Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Lecture “On the Different Methods of Translating” and the Notion of Authorship in Translation Studies

Abstract

In his lecture On the Different Methods of Translating Friedrich Schleiermacher distinguishes two different ways of translating: either the translator moves the reader to the author or the translator moves the author to the reader. Thus, for Schleiermacher the goal of translation lies in the approximation of two persons and in enabling interpersonal comprehension. Schleiermacher understands the text as a direct manifestation of the author’s thought, and thought as an expression of the individual use the author makes of a particular language. The present article aims at showing that Schleiermacher’s concept of interpersonal comprehension only proves understandable in the context of the notion of the author as an original creator whilst also exploring Schleiermacher’s influence on translation theory and the concept of “foreignizing translation” in order to propose an approach to a collaborative conception of authorship and discuss its implication for translation theory.