After Babel

After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation is a book by the literary critic George Steiner, first published in January 1975 by Oxford University Press in the United Kingdom. Its subject is the so-called "Babel problem", that is, the existence of many languages and the difficulties of communicating across them. Since its appearance it has been regarded as one of the most thorough studies of language and translation, both influential and controversial.

Steiner argues against conventional views of translation by maintaining that all human communication, within a language and between languages, is a form of translation. To understand is to decipher, and to hear meaning is to translate. He suggests that linguistic diversity arose partly from the human desire for privacy and territory, with languages serving to keep secrets and to preserve cultural isolation. In his view, real translation is impossible in a strict sense, since the original meaning is always partly lost and the translated text carries the translator's own beliefs, knowledge and attitudes. For this reason he treats translation as a hermeneutical task, "not a science, but an exact art".

From this starting point Steiner proposes a "systematic hermeneutic translation theory" that combines philosophical hermeneutics with existing translation studies. The model has four movements: trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution. The first and last honour the source text and its author's intentions, while aggression and incorporation favour the translator.

The book was adapted for television in 1977 as The Tongues of Men and inspired the English experimental rock group News from Babel, formed in 1983. Several scholars have criticized it, some questioning how far its use of hermeneutics holds up, yet its influence on debates about translation and intercultural communication remains considerable.