"The relations of signs to interpreters": Translating readers and characters from English to Italian

When it comes to the translation of literary fiction, many people still believe, or want to believe, that a perfect reproduction of an original is possible. In a perceptive (if theoretically naive) article on her experiences in and around translation, Anthea Bell quotes a neighbour who, on learning what she does for a living, commiserates with her because it “must be boring” (Bell, 2006: 62). Translation trainees, when asked what their prospective trade is or involves, provide definitions that involve “recreating” a replica of the original “as faithfully as possible” (Morini, 2013: 156–157). Comments and definitions such as these reflect linguistic notions which are still very widespread, even though they were disproved long ago in respectable academic circles (Hermans, 1985): the general idea behind them is that languages are comparable collections of words and phrases, and translation is a magic wand that turns the words and phrases of one language into those of another – a transformative spell that is deemed to be so much the more necessary when the source text is a beloved literary text.