Translation14

Angela Mauss-Hanke presented a paper in which she compared translation processes in literary and clinical work while illustrating her thesis with many examples from psychoanalytic practice and literary translation work. In her introduction she referred to the myth of the Tower of Babel in which the confusion of languages was seen as a punishment imposed on the human race, stripping human beings of the possibility of unhindered mutual understanding and anticipating misunderstanding as a constitutive human experience. Compared with literary translation, the communication of a “successful translation” of the symptoms and the hidden meanings is not sufficient for a fruitful analytic process. What may seem crystal-clear to the analyst may not be understood or accepted by the analysand. Although literary texts to be translated are not confronted with this obstacle, understanding of the material may be fragmentary and lead to unsatisfying translations: no text can ever be translated into another language in such a way as to evoke semantic associations that are identical to those which resonate in the original. Based on the work of Salber (1969), Mauss-Hanke identified six characteristics of translation processes that complement and display each other:

1. Internalization: acquisition and appropriation of the foreign language and material and becoming familiar with it

2. Influences: i.e. unavoidable impact on the material through the translator

3. Internal order/rules: taking into account the stylistic issues, the internal order of the material (without denying the translator's personal signature and his ‘behind the scenes’ - position as described in 2)

4. Enhancements/boundary-breakings: translation is a creative act that can bring hidden meanings to the surface. Every translation requires supplementary research and sometimes stimulates countertransferential feelings in the translator, comparable with what the analyst experiences while treating traumatized and perverse patients.

5. Limits: und