From Greek and Latin to the 'Old English Orosius': Dialogic contexts for translation and reception

In this dissertation the author uses the language theories of Bakhtin and Volosinov to develop and apply a dialogic hermeneutics for a new understanding of the translation of the Old English Orosius. The orientation of the dissertation is clearly theoretical although it draws on both Classical and Germanic philologies.;Dialogic hermeneutics is openly suspicious of ideologies implicit in all languages of heteroglossia, including the professional academic languages that are used to describe and criticize the Orosius translation. Literary meanings are held to develop within these professional languages, and thus set limits for the sorts of interpretations possible for a text like the Old English Orosius. New interpretations, then, can arise when the ideology of dominant critical languages is explored, understood and challenged. For example, the judgmental language of traditional Western translation theory, framing a translation within a loose-to-literal polarity, can be replaced by a more productive description, translation as reported speech.;Using Volosinov's model of reported speech for interrogating translation privileges difference as the norm and central element in translation. The author argues that literalness in translation is actually a facade that generates a false sense of security: A literal translation appears to conserve while it, in fact, embodies worlds of cultural change. It is precisely these cultural shifts, seen through the translation of one language into another, that prove most rewarding for study.