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German to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - History
German term or phrase:topisch
From a scholarly text on philosophers in the 15th century:
Er sehnte sich später, als er Augustinergeneral geworden war, nach dieser Zeit zurück. Freilich wirken solche Klagen angesichts seiner späteren Karriere auch *topisch*.
The person in question had a very succesful career. I'm wondering whether topisch can be translated as "rhetorical" here (see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topik_(Rhetorik)). What do people think?
Explanation: In the light of the discussion there seem to be two options of translating this:
1. "topical" as the exact, but rarely used English equivalent of the German "topisch" (in this case for affected complaints).
2. "rhethorical commonplace" as a term perhaps more easily understandable to a non-specialist audience.
Since Trude is the only one who posted an answer, she gets the points, but you were all very helpfu. I ended up asking the author who in both cases meant rhetorical in the sense of affected modesty 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
Ich meine, topisch bezieht sich auf zwei verschiedene Topoi
1.Topos der affektierten Bescheidenheit (sträubt sich, eine Beförderung anzunehmen)
2. Lob der Vergangenheit ( sehnte sich zurück iin frühere Zeiten) http://shortify.com/11475 http://shortify.com/11476
I should have thought this through and then posted in one go. The reason I'm so sure the topos in question is the modesty one is that topos comes from the Greek for place. So topisch = knowing one's place. I think...
That "aber" is strange. On my reading of the sentence, it implies something along the lines of "despite his protestations, which did him no good, he now found himself with all this power and money."
The topos in question is the topos of affected modesty - that much seems clear. "Rhetorical" makes perfect sense in the first sentence. It makes it clear that the modesty was false without actually calling the churchman insincere. In the second instance, I might actually refer to the topos of affected modesty, although I would check with the author or the editor. I think the difficulty is that you have to choose in between what the author has actually said (not very much) and what he or she didn't say in so many words but probably meant.
I'm a bit confused too. I was going to say "rhetorical" fits both cases, but if that were so, why would it be followed by "aber" in the second one? If he were just pretending, it would be "denn nun verfügte er".
...which leads me to doubt my suggestion above. Further on in the text there's this:
Papst Julius II. bestellte den 37jährigen zum General der Augustinereremiten. XX sträubte sich vergeblich. Auch das ist *topisch*, aber nun verfügte er über Einfluss, umfassende Wissenschaftsmöglichkeiten und viel Geld.
confused.
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Answers
2 days1 hr confidence:
topical, rhethorical commonplace
Explanation: In the light of the discussion there seem to be two options of translating this:
1. "topical" as the exact, but rarely used English equivalent of the German "topisch" (in this case for affected complaints).
2. "rhethorical commonplace" as a term perhaps more easily understandable to a non-specialist audience.
Sorry for the typo! it is "rhetorical", of course!
Example sentence(s):
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. On Historical Principles. 5th Edition, Oxford 2002 Vol. 2, p. 3299-3300,
Trude Stegmann Local time: 02:08 Specializes in field Native speaker of: German PRO pts in category: 12
Grading comment
Since Trude is the only one who posted an answer, she gets the points, but you were all very helpfu. I ended up asking the author who in both cases meant rhetorical in the sense of affected modesty
The translation workplace 
