstly, the
heterogeneity between rhetorical (figurative) and grammatical structures which
characterizes literary as well as philosophical texts means that a text cannot be
reduced to one unambiguous meaning, either in terms of authorial intention, con-
ventions of reading, or readers' response.
Secondly, the operation of translation involves change and difference of
meaning and context. No meaning can be determined out of context and at the
same time context cannot be mastered. Readings in other spatial and temporal
circumstances characterized by other linguistic, textual, and cultural codes will
be different. The implication is that all translation is partial. A text can always
be retranslated. In this way a text is both translatable and untranslatable. Meaning
cannot be exhausted: it is, according to Benjamin, essentially "untouchable."
Finally, what are the implications of deconstruction for the study of trans-
lation? They are are not at all obvious. Deconstruction is not a theory of transla-
tion. It focuses on the conditions of possibility and impossibility of translation.
It is a strategy of reading which, however, is non-formalizable as a systematic
theory: "no theorization, inasmuch as it is produced in a language, will be able
to dominate the Babelian performance" (Derrida 1985: 175). Deconstruction dis-
242 1994 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology (2) 2

rupts the very tools of translation^ analysis by deconstructing the concepts and
categories of translation theory.
Rejecting the concept of embodied meaning, deconstruction links meaning
to linguistic form, to the grammatical and rhetorical structures of language.
Through its critical analyses of texts as heterogeneous constructs, the deconstruc-
tive approach demonstrates an ability to explain the fundamental problems in-
volved in the establishment of scientific translation procedures. In its diagnosis
of these problems the deconstructive pursuit of the meaning of meaning marks
a significant contribution to translation studies.

Notes
1. Derrida reads Benjamin's text in a French translation by Maurice de Gandillac (1971). My
reading of Derrida's article is based on Joseph F. Graham's English translation (1985). Graham
does not translate Derrida's title.
2. My summary of the various approaches to contemporary translation studies is based on Edwin
Gentzler's critical overview (Gentzler 1993).
3. Derrida characterizes texts as "grafts" and meaning as a process of grafting. A textual analysis
should consequently seek to identify the points of connection at which one scion or line of
argument has been spliced with another, which is simultaneously the point of division marking
an aporia of meaning and logic.
4. See also Culler 1975: 18-20.
5. See, for example, Derrida 1976: 158, and de Man 1983: 105-6.
6. Richard Rorty is placed in a deconstructive context by Culler 1983: 77-78, 151-155.
7. Rorty includes Lockean empiricism, Cartesian rationalism, Kant's synthetic a priori propositions
and, in this century, notably Russell's analytic philosophy and Husserl's phenomenology in his
characterisation of the traditional epistemological project of philosophy. His criticism of that tradi-
tion is primarily based on philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey. Other critics
of the tradition would include Sellars, Quine, Davidson, Ryle, Malcolm, Kuhn, and Putnam.
8. See, for example, chapter five, "Rhetoric of Tropes (Nietzsche)," in Paul de Man's Allegories
of Reading.
9. For Derrida's reading of Saussure, see Of Graminatology, Chapter 2, "Linguistics and Gramma-
tology." My understanding of Derrida's concept of differance is based on his essay "Differance"
in Derrida 1982b (the same essay is also printed in Speech and Phenomena), and Culler's explica-
tion in Culler 1983: 97-102, based on Derrida 1981.
10. As pointed out by Raymond van den Broeck 1988: 271-272.
11. See also Derrida's identification of hymen as a conceptual "graft" produced by an undecidab-
ility of syntax, in Derrida 1982a: 220-221.
12. Consistency would have demanded the inclusion of Derrida's quotations of Benjamin from
Gandillac's French translation, Derrida's source text; unfortunately, constraints of space prevents
this.
13. In Dissemination, Derrida describes his central terms, provisionally, as undecidabtes in a com-
parison with the mathematician Kurt Gödel's discovery of undecidable propositions: "An undecid-
able proposition, as Gödel demonstrated in 1931, is a proposition which, given a system of
axioms governing a multiplicity, is neither an analytical nor deductive consequence of those
axioms, nor in contradiction with them, neither true nor false with respect to those axioms.
 Peter Florentsen: Translation, philosophy and deconstruclion 243

Tertium datur, without synthesis" (1982a: 219). To call the infrastructures undecidables is to mark
incompleteness as the essential structural property of any system of thought. Theory leaves a resi-
due which produces an ultimate indeterminacy of meaning. This lack of synthesis is furthermore
an effect of self-reference: a system - a text - cannot contain itself, cannot account for all of its
signifying procedures.

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