Iconicity of Translation: Translation of Iconicity

This chapter examines the relationship between translation and iconicity by addressing two key questions: (i) to what extent is it possible to translate iconic language and (ii) to what extent are translations themselves iconic (i.e. similar to their source texts) by virtue of the fact that they are translations? The chapter addresses the first question by examining translations taken from different language pairs. It addresses the second question by dipping into the global history of translation to show how notions of similarity between source and target text vary across space and time. These varying notions as to what counts as similar are linked to the paradoxical nature of translation: translations are, of necessity, different from their source texts, and yet, at some level, they are required to be the same.