No Sources, No Targets: Translation as Realignment

The idea of translation as a kind of transportation, “moving” a text from a source language to a target language or culture, continues to shape most discussions and debates about the nature of translation. Using examples from his recent, award-winning translation from German of the four-volume NYC novel Anniversaries, Searls will discuss the origins and some of the current uses of this idea and suggest a different framework for describing both what the translator is doing when she or he translates, and what the translated text is doing in and with its new language.