Translation and Hermeneutics

Abstract

The word 'hermeneutics' can refer both to practice (where the translator is an interpreter) and, according to the definition of George Steiner and Antoine Berman, to translation criticism. The purpose of this article is to clarify this definition. According to what Antoine Berman presents, hermeneutics in its classical sense legitimizes ethnocentric translations. Practiced from antiquity to the medieval period, this classical view of hermeneutics (also endorsed by philosophers like Paul de Man) suggests that the meaning of the text exists beyond its material support. Conversely, according to George Steiner, translation is a “hermeneutic path” that must consider every aspect of the text beyond moral, historical, and contextual considerations. To produce an equivalent text in the target language, translation - conceived as both practical and critical - must consider all aspects that make a text unique, such as prosody, grammar, and style. From this point of view, hermeneutics reveals itself as a poetics of translation.