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Difference between words tōsha and kitō

readingmouse

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27 Dec 2014
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dear members of the forum, i would be very grateful if someone helped me understand the difference between words 'tōsha' and 'kitō'. in the article i'm reading, both are mentioned and then translated into english as 'projecting', but the article also seems to indicate there is some kind of difference in the meaning of the two words. however, i am lost as to what the difference actually is. thank you in advance!
 
Please at least give us the sentence(s),

Is the article written in romaji?
 
"Tōsha" would be 投射; "projecting an image on a screen", "transferring (ideas or principles) from one domain into another", or "a defense mechanism by which your own traits and emotions are attributed to someone else" as a psychological term.
I can't think of what "kitō" refers to, either. As Mike-san mentioned, can you give us the context where the word is used?
 
thank you for replying! the article is in english, but the author, who is japanese, occasionally uses japanese words to make his point clear. the following passage is the context in which the two words appear:
'Translation does not occur in between one language and another. Rather, the image of a language as an enclosed and unitary totality is posited precisely through the representation of translation. Put another way, the figure of "translation as a filter" is what regulates the representation of translation. This is because the schematism of translation renders "incomprehensibility" into "comprehensibility" by projecting (tōsha) – or project-ing (kitō) – translation into the world. Therefore we can say this much: by representing translation as communication between one language and another, these two languages come to be represented as enclosed 'areas.' '
 
I googled your quote and got the author's name 酒井直樹 Sakai Naoki.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/酒井直樹
(all in Japanese)

And then I googled "kitō" again with 酒井直樹, and got the result 企投; the Japanese translation of a philosophical term "Project" by Jean-Paul Sartre (or "Entwurf" by Martin Heidegger). Other than 企投 "kitō", 投企 "tōki" is also used as the translation of "Project".
http://www.weblio.jp/content/投企
 
great! looks like that's it - now the hyphenation in the second 'projecting', the one followed by 'kitō', makes sense. thank you so much!
 
Hello Readingmouse,

Just out of curiosity: is this for a class, or a personal interest in translation? Does any of that passage make sense to you? I ask because I find Professor Sakai's thesis to be a bit opaque. I can't figure out what the hell he is trying to say, and it sounds like the sort of gibberish that only academia can produce. But looking at his CV he is obviously highly respected. As one who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I feel I should have some kind of inkling as to what he is going on about... but, alas, it is coming out as static.
 
Hello Readingmouse,

Just out of curiosity: is this for a class, or a personal interest in translation? Does any of that passage make sense to you? I ask because I find Professor Sakai's thesis to be a bit opaque. I can't figure out what the hell he is trying to say, and it sounds like the sort of gibberish that only academia can produce. But looking at his CV he is obviously highly respected. As one who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I feel I should have some kind of inkling as to what he is going on about... but, alas, it is coming out as static.

He's saying that translation is merely an artificial construct that makes two essentially indistinguishable things appear to be separate and distinct entities. Sort of like the little plastic doohickey you put on the conveyor belt at the supermarket checkout to distinguish your items from those of the customer ahead of you.
 
Translation as an artificial construct. Its not helping me much, but I am intrigued.

I think he's driving at the point (very obliquely) that there is actually only one human language and that what we think of as different languages are merely different manifestations, with the notion of "translation" serving to reinforce that view of language, causing us to not recognize or consider the "language" that exists independent of different words and grammatical constructs.

Or he just smoked some really good stuff...
 
Hello Readingmouse,

Just out of curiosity: is this for a class, or a personal interest in translation? Does any of that passage make sense to you? I ask because I find Professor Sakai's thesis to be a bit opaque. I can't figure out what the hell he is trying to say, and it sounds like the sort of gibberish that only academia can produce. But looking at his CV he is obviously highly respected. As one who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I feel I should have some kind of inkling as to what he is going on about... but, alas, it is coming out as static.
hello Majestic,
i'm translating this article for a bunch of people interested in the theory of translation. sometimes i find the meaning difficult to grasp, but this passage seems more or less clear to me: our understanding of language as a separate entity appears only when we compare it to another language - in translation. also, i think he is against the notion of languages as 'closed areas', as he puts it, since he views it as narrow and (potentially) giving rise to nationalism. translation, according to the author, is precisely what enables us to construct the image of a particular language as a homogeneous and unique entity.
 
Interesting, thank you for the thoughtful replies. I guess I never thought of language as a closed area or entity, and so from the outset I find it an argument that defies comprehension. This particular passage

the schematism of translation renders "incomprehensibility" into "comprehensibility" by projecting (tōsha) – or project-ing (kitō) – translation into the world.
is white noise to me. And the following;
by representing translation as communication between one language and another, these two languages come to be represented as enclosed 'areas.' '
is a bit less of an enigma, but I still struggle with it. If it is a critique of the way we view translation, it starts to look a bit less opaque, but for two people who speak mutually unintelligible languages, the languages already exist as closed areas regardless of whether or not they are translated.
I remain intrigued. And, I would hate to have to render that passage into Japanese, so I doff my chapeau to you).
Thanks again for the comments. If you come across any passages that crystallize what the prof is pushing, I would be keen to see it.
 
Interesting, thank you for the thoughtful replies. I guess I never thought of language as a closed area or entity, and so from the outset I find it an argument that defies comprehension. This particular passage


is white noise to me. And the following;

is a bit less of an enigma, but I still struggle with it. If it is a critique of the way we view translation, it starts to look a bit less opaque, but for two people who speak mutually unintelligible languages, the languages already exist as closed areas regardless of whether or not they are translated.
I remain intrigued. And, I would hate to have to render that passage into Japanese, so I doff my chapeau to you).
Thanks again for the comments. If you come across any passages that crystallize what the prof is pushing, I would be keen to see it.
oh no, i'm not translating this into japanese - i wish i could, though! (it's ukrainian instead).
as to what the writer is saying in the article: he turns to the figure of a filter to analyze how we see translation. something passes through the filter (comprehensible), something doesn't (incomprehensible). that which passes can be integrated into our sociality, and that which doesn't is discarded. so 'rendering "incomprehensibility" into "comprehensibility" ' stands for forming this idea of what we haven't understood as alien, Other, strange. according to the author, this view limits us to the boundaries of our ethnicity or nationality - and 'the logic of imagining a society based on the presupposition of national or ethnic language, and then developing democracy within that society, no longer holds the relevance that it once enjoyed...It is by inventing a different way of representing translation that we can continue to seek a mode of collective being that is neither national nor ethnic'. instead, what he sees as another way of interaction is trying to find common ground even if you don't understand someone at all because they speak a different language - 'I look for common terms, fragments of some colonial heritages she and I might share, and pursue the possibility of communal work through non-linguistic texts like gestures or maps. Evidently this is what children do when they meet someone they do not understand. What one attempts to gain by this method is neither the original meaning nor the correct interpretation. It is simply a way of turning incomprehensibility into a kind of comprehensibility. This attempt to say "let me try to understand you" is from the very beginning something collective, something co-eval'.
sorry for big quotes!
 
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