WHEN MEANING TRAVELS: HERMENEUTICS, UNTRANSLATABILITY AND THE ETHICS OF INTERPRETATION IN WORLD LITERATURE

Abstract

This article discusses the issue of translation as a hermeneutical and moral practice within the world literature since meaning is not transferred in a unitary way across language but is constantly being reconstituted by interpretation. The paper examines untranslatability as the fruitful location of meaning-making by employing the fusion of horizons, a key concept of most other theorists, and by Hans-Georg Gadamer, and the linguistic hospitality, a prominent concept of Paul Ricoeur. The paper establishes that silence, ambiguity, and cultural memory oppose the equivalence-based models of translation by conducting a close comparative analysis of three Urdu short stories translated into English, namely, Naiyer Masud, The Essence of Camphor (trans. Muhammad Umar Memon, 1996), Intizar Husain, An Unwritten Epic (trans. various, 2011), and Qurratulain Hyder, Sita Betrayed (trans. various, 2000). It holds that translators are moral interpreters and their choices are active in the global distribution of meaning. Viewing translation as philosophical engagement and not technical transfer, the work has a role to play in the current discussion of ethics, translation, interpretation and semantic mobility in world literature and translation studies.