IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB794185144

The Letter, the Dictionary and the Laboratory: Translating Chemistry and Mineralogy in Eighteenth-Century France (2016)

Bret, Patrice (Author)

Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Volume: 73
Issue: 2
Pages: 122-142

DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2015.1034780

URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2015.1034780

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Professions and professionalization Cross-national interaction Communication of scientific ideas Laboratories Mineralogy Transmission of ideas Science and literature Translations 18th century France

Eighteenth-century scientific translation was not just a linguistic or intellectual affair. It included numerous material aspects requiring a social organization to marshal the indispensable human and non-human actors. Paratexts and actors' correspondences provide a good observatory to get information about aspects such as shipments and routes, processes of translation and language acquisition (dictionaries, grammars and other helpful materials, such as translated works in both languages), texts acquisition and dissemination (including author's additions and corrections, oral presentations in academic meetings and announcements of forthcoming translations).The nature of scientific translation changed in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. Beside solitary translators, it also happened to become a collective enterprise, dedicated to providing abridgements (Collection académique, 1755–79) or enriching the learned journals with full translations of the most recent foreign texts (Guyton de Morveau's ‘Bureau de traduction de Dijon’, devoted to chemistry and mineralogy, 1781–90). That new trend clearly had a decisive influence on the nature of the scientific press itself. A way to set up science as a social activity in the provincial capital of Dijon, translation required a local and international network for acquiring the linguistic and scientific expertise, along with the original texts, as quickly as possible. Laboratory results and mineralogical observations were used to compare material facts (colour, odour, shape of crystals, etc.) with those described in the original text. By providing a double kind of validation – with both the experiments and the translations – the laboratory thus happened to play a major role in translation.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB794185144/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Alison E. Martin; (2016)
Outward Bound: Women Translators and Scientific Travel Writing, 1780–1800 (/isis/citation/CBB858206004/)

Article Bettina Dietz; (2016)
Linnaeus' Restless System: Translation as Textual Engineering in Eighteenth-Century Botany (/isis/citation/CBB906139658/)

Article Bertucci, Paola; (2013)
The In/visible Woman: Mariangela Ardinghelli and the Circulation of Knowledge between Paris and Naples in the Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001320190/)

Article Turner, Anthony; (2008)
An Interrupted Story: French Translations from Philosophical Transactions in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (/isis/citation/CBB000930237/)

Chapter Bret, Patrice; (2008)
Les promenades littéraires de Madame Picardet. La traduction comme pratique sociale de la science au XVIIIe siècle (/isis/citation/CBB000954616/)

Book Guedj, Denis; (2001)
The Measure of the World: A Novel (/isis/citation/CBB000102624/)

Book Vámos, Éva; (2005)
Communication in Chemistry in Europe, across Borders and across Generations (/isis/citation/CBB000700923/)

Chapter Bogaart, Saskia; (2005)
Vernacularisation of Latin Science: On the Properties of Things and Van den proprieteyten der Dinghen (/isis/citation/CBB001020107/)

Article Cooper, Alix; (2007)
Latin Words, Vernacular Worlds: Language, Nature, and the “Indigenous” in Early Modern Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001021332/)

Chapter Claire G. Jones; (2018)
‘All Your Dreadful Scientific Things’: Women, Science and Education in the Years Around 1900 (/isis/citation/CBB433713212/)

Article Jenny Beckman; (2016)
The Publication Strategies of Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779–1848): Negotiating National and Linguistic Boundaries in Chemistry (/isis/citation/CBB790774780/)

Book Newcomb, Sally; (2009)
The World in a Crucible: Laboratory Practice and Geological Theory at the Beginning of Geology (/isis/citation/CBB001021017/)

Article Yulia Frumer; (2018)
Translating Words, Building Worlds: Meteorology in Japanese, Dutch, and Chinese (/isis/citation/CBB142366610/)

Chapter Lawrence M. Principe; (2014)
Goldsmiths and Chymists: The Activity of Artisans Within Alchemical Circles (/isis/citation/CBB936081643/)

Chapter Louvel, Severine; (2010)
Changing Authority Relations within French Academic Research Units since the 1960s: From Patronage to Partnership (/isis/citation/CBB001420860/)

Article Alan J. Rocke; (2018)
Englishing Kopp (/isis/citation/CBB685795190/)

Article Ulrich Päßler; (2022)
A Prusso-French Connection: The Scientific Friendship between Alexander von Humboldt and François Arago (/isis/citation/CBB671072516/)

Article Collin, Johanne; (2010)
French and British Influence in the Birth of a Profession: Pharmacy in Québec (/isis/citation/CBB001000216/)

Article Hollier, John; Hollier, Anita; Schnyder, Cédric; (2015)
The Publications and Collections of Louis-Albert Necker (1786–1861) (/isis/citation/CBB001500438/)

Book Krassnitzer, Patrick; Overath, Petra; (2007)
Bevölkerungsfragen: Prozesse des Wissenstransfers in Deutschland und Frankreich (1870--1939) (/isis/citation/CBB001031988/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}