Translation Theory

Teaching of translation and writing in the university classroom tends to focus on task knowledge by practicing text production and analyzing and discussing the quality of products. In this article, we will argue that the outcome of teaching may be increased if students are taught to see themselves not only as learners, but also as thinkers and problem solvers. This can be achieved by systematically applying knowledge from process research as this can give insight into mental and physical processes of text production. This article provides an overview of methods commonly used in process research and discusses the pros and cons of their application in teaching of translation and writing at university levels.

Herausgegeben von Franziska Heidrich und Klaus Schubert, University publishing house Hildesheim 2020 -- "Technical communication - controlled, regulated, optimized" Specialist communication - this is targeted, controlled communication that is carried out with optimized means. It is based on a methodologically conscious, criteria-based approach and is often regulated through steering intervention. This should facilitate and thus improve both the production and the reception of specialist communicative products. The interdisciplinary, multidimensional field of specialist communication science is constantly evolving. In addition to the classic research of vocabulary, the discourse is very broad today. This anthology also combines approaches to the entire breadth of modern specialist communication science.

Bilingualism basically defined as having been brought up with two languages and being more or less equally competent in using both languages is a significant phenomenon in this information era requiring frequent access and communication among people. This study aims to identify the bilingualism phenomenon focusing on some of its components. First of all though it is not easy to make clear cut definitions regarding the term bilingualism, what the term stands for and which basic constellations can be associated with this term will be explained in the study in a detailed way. Following the definition of bilingualism, some conditions such as second language acquisition which proposes a basis for bilingualism, the effects of bilingualism on the brain and certain individual factors affecting bilingualism are going to be dealt with. An important component of bilingualism, bilingual education, will be analyzed within the perspectives of the importance of bilingual family in raising bilingua...

LA PATRIA PERDIDA O IMAGINADA: TRANSLATING TEODORO TORRES IN “EL MEXICO DE AFUERA” by ETHRIAM CASH BRAMMER December 2011 Advisor: Dr. Renata Wasserman Major: English Degree: Doctor of Philosophy One resent result of the Recovery of the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project has been the “rediscovery” of the novel La patria perdida (1935), written by acclaimed Mexican journalist Teodoro Torres while in exile in the United States. This novel is a kind of Mexican-American Horacio Algiers tale, detailing the success story of Luis Alfaro, who is eventually able to create a utopian Mexican-American hacienda, called Buenavista, outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Due to a number of important thematic inversions, La patria perdida stands in stark contrast to other early works of Mexican-American immigrant fiction, including novels like Daniel Venegas’s The Adventures of Don Chipote: Or, When Parrots Breast-Feed (1928) and Conrado Espinoza’s Under the Texas Sun (1926), which likewise document...

Maria T. Sanchez University of Aberdeen UK ABSTRACT Interpreting trainees usually need some time and a lot of practice before they fully realize that note-taking in consecutive interpreting is only an aid to memory and a result of fully understanding what has been said, without paying too much attention to how it has been said. One full implication of this process is that a near-native knowledge of the foreign language(s) is indispensable, given the fact that a poor understanding of what the speakers are saying is incompatible with remembering it and, for that matter, even with taking proper notes. The purpose of this article is to insist on the need to start interpreting training after the foreign language and culture have been rally assimilated and to make sure that students realize from the start that note-taking is not an end in itself. Two practical examples are discussed, one from a business interview and one from a medical situation.

Si mettono a confronto il volgarizzamento della «Poetica» di Lodovico Castelvetro (Vienna, 1570) e i «Petri Victorii Commentarii in primum librum Arsitotelis De Arte Poetarum», un'opera di riferimento per chi traduceva o commentava il trattato aristotelico nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. Alla «Poetica vulgarizzata e sposta» del filologo modenese, inoltre, si affianca  «Il libro della Poetica tradotto di greco da Alessandro Piccolomini» (Siena, 1572), la prima traduzione eseguita dal senese, il quale di solito ricorreva ai compendi o alle parafrasi nella resa volgare dei trattati filosofici antichi. S'ipotizza, quindi, che la traduzione piccolominiana fosse pensata come una risposta critica e nel contempo costruttiva all'opera del Castelvetro.

This volume aims above all to problematize the concept and practice of translation in an interconnected world in which English, despite its hegemonic status, can no longer be considered a coherent unified entity but rather a mobile negotiated resource (Blommaert 2010) subject to various kinds of hybridization. Drawing upon recent work in the domains of translation studies (e.g. Klinger 2015, Meylaerts 2006, Batchelor 2009), literary studies (Apter 2006, 2013), and (socio-)linguistics (Canagarajah 2013, Pennycook 2007, Blommaert 2010), it explores the centrality of translation as both a trope for the analysis of contemporary transcultural dynamics and as a concrete communication practice in the globalized world. The first section looks at the role played by translation in the construction of contemporary identities, both horizontally (through translingual processes) and vertically (through temporal transposition). In a world characterised by physical migrations and instantaneous data...

Some translation scholars want us all to be political activists, as is their right and perhaps obligation. The moral connection between politics and translation usually concerns two kinds of observation: first, only rich and powerful groups tend to have their messages moved between languages (the poor and powerless rarely determine which messages are sent); second, translators habitually modify messages in the interests of one group or another, thus meddling in power relations beneath a cloak of default invisibility. In both those ways, translation helps shape the relations of belonging that in turn form the polis, the basis of any politics. Those two kinds of observations steer Translation Studies well away from its more traditional concerns, notably the linguistic comparison of texts and the pedagogical control of equivalence. We are called on to do more than linguistics, it seems. Our past thus somehow becomes irrelevant, even innocent: politics concerns different things, in a na...

Translation theory is never dogmatized. It is a dynamic and ever changing process. It is expected to respond positively to new developments in the studies of language and style. Cognitive stylistics is one of the major new developments in the study of style. It is based on viewing and analyzing style as a cognitive process of mind that goes beyond the boundaries of surface meaning to unearth the truth behind it. This process draws heavily on the cultural, social, political, and ideological conceptualization of style and meaning. The cognitive process of translating is claimed here to have been influenced by contemporary cognitive stylistic approaches that view meaning as the product of style as mind. This paper investigates the updated cognitive properties, responsibilities, practices and other characteristics to be assumed by the cognitive stylistic translator in the light of these new cognitive approaches to meaning and style in terms of mind. Accordingly, the cognitive translator is urged to approach the translation of the texts' styles and meaning cognitively to respond creatively to the explorations of cognitive stylistic theory and applications. This will make them uncover buried truths and meanings that cannot be discovered otherwise. Toward the end of the paper, a relativity theory of cognitive stylistic translation is put forward. This theory is flexible enough to respond effectively to all cognitive potentials of meaning and style. Further, it accommodates more than one cognitive version of translation by means of applying two suggested methods of translation to the same text: direct (or style-based); and indirect (non-style-based). This means that more freedom of choice of possible versions of translation is available to translators and readers to pick up.

This paper analyses the issue of a cognitive model of translation as a matrix structure that provides a new perspective for 19 mapping the translation process. This research is based on J. Holmes’s idea of an integrated approach in translation studies 20 and the model he suggested in his work. Following Holmes, L. Tarvi offers a matrix model that describes internal relations 21 within the translation theory, teaching translation and translator training. This model magnifies various sectors for further 22 modelling. Taking Holmes’s model into consideration and its graphical representation in the work of L. Tarvi, we consider the 23 translation process as having an interdisciplinary, integrating and heuristic nature, which encourages us to search for a new 24 paradigm in its modelling. We present a model of translation in the form of a matrix which consists of 9 blocks or inputs with 25 their horizontal and vertical mapping. Horizontal mapping is done according to three types of the translator’s mental spaces: 26 neurological, representational and conceptual. The vertical mapping is arranged in conformity with three main steps in 27 translation: comprehension, processing and verbalization. Every level is presented with certain cognitive mechanisms, i.e. 28 identification, simultaneous or successive processing, reframing, conceptual correspondence, making a coherent text and 29 reaching communicative goals. The results obtained from a translation experiment lead to new perspectives of seeing the 30 matrix model of translation as a conglomerate of various modelling tools in the translation process depending on the 31 peculiarities of the translation scheme and the translator’s mental processes.

Le présent article traite de la question de la traduction du Coran selon deux perspectives. Dans une première partie historique, depuis l’aube de l’Islam jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine, il s’agira de mettre au jour les motivations sociopolitiques des traductions du Coran à travers l’histoire ainsi que les grandes lignes de fracture entre ses tenants et ses détracteurs. Une seconde partie sera consacrée au point de vue traductologique, où la représentation de la langue arabe du Coran ainsi que celle de sa traduction seront dégagées du discours principalement jurisprudentiel qui les évoque. Dans ce débat mené à travers les siècles, il apparaît évident que les différentes perspectives sur le traduire du Coran sont également instructives sur la manière de faire face aux défis de notre temps.



This article deals with the issue of Qur’anic translation on two levels. The first part, an historic study starting from the dawn of Islam and reaching contemporary times, will shed some light on the socio-political motivations of different translations of the Qur’an throughout history and present a general outline of the main positions of the opponents and the proponents of Qur’anic translation. A second part will be reserved to the translational point of view, in which a representation of the Arabic language of the Qur’an as well as of that of its translation will be brought out from the mainly jurisprudential discourse that brings them to the forefront. This debate, which has spanned over many centuries, makes it clear that the different approaches to Qur’anic translation can also be of benefit in teaching us how to face the challenges of our time.

Early in its development, translation studies quickly abandoned a quest for a general theory. Rather, approaches to translation have evolved toward fragmentary theorisations. There was first the ‘linguistic turn’ about fifty years ago; the ‘cultural turn’ some twenty years later; and, most recently, there has been a ‘sociological turn’. Throughout this evolution, translation as an object of study has increasingly moved from being viewed as a linguistic transfer ‘process’ to being seen as a final ‘product’, sometimes to be compared to its source text, sometimes to other (re)translations. However, the study of translation as a process has continued, and in more recent translation studies scholarship such study typically occurs within sociological investigations that seek to uncover how the social production of translations unfolds. In parallel to these developments in translation studies, translation has been used metaphorically in portraying, for example, genetic decoding (molecular biology), dream interpretation (psychoanalysis), transfer and exchange of knowledge (medical research), and property transfer (law). And translation is used figuratively in conversation, as in, ‘this idea must be translated into concrete action’. But these translational metaphors have only played a marginal role in translational theorising. A ‘philosophy of translation’, I argue, should incorporate not only the various perspectives on translation as an object of study, but also its metaphorical uses. Indeed, translation can be seen as a philosophical paradigm in itself, and can be studied and applied outside the bounds of language, culture, and metaphor. Hermeneutics serves as a starting point, but any philosophy of translation needs to be conceptualised within translation studies, which may require a new epistemological sub-discipline. Once we have a suitably conceptualised philosophy within the frame of translation studies, further issues can then be explored – for instance, could it deepen the understanding of translation as an heuristic tool in not only the humanities, but also in the natural and social sciences?

Стиви Смит обнаружила в поэзии область, ни до нее, ни после нее в таком чистом виде не существовавшую — и не только потому, что не было никогда раньше такой, как она, Стиви, с ее детством, ее нравом, ее мышлением и ее голосом, а потому еще, что она предложила иную парадигму искусства стихотворения. И вот Мария Степанова эту новую парадигму внесла и установила в русской поэтике.
Ее стихи, написанные «за Стиви Смит», абсолютно точно воспроизводят главный принцип стихотворений самой Смит: текст строится вокруг пространства не только без метафор (по крайней мере, как мы их привыкли воспринимать), часто без зрительных образов и вещей, вообще без поэзии — а просто вокруг простого или даже простодушного наблюдения или мыслительного факта.

éruditest un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche.éruditoffre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Pour communiquer avec les responsables d'Érudit:

This article focuses on the process of collectively translating a short text by Carlo Lucarelli, a prominent Italian crime writer. Lucarelli’s novels explore a range of problems affecting contemporary Italian society, including corruption, state violence and organised crime. Consequently they are deeply rooted in their culture of origin, while also fitting into a recognisable globalised genre. This makes Lucarelli’s writing a challenge to translate while also, potentially, making it quite marketable in translation, since it can hold considerable appeal for overseas audiences. I reflect on the translation challenges from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The practical angle is based on my experience leading a group of translators, together with Lucarelli himself, at the 2013 Translation Winter School, dedicated to crime fiction, in Melbourne. Over a number of days, workshop participants prepared a consensus translation of an excerpt of Lucarelli’s work, exploring practical...

Mohammad Ahmed Al-Jabali King Saud University Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Abdul-Aziz bin Abdulrahman Abanomey King Saud University Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the factors that can influence the peer review process of translated books at King Saud University. A 4-domain questionnaire was distributed electronically to collect the data necessary to answer the questions of the study. The mean scores showed that the “Review ethics” domain came first, and “Experience of the reviewer” came last. ANOVA and MANOVA showed that the variables of gender, academic rank, major, and review experience did not reveal significant differences, while experience in translation variable revealed significant differences. It was concluded that the review of translated books does not differ considerably from the review of studies published in per-reviewed journals. Unlike a research paper, a translator of a book does not have to draw findings and conclusions. The findings of ...

The article describes the Warsaw School of Translatorics, which has its origins in Warsaw academic institutions (especially the University of Warsaw). It was shaped by the representatives of these centers, and over time the concepts developed by them formed the basis for the contemporary translatorical paradigm. Their academic output and the related characteristic understanding of this academic discipline, its research subject and the tasks, formed the Warsaw School of Translation Studies. Nowadays, it is called a specific way of looking at translation, not only represented by Warsaw academics and researchers, but also by other researchers who think similarly about the subject of translation studies and its tasks. The author, who is also a representative of this school, describes the history of translation studies at Warsaw academic centers, the institutionalization of this discipline and its best-known representatives.

🔶 داریوش آشوری، در مقام زبان‌شناس و مترجم و فرهنگ‌نویس،  مفتخر است که واژه‌سازی می‌کند و برای بسیاری از کلمات و اصطلاحات فلسفه و علوم انسانی در زبان‌های اروپایی واژه‌سازی کرده است و آنها را به فارسی برگردانده است، که البته برخی از آنها نیکو و به‌جاست و من نیز آنها را به کار می‌برم. او به قول خودش زبان فارسی را «مدرن» کرده است (حالا چرا این «مدرن» را او ترجمه نمی‌کند یا واژه‌‌ای برای آن نمی‌سازد، شاید وقتی دیگر!). اکنون می‌خواهیم سری به «کارگاه» یا «آشپزخانهٔ» داریوش آشوری بزنیم و «آرمانشهر» یکی از نمونه‌های واژه‌سازی او برای «یوتوپیا» را از نزدیک بررسی کنیم تا ببینیم که کار او، و نیز «فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی» در پیروی از او در ساخت واژهٔ «ویران‌شهر» برای «دیستوپیا»، تا چه اندازه «علمی» است، یعنی، برآمده از اندیشه و شناخت، و تابع اصول و معیارها و قواعد «نظریهٔ ترجمه» است، و آیا داریوش آشوری، همچون بسیاری دیگر از مترجمان ما و حتی نهادهایی همچون «فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی»، اصلاً چیزی به نام «نظریهٔ ترجمه» دارد یا نه، یعنی آیا آگاه است که در «ترجمه» چه کاری دارد انجام می‌دهد و چرا و در مقام مترجم چه باید بکند و چه نباید بکند؟

The aim of this paper is to present a brief review of translation techniques and study the
development of Vinay and Darbelnet’s initial proposal (henceforth ‘the initial proposal’). For some people, the study of translation techniques is the cornerstone of translation methodology and translator training; for others it is a theoretical anacronysm. Does this mean that some teachers and textbook writers are not keeping up to date with the latest developments in theoretical studies, or does it mean that the theorists have chosen to ‘sweep the issue under the carpet’ and direct their interests elsewhere? We must be very careful not to oversimplify the answer to this, although the real question is, put bluntly, in what way is technique a useful concept? Possible answers might include (i) to better understand or explain certain phenomena (from the theoretical domain); (ii) as categories and tools for description (within descriptive studies); (iii) to make the learning process of trainees more efficient, or to fill in important terminological gaps for reviewers and critics (within the applied extensions).
In this paper I have argued for a more coherent terminology in the field and proposed terms and definitions to that effect. We have a history and a tradition in Translation
Studies, and these cannot and should not be ignored, nor should they be perpetuated in
the theoretical and pedagogical domains. My answer to this situation is to propose that
the term techniques be given a historical dimension to refer exclusively to Vinay and
Darbelnet’s initial proposal and to similar proposals by other authors such as Newmark.
For the theoretical field, the recommendation is to continue working in establishing
discrete categories along the lines of what is proposed above for equivalence and
compensation. We need to change a single list of overlapping categories such as the
initial proposal, probably for several lists of solution-types (one for types of equivalence, another for types of compensation, etc.) which contain a more coherent set of categories for research and for better communication among scholars.
The conclusion for translator training is that the initial proposal, if used at all,
should be presented with great caution. The purpose of grouping solutions into
solution-types is to provide meaningful samples of options for the trainee and
illustrations of translator behaviour. Ultimately, the future translator will have to deal
with situations and contingencies that have not been presented in class or studied in the
literature, and it is with this in mind that strategies and attitudes are to be worked on.
Strategies and ‘solution-types’ are to be presented as mind-openers, not as a closed set
of categories that act as blinkers in the search for optimal solutions and fully satisfactory translations.

Las reflexiones sobre la actividad de traduccion y sus resultados han estado marcadas historicamente por el mayor o menor alejamiento respecto de la obra original. Tambien a traves del tiempo se ha intentado dar respuesta a la pregunta ?que es una buena traduccion? con la formulacion de reglas generales, es decir, prescribiendo. Afortunadamente, hacia mediados del siglo XX, comienza a sistematizarse el estudio de la actividad de traduccion y se entiende la complejidad que la sustenta, ya que en ella confluyen aspectos diversos, tanto linguisticos como cognitivos, culturales o comparativos. De alli en mas, los estudios sobre la traduccion abandonan la prescripcion y asumen una mirada descriptiva y explicativa, que se relaciona con las normas del genero discursivo que se traduce, con las normas sociales del publico para el cual se traduce y con las que se establecen entre la editorial o cliente y el traductor. Desde las aparentemente ingenuas definiciones de traduccion, pasando por un...

"Eliot, Akhmatova, Brodsky: three Virgilian moments." Zakhar Ishov (Yale) As early as in 1969 Brodsky wrote what can be described as his first "Virgilian" poem: 'Didona i Enei.' A remarkable poem in itself, it is also the earliest instance of interpretation of Virgil by Brodsky. In this poem, Brodsky gives his own version of the tragic romance which famously features in the Aeneid. To be sure, Brodsky's elegy is based on his personal experience concerning the end of a love affair. Yet it seems more productive to explore the connections between Brodsky's elegy and some previous interpretations of the same Virgilian episode-specifically, those of Eliot and Akhmatova. Let me first remind you very briefly of the episode as we know it from Virgil: Aeneas, the stranded survivor from Troy on a civilization-founding-mission, lands in a Carthaginian port and finds shelter in the palace of the beautiful Phoenician queen Dido. Dido, a refugee and a widow herself, is impressed by Aeneas' adventurous narrative. She falls easy prey to the charms of the Trojan hero. Thanks to the joint plotting of Venus (Aeneas' mother) and Juno (who favors Dido) a marriage is arranged between the two. Yet, unbeknownst to Dido and Aeneas, and even Juno herself, this marriage was only meant as a temporary measure of expediency-a guarantee of a prolonged shelter for Aeneas' fleet in the harbor of Carthage. When Mercury, Giove's messenger, reminds Aeneas of his mission in the glorious Italian lands Aeneas does not hesitate; he orders his men to get ready for an imminent departure. As to Dido she does not take this unexpected news very lightly, but tries hard to dissuade Aeneas from leaving so abruptly. But Aeneas, already engrossed by the thought of his greater duties, remains utterly unmoved by her pleadings. This leaves Dido, a heroine of passion, with one last resort: suicide. Under the false pretence of burning all the objects related to the memory of the unfaithful Aeneas she asks her sister to set forth a pyre in the palace. At the crack of dawn when Dido catches

Tradurre Figure / Translating Figurative Language offers 27 original contributions on the interlingual translation of figurative language. The chapters were first presented at an international conference held at the University of Bologna in December 2012 and have been selected through a double peer-reviewed process. Why figurative language in translation? Essentially because figurative language – and the contributions in this book can be seen to prove it – may often foreground the complexities of the translation process, as well as the strong link between language and culture that this process has to renegotiate. Written in either English or Italian, the different contributions of this volume investigate the topic from a wide range of approaches and through several possible language pairs. We are confident that these stimulating and wide-ranging chapters will contribute to casting new light on the practice of translators around the world when dealing with the manifold implications a...

Sul 'fare vedere' nella traduzione: la prosa estetica inglese in alcune versioni italiane Nel saggio "Les sémaphores sous la plouie" Umberto Eco discute la questione della rappresentazione verbale dello spazio facendo riferimento ad opere letterarie caratterizzate da una diffusa qualità visiva, dal potere di creare immagini, di rendere fatti, ambienti, impressioni percettibili agli occhi sottoforma di parole. La figura retorica che risponde a queste caratteristiche prende il nome di ipotiposi o evidentia e risulta, anche soltanto intuitivamente, accostabile ad altri tropi di antica tradizione basati sulla ricreazione verbale della dimensione dello spazio come "la illustratio, la demonstratio, l'ekphrasis o descriptio, l'enargheia". 1 Si tratta di tropi che, come chiarisce Roland Barthes nel suo studio sulla retorica antica, rientrano nella categoria delle "descrizioni", elementi costitutivi della narratio, ossia della "esposizione persuasiva d'una cosa fatta o che si pretende fatta", una "protasi argomentativa": 2 accanto all'asse puramente cronologico-o diacronico, o diegetico-la narratio ammette un asse aspettuale, durativo, formato da una sequenza fluttuante di stasi: le descrizioni. Queste descrizioni sono state fortemente codificate. Si sono avute, principalmente: le topografie, o descrizioni di tempi, di periodi, d'età; le prosopografie, o ritratti. 3 Eponimo dunque delle descrizioni, l'ipotiposi "fa appello al senso visivo; rende sensuale, materiale un'idea astratta, è una specie di visualizzazione, ma anche una sensualizzazione". Essa non si rivolge però soltanto alla vista, ma anche all'udito, in uno scambio continuo e dialettico 1 U. Eco, "Les sémaphores sous la plouie", in Sulla letteratura, Milano, Bompiani, 2002, pp. 191-214, p. 191. 2 R. Barthes, La retorica antica [t.o. L'ancienne rhéthorique, 1970], Milano, Bompiani, 1972, pp. 94-95. 3 Ibid., p. 96. Un'analisi esaustiva sull'origine e gli sviluppi dell'ipotiposi si trovano anche in Patrizia Magli, "L'epifania dell''essere' nella rappresentazione verbale", in Jean Petitot e Paolo Fabbri (a cura di), Nel nome del senso. Intorno all'opera di Umberto Eco, Firenze, Sansoni, 2001, pp. 175-187, in particolare le pp. 179-182.

Resumen: Este artículo explica una propuesta metodológica y describe los pasos para llegar a validar el carácter de neonimicidad de los candidatos identificados en el área de la nanotecnología. Como resultado de esta investigación se presenta un modelo trifásico para llevar a cabo la validación de neónimos. Dicho modelo está constituido por tres etapas: conformación del corpus textual, validación de términos y validación de neónimos. Los resultados indican que el engranaje interno de cada fase propuesta debe contar con unos criterios definidos desde la teoría. Asimismo, es necesario que cada fase cuente con un producto que se convierta en el insumo de la fase posterior para generar los datos requeridos según el propósito. El procedimiento seguido para validar los neónimos mostró que el uso de herramientas ayuda a derivar datos más confiables y de manera rápida. No obstante, el escrutinio manual constituyó una técnica fundamental para afinar los datos. Por otra parte, la validación d...

“It goes without saying that but little use can be made of Lucretius” [Es versteht sich, dass Lucretius nur wenig benutzt werden kann].1 So, by way of preface or prophylaxis, opens the fourth of Marx’s Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy, composed around 1839 as Marx was preparing his doctoral dissertation. A long list of citations from De Rerum Natura (DRN) follows, and then Lucretius is put to use—as Plutarch’s antagonist, in the long battle over the Epicurean tradition. In these early, informal notes by a young dissertator the reception of Lucretius hangs in the balance; what Althusser refers to as an “underground current” of the materialism of the encounter surfaces and is soon, over the course of the next 15 years, rechanneled or resubmerged.2 An account of mediation at odds with the mechanics, the economics, of use presents itself here, to be translated, never entirely successfully, first into the great Hegelian lexicon that the young Marx and his preceptors were unfolding, then into the languages of political economy. What sorts of use can be made of a thing? In what respects is Lucretius something to be used?