Cuestiones, preguntas y voluntario 'acotamiento'

[BenCondor]

Hi,
Okay given the following text:

Las cuestiones en torno de las que este texto se organiza - preguntas nacidas de nuestra experiencia, angustiada y desconcertada - son sólo algunas de las muchas posibles, y su explicitación da cuenta del voluntario acotamiento que un intento de este tipo requiere.

I'm attempting to translate it something like this:

The questions revolving around that which this text is organized - questions born from our distressed and disconcerted experience - are only some of the many possible, and their explanation demonstrates the voluntary [roadside shoulder, berm] that an effort of this type requires.

First, the beginning of the sentence doesn't make much sense to me whether I'm reading my translation or reading the original Spanish. Is he saying that the text is organized around/born from "our distressed and disconcerted experience?"

Second, what's with the "roadside shoulder"? The only possible explanation I could come up with is that it's a misprint. They printed "acotamiento" rather than the intended "acortamiento". Is this a reasonable assumption or is there a meaning to "acotamiento" I'm not finding?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Ben

[JPablo]

Well, "acotamiento" is rather "the action and effect of 'acotar'," that is, the "delimitation" established by the author, or it are almost the "self-imposed limits" to the subject.

Problably a bit more context would help, but as far as "acotamiento" is concerned, refers to the "self-imposed limits" to the subject at hand. I.e., if we talk about "tennis", we will only talk about the "Grand Slams" and not about other tournaments... (Excuse the example, but I hope you get my point.)

The text is organized around specific questions, these questions stem from our experience, (be that experience distressed or otherwise.)

I hope I am giving answer to your questions, but if further clarification, let me know.

[aleCcowaN]

I'm trying my own direct translation of the text, so beware, but as it will certainly have a lot of mistakes on the English side, it may be useful for you to detect some meanings and nuances that may have gone unnoticed first time [BTW, is it that another Baroque loving Argentine text?]

"The matters around which this text is organized -questions born from our experience and the anxiety and disconcert coming with it- are just a few among the many possible, as their explicit definition comes to demonstrate the self-restraint this kind of undertaking requires."

Not sure about self-restraint, because it has nothing to do with dominio de uno mismo but with voluntary constraint in order to achieve a goal. Not sure about a dozen things either, but c'est la vie*.

[* some will react to this idiom saying "yo también y no digo nada ¡chancho puerco! ]

[JPablo]

Mmmm... just on the "voluntario acotamiento", I don't quite see it as "self-restraint"... (I may be wrong, without further context).

But I see this simply as specifying what are the limits of our subject.
That is, we are going to talk about the subject "colors", but we are going to "limit" it to the spectrum from "red to yellow", ie., we are not going to talk about anything "from green to purple". We are centering in that specific "bracket".

"Volutario acotamiento" more or less could be said "intentional bracketing" or something like that...

[BenCondor]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies. Okay the acotar angle is very helpful and in fact makes sense within the broader text. Also, Alec has removed the "that" from my translation which then makes more sense as well. The "las" (I'd rendered as "that") may be perhaps - forgive me - one of those funny pronoun repetitions that confuse us English speakers

@Alec. Argentinians like the Baroque style? That would explain a lot!

[aleCcowaN]

Escrito originalmente por BenCondor

@Alec. Argentinians like the Baroque style? That would explain a lot!

We think to be postmos* (in fact Argentina was created postmodernist without bothering in experiencing modernism first), but in fact she's the only American country with an internal boundary between the mentally Baroque Pacific and Caribbean and the Neoclassic Atlantic. Buenos Aires is the black hole where all these converges just to annihilate themselves, so it's said she's the capital of an empire that failed to become such (I can vouch about the hordes of Ostrogoths)

*but some need a few years of study just to become m*f*s.

[BenCondor]

A fresh attempt:

Las cuestiones en torno de las que este texto se organiza - preguntas nacidas de nuestra experiencia, angustiada y desconcertada - son sólo algunas de las muchas posibles, y su explicitación da cuenta del voluntario acotamiento que un intento de este tipo requiere.

The questions around which this text is organized - questions born from our often anxious and disconcerted experience -are only some among the broad panoply which might be fielded, and their explication shows well the implicitly personal selectivity which a work of this kind requires.

Note this is not an attempt to translate word for word but to render in English the approximate style and meaning. Unfortunately there are no sources I can find which actually show a translation for "acotamiento" (other than "road shoulder" or "berm"), so I'm required to fall back on extrapolating it from acotar, which, itself actually has a fairly wide range of meanings. In short, I don't really know what he's really saying!

Others are more than welcome to give it a shot

[JPablo]

A couple of attempts, just for the last part,

y su explicitación da cuenta del voluntario acotamiento que un intento de este tipo requiere.

...and its specification reports on the required self-imposed delimitation that an attempt of this nature requires.

...and their formulation explains the intentional delimitation that such an endeavor requires.

Again, the full context would help, but the modifier "voluntario" could be "self-imposed" or simply "intentional". I even thought of "arbitrario", but again the overall context will give you the best option...

I hope these options are helpful.

[BenCondor]

Hmm. What I'm finding in virtually every source I can find is that "voluntario" really just means "voluntary". Thus, I'm guessing the safest thing is simply to translate it as such.

I'm thinking the best I can do is "voluntary delimitation" which doesn't mean a lot to me, but it's a reasonable translation (IMHO).

As a clarification: In English "self-imposed" is related to, but quite different from, "voluntary". It suggests that there is something which one aspect of the person wants but the "I" is suppressing. Or conversely, one aspect of the person doesn't want and the "I" is forcing. To eliminate the rather draconian sound you could say perhaps "self-selected" or "self-chosen" but this gets into a philosophical question of "who else would be choosing other than the self" I guess we could get out the collected works of Berkeley and Kant

[JPablo]

I see your point on the draconian nuances of the "self-imposed" modifier.

"Voluntary delimitation", in the sense of "intended delimitation" or even "planned delimitation" is probably the best choice...

Since you have enough free will to choose, as long as you convey the original concept of the text, you can end up with "voluntary delimitation" without being limited by this univocal election...

Interestingly enough, you just remind me an old tale by Manuel Komroff (?) about an old man who spent his life in prison (quite some limitations there) and when he got free, he elected a room with some bars at the windows and not much space to live in... (Paradoxical at best!)

Short of getting into Berkeley, Kant and Nietzsche...

BTW, I checked in the net the overall context, and the idea of "voluntario acotamiento" is obviosly the "voluntary delimitation" of a subject as broad and complex as history is. That is, one has to decide what limits to put on his subject, so as to not to get lost...

My voluntary