Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf

58 Theo Hermansenty Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible in Alexandria who all worked independentlyof each other yet produced identical renderings. God had apparentlybreathed the one correct version into the translators’ ears, hence the remarkableresult. The story of the miracle evidently serves the purpose of investing the Greekrendition with a status equal to that of the Hebrew original. For Saint Augustine,God spoke with the same intent and with equal authority in both versions.Perhaps not everyone who has read around in more recent translation historyhas come across the story of the Book of Mormon, very similar to that ofthe Septuagint but even more spectacular. The detail of how in the 1820s JosephSmith managed to translate an unknown script from a collection of gold plateswhich he had dug up following the directions of the angel Moroni, would taketoo long here (see Hill 1977; Persuitte 1985; Robinson 2001: 54–61). The definingmoment of this intriguing tale occurred when, in July 1829, the translation wasready and Joseph Smith’s associates were allowed to see and touch the mysteriousgold plates as the assembled company witnessed another visitation from Moroni.During these proceedings a voice descending from heaven declared that “thebook is true and the translation accurate”, whereupon the angel took the originalplates under his wing and vanished with them, for good. They have not beenseen since. The physical removal of the original emphatically sealed the divinepronouncement, the proclamation from on high which endowed the translationwith a value equal to that of the original. The pronouncement, that is, madetranslation and original equivalent. In so doing it enabled the translation to displacethe original, which indeed was no longer needed and could be taken awaywithout loss.If not everyone interested in the recent and current history of translationknows about the Convention of Vienna, this is unfortunate, because in one wayor another it affects every country on the globe, and therefore every one of usas citizens. The United Nations’ Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, firstadopted in 1969, governs international treaties. Such treaties normally exist inthe form of parallel texts in several languages. If some of these versions havecome into existence as translations, they cease to be translations as soon as themultilingual treaty is agreed by the relevant parties as constituting one singlelegal instrument. “Agreeing” here means that the parallel texts of the treaty areauthenticated, that is, recognized as equivalent sources for the interpretation ofthe treaty. From that moment onwards the translations become versions whichall possess equal value in law and are, on that basis, presumed to have the samemeaning. Indeed paragraph 3 of article 33 of the Vienna Convention states that“The terms of a treaty are presumed to have the same meaning in each authentictext” (Reuter 1995: 261). All the key documents of the European Union, forinstance, are in this sense equal, equivalent and definitive versions in all of the