[lbo-talk] Chomsky on Foucault

Jon Johanning jjohanning at igc.org
Tue Sep 2 06:40:04 PDT 2003


On Monday, September 1, 2003, at 04:50 PM, Miike Quenling Ellis wrote:


> did he write in english or was it translated?

In French, of course, but this raises an important point -- when most Americans read authors who write in languages other than English, they are reading translations. An obvious fact, but people generally forget that the translator contributes significantly to making the text intelligible or unintelligible.

I don't translate French, but my impression is that a lot of these French intellectuals are damned difficult to translate intelligibly into English, without crossing the indefinite boundary between translation and paraphrase.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org ________________________________ Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. - Frank Zappa



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