Article
Diacronia 15, September 26, 2022, art. A206 (p. 1–22)https://doi.org/10.17684/i15A206en

[Re]domesticating the “History of Moldavia” by J.A. Gebhardi in the translation of Ioan Nemișescu. Translation practices at the beginning of the 19th century

Alexandra Chiriac

Affiliations

Faculty of Letters, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Bd. Carol I 11, 700506 Iași, Romania

History

Received April 18, 2022
Accepted May 22, 2022
Published September 26, 2022

Key words

national history
invisible translator
translation practice
domestication and foreignization
translation fluency

Abstract

The theory and practice of translation in the time of the Romanian Enlightenment (1770–1830) represents a productive field of analysis for the way in which texts, ideas and terminology travel in the European space. Using the concepts developed by Lawrence Venuti of “domestication” and “foreignization” of texts through translation, the paper aims to present a case study that highlights the way in which the translator, as an apparently invisible actor, brings before his public a fluent and natural discourse, scattered with foreignizing elements that draw the attention to the translation status of the target text. A universal history written by a German author for a German readership (Geschichte der Moldau by L.A. Gebhardi in 1788), translated into Romanian by Ioan Nemișescu as a scientific text of national history (Istoria Moldovii, 1808) represents a revealing example for a translation practice anchored in the social-cultural and linguistic reality of the target culture. The translation analysis of both texts illustrates the way in which the Romanian translator makes, deliberately or not, a series of choices of transposing the German text and terminology, choices that help provide to the Romanian readership a fluent text, which blends familiar elements with a foreign scientific perspective and a modern historiographic discourse.

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    Text:Chiriac, A. (2022). [Re]domesticating the “History of Moldavia” by J.A. Gebhardi in the translation of Ioan Nemișescu. Translation practices at the beginning of the 19th century, Diacronia 15 (September 26), A206 (1–22), https://doi.org/10.17684/i15A206en
    BibTeX:@ARTICLE{chiriac2022,
     author = {Alexandra Chiriac},
     title = {[Re]domesticating the “History of Moldavia” by J.A. Gebhardi in the translation of Ioan Nemișescu. Translation practices at the beginning of the 19th century},
     journal = {Diacronia},
     ISSN = {2393-1140},
     year = {2022},
     month = {September},
     number = {15},
     eid = {A206},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.17684/i15A206en},
     pages = "(1–22)",
     url = {https://www.diacronia.ro/journal/issue/15/A206/en}
    }

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. The article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence.

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