The manifestation of translation and the ‘double bind’: the writing of Jacques Derrida and his translations

Abstract

The manifestation of translation and the ‘double bind’: the writing of Jacques Derrida and his translations. — The deconstruction proposed by Jacques Derrida allows us to see translation as a distinct language event. This dimension calls for a reflection on the distinction between the so-called mother tongue and the foreign language; we assume that, based on this difference, the translator’s language takes on a new role as a means to transform and produce meaning in the language into which the text is being translated. Such a language event creates a kind of ‘manifestation of translation’. My main purpose in this article is to reflect upon the rapport between the languages involved in the translation process through ‘double bind’. In order to learn how translators use deconstruction to explain and justify their translations, this article analyses the prefaces, afterwords and translator’s notes of English versions of some of Derrida’s texts. The underlying hypothesis of these considerations is the existence of ‘reciprocal translation’ between Jacques Derrida’s language — French — and the translator’s language — English.