Theories on Translation Criticism: Antoine Berman’s Project

Abstract

This article analyzes Antoine Berman’s theoretical project regarding the criticism of literary translations. Positioned at the intersection between hermeneutics, philosophy of language, and literary theory, Berman’s thought aims to build a discipline that would legitimize the evaluation of translations on the basis of their textual, ethical, and historical fidelity. The focus is placed not on identifying translation errors in the traditional sense, but on identifying what Berman calls “deforming tendencies” - a series of systematic alterations that a text can suffer during the transfer from one language to another. These tendencies, such as rationalization, clarification, or the destruction of linguistic patterns, reveal the translator’s resistance to the foreignness of the original and are at the core of what Berman denounces as ethnocentric translation. Consequently, his critical model is closely connected to the idea of respecting the Other, of welcoming the foreign without reducing it to the familiar. This article also examines Berman’s reconfiguration of the notion of equivalence, proposing instead an ethical adherence to the letter of the text - not understood in a reductive or literalist manner, but as a form of dialogic fidelity. The discussion is illustrated with references to various literary texts, including those of John Donne, and is anchored in the broader context of translation ethics and hermeneutics. The conclusions underline the relevance of Berman’s approach for contemporary debates on translation quality and cultural representation. By refusing both the relativism of “everything is a valid translation” and the rigidity of prescriptive models, Berman opens the path for a responsible and nuanced critique that values both the linguistic singularity of the source and the creative agency of the translator. His project remains a fundamental reference for any theoretical or applied reflection on translation as an act of writing and reading across languages and cultures.