Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Hospitality and Ethical Reflection in Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Translation
Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Hospitality and Ethical Reflection in Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutics of Translation

Summary/Abstract: Translation is never just a neutral communicative instrument to connect different linguistic communities or a disinterested process of transmitting messages. The act of translation has an additional ethical value in its function as a model to regulate the interaction between individuals and cultures. The bond of translation, according to Paul Ricoeur, with the inherent narrativity of the acts of recollecting and forgiving further reinforces the dialogicality that characterize translation as an act of exchange. He considers translation as a paradigm due to its mediating role between a diversity of languages and as a controlling metaphor in constructing a European ethos that calls for mutual recognition. This paper aims to investigate the employment of the potentialities of translation as an ethical act in mediating adverse cultural claims and reducing resistant cultural behaviours. Thus, the ultimate question to be addressed in this study is whether translation has the capacity to serve as a universal model in surpassing the limits of the nation-state to promote a more plural and democratic civil society.

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