The translation pact

Abstract

In this article I argue that translated texts and translational paratexts invite readers to read translated texts as if they were the originals, a hitherto widely ignored premise of translations. Although translations are produced by many agents in collaboration (authors, publishers, copy-editors and translators), they are generally presented as texts produced predominantly by one agent, the author. I therefore claim that there is a ‘translation pact’ at work in translated literature, a rhetorical construction through which readers are invited to read translated texts as if they were the originals. A narratological implication of the pact is that individual readers who accept the pact will reconstruct only an ‘implied author’ and not an ‘implied translator’. This view differs from earlier works on the implied translator (e.g. Munday, 2008: 11; O’Sullivan, 2003; Schiavi, 1996). The translation pact is most often constructed implicitly, but sometimes translators draw attention to themselves and manifest their agency, for example by discussing translational decisions in prefaces and notes. Against what one would assume from previous claims on the translator’s ‘visibility’ (Venuti, 1995), I demonstrate that the translator’s presence does not necessarily work against the pact but can rather strengthen it. The translation pact explains why readers, including critics, literary scholars and other professional readers, often talk and write about translations as if they were originals composed solely by the author.