Retranslation, in its double sense of “the act of translating a work that has previously been translated into the same language” and “the result of such an act, i.e. the retranslated text itself” (Tahir Gürçağlar 2009: 233), has constituted a considerable share of the translation market worldwide since the Middle Ages. Canonical literary (and religious) works have always been translated and retranslated into several languages, and this is clearly still the case in many cultures. However, despite the abundant number of retranslations available for research purposes, Translation Studies has only recently shown a serious interest in this matter. The academic discussion of the retranslation of literary works was actually initiated in 1990, when Bensimon and Berman edited a special issue of Palimpsestes on ‘Retraduire’, in which they raised some of the central research topics of what has later been coined as Retranslation Theory (cf. Brownlie 2006). By now, the phenomenon has attracted a number of researchers, evidence of which is the entry ‘Retranslation’ in the second edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies in 2009, still absent in the first edition of 1998, and Koskinen & Paloposki’s chapter in the Handbook of Translation Studies (2010). More recently, Deane-Cox (2014) devoted an monograph to the topic of literary retranslation, and Target published a special issue on “Voice in Retranslation” (2015, edited by Alvstad and Assis Rosa).
References:
Alvstad, C., Assis Rosa, A. (2015). “Voice in retranslation. An overview and some trends.” Target 27 (1), 3-24.
Bensimon, P. (1990). “Présentation.” Palimpsestes 4, ix–xiii.
Berman, A. (1990). “La Retraduction comme espace de traduction.” Palimpsestes 4, 1–7.
Brownlie, S. (2006). “Narrative theory and retranslation theory.” Across Languages and Cultures 7 (2), 145-170.
Deane-Cox, S. (2014). Retranslation. Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation. London/New Delhi/New York/Sydney: Bloomsbury.
Koskinen, K., Paloposki, O. (2010). “Retranslation.” In Y. Gambier, L. van Doorslaer (eds) Handbook of Translation Studies, Volume 1. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 294–298.
Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (2009). “Retranslation.” In M. Baker, G. Saldanha (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Second edition. London/New York: Routledge, 233-236.