Deconstructionist and poststructuralist translation approaches: overview and critique

it has become a commonplace to believe that deconstructionist and poststructuralist views on translation have opened new perspectives in translation studies. in this paper1, i attempt to show what the main tenets by the main authors in these theories are (benjamin, derrida, berman, venuti). i also try to show the line of thought that goes from benjamin to berman and derrida and then to venuti. likewise, i focus my attention especially on a well-known controversy between derrida and searle on key aspects of language meaning. in the second part of the paper, i present the main criticisms made by newmark, pym, searle, arrojo, and tymoczko, among others, to the deconstructionist and poststructuralist translation views of interpretation. finally, i draw some conclusions.