Rhetorical Repetition in Literary Translation
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (2002)Abstract
Repetition or reiteration is a phenomenon common in language, music, religion, and literature, and has been studied extensively by linguists and rhetoricians. Unfortunately, it has not been investigated in Translation Studies because repetition is essentially an aspect of comparative rhetoric, a burgeoning discipline that is still in an embryonic stage. Among other things, it deals with how a particular rhetorical device functions in a certain language, and whether that function is preserved, metamorphosed, or compromised in translation. A rhetorical device does not necessarily require verbatim translation, because one must take into consideration such factors as genre, discourse, and text.