10.6092/issn.1974-4382/15556
This contribution investigates early theories of Ecological Linguistics (Haugen 1972) and Ecosophy (Naess 1989), and current perspectives (Eliasson and Jahr 1997; Fill 2001, 2018; Steffensen and Fill 2014; Finke 2014; Stibbe 2014) along with the domain of Translation Studies (Lefevere 1992; Tymoczko 2010, 2014) to approach the concept of Ecological Translation (Cronin 2017, 2021; Scott 2015, 2018). A holistic perspective (Mühlhäusler 2000) is considered, which also takes into account the phenomenon of language contact (Ludwig, Mühlhäusler, Pagel, 2018), with regard to the translational practice. Different areas of studies are explored to reflect on the implications of English as a global language, which exerts its dominant impact over non-dominant languages, by effecting their disappearance and loss of cultural identity (Cronin 2003; Mühlhäusler 1996; Kachru 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996; Phillipson 1992). A connection between Ecolinguistics and Translation Studies is identified in the Ecosystemic Translation theory (Lynes 2012), encompassing an “ecology of translation” or a “translation of ecology”. In this respect, as an “interdiscipline” operating “as craft” (Cronin 2017), translation is discussed in the process of foreignisation of the source-text language, opposed to that of its domestication in the target-text language. In particular, the need to minoritise translation rather than to assimilate it to elude ethnocentric translation reveals the aim of a “discursive heterogeneity” contrasting with the assimilation of non-dominant linguistic and cultural difference to the dominant language (Venuti 1996; 2008). An analysis of different views is thus offered in favour of an ethical and ecological approach re-thinking the translation process.
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Eco-Translation: Raising Ecolinguistic Awareness in Translation
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A184-A198
M
Laura Diamanti
2022/09/22
10.6092/issn.1974-4382/15556
A184
Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale
1974-4382
translation studies
en
A198
Eco-Translation: Raising Ecolinguistic Awareness in Translation
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Updating Discourse/s on Method/s                                        mediAzioni 34 (2022)
                                                                              ISSN   1974-4382


ECO-TRANSLATION: RAISING ECOLINGUISTIC AWARENESS
                 IN TRANSLATION
                                      LAURA DIAMANTI
                         UNIVERSITY OF CASSINO AND SOUTHERN LAZIO

l.diamanti@unicas.it



Citation: Diamanti, Laura (2022) “Eco-Translation: Raising Ecolinguistic Awareness in
Translation”, in Lucia Abbamonte and Flavia Cavaliere (eds.) Updating Discourse/s on
Method/s, mediAzioni 34: A184-A198, https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1974-4382/15556,
ISSN 1974-4382.



Abstract: This contribution investigates early theories of Ecological Linguistics (Haugen
1972) and Ecosophy (Naess 1989), and current perspectives (Eliasson and Jahr 1997;
Fill 2001, 2018; Steffensen and Fill 2014; Finke 2014; Stibbe 2014) along with the
domain of Translation Studies (Lefevere 1992; Tymoczko 2010, 2014) to approach the
concept of Ecological Translation (Cronin 2017, 2021; Scott 2015, 2018). A holistic
perspective (Mühlhäusler 2000) is considered, which also takes into account the
phenomenon of language contact (Ludwig, Mühlhäusler, Pagel, 2018), with regard to
the translational practice. Different areas of studies are explored to reflect on the
implications of English as a global language, which exerts its dominant impact over non-
dominant languages, by effecting their disappearance and loss of cultural identity
(Cronin 2003; Mühlhäusler 1996; Kachru 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996; Phillipson 1992). A
connection between Ecolinguistics and Translation Studies is identified in the
Ecosystemic Translation theory (Lynes 2012), encompassing an “ecology of translation”
or a “translation of ecology”. In this respect, as an “interdiscipline” operating “as craft”
(Cronin 2017), translation is discussed in the process of foreignisation of the source-text
language, opposed to that of its domestication in the target-text language. In particular,
the need to minoritise translation rather than to assimilate it to elude ethnocentric
translation reveals the aim of a “discursive heterogeneity” contrasting with the
assimilation of non-dominant linguistic and cultural difference to the dominant
language (Venuti 1996; 2008). An analysis of different views is thus offered in favour
of an ethical and ecological approach re-thinking the translation process.

Keywords: ecolinguistics; eco-translation; ecosophy; ecological linguistics; ecological
translation; translation studies.




Copyright © 2022
The text in this work is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.                                       A184
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1. Introduction: The Concept of Ecosophy in Ecolinguistics

In order to approach the field of Ecological Translation, influential theories of
Ecological Linguistics and Translation Studies are taken into account, by
considering the holistic perspective (Mühlhäusler 2000: 306) in the translational
practice, as it appears that languages reflect their speakers’ cultural tenets in that
resulting in their interactions with the environment. These theories are dealt with
in the subsequent paragraphs discussing the implications of the use of a dominant
language over non-dominant languages in translation, to identify effective strategies
to rethink the process of translation, to minoritise rather than assimilate it and to
elude the anthropocentrism or the ethnocentrism in language. Whereas the
approach to the concept of “ecosophy” (Naess 1989: 35-40) is here introduced in
order to define the field of ecolinguistics. Considering Arran Stibbe’s study
investigating ecolinguistics as a discipline, he discusses the role the ecolinguist
would have in forging his/her “own ecosophy”, to look into the vast variety of
philosophical theories about “human communities and the natural world”. To do
so, on the one hand the ecolinguist would need to approach to the “scientific
understanding” of the species, human/nonhuman, of the ecosystem, to ascertain the
way they interact and reciprocally influence as well as mutually impact one another.
On the other hand, s/he would aspire to base his/her research on scientific
assumptions within “an ethical framework”, to manage decisions on the issues
linked to the subsistence of these species in the natural world (2014: 118-119).
Stibbe’s theory of ecolinguistics thus focuses on how discourse would conceptualise
the impact of human culture on the environment and how language would be
utilised to raise awareness of it (2014: 119-121). This view draws on the theory of
ecosophy posited by Arne Naess: it follows from a threefold belief based on the
combination of the study of ecology, which would investigate in a biological sense
the organisms in the ecosystem in the way they interrelate, and that of philosophy,
to postulate an ecophilosophy. The study of ecophilosophy would thus deal with the
practical issues conveyed by discourse resulting from environmental considerations
based on philosophical assumptions. This interdisciplinary framework, aiming at a
systematic and ethic knowledge of the ecological diversity in its complexity, would
thus create the premises for an ecosophy (Naess 1989: 35-40) as “a philosophical
world-view or system inspired by the conditions of life in the ecosphere” (1989: 38).
Hence, ecosophy reflects multiform and complex processes of reasoning leading to
the utter value of “deep ecology” (Naess 1989: 38-39). In drawing on Naess’s
theoretical principles of ecosophy, Arran Stibbe approaches to ecolinguistics as to a
discipline aiming to analyse how discourses convey ecological worldviews “to
examine how ecological identities are forged in language” (Stibbe 2014: 124-125).


2. Ecological Linguistics: The mutual relation between Language and the
Environment

In delineating the scope of ecolinguistics, Alwin Fill (2018) points out it deals with
“how language construes our view of nature and environment”. Fill argues that


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ecolinguistics historically dates back to the 19th century, by virtue of Charles
Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology, and that was only in the 1960s that the
lexeme “ecological” would be interpreted as “biological, natural, environmentally
friendly” (2018: 1). The ecological perspective of studies applied to linguistics,
developed in the last fifty years, would thus incorporate different approaches to
the domain of ecology that are related to language by focusing on the environment
where its organisms coexist and affect each other. As Fill notes, ecolinguistics
embraces two main directions of research, in the ‘ecological linguistics’ and in the
‘ecology of language(s)’, that are deemed complementary anyhow (2018: 2-3). In
this respect, Einar Haugen’s theory of the Ecology of Language (1972) appears to
account for the aforementioned directions, although differing from them, in that
combining the ecological perspective to language within a sociological framework
(Fill 2018: 3). It looks into the mutual interconnection between language and the
environment, where language is deemed as a code socially used that is learnt,
shared and thus handed down by its speakers who are related to their natural
surroundings (1972: 325). In particular, by drawing on Greek philosophy, Haugen
considered language as endowed with a “life” of which the twofold nature consists
in “enérgeia”, as activity (Peters, 1967: 55-56), and “érgon”, as object resulting
from that activity (Peters, 1967: 61-62). In reconsidering Wilhelm von Humboldt’s
thought of language as being “no product (Ergon), but an activity (Energeia)”
(1988: 49), Haugen also opposed a naturalistic view, in that language would
incorporate both concepts, inasmuch as any speaker reflects a potentiality in
performing an activity (1972: 326).
     As regards the numerous approaches to the field of ecolinguistics, a recent
study by Steffensen and Fill (2014) categorises them according to four different
ecological dimensions, moving from the concept of language in its environment,
although each would not be seen as rigidly separated from the others (2014: 7).
The first dimension is the “symbolic ecology” and aims at exploring languages
with a broad scope denoting their comprehensiveness rather than their
distinctiveness: it looks at how languages would coexist geographically or
institutionally, as systems of symbols coherently interacting and preserving their
diversity. The second dimension is the “natural ecology” and examines different
strands denoting how languages would relate, for instance, by dealing with the
topographical analyses of their surrounding ecosystems. In particular, one of its
strands investigates the device of metaphor for the conceptualisation of discourse
on the environment. The third dimension is the “sociocultural ecology” and
observes how languages would interrelate with their structured societies, by
focusing on the field of language acquisition, on how their speakers’ interactions
take place socially and culturally, to uphold an ecological subsistence of
multilingual settings. Lastly, the fourth dimension, the “cognitive ecology”,
analyses a psychological perspective that considers how languages are
cognitively realised as resulting from the relationship between the different
species and as adapting in their environment (Steffensen and Fill 2014: 8-14). In
reconceptualising the language coherently with an ecological view, Steffensen
and Fill’s survey aims at postulating “a unified ecological language science” by
developing a threefold reasoning to approach to a model they consider of


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“naturalised language”. The first assumption of this reasoning would entail
rethinking language by considering it as interwoven with the natural
environment, and thus rejecting the basic principle of language merely
observable on the basis of the relation between form and function. Whereas the
second assumption would incorporate the aforementioned four ecological
dimensions as “descriptive dimensions of a single explanatory framework”, with
the aim to grasp the complexity of language. With regard to such assumptions,
language would accordingly denote the “interbodily coordination” humans are
endowed with, inasmuch as a species within a varied and complex ecosystem.
Their specificity, nevertheless, would merely reveal their interdependence with
the other organisms in the environment, for the principle that “there are no self-
sufficient realms”, as well as the human realm is not separable from the others.
In this respect, Steffensen and Fill’s third assumption of reasoning critically
discusses the framework of theories based on a social constructivism that would
not privilege the natural perspective in discourse. An ecolinguistic approach
would thus advocate the “human interactivity” in favour of a sociocultural
ecological discourse rather developing “ethnographically informed explanations
of how human beings integrate symbolic structures in their lives” (Steffensen
and Fill 2014: 17-20).
     Another recent study in the field of cognitive linguistics by Johanna
Rączaszek-Leonardi (2009) reconsiders the analysis of natural language from a
different perspective. This is investigated by assuming the relation between
language as a system, codified by symbols, and language as a device of
coordination regulating the interactional communication, utilised according to
symbolic structures. If on the one hand speakers shape their natural language,
on the other hand speakers’ natural language shapes their human interactions.
In particular, the analysis of the lexicogrammar of a language would disclose the
dynamical processes that regulate these interactions, which are not necessarily
exerted by their locutors individually and above all consciously. These dynamics
would rather be the result of the coordination of individuals’ interlocutions and,
in that a dynamical system, they would play a crucial role in shaping the
linguistic symbols that thus function as constrains to these interactional
dynamics (Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2009: 666-670). In focusing on these
assumptions, Johanna Rączaszek-Leonardi notes that “communication does not
happen because of how we use language. Rather language directs and constrains
coordination by enabling us to use extant forms of communication both on-line
and in its evolution” (2009: 667).
     In supporting the view of the interdependence between the lexicogrammar
of a language and the environment, Andrew Goatly’s analysis (1996) explains
how the former would affect the individuals’ understanding and actions on the
latter, as well as the individuals’ environment would influence the
lexicogrammar. This mutual relation in Goatly’s standpoint, which represents the
essence of culture, would reflect the aforementioned dynamical systems and be
affected by time. By drawing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states how
language shapes the individuals’ experience of the world in the way this is
conceptualised, Goatly discusses the need to rethink the essential value of the


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use of language in relation to the natural environment, insofar as the latter comes
out conceptually marginalised (2018: 227-228). By means of the linguistic
analysis of a prototypical transitive clause in English, Goatly denotes the
semantic anthropocentrism rendered by the lexicogrammar of the language,
which, for instance, would be manifest in a common correlation expressing the
relation human-nonhuman. He firstly examines the active voice “The dog chased
me”, to which he opposes the passive voice “I was chased by the dog”.
Accordingly, by reversing its referents in the active voice “I chased the dog” he
opposes the improbable passive voice “The dog was chased by me”. From this
correlation, Goatly identifies an empathic hierarchy constructed by the
prototypical clause resulting in “speaker > hearer > human > animal > physical
object > abstract entity”, which would be conceptually interpreted as “a human
actor provides the energy to act upon a passive (perhaps nonhuman) affected
nature in a setting/environment”, thus unavoidably marginalising the value in
meaning of the latter (2018: 234). By investigating different texts, Goatly’s
analysis (2018) explores the lexicogrammar of the language in its processes of
nominalization as well as of verbal ergativity to show how language semantically
epitomises nature in its passivity with empathic hierarchy or in its activity,
although merely to serve human necessities. The dominance of the human realm
over the nonhuman realm would thus need to be linguistically undermined. In
this respect, by discussing an ecolinguistic approach to language, Goatly draws
on William Wordsworth’s The Prelude and on The Collected Poems of Edward
Thomas, who represented nature in the language of poetry endowed with vitality
rather than abstractness or passivity, and examines the lexical occurrences of
human/nonhuman words in terms of their frequency of use. Two instances are
here offered from Goatly’s lexical analysis: the first is from Wordsworth’s The
Prelude, where it is the weather acting and influencing the human’s reality (book
IV, 85–86) (Goatly 2018: 240):

      That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind
      Roar and the rain beat hard

   Whereas the second, Thomas’s poem Sedge Warblers, is devoted to birds
communicating their vigour in nature (Goatly 2018: 241):

      This was the best of May—the small brown birds
      Wisely reiterating endlessly
      What no man learnt yet, in or out of school.

     With regard to the concept of semantic anthropocentrism, Fill notes how
“languages ‘name’ all natural phenomena from the point of view of their
usefulness for humans” (2001: 49) or, differently, languages signify them, hence
from their perspectives, even implicitly. In this respect, it might be argued that
Mühlhäusler’s mere statement “Life in a particular human environment is
dependent on people’s ability to talk about it” (1995: 155) provides the evidence
to confirm Fill’s assumption. Mühlhäusler’s (1996) view would entail languages
reflecting their speakers’ cultural tenets as resulting in their interactions with the


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environment. Meaning, as socially construed, is shaped by speakers’ aptitude to
utilise a language mutually expressing their cultural identity: as a dynamic
system, language evolves over time and stratifies, and effects linguistic diversity
and variational complexity. These considerations would comply with Halliday’s
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach according to which “the internal
organization of language is not arbitrary but embodies a positive reflection of
the functions that language has evolved to serve in the life of social man” (1976:
26). This would suggest the threefold function played by the language, which
consists in meanings construed and exchanged by its speakers within a social
system (Halliday 1978: 2): “language is at the same time a part of reality, a
shaper of reality, and a metaphor for reality” (Halliday 2001: 180). Hence, a
critical view would advocate a change in language that would adapt to the
ecological processes so as to represent the environment effectively as a life
system. Language itself would be conveyed to diminish linguistic dominance
over the other species of the natural environment, and to maintain linguistic
diversity.
     As Peter Finke observes the ecological linguistics would not rest on the
structural patterns that render language as a system separated from its
environment, and would rather embrace a holistic view (2014: 74). As a
discipline with its epistemology and field of enquiry on empiricism,
ecolinguistics thus appears to investigate language in its environment by
encompassing different theoretical studies (Fill 2001: 51). In this respect,
research in ecolinguistics has now developed “a unified ecological worldview”,
by carrying the relation between humans and the environment towards ethical
and religious issues (Fill 2018: 3).


3. From Ecolinguistics to Eco-Translation

The numerous theories of ecological linguistics exploring different areas of
studies, some of which are cited in this contribution, would share the awareness
suggesting the significance for any existing natural language to subsist and be
preserved in its own degree of diversity and complexity. The vision contrasts
with the concept of global language which, inasmuch as dominant, would exert
an impact over the other non-dominant languages, by effecting their
disappearance along with the loss of their cultural identity. This consideration
might be inferred, for instance, from the concept of the ethnocentrism of
language discussed in Peter Mühlhäusler’s survey, which results from the policy
that he defines of “linguistic imperialism”. The notion is based on the assumption
that a language is imposed over other indigenous languages, as the expression of
“a single set of economic, political or cultural norms” (1996: 18), as influential,
and as the only conceivable in institutional, educational, and professional
contexts. Similarly, from a different angle Robert Phillipson discusses the concept
of “linguicism” as a facet of linguistic imperialism that epitomises “ideologies and
structures where language is the means for effecting or maintaining an unequal
allocation of power and resources” (1992: 55). Linguiscism also results in the


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power a language exerts due to its accent as well as lexicogrammar, for instance,
considering the native-like variety as if it were the only entitled to be officially
spoken when compared to the other local varieties. This phenomenon would
usually occur with the emerged varieties of English by non-native speakers, used
in countries that were former colonies of the British Empire or reflecting
language contact due to its political expansion. As Phillipson explains:
“Linguicism is in operation if the Centre language is always used, and Periphery
languages are not accorded enough resources to develop so that the same
functions could be performed in them” (1992: 57).
     These instances concern the international status the English language has
acquired: as David Crystal remarks, to become global “a status, a language has
to be taken up by other countries around the world” (2003: 4). In the broad
sense, a categorisation according to three Circles of the regions in the world
affected by the spread of English has been made by Braj Kachru, the first being
the Inner Circle that refers to the countries where English is spoken as a native
language. Whereas the countries considering English as a non-native language,
in that the official secondary language and the leading foreign language, are
respectively associated to the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle (1992: 3).
English is also said to be spoken as a language of contact, in that the “foreign
language of communication”, by non-native speakers who share different native
languages and cultures (Firth 1996: 240) or, from a different angle, as “lingua
franca” (Kachru, 1996: 906). In this respect, due to language contact as well as
to its language policy (1994: 147-148), English is characterised by multiple
“identities” and is perceived as a “neutral” language among the other languages.
As deemed “an effective code of communication” in international and political
affairs, English exerts its strategic influence of ‘power’ on the one hand, and of
“solidarity” on the other hand (Kachru 1994: 139-141). In his analysis, Braj
Kachru examines different processes such as the linguistic and ethno-cultural
“nativisation” and “acculturation” that result from the extended contact of English
with other languages and cultures over a long time. The former concerns the
influence of the English variety on the local identity of language in its
lexicogrammar, such as in the case of Indian English; whereas the latter deals
with the resulting local shift in culture (1992: 6). Accordingly, Kachru discusses
the “Englishisation” and “nativisation” as two phenomena due to contact
determining an impact that the English language and literature has had on the
languages in those countries converging to an English variety. The phenomenon
of Englishisation is the results of a “new English-mixed” code not only changed in
its lexicogrammar but also in its literary genres (Kachru 1992: 8). In this respect,
by focusing on the process of acculturation with regard to international
migration, John Berry’s analysis categorises four “acculturation strategies” that
non-dominant ethnic groups as well as individuals would experience when
migrating, which consist in “assimilation, separation, integration and
marginalization” (1980: 11). The process of acculturation would thus presuppose
an “acculturated behaviour” determined by “acculturative influences” of cultures
interrelated with the change occurred in different ecological settings (Berry and
Annis, 1974: 387). Considering the implications of language contact experienced


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by non-dominant ethnic groups, in situ or abroad, it might be argued that the
process of acculturation entails a twofold process leading unavoidably to the
marginalisation of their original linguistic and cultural identity.
     In contrast with a hierarchical view and by supporting the existence of a
structured variety of languages, Mühlhäusler’s “ecological theory of language
maintenance” emphasises the need any language has to constitute its “ecological
support system” to subsist, by establishing a relationship with other languages
that is functional to their coexistence (1996: 322-323). Mühlhäusler’s ecological
support system would consider mutual relations between languages entailing
“other languages from which they can borrow, internal dialect variation,
territory, language-centred cultural practices, natural boundaries, optimum size
of a population of speakers, metalinguistic belief systems” and other factors
(1996: 276). Mühlhäusler’s concept of “structured diversity” would thus reject
the monolingualism entailing an official standard representing the norm, and
would rather look at languages as coexisting in multilingual contexts in that
interdependent (1996: 77-79). Furthermore, according to the theory of linguistic
ecology as a subfield of linguistics, the phenomenon of language contact would
involve, among others, four main “dimensions”, namely of “speakers, space, time,
and language systems” (Ludwig, Mühlhäusler, Pagel, 2018: 20). These are looked
at as “significant parameters” (Ludwig, Mühlhäusler, Pagel, 2018: 36) of the
social and cultural context they belong to or refer. Accordingly, these dimensions
would also play a crucial role in the translational practice.
     The mediation between languages in the translation of a source text
(henceforth ST) into a target text (TT), according to an ecological view would
uphold their coexistence, by attributing a different character to the process
generally concerned with the theory of translation. In principle, this process
would not rest in the mere interpretation of a text in its metadiscourse, where
the interactions between the author and his/her text, as well as between the
author and his/her reader are examined in the organisation and structure of its
propositional content. The process of translation would rather involve an in-
depth analysis in “constant experimentation with the text, such that the text as
something closed and organic is undone, unravelled, opened out” (Scott 2018:
110). It could be argued that the translation process needs the translator to
approach the text as ‘an open work’ (Eco 1989: 9), as a widened ST in its
manifold signifying functions, to the detriment of a plain rewording performed
according to ‘a term-to-term determination’ (Eco 1989: 11). In this way, the
translation process would rather consist in “the reformulation of the ST as a new
signifier, projecting the ST into a new becoming” (Scott 2018: 48). The
translation process would thus render a reformulated TT that allows the reader
to take his/her own position on the interpretation of the “network of
relationships” in the text, by making use of the different dimensions
simultaneously offered to his/her sensorial perceptions (Eco 1989: 11). In this
respect, in a lecture held at the University of Exeter, Clive Scott discussed the
notion of eco-translation considering the process of translation as based on “a
psycho-physiological involvement”. The involvement that Scott suggested
concerns the data of the ST observed from the angle of the psycho-physiological


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relation that an author would have with the language of his/her open work.
Undoubtedly, this view rests on the consideration that the language utilised to
produce any text reflects the individuality of the writing subject (Scott 2018: 33).
Hence, the involvement of the data presented by the ST “can only be achieved if
translation is first order creation, a reformulation of the source text which
enlarges or extents or relocates its activity by enacting the existential and
multisensory response of the reading subject” (2015: 2:15).
     A link between ecolinguistics and Translation Studies is correspondingly
established by Philippe Lynes’s Ecosystemic Translation theory that is based on
the mutual relationship looking at “ecolinguistics and environmental ethics as
ecological literacy”. This perspective would suggest the development of an
ecosystemic translation encompassing on the one hand an “ecology of
translation”, utilised to investigate languages in their historical and social
background. On the other hand, a “translation of ecology”, of which its linguistic
patterns would be rendered according to an ecological perspective entailing the
processes of foregnisation and minoritisation (Venuti 1996: 93) of dominant
languages (2012: 5-6). In this regard, Lynes discusses the role of translation,
which would be rethought in the awareness that dominant cultures need to
develop a comprehension of the diversity of other cultures as well as of other
species. Translation would thus imply “negotiation of differences and
transmission” (Lynes 2012: 24). Lynes’s concept of transmission is drawn upon
Michael Cronin’s theory on “translation ecology” (2003: 167), which would see
the translator as mediator between languages with a “transmissive rather than
communicative” approach (2012: 25), the only allowing translation to contribute
effectively “to genuine biocultural diversity on the planet” (Cronin 2003: 167).
In this respect, translation needs to be looked at from an interdisciplinary
perspective by operating “as ‘craft’” (Cronin, 2017: 6). In favour of an ecological
approach to translation, Cronin urges to re-think the translation process, in
reconsidering the languages and cultures of the ST and the TT with the aim to
minoritise dominant linguistic and conceptual patterns of translation. Cronin
denotes the need of translating diversity in the relationship of human beings and
other species: the lack of intelligible communication between human and
nonhuman creatures would reveal the basic necessity that humans have to be
“multilingual” in order to reconnect by transcending these differences and
survive in facing the environmental crisis collectively (2003: 58-59).
     Translation is conventionally considered “a rewriting of an original text”
(Lefevere, Bassnett 1992: Editors’ Preface), or more specifically a “refraction, a
form of writing that is rewriting” (Tymoczko 2014: 42). Maria Tymoczko points
out how the refraction of the text is concerned with its metonymic character,
which is fractional and incomplete, especially considering the load of the cultural
shift needed to be transferred from the interpretation of a ST reformulated in a
rewriting of a TT (2010: 81). This view draws attention to the practical use of
metonymy in the rewritings (Tymoczko 2014: 42) according to which the
metonymic character of the text would be observed along with two other features,
“literal” and “metaphoric”. The former relates to the literary field forwarding the
broadening of the metaphorical facets that allows the latter to develop its


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metonymic signifying functions (Tymoczko 2014: 45). This assumption would
imply more considerable issues in the translation of “marginalized texts” that are
written by those cultures considered linguistically marginalised, in that their
writings would appear as opaque to the receiving culture. By definition, the
refraction of a ST, reformulated and offered to an audience, would render the
translator responsible for the nature of his/her rewriting. Especially, s/he would
be accountable to the receiving culture for the translation of a text that would
acquire the representativeness “of the whole source literature and, indeed, of the
entire source culture for the receptor audience” (Tymoczko 2014: 47). Hence, the
unfamiliarity effected to the receiving culture by those texts presenting metonymic
features related to the literature of their marginalised cultures, would render them
as unintelligible to dominant cultures and would rather be seen as “irrespective of
any linguistic or even ideological barrier”. The overload of defamiliarised
language, consisting in the degree of the unfamiliar instances in a translated text
would thus be completely or partially incomprehensible to the receiving culture,
who would render it familiar by reinterpreting and reshaping it (Tymoczko 2014:
48). Hence, in these circumstances, Tymoczko argues that choices are necessarily
to be made to manage this overload of unfamiliar information in the process of
translation. An explanation in the form of “metatranslation” and “paratextual
devices” to deals with any metonymy identified in the ST would thus need to be
provided, by turning the refraction into a range of contextualised material
appealing to the audience. This process, however, would inevitably entail
“linguistic loss and gain”, which pertains to the literature and the culture of the
ST, as it would not be possible to entirely grasp in the translation process the
features characterising the language of the ST in its paradigmatic and syntagmatic
relationships (2014: 48-49). As a result, scholarly and professional translations
give prominence to particular features of these metonymic relationships, namely
considering the relation “between text and literary system, or text and culture”
(Tymoczko 2014: 50). Hence, the process entails conforming the translation to the
receiving culture by removing the metonymic features from its ST, and
assimilating them to the metonymic features of the dominant language, especially
when dealing with a marginalised text (Tymoczko 2014: 50).
     In this respect, Lawrence Venuti argues that translating a ST into a TT by
rendering the latter “a cultural other” in order to appear as familiar, would imply
the risk of an indiscriminate domestication of the ST (Venuti 2008: 14). The
principle of foreignisation of the ST in translation would entail “disrupting the
cultural codes that prevail in the translating language” with the result of
experiencing “an alien reading”. In light of this, by opposing a process of
foreignisation to that of domestication of the ST would imply resisting “against
ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism, in the interests t
democratic geopolitical relations” (Venuti 2008: 15-16). In particular, the necessity
of minoritising translation rather than assimilating it would elude ethnocentric
translation in its main function of “inscribing the foreign text with domestic
intelligibilities and interests” (Venuti 1996: 93). Translation aims at “discursive
heterogeneity” in order to contrast with the assimilation of non-dominant linguistic
and cultural difference to the dominant language (Venuti 1996: 94-95).


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    In light of these considerations, to rethink the process of translation into a
TT, conventionally oriented to the language of the receiving culture, by
converting it into the expression of an eco-translational rationale, would
represent a crucial argument for the retention of the linguistic and cultural
specificity of the ST. In conceptualising the structures of the ST, made up of signs
expressing sense and designating reference, the translator would ideally aim to
render them properly in the TT, to reach their equivalence. However, the
interpretation of linguistic and cultural differences would rather entail selective
choices. Equivalence in translation appears to be practically attainable only at
the level of lexical semantics; whereas, at higher structural levels, linguistic
constrains in sets of expressions or complex sentences of a ST would recurrently
hinder their various senses designating multifaceted references from being fully
rendered in the language of a TT. Hence, an ecological translation would look at
the metonymic density and focus of the linguistic structures that characterise the
ST and retain them, by avoiding a language shift into the TT of the receiving
culture. This choice would be the result of a cognitive and ethical practice of
translation ascribing the original cultural value to the language of the ST.


4. Concluding remarks

Current theories concerning the fields of Ecological Linguistics and Translation
Studies have been discussed in the present analysis by dealing with Mühlhäusler’s
holistic view (2000) from the perspective of the contact between two natural
languages (Ludwig, Mühlhäusler, Pagel, 2018: 20) in the practice of translation. It
appears that if on the one hand speakers shape their natural language, on the other
hand speakers’ natural language shapes their human interactions. In particular, the
analysis of the lexicogrammar of a language discloses the dynamics that are rather
the result of the coordination of individuals’ interlocutions and, as a dynamical
system, they play a crucial role in shaping the linguistic symbols that thus function
as constrains to these interactional dynamics (Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2009: 666-670).
In this respect, the linguistic analysis of a prototypical transitive clause in English
shows how the semantic anthropocentrism rendered by the lexicogrammar of the
language is manifest even in a common correlation expressing the relation human-
nonhuman. In light of this, to rethink the essential value of the use of language in
relation to the natural environment is needed, inasmuch as the latter comes out
conceptually marginalised (Goatly 2018: 227-228). Furthermore, from a different
angle Mühlhäusler’s (1996) view stresses that languages reflect their speakers’
cultural tenets as resulting in their interactions with the environment. Meaning, as
socially construed, is shaped by speakers’ aptitude to utilise a language mutually
expressing their cultural identity: as a dynamic system, language evolves over time
and stratifies, and effects linguistic diversity and variational complexity. Hence, a
critical view advocates a change in language to adapt to the ecological processes by
representing the environment effectively as a life system. Language itself needs to
be conveyed to diminish linguistic dominance over the other species of the natural
environment, and to maintain linguistic diversity.


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     These theories share the vision in contrast with the concept of global language,
inasmuch as dominant, which exerts an impact over the other non-dominant
languages, by effecting their disappearance along with the loss of their cultural
identity. A link between ecolinguistics and Translation Studies is correspondingly
established by Lynes’s Ecosystemic Translation theory, based on the development
of an ecosystemic translation encompassing on the one hand an “ecology of
translation”, utilised to investigate languages in their historical and social
background. On the other hand, a “translation of ecology”, of which its linguistic
patterns are rendered according to an ecological perspective entailing processes of
foregnisation and minoritisation of dominant languages (2012: 5-6). In favour of
an ecological approach to translation, Cronin’s view on “translation ecology” urges
to re-think the translation process and reconsider the source-text and the target-
text languages and cultures involved, in order to aim to minoritise linguistic and
cultural dominant conceptual patterns of translation. Translating diversity in the
relationship of human beings and other species represents the premise that cannot
be left out. In this sense, the lack of intelligible communication between human
and nonhuman creatures reveals the basic necessity that humans have to be
‘multilingual’ in order to reconnect by transcending these differences and survive
by facing the environmental crisis collectively (Cronin 2003: 58-59). From another
angle, the principle of foreignisation of the text in translation is opposed to that of
domestication by the dominant language (Venuti 2008: 15-16). In particular, the
need to minoritise rather than to assimilate the translation process eludes the
ethnocentric translation in dominating to the detriment of the foreign language
and culture of the text. Translation thus aims at “discursive heterogeneity” in order
to be in contrast with the assimilation of non-dominant linguistic and cultural
difference to the dominant language (Venuti 1996: 93-95).
     The facets of an ecological translation here discussed could be said to epitomise
the principle of ecology as “latent” in the text, a broad view supporting an ecological
understanding of the translation process: “we do not translate words as if they had
meanings, but as if they were looking for meaning in the text we are translating”
(Scott 2018: 18). The process of translation into a TT is to be rethought, by assuming
the eco-translational rationale of the ST and supporting the retention of its linguistic
and cultural positioning. Hence, an ecological translation preserving the metonymic
aspects of the original language in their structural density and focus, would avoid
its conventional linguistic and cultural shift into the language of the receiving
culture. For its ethical dimension, this cognitive approach to translation would
ascribe the cultural value to the language of the ST.


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