Translating the Nonhuman: What Science Fiction Can Teach Us About Translating

(Hardback)

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Extends the field of translation studies and theory by examining three radical science-fiction treatments of translation. The so-called "fictional turn" in translation studies has staked out territory previously unclaimed by translation scholars territory in which translators are portrayed as full human beings in their social environments but so far no one has looked to science fiction for truly radical explorations of translation. Translating the Nonhuman fills that gap, exploring speculative attempts to cross the yawning chasm between human and nonhuman languages and cultures. The book consists of three essays, each bringing a different theoretical orientation to bear on a different science-fiction work. The first studies Samuel R. Delanys 1966 novel, Babel-17, using Peircean semiotics; the second studies Suzette Haden Elgins 1984 novel, Native Tongue, using Austinian performativity and Eve Sedwicks periperformative corrective; and the third studies Ted Chiangs 1998 novella, Story of Your Life, and its 2016 screen adaptation, Arrival, using sustainability theory. Themes include the 1950s clash between Whorfian untranslatability and the possibility of unbounded (machine) translatability; the performative ability of a language to change reality and the reliance of that ability on the periperformativity of witnesses; and alienation from the familiar in space and time and its transformative effect on the biological and cultural sustainability of human life on earth. Through these close readings and varied theoretical approaches, Translating the Nonhuman provides a tentative mapping of science fiction's usefulness for the study of human-(non)human translation, with translators and interpreters acting as explorers of new ways to communicate.

Author Bio

Douglas Robinson is Professor of Translation Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, China, and is one of the worlds leading translation scholars, and author or editor of 30 monographs, including The Strange Loops of Translation (Bloomsbury, 2022), Transgender, Translation, Translingual Address (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Critical Translation Studies (2017).