On How Chaos Theory Could Enhance Translation Scholarship
PRESENTER:
Raluca Tanasescu
University of Ottawa, School of Translation and Interpretation
ABSTRACT:
This presentation links chaos theory and translation studies and proposes
to
perceive chaos as presence, rather than absence: that is, rich in
information rather than poor in order. I argue that such an approach
welcomes the study of new translation traditions and agencies that do not
typically fit the theory of fields and all its attendant concepts.
Possessing an essentially connectionist mind, translators interact
perpetually with their environment, a process which results in chaotic
processes. Translation emerges from this semiotic interaction between
translators and their environments, both the proximate and the distant
ones, and the turbulences they produce in the spaces they inhabit or even
connect to give birth to a butterfly effect that may not be visible to
their contemporaries, but will perhaps engender meaningful mutations in
not such a distant future.
To make sure this kind of evolutions are properly accounted for, I
suggest
that our discipline look at computer science and take stock of difference
and localize the global by refashioning its theory in such a way that it
incorporates non-linearity-in other words, by looking at dynamic systems
and network science. This presentation provides an example of how social
network analysis can be used to account for new aspects of literary
translation in a small country and of why the results differ from
traditional humanities scholarship.