Although Husserl’s phenomenology constitutes one of the major sources of inspiration for modern hermeneutics and involves a vast and important philosophy of language, rigorous phenomenological approaches are rare within translation studies. In this paper, I attempt to carry out such phenomenological analysis. I base this analysis on Husserl’s phenomenology of language and its basic concepts. I shall then examine the fundamental mechanisms involved in what I call “translation consciousness” and I shall try to describe its intentional structure.

This paper sets out to analyse the hermeneutical process of highlighting at work in Seamus Heaney’s preface to his 1999 retranslation of Beowulf. My analysis takes into account the generic identity of the preface by considering it as a textual subgenre where the translator becomes a metatranslator in order to voice herself out of invisibility, engaging thereby in a (self-reflexive) hermeneutical analysis and ‘justification’ by commenting on the selection of the text to be translated and her own translation choices. The analysis is carried out with the help of two concepts elaborated by Gadamer: situatedness and self-understanding. These concepts will help show how the Northern Irish poet fuses different horizons in the process of his retranslation. In this essay, I also take into account the specificity of retranslation as a particular instance of hermeneutical activity. To do so, I focus on how Heaney introduces his own rendering of Beowulf, and on how he explains the translational choices and processes he opted for in order to render this canonical text into contemporary language. I argue that the closely related notions of situatedness and self-understanding can help bring to the fore how Heaney establishes an intrinsic link between his own retranslation choices on the one hand and, on the other, his cultural identity and poetics. Taking into consideration the hermeneutical dimension of this preface, it will be argued, gives us valuable insight into the retranslation project of Seamus Heaney. It will show that he does not seek to impose on Beowulf a transcendental truth or to fix it in a definite retranslation and interpretation. Instead, situatedness and self-understanding help shed light on how he engages creatively with the epic Anglo-Saxon poem: at issue is both how his retranslation is situated and grounded in his own subjectivity, and indeed with respect to his existential questions, as well as in a wider socio-cultural context.

The work of Jiři Levý, the pioneering Czech translation scholar of the 20th century, shares a lot of common ground with the (neo)hermeneutic approach in translation studies. A closer look reveals, however, a good number of differing, and even opposite stances. For chronological reasons, Levý himself cannot be regarded a member of the neohermeneutic movement in translation studies; thus, the following questions arise: 1) What is the extent of overlap between Levý’s work and that of the main representatives of the hermeneutic approach in translation studies, mainly in Germany, and 2) how can this overlap be explained? This article seeks to demonstrate the following: There are full ‘matches’ between the two approaches, including some aspects of methodological approach, the value of texts, creativity, translating as a decision process as well as Levý’s concept of perception on the one hand and the hermeneutic circle on the other. A partial overlap between the two approaches has been identified in terms of the following matters: the applicability of translation theory, the language and style of theoretical works, the application of game theory, and the focus on individuals (recipient, translator). As regards differences, these include thematic focus, the idea of a personal link between the text and its recipient, and the concept of subjectivity. The purpose of the article is to show that, rather than being a (direct) predecessor, Levý can be regarded as a precursor of the hermeneutic approach in translation studies. Hopefully, illustrating this affinity between Levý and the hermeneutic approach will foster an interest in his theory, which is marked by openness and dynamism – qualities that also abide in the hermeneutical approaches of our present time.

After the author explicates how his academic relationship to Paepcke began in the 1970s, he proceeds to discuss critically the latter’s reflections on language and translation. Latent contradictions in Paepcke’s conceptual framework and in his understanding of the relationship between theory and practice are brought to the fore. This conceptual tension shows that Paepcke’s understanding of and approach to dealing with texts is problematic. Using concrete examples, the author demonstrates that Paepcke did not rely on the text as the criterion for constituting meaning. Rather Paepcke relied on historically mediated conceptual constructs which were given the status of authoritative units of sense, and these units guided Paepcke in his process of establishing the meaning of the whole. The reason for this can be found in unreflected preliminary decisions that are seen as “a priori evidence.” This also explains why Paepcke’s real achievement lies in the contrastive analysis of comprehensive concepts – of traditionally rich concepts developed over the course of time (human orientation) as well as in rationalized contemporary language (functional orientation).

Evidentia is a concept passed on to us from rhetoric – more precisely from the third of the five canons of classical rhetoric, namely elocution. The goal of this canon is to achieve a stylistic quality that enables the listener to see what (s)he hears with his or her inner eye, i.e. to enable the listener to really visualize what is being said. Fritz Paepcke – whose one hundredth birthday we celebrated at this conference – applied the concept of evidentia to the field of translation studies. Within his conceptual framework, he portrayed it as a new experience – one which arises immediately, i.e., not through induction or deduction, but “as a result of the rule-governed and yet playful process of developing the most adequate wording of a translation” and from one’s interaction with the text. Paepcke did not, however, elaborate on this “intuition of intuition.” This article attempts to further develop the concept evidentia rhetorically and philosophically and to apply it to the field of translation studies. Two conceptions are particularly instrumental here: 1) The concept of fidélité créatrice as elucidated by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel – to whom Paepcke often referred – as well as 2) the conceptual approach underlying and informing the research center Hermeneutik und Kreativität. In the latter, the processes of understanding and translating / translating and understanding are conceived of as being bi-directional and interdependent; this conception, which fuses understanding with empathy, is making new, significant inroads into translation studies. The notion of evidentia will be exemplified here using an empathetic Italian translation of a very young poet – Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger.

This article seeks to shed some light on the experience of interpretation and translation from a hermeneutical point of view, more precisely on how the subjectivity of the translator plays an essential mediation role in the process of rendering the meaning of a text in a new language, a role that certainly goes beyond the sole linguistic transfer, without being per se subjective. This idea can best be understood through the concept of “game” as developed by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer and introduced in translation theory by Fritz Paepcke, because it offers a model in which the participation of the individual is necessary without being arbitrary, since the players have to abide by the rules of the specific game they are playing – in this case, the text itself. However, the aim of this article is not to offer a method of translation, but is rather an attempt to consider the adequacy of translation on the basis of subjective and intersubjective factors – including the translator’s own prior knowledge and experience, his openness towards the text and his critical self-awareness – and therefore to propose an alternative to the overly normative and restrictive theoretical framework strictly focused on linguistic equivalence between ST and TT.

Hermeneutics is a discipline that has traditionally focused its inquiries on understanding and on the link between the process of understanding and communication. This area, namely understanding and the link to communication, has not figured predominantly in translation studies, and the new developments in machine translation make it increasingly obvious that exploring this aspect of human translation is particularly relevant. In this essay I show how the set of premises upon which hermeneutics rests differs in very significant ways from the fundamental premises upon which the natural science paradigm is based; it is this difference that makes research into the nature of understanding so crucial to Translational Hermeneutics. Scholars working in the field of Translational Hermeneutics have to clearly mark this difference vis-a-vis translation studies, otherwise scholars working in translation studies cannot understand the relevance of Translational Hermeneutics for translation professionals. Furthermore, the work geared towards gaining an empirically and phenomenologically well-founded, accurate description of the process of understanding has to be given first priority and pursued as expeditiously as possible, for this has to serve as the foundation for the further development of Translational Hermeneutics.