Dyskursy o Kulturze (Jun 2020)
Contexts and Texts, Communication and Translation. The Benefits and Impediments of Publishing Research Outcomes in English
Abstract
The paper addresses the problem of publishing in the English language by researchers from other language areas, above all, by those from the former socialist “Eastern bloc” countries. Historically speaking, the problem became gradually acute after the social changes in 1989, when social changes also instigated the changes of institutions of research and education. These changes were based on the notion of internationalisation. The paper addresses three main components of the problem applying the appropriate methodology to discern each of them. The explanation of the first component, which combines the historical method and the critical theory approach, points to the system of compulsory publishing in English in a highly competitive international research environment. In it the co-operative “model” of the mutual recognition by scholars, as was suggested by St. Augustin in his “irenic” vision of epistemic community, cannot exist. The second main component is revealed through a loose application of deconstructive reading. The inception of semiology, which was prevalently formulated in the French language, was followed by the philosophical repudiation of the importance of linguistics above all in social sciences and humanities. Within this framework the difference between two philosophical paradigms – Anglo-Saxon and continental – emerged in a new form. This is still visible in the glitches of transferring the meaning from one culture and language to the other in English as lingua franca. The third component is viewed through the hermeneutical approach, notably by Paul Ricoeur, who highlighted the role of translation. In his vision, a translation encompasses far more than just a transfer from one language to another. The notion of “untranslatability” transposes the problem to the level of intercultural communication. At the same time this does not justify, in Ricoeur’s words, any insistence on “self-sufficiency as a core ‘value’ of every nationalism and cultural exclusivism”. It seems that this contradiction remained unsolved so far.
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