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The second volume of translational hermeneutics (Übersetzungshermeneutik), including the papers selected in the 2013 symposium, indicates that this movement or emerging school of translation studies and human communication is effectively consolidating its foundations while initiating a dialogue with other disciplines; in this volume three major trends are visible: (a) translational hermeneutics is developing in a self-critical line as it questions its limits (e.g. the need for empirical considerations and framing practical methods); (b) the papers selected are the matically focused (divided into philosophical and practical sections) and tend to expand the territories of the studies; and (c) literature and culture are not the sole concerns in the practical approaches, while empirical/communicative contexts and cognitive science are now part of the issues explored. This volume consists of fourteen papers (in English and German) and an introduction.
In the an introductory paper, John W. Stanley, Brian O'Keeffe, Radegundis Stolze, and Larisa Cercel report the current situation of translational hermeneutics, especially in the light of issues such as empiricism and methodology. The authors admit that the underpinnings of hermeneutics are abstract, but hope that the present publication can contribute to the practical problems of translation and communication. The authors finally divide the themes addressed in the volume into six major concerns: individual subjectivity and understanding, supra-individual frameworks, voice and phonetic phenomena, effective presentation of translation to the audience, the impact of understanding on target text production, a pedagogical approach to translation, and phenomenological/hermeneutical research methods in translation studies (7–12).
Brian O'Keeffe tries to situate translation in Gadamer's philosophy by associating poetry translation to reading, writing and memory. Exploring two relevant essays (Stimme und Sprache and Hören-Sehen-Lesen), O'Keeffe describes writing as a fixed imprint that might represent the poet's intention, while identifying reading with understanding. Reading is seen as a medium that transforms writing into a phonetic entity. This transformation is regulated by a hermeneutic mediation, which gives an independent existence to the poem. The meticulous consistency of poetic musicality (living voice), however, suggests that poets write for readers of the same mother tongue. Therefore, although reading and translation are partially similar, the purpose of the former is to generate an artistically acoustic phenomenon, whereas the latter is meant to overcome linguistic fragmentation (and normally fails to...