Translation and the trials of the foreign

In his 1985 essay, Antoine Berman explains the “trials of the foreign” as the agonistic impact of translation in transforming both the source text and the translating language. He follows the German translation tradition in questioning “ethnocentric” translating that “deforms” the source text by assimilating it to the translating language and culture. He describes in detail twelve “deforming tendencies” that have existed since antiquity, focusing on their dominance in French translation practices. He formulates a translation ethics based on close adherence to the source text so as to register its foreignness.