" If he leaned over too far, I thought he was about to kiss her, even though that would have been quite impossible, at least because of the tea table between them"¹.

Another way to approach intertextuality focuses on the references present in texts translated and being translated and on problems of cultural translatability. The problem is more serious than one might first think because any utterance we make, oral or written, verbal or non-verbal, is inserted into a context of intertextual influences that affect the very way in which an utterance originates. In his essay on the semiosphere, Lotman compares the cultural universe, or universe of signification, to an organism, a macro-system, in which single cultures interact, becoming more complex. Lotman focuses on the relation between the culture of the self, or own culture (of the single individual or cultural, geographic or social group she belongs to) and other's culture as a beneficent opportunity for cultures to beneficially contaminate one another and evolve, without homogenizing with one another, rather, emphasizing their differences. This occurs due to the awareness of one's own identity generated by the comparison with the other.

Translation, in this sense, is situated on the border between the cultures; it is the phenomenon allowing communication between cultures, the perception of the other, enriching that of our own and of the other. Intertextual references are a concrete example of this kind of "culture of the borderline".

When a translator comes across an intertextual reference in the text she is translating, as the bearer of the border culture, of mediation between cultures, she feels responsible for the individuation of such intertextual references and enacts strategies aimed at giving the metatext reader access to such references. But, as we'll see, intertextual references can be more or less explicit. A translator approaching intertextual references as a nuisance, on the other hand, who does all she can to hide it in the metatext's readability does not embody the culture of the border, and has a view of cultural mediation as a relation between a censorious avant-garde and the mass of readers, that can be kept in the dark about what happens in the "higher chambers" according to the translator's whim.

Intertextual translation can even be unconscious. In Bloom's opinion, texts are full of traces of previous texts not because the author consciously put them in, but because of an unconscious desire to eclipse precursors, due to unwillingness to accept one's own role as author influenced by other authors and a tendency to deny the debt of acknowledgment or recognition.

Beyond the distinction between conscious and unconscious intertexts, we can also catalogue intertextual references along the implicitness/explicitness continuum. Of course, the more an intertext is implicit, the harder it is to identify and translate. There are at least three ways, or points of view, according to which an intertextual reference can be considered more or less explicit:

1. it can be more or less explicit that a text is an intertext; for example, if the intertext has a graphic indication (for example, enclosed in quotes), it is more explicit than when it is confused with the co-text;
2. the source from which the intertext comes can be more or less explicit; for example, if an intertext is explicitly attributed to a source, the reader clearly understands it as a citation; if the quote or the intertext remains anonymous, it is harder to understand its origin;
3. the function attributed by the author to the intertext can be more or less explicit; for example, if the intertext is explicitly used to exemplify something or to make an argument, the reader can effortlessly understand its function; if the quote or the intertext is apparently deprived of an exact function, it is harder to understand its strategic reason.

In the latter cases, concerning the source and function of an intertextual reference, passing from source culture to receiving culture can complicate the scenario. It is so because a source known in the source culture might not be as well known in the receiving culture, and a function easily comprehensible in the source culture can be less easily understandable in the receiving culture. In the following table, taken from Osimo 2001: 16-19, you notice that the degree of difficulty of a cultural transposition of a reference varies according to many parameters.

 

 

Intertextuality	Hardness in decoding	Source known to the translator	Source known in the receiving culture	Function known to the translator	Function known in the receiving culture	Hardness in decoding
Implicit intertext	8	no	no	no	no	128
					yes	64
				yes	no	64
					yes	32
			yes	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
		yes	no	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
			yes	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
	2	no	no	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
			yes	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
		yes	no	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
			yes	no	no	8
					yes	4
				yes	no	4
					yes	2
Implicit intertext	4	no	no	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
			yes	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
		yes	no	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
			yes	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
	4	no	no	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
			yes	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
		yes	no	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
			yes	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
Explicit intertext	4	no	no	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
			yes	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
		yes	no	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
			yes	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
	1	no	no	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
			yes	no	no	8
					yes	4
				yes	no	4
					yes	2
		yes	no	no	no	8
					yes	4
				yes	no	4
					yes	2
			yes	no	no	4
					yes	2
				yes	no	2
					yes	1
Explicit intertext	4	no	no	no	no	64
					yes	32
				yes	no	32
					yes	16
			yes	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
		yes	no	no	no	32
					yes	16
				yes	no	16
					yes	8
			yes	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
	1	no	no	no	no	16
					yes	8
				yes	no	8
					yes	4
			yes	no	no	8
					yes	4
				yes	no	4
					yes	2
		yes	no	no	no	8
					yes	4
				yes	no	4
					yes	2
			yes	no	no	4
					yes	2
				yes	no	2
					yes	1

In the first two columns the presence/absence of quotes or other graphic delimiters allowing to understand where the quote or intertext starts/ends is contemplated; the explicitness of their presence is examined.

The third and fourth columns are devoted to the implicitness/explicitness of the intertext's source. The fifth and sixth columns are devoted to the implicitness/explicitness of the intertext's function. In the last columns I indicated a coefficient of difficulty in mediation that, as you can see, is amplified exponentially as source, function, and presence of the quote are made implicit.

Moreover, it is important to retain the possibility that the individual translator decipher the presence, the source or the function of a given intertext. This is a subjective parameter. As usual in the case of the translator, its missing decoding has a chain effect on the recoding in all of her readers.

 

Bibliographical references

CANETTI ELIAS Die gerettete Zunge. - Die Fackel im Ohr. - Das Augenspiel, München, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-446-18062-1.

CANETTI ELIAS The Tongue Set Free. Remembrance of a European Childhood, translated by Joachim Neugroschel, in The Memoirs of Elias Canetti, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, ISBN 0-374-19950-7, p. 1-286.

LOTMAN JU. 1984 O semiosfere, in Izbrannyе statґi v trëh tоmah, 1:11-24. Tallinn, Alеksandra, 1992. Italian translation: La semiosfera, edited by S. Salvestroni, Venezia, Marsilio, 1985. ISBN 88-317-4703-7.

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¹ Canetti 1999: 130.