Translational Hermeneutics

2015

Translational Hermeneutics

Douglas Robinson
Pages 41-54

Fourteen Principles of Translational Hermeneutics

Th is paper organizes the hermeneutical study of translation into fourteen principles, the fi rst six borrowed from a paper (in this volume) by Larisa Cercel, John Stanley, and Radegundis Stolze entitled “Hermeneutics as a Research Paradigm”: subjectivity (1), historicity (2), phenomenology (3), process (4), holism (5), and reflection (6). The next seven are a compilation of the author’s own research agenda “beyond” or “outside” classical hermeneutics, but arguably congruent with and supportive of a hermeneutical project: social constructivism (7), iterability (8), multiple subjectivities (9), dialogism (10), the double-bind (11), performativity (12), and rhetoric (13). Th e last (14) is somatics: It’s not enough to study how we interpret; we have to explore how we work in groups (almost always unconsciously) to regulate interpretation. Without social regulation, imperfect and incomplete as it is, incapable as it is of imposing robotic conformity on human communication, interpretation remains a subjective will o’ the wisp, an evanescent connectivity that is easily dismissed as sheer solipsistic fantasy.