1st Edition

Translation and Big Details Part-Whole Thinking as Practice and Theory

By Jeroen Vandaele Copyright 2023
260 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

260 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

260 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

In the age of big data, evidence keeps suggesting that small, elusive and infrequent details make all the difference in our appreciation of humanistic texts—film, fiction, and philosophy. This book argues, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, that expertise in humanistic translation is precisely the capacity to capture those details that are bigger than they seem. In humanistic translation, the... Read more

List of Illustrations

 

Prelude and Chapter Presentation

Chapter 1.      Paradox: Translation’s Big Details

Chapter 2.      Principle: How Details Grow Big

Chapter 3.      Part-Whole Thinking (I): First Varieties

Chapter 4.      Part-Whole Thinking (II): Phenomenal Varieties

Chapter 5.      Part-Whole Thinking (III): Functional Varieties

Chapter 6.      Politics: Shiftiness and the Social Whole

Chapter 7.      Proof, Problems, and Paths: Concluding Thoughts

 

Index

Biography

Jeroen Vandaele teaches literary translation and Hispanic literatures at Ghent University, Belgium. From 2008 until 2017 he was professor of Spanish at the University of Oslo (Norway), teaching translation theory and cognitive poetics. He has been a scholar and teacher of translation since the late 1990s.

"I recommend [this book] as essential reading for all translation scholars and postgraduate students engaged in textual research."

- Lin Chen in Forum. International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 

"Starting out from two basic concepts, ‘big details’ and ‘part-whole thinking’, Jeroen Vandaele succeeds in describing humanistic translation expertise as a blend of microtextual and cultural thinking, thus bringing scholars and practitioners of translation closer together. In times of artificial intelligence, this book shows translational detail to be a key to understanding human translation and translation studies. A rewarding read for experts and students alike."

- Belén Santana López, University of Salamanca, Spain; Spanish National Translation Prize 2019

"This insightful book invites us all to think about what translators do and how they do it. Translation changes things for many reasons and, as the author playfully shows us, the devil for translators is always in the detail."

- Susan Bassnett, University of Warwick and University of Glasgow, UK