The Butterfly and the Translator: Reflections on Hybrid Textuality

Abstract

The notion of hybridity in light of the French concept of métissage opens a third way between the reefs of totality (fusion, homogeneity) and differentialism (fragmentation, heterogeneity). In an hybrid composition, the components are still visible and it is the tension between them, not the resolution, which gives its full value and its character to the alloying. In that approach, hybridity loses its negativity and becomes an ontological category which should be not dependent on cultural and sociohistorical factors. There is no such thing as original purity (for texts or anything else) which becomes modified and yields to impurity (hybridity being one example). As long as any being is subject to time – which is the primary condition for being – its essence and existence become a succession of altered states. This paper, drawing from contemporary translation studies as well as Nietzsche and Deleuze, explores the applications of such a theorisation to translation as a model of hybrid textuality and defines a „translative text” functioning as a bridge between the socalled source and target texts which are only two sequential moments of textuality and two modes of saying.

Hacia una revisión del concepto de género híbrido y propuesta de clasificación de los géneros agro-jurídicos.

“…Por su parte, Nouss (2001) indica que la traducción ofrece un modelo de textualidad híbrida con unas características difíciles de establecer. Con frecuencia, lo compara con el clásico ejemplo francés del mestizaje popular ya que «it opens a third way between the reefs of totality (fusion, homogeneity) and differentialism (fragmentation, heterogeneity)» (Nouss, 2001: p. 227) y lo entiende de forma positiva.…”

Hick-Hop Hooray? “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” Musical Genre, and the Misrecognitions of Hybridity

“…This contrasts with more recent emphasis on the potentials of cosmopolitan universalism and hybridity to challenge racial hegemony and craft tolerant multiethnic societies in the era of globalization. This newer, upbeat reading includes some who argue even more directly than Appiah or Gilroy that hybridity is progressive, alliance-building, anti-imperialist, and subversive (Joseph & Fink, 1999;Nouss, 2001). This stance may be termed ''liberation hybridism,'' after the liberation theology practiced by many Latin American Catholics.…”

The hybridity of Indies culture in Indonesian novel translation into French

“…It assumes that the source text pertains to a single culture. However, some scholars reject the "pure text" concept because hybridity can refer to cultural and linguistic differences expressed by the same language (Nouss, 2004;Snell-Hornby, 2004). Therefore, the source text can also be considered a hybrid text, and the translation may become a de-hybridizing agent and produce a monolingual text (Pym, 2001).…”