Cover not available

Article published In: Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 12:1 (2017) ► pp.71–90

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Ethico-aesthetics and the machinic repetition of literature in translation

 | Insitutite for Gender Studies, Unisa
Published online: 13 April 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.12.1.04van
Abstract
This article examines how translation practitioners might begin to develop a praxis that is based on an ontological polyvocality; one which allows for difficulty – even misconstrual and semantic breakdown – so that translations do not become mechanical reproductions, subsumed by systems of power, rather than machinic repetitions that allow for deterritorializations along lines of flight. Because, despite the fact that translations are regarded as relatively autonomous creations, they still conform; they are still produced in the socius which, in modern societies, aids the functioning of capitalism. The question arises: if translations – which are unavoidably a kind of literary repetition – are produced and constructed within capitalist societies, does this mean that they inevitably become mechanical reproductions rather than machinic repetitions? To answer this question, translation is investigated within the ethico-aesthetic framework developed by Félix Guattari and selected translations of passages in the oeuvre of the South African author Ingrid Winterbach are referenced.
Article outline
  • 1.Mechanical reproduction or machinic repetition?
  • 2.Ethico-aesthetics: Mapping the new in contact with the real
  • 3.Of translation and Ingrid Winterbach’s oeuvre
  • 4.An analysis of the translations of selected passages from Winterbach’s oeuvre
    • 4.1Niggie/To Hell with Cronjé (2002/2007)
    • 4.2Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat/The Book of Happenstance (2006/2008)
    • 4.3Die Benederyk/The Road of Excess (2010/2014)
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (51)
References
Acott, Heather. 2012. “Dark Humour: Satire, the Baroque, and the Carnivalesque in Patricia Schonstein’s Banquet at Brabazan and Ingrid Winterbach’s The Elusive Moth .” Kritika Kultura 181: 116–126.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attridge, Derek. 2004. The Singularity of Literature. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, translated by Harry Zohn, 217–252. New York: Schoken Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bogue, Ronald. 2005. “Minoritarian and Literature.” In The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. by Adrian Parr, 231–233. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Botha, Marissa, and Helize van Vuuren. 2006. “Die Eksperimentele Gebruik van Taal in Ingrid Winterbach se Niggie (2002).” Stilet XVIII (2): 35–56.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007a. “Eksperiment en Intertekstualiteit in Niggie .” Journal of Literary Studies 23 (1): 63–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007b. “‘Taal moet weerstand bied’: ’n Verkenning van Niggie .” Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 44 (2): 119–134. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coetzee, Carli. 2013. Accented Futures. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colman, Felicity J. 2005. “Rhizome.” In The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. Adrian Parr, 231–233. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comester, Johannes. 2014. “Ingrid Winterbach: Die aanspraak van lewende wesens.” LitNet (website), January 12, 2014, [URL].
de Campos, Haroldo. 1981. Deus e o Diabo no Fausto de Goethe (God and the Devil in Goethe's Faust). São Paulo: Perspectiva.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. Minneapolis, London: University of Minneapolis Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. What is Philosophy? Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Plooy, Heilna. 2006. “Die Argeologie van die Teken: Taal en Diskoers in Niggie en Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat van Ingrid Winterbach.” Stilet XXI (2): 1–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “Die Argeologie van die Teken: Taal en Diskoers in Niggie en Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat van Ingrid Winterbach.” Stilet XXI (2): 1–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guattari, Félix. 1995. Chaosmosis. An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm. Translated by Pain Bains and Julian Pefanis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofsajer, Anelda Susan. 2011. “An Investigation into Winterbach’s Approach to Self-translation in Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat/The Book of Happenstance ” (Master’s dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Human, Thys. 2009a. “‘Te hel met heling, Niggie!’: Wanneer Traumanarratiewe Tekort Skiet.” LitNet 6(3): 16–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009b. “‘Om leeg te word soos ’n skulp’: Verlies en Verganglikheid in Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat .” LitNet 5 (4): 1–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
John, Philip. 2004. “Meer Dydelikhyt oor die Punch en die Vis: ’n Vergelyking van Niggie, Daar’s Vis in die Punch en Eilande .” Literator 25 (1): 23–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewis, Philip E. 2012. “The Measure of Translation Effects.” In The Translation Studies reader, ed. by Lawrence Venuti, 220–239. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mieszkowski, Jan. 2004. “Art Forms.” In The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin, ed. David S. Ferris, 35–53). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Massumi, Brian (ed.). 2002. A Shock to Thought. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roffe, Jonathan. 2005. “Multiplicity.” In The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. by Adrian Parr, 176–177. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaviro, Steven. 2012. Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stagoll, Cliff. 2005. “Becoming.” In The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. by Adrian Parr, 21–23. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2012. “The politics of translation.” In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 312–330. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strydom, Gideon, and Helize van Vuuren. 2011. “‘Sonder agtergrondgedruis en tussenkoms van die skrywerstem?’: Ingrid Winterbach se Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat (2006).” Stilet XXIII (2): 102–120.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Surin, Kenneth. 2005. “Socius.” In The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. by Adrian Parr, 255–257. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Coller, Hennie, and Cilliers van den Berg. 2009. “Trauma, Verlies en die Semiotiese Bewussyn in Karolina Ferreira en Niggie van Ingrid Winterbach.” Stilet XXI(2): 29–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Vuuren, Helize. 2004. “Vrae Gestel aan Ingrid Winterbach.” Ou Litnet (website), January 15, 2013, [URL].
Venuti, Lawrence (ed). 2012. The Translation Studies Reader. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vieira, Else Ribeira Pires. 1992. “A Postmodern Translational Aesthetics in Brazil.” In Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline (Selected Papers From the Translation Studies Congress, Vienna, 1992), eds. Mary Snell-Hornby, Franz Pöhhacker, and Klaus Kaindl, 65–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “Liberating Calibans: Readings of Anthogofagia and Haroldo de Campos’s Poetics of Transcreation.” In Postcolonial Translation. Theory and Practice, ed. by Susan Bassnett, and Harish Trivedi, 95–113. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Viljoen, Lettie. 1984. Klaaglied vir Koos. Johannesburg: Taurus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1986. Erf. Johannesburg: Taurus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. Belemmering. Johannesburg: Taurus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. Karolina Ferreira. Johannesburg: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. Landskap met Vroue en Slang. Johannesburg: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Winterbach, Ingrid. 2002. Niggie. Johannesburg: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. To Hell with Cronjé. Translated by Elsa Silke. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. The Book of Happenstance. Translated by Dirk and Ingrid Winterbach. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Die Benederyk. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Die Aanspraak van Lewende Wesens. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. The Road of Excess. Translated by Leon de Kock. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. It Might Get Loud. Translated by Michiel Heyns. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Vlakwater. Cape Town, Pretoria: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zagala, Stephen. 2002. “Aesthetics: A Place I’ve Never Seen.” In A Shock to Thought, ed. Brian Massumi, 20–43. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zepke, Stephen. 2005. Art as Abstract Machine. Ontology and Aesthetics in Deleuze and Guattari. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Carstens, Delphi
2022. Mapping Entanglement: Mobilizing the Uncanniness of Machine-Vision. In Ahuman Pedagogy, ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue