The chief aim of this essay is to propose the idea that one should not see texts as artifacts detached from the world of life, but as partaking of the performances thanks to which individuals and collectives define themselves in everyday life. Texts, as Stolze (2003: 174) points out, are an integral part of a highly dynamic “Mitteilungsgeschehen”. Translations can be seen as ‘communicative events’ in two ways: as a dialogue between the original text and the translator, and also as an interaction between the translator and the recipients via the target text. At issue, this essay argues, is the key notion of performativity. In order to demonstrate the importance of such a notion, some characteristics of performativity, such as those compiled by Fischer-Lichte (2004 and 2012), will be described in relation to translational activity. References to the contributions in the present volume are intended to show the extent to which the questions surrounding translation as performance are interrelated.

This paper is a preliminary attempt to connect, within the field of translation studies, the following: firstly, the results of the latest empirical studies on the role of mental simulation in the processing of the text; secondly, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ideas concerning effective history; thirdly, the main tenets of spatiality and of cognitive narratology. One of the goals of the paper is also to attempt to demonstrate how the legacy of both hermeneutics and cognitive sciences might be reconciled in order to offer a new analytical approach and investigative framework which could suggest an interesting developmental trajectory within translational hermeneutics. Building on Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik’s (2012) views on intersubjectivity – that is, the ability to adopt someone else’s perspective as well as to read someone’s mind – I will attempt to demonstrate to what extent the target text (here, the earliest Polish translation of Anne of Green Gables from 1912) might be analysed by translation scholars in the light of the translator’s ability to empathize with the author in regards to the narratological devices used in the source text, as well as in light of the target text reader’s and the translator’s potential sensorimotor and perceptual activities being performed in their minds while creating a translation and while receiving it by the reader of the translation.

Translating means accepting a text as a culture-based message, understanding it and communicating it in another language, so that readers who are not proficient in the source language can also take note of the original message and, if necessary, react to it. Sociological models like systems theory and social difference theory can be mentioned in this regard, but they analyse factors that establish communication as a system working independently of the translating person. The sociology of a person’s world-relationship, so to speak, reflects the import of her actions in a given society in terms of a relationship between the subject and its environment. This is symbolic of the translator’s intrinsic interest in the message in her relation to the texts, and in the relation between such texts and different cultures. To refer to the translator is to refer to her as a subject who acts with cognition, acknowledges social embedding, and asserts her individualism. Understanding means being addressed by the voice in a text concerning the specific content. The understanding of texts as a basis for translation is determined by the hermeneutic circle and the individual’s subjective knowledge, while undertaking a translation requires rhetorical proficiency in literary and functional styles. All this comes together in a hermeneutic translational competence which is built up by various dimensions of knowledge and abilities. The task is to establish a hierarchy of important aspects for every single text that is under translation.

The paper explores Eve Sedgwick’s concept of the periperformative as a middle ground between being able and being unable to perform a speech act—a useful middle ground for translators, who are not supposed to occupy the performative “Iyou” dyad, but also for speakers and writers caught in a political cross-fire between conflicting persuasivities, who need to hedge and deflect and engage in surreptitious sabotage with plausible deniability. The case study imagines Bismarck’s Germany in the late 1860s and 1870s as a collective individual—recently united politically by military force but still in ideological turmoil, and inclined to cope with that turmoil emotionally by imposing Romantic Nationalist idealizations on the power politics that had made unification possible—and Friedrich Nietzsche as that individual’s self-doubt, worrying that its idealizations are misplaced, wrong-headed, possibly even harmful, but not knowing what else to do. What this German-speaking individual needs is cultural development, like a sick person needing a cure, but all the German-speaking doctors ridicule its complaints, assure it loftily, even arrogantly, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. And because the collective individual only speaks German, it is trapped— unable to seek an opinion from outside the German-speaking world, which seems to be conspiring against its mental/cultural health. What this individual needs is a translator—a community interpreter, perhaps. Specifically, as “sick Romantic Nationalist Germany” Nietzsche needs Ralph Waldo Emerson to doctor him—but he can’t read English.

Performance plays a decisive role in both everyday and artistic communication because it is always important to achieve effects. The question of the nature of this effect touches on central aspects of knowledge in general, i. e. whether it is about the realisation of a personal view of reality or whether reality itself realises its effect with the help of the transmitter. The classical concept of mimesis (i. e. the effort to imitate nature) strikes a balance between the subjective and the objective side of truthfinding. In translation studies, too, the concept of performance plays a central role, since every translation is in principle an assignment that is given specifically, with certain objectives. From a translatological point of view, one term of modern philosophy, or more precisely a term coined by Gabriel Marcel, proves to be particularly fruitful for this: fidélité créatrice. Faithfulness to the original is not strict reproduction, but rather the constant updating of essential elements in the service of a goal to be achieved. In this article, the translational performance thus understood will be presented in three variations and illustrated by means of examples. Firstly, it will be a matter of recognizing the performance of the original and trying to ‘effect’ it anew. Secondly, the performance underlying the multiple translation, which corresponds to new and changed intentions, will be examined. Thirdly, translation is to be seen as the performance of a translator as an individual who ‘puts his or her own stamp’ on it. It will be recognized that by orienting oneself towards the concepts of mimesis and fidélité créatrice, fidelity to the original in terms of an active search for deeper layers of its meaning is not only of hermeneutical significance, but also unfolds a relevant performative power.

Many representatives of the hermeneutical approach in Translation Studies complain about the lack of consideration for their undertaking. One of the reasons seems to be the lack of coherence and clarity in their terminology. Another reason might be the lack of group cohesion. Based on my long-lasting correspondence with the main representative of translational hermeneutics, Radegundis Stolze, as well as on my review of her books, the following paper examines both the revelatory and heuristic role played by terminology, which we think to be of major importance in the framing of a theory in human sciences. The importance of that role informs my own account of the introduction of a new term and the role it is also meant to play. Specifically, what is at issue is the term „performance” and what it suggests as to this role in pragmatic texts. With regard to group cohesion, it invites us to have a better, group-based, internal communication (as is exemplified in my intensive mail exchange with Stolze and in my book reviews), in order to close ranks and speak with a more coherent hermeneutical voice. This implies, for instance, a wider use of cross-references which should not be limited to texts in English or German. It also implies a recognition of the scientific status of book reviews, which should be considered as the author’s partnerin an epistemological (erkenntnisfördernd) dialogue, similar to the conversation envisaged by Gadamer, the aim of which would be to promote and deepen mutual comprehension.