It’s known that postmodern era brought with itself new perspectives towards the milestones of Enlightenment thought such as ‘self’, ‘unity’ and on top of all ‘reality’; and perhaps it’s the cultural theory that has been affected by this new conception of world/life the most. The ‘post-’s and ‘de-’s of this new world have obviously converted all representations, constructions, unitarisms and linearisms into misrepresentations, deconstructions, fragmentations and diversions which has lead cultural theory to radical redefinitions. As a socio-linguistic phenomenon, translation has found its position within this new scheme as a central one, quite ready to absorb the new conceptualizations interfering in its sphere.
Presumably, it’s the field of post-colonial studies that has embraced the shifts in cultural theory the most. Adopting the post-modern fragmentation and anti-absolutism as a weapon of decolonization, as also pointed by both Douglas Robinson and Kate Sturge, recent studies in the field impose the same type of oppression ‘the other’ has been exposed to, through making the ‘self’ question itself. In her “The other in Display”, Kate Sturge exemplifies these questionings motivated by decolonization through such offered strategies as ‘metamuseums’, ‘highlighted translatedness’, and ‘displays about displays’. And as all other postmodern binaries, these types of self-retrospections would result in encountering the other in the self. Apparently, borders aren’t as clear-cut as they used to be. Today both the colonized and the colonizer have realized that, throughout the colonization period, they’ve become a part of one another.
The interference of these concerns of post-colonial studies in translation has bestowed the field (actually both fields) with a gigantic object of study. The studies searching for the position of translation among such concepts introduced by post-colonial studies as ‘multiculturalism’, ‘border cultures’ and ‘hybridization’ find the position they’ve searched for right at the centre of the debates; and it is realized that just as ‘culture’, ‘translation’ itself is at the edge of a radical redefinition. As in the case of Sherry Simon’s ‘interlingual creation’, for instance, translation is proposed not as a ‘meta-text’ written over an original one, but a component of the original text, a motive behind the creativity it displays.
In his Translation and Empire, Robinson refers to the pessimistic discussions of post-colonialists about ‘cultural untranslatibility’ (i.e. Homi Bhabha). The article of Sherry Simon is quite enlightening right at this point. Thinking translation as a practice over the ‘hybrid’ (one may call this practice as ‘retranslation’ or ‘backtranslation’ of the ‘native/pure’), in other words, leaving it outside the boundaries of the subject (that is the original text) through regarding it as a meta/post-practice, might lead to unfruitful problematizations where the role of translation is seen as insufficient, therefore unnecessary. Whereas, providing a look from the inside, Simon, Mehrez and Rafael present translation as an active agent within the composition process of the hybrid. From these all, it could be concluded that the post-modern scheme offers translation two options: 1) staying within the boundaries of being a meta-text and ending up with an ‘insufficiency’ (actually this is not a defeat also since for post-moderns no existence is sufficient), 2) embracing the hybrid, finding a position within its composition.
Surely, adopting being the ‘insider’ would require translational research a new methodology, since this brings forth new questions, conceptual backgrounds and agencies with itself. In Sherry Simon’s exemplifications, for instance, translation doesn’t merely present a point of interaction between two cultural and lingual systems; instead, within the texts of Brault, Brossard and Gagnon, it’s firstly the clash of literature and translation that is problematized. Surely this would also concern the interaction between two cultures and languages since, as both Simon and Mehrez imply, such interlingual creation (and the clash of literature and translation) stands for the in-between positionings brought by the border-cultures. Apparently, from the post-colonial perspective, the effaced borders between translation/original and translator/author have gradually become the metonymies of the post-colonial representation of the hybrid who is in between the culture of the colonizer and the colonized. And as mentioned above, converting this perspective into a translational one would require new research concerning new questions and embracing new objects of analysis, as a consequence of which the ceaseless redefinitions of translation would proceed.
References
Robinson, Douglas
1997 Translation and Empire
Simon, Sherry
1999 "Translating and Interlingual Creation in the Contact Zone"
Sturge, Kate
2006 "The Other in Display"
26 Aralık 2009 Cumartesi
17 Aralık 2009 Perşembe
Conscious Choices vs Internalized Actions
Representing translation as a social phenomenon arouses the necessity of developing certain theoretical and methodological tools. Since the establishment of the systemic perspective and norms as main means of analysis in translational research, theoreticians have proposed various of such tools that would serve for both the justification of the social position of translation and the extension of the borders of research in the field. The ‘from retrospective to prospective’ methodology of Toury, ‘unearthing internalized discursive relations’ of Lefevere, ‘ideology-oriented focus on omitted particularities’ of Venuti and other postcolonial scholars provide us with clear exemplifications of such tools. Not disregarding the fact that these all represent the voices from different positions which belong to their particular space and time, it could be said that they all are embraced by the same perspective that dominates the discipline: the social perspective. And perhaps, it wouldn’t be wrong to include the ‘field’, ‘capital’, ‘habitus’ and ‘illusio’ of Boudieu into this ‘system of theoretical tools of translation research’.
At first sight, the importation of Bourdieu’s theory of action in translation theory doesn’t seem to bring a very innovative perspective in that such theorists as Even-Zohar, Toury and Lefevere have prepared the grounds for analysing the complex network in which the product, the producer and other external dynamics interact. Perhaps it’s Bourdieu’s strong emphasis on not the ‘action’ and ‘agent’, but the internalized rationals behind them that has attracted this much attention. As mentioned by both Jean-Marc Gouanvic and Moira Inghilleri, this strong call for action in analysing the background overcomes the abstractism of polysystem theory. Compared to Lefevere’s theory that is acknowledged to serve for the same purpose, the lack of the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘patronage’ - despite the implications of their existence- seems to carry Bourdieu’s theory to more empiric grounds. Otherwise, benefitting from constructivism, both theories provide the research with a framework in which internalized relations could be unearthed.
How sound is carrying the action theory that opposes the rationalist vision to translation theory? It’s hard to find an answer to this question. The journey of the researcher from `deriving out the conscious choices of the translator` to `seeing texts as the points of interaction in which the internal and external coincide` definitely entails redefinining the position of the translated text and the translator, which are still the main components of the discipline. Adopting the translator as a representor of the society to whose functioning he serves for might threaten the visibility (in terms of Vermeer, `expertise`) he has hardly acquired within centuries, his authority over the product, and the position of the product as an autonomous being itself. In other words, seeing all these main components as a part of the bigger construction, evaluating their functioning in terms of their contribution to that bigger construction might depart the researcher’s focus from translational perspective to that of sociological perspective.
Perhaps, it would be right to define the focus of study first. As mentioned above, these all are theoretical tools that provide the researcher with a framework upon which he’d attempt to build a sound argument. Compared to Latour’s argument, Bourdieusian approach might seem too homogenizing. Similarly, right next to Toury’s DTS, Venuti’s study might remain too ideology-oriented. Afterall, as mentioned by Luise Von Flotow, there’s no harm in being optimistic and embracing the disunity.
At first sight, the importation of Bourdieu’s theory of action in translation theory doesn’t seem to bring a very innovative perspective in that such theorists as Even-Zohar, Toury and Lefevere have prepared the grounds for analysing the complex network in which the product, the producer and other external dynamics interact. Perhaps it’s Bourdieu’s strong emphasis on not the ‘action’ and ‘agent’, but the internalized rationals behind them that has attracted this much attention. As mentioned by both Jean-Marc Gouanvic and Moira Inghilleri, this strong call for action in analysing the background overcomes the abstractism of polysystem theory. Compared to Lefevere’s theory that is acknowledged to serve for the same purpose, the lack of the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘patronage’ - despite the implications of their existence- seems to carry Bourdieu’s theory to more empiric grounds. Otherwise, benefitting from constructivism, both theories provide the research with a framework in which internalized relations could be unearthed.
How sound is carrying the action theory that opposes the rationalist vision to translation theory? It’s hard to find an answer to this question. The journey of the researcher from `deriving out the conscious choices of the translator` to `seeing texts as the points of interaction in which the internal and external coincide` definitely entails redefinining the position of the translated text and the translator, which are still the main components of the discipline. Adopting the translator as a representor of the society to whose functioning he serves for might threaten the visibility (in terms of Vermeer, `expertise`) he has hardly acquired within centuries, his authority over the product, and the position of the product as an autonomous being itself. In other words, seeing all these main components as a part of the bigger construction, evaluating their functioning in terms of their contribution to that bigger construction might depart the researcher’s focus from translational perspective to that of sociological perspective.
Perhaps, it would be right to define the focus of study first. As mentioned above, these all are theoretical tools that provide the researcher with a framework upon which he’d attempt to build a sound argument. Compared to Latour’s argument, Bourdieusian approach might seem too homogenizing. Similarly, right next to Toury’s DTS, Venuti’s study might remain too ideology-oriented. Afterall, as mentioned by Luise Von Flotow, there’s no harm in being optimistic and embracing the disunity.
11 Aralık 2009 Cuma
Problematizing Post-colonial's 'Hybridization' in terms of Translation
Today, it has largely been acknowledged that translation has been used as a means of establishing, sustaining and subverting hegemonic relations, which is a case the discipline seems to be so proud of. The gradual decline of grand disciplines and the rise of interdisciplines have surely contributed a lot to this type of a wide perspective. Now that, with an attempt to unearth the implicit channels through which translation passes (or at times built by translation), research on translation benefits from other disciplines- with pure legitimacy- to achieve the most accurate positionings.[1] As exemplified by Douglas Robinson, one of the main of such ‘other disciplines’ is post-colonial studies.
Robinson’s Translation and Empire mainly gives an insight upon the relatively new field of postcolonial translation studies, pointing its recent position within the discipline and the link established between the postcolonial studies and translation studies. Right at the beginning of the book, Robinson puts forward the question of ‘who benefits from whom’, an argument to be continued throughout the book. There’s an apparent peripheral position these postcolonial scholars occupy, and as displayed through the examples- the works of Niranjana, Rafael and Cheyfitz- one could easily come to the conclusion that the ‘positionings’ of translation studies (in terms of the end-point of Toury’s methodology) get to become ‘justifications’. In other words, these postcolonial works seem to adopt translation as a means of justifying their ideological perspectives. They too define translation- its role, method and position within that particular context- but the questions regarding the field are mostly unanswered, whereas the ones regarding the postcolonial context find clear answers. The questions posed by ‘hybridization’, which is quite praised and perfectly answered by postcolonial scholars, are the most visible ones that remain unanswered in terms of translation studies.
Within the book, Robinson makes a remarkable introduction to the new approach towards the ‘hybrid’ brought by the recent postcolonial studies. As opposed to the nostalgic nationalist myths brought by the essentialist postcolonial studies- which believe in the possibility of a purification after the end of colonization period, the recent studies adopt ‘decolonization’ in a different aspect, through embracing the product of colonization, that is the ‘hybrid’. Presumably, here one could associate the ‘hybrid native’ with a ‘translated text’ (the translated version of the native after being translated by the colonizer); both represent the clash of two cultural and lingual systems, both carry a ‘dual nature’ in Popovic’s terms. However, when it comes to ‘translating the hybrid’, the scheme gets blurred. The post-structuralist traces carried by these studies replace the ‘evil position’ of translation (proposed by past-oriented postcolonial studies) with a ‘utopic’ one. ‘The evil colonizer/anthropologist/ethnographer has defined/translated the colonized/savage/native in a way that would serve for his own benefits’ type of comprehension of the former has apparently lead to a call for ‘fighting the colonizer back with his own tool’ of the latter, which reposits ‘translation’ and make it stand at the side of the ‘native’ this time.
Here comes the major translational issue brought by this new means of ‘fighting back’- that is embracing hybridity and making the native the translator this time. In the second chapter of Translation and Empire, Robinson indicates the main point the proponents of ‘culture turn’ and ‘power turn’ diverge at: the former ‘is known for its explorations of the control of translation by the target-cultural system’, whereas the latter focuses on ‘the political control and influence exerted by dominant of hegemonic source cultures’ (Robinson 1997: 36). However, there’s a focal point at which they clash: ‘the more a given society imports texts, the more it tends to be unstable’ (ibid: 37). The influx of new discourses and practices through translation is constant; therefore, the position of the receiving culture is never stable since it is exposed to a constant change.
To such post-colonial scholars as Homi Bhabha, these hybrid and unstable cultures are untranslatable (Actually, since all cultures are hybrid in one way or another, no culture is translatable).[2] This assumption could prove accuracy if translation is seen as the practice of fixing cultures, finding fixed differences in the first step, and establishing fixed bridges in between afterwards. However, on the other side, isn’t translation also the practice of ‘mixing’ cultures? How else have those cultures become hybrid? (Here, I suppose, one needs to bear the association of the hybrid native with translated text in mind) Moreover, if we assume the accuracy of both sides, has translation become the agent of its own impossibility through mixing the very first two cultures on earth?
Unfortunately neither Niranjana’s ‘retranslation’ and Raphael’s ‘mistranslation’, nor Mehrez’s ‘in between languages’ provide these questions with sufficient answers. As Robinson indicates in the last chapter of his book, ‘foreignizing’ a text displays a mere interpretation among the thousands of others and claiming it to be the only accurate one challenges the post-structuralist nature of these scholars. Besides, asserting one dominant ‘right way’ doesn’t seem to be an act of ‘decolonization’ but that of ‘recolonization’. Nonetheless, it’s obvious that these scholars have provided the discipline with prolific grounds upon which other ‘right ways’ will be found in the near future.
[1] Here, I relate the positioning with the methodology Toury proposes for translation studies, one of the main aims of which is to understand the ‘position of translation’ within that specific culture (that is, target culture).
[2] And the ones who support translatability and see translation as a tool of decolonization, as in the works of Niranjana and Raphael, are insufficient in carrying their theories in the practical level.
References
Robinson, Douglas
1997 Translation and Empire
Robinson’s Translation and Empire mainly gives an insight upon the relatively new field of postcolonial translation studies, pointing its recent position within the discipline and the link established between the postcolonial studies and translation studies. Right at the beginning of the book, Robinson puts forward the question of ‘who benefits from whom’, an argument to be continued throughout the book. There’s an apparent peripheral position these postcolonial scholars occupy, and as displayed through the examples- the works of Niranjana, Rafael and Cheyfitz- one could easily come to the conclusion that the ‘positionings’ of translation studies (in terms of the end-point of Toury’s methodology) get to become ‘justifications’. In other words, these postcolonial works seem to adopt translation as a means of justifying their ideological perspectives. They too define translation- its role, method and position within that particular context- but the questions regarding the field are mostly unanswered, whereas the ones regarding the postcolonial context find clear answers. The questions posed by ‘hybridization’, which is quite praised and perfectly answered by postcolonial scholars, are the most visible ones that remain unanswered in terms of translation studies.
Within the book, Robinson makes a remarkable introduction to the new approach towards the ‘hybrid’ brought by the recent postcolonial studies. As opposed to the nostalgic nationalist myths brought by the essentialist postcolonial studies- which believe in the possibility of a purification after the end of colonization period, the recent studies adopt ‘decolonization’ in a different aspect, through embracing the product of colonization, that is the ‘hybrid’. Presumably, here one could associate the ‘hybrid native’ with a ‘translated text’ (the translated version of the native after being translated by the colonizer); both represent the clash of two cultural and lingual systems, both carry a ‘dual nature’ in Popovic’s terms. However, when it comes to ‘translating the hybrid’, the scheme gets blurred. The post-structuralist traces carried by these studies replace the ‘evil position’ of translation (proposed by past-oriented postcolonial studies) with a ‘utopic’ one. ‘The evil colonizer/anthropologist/ethnographer has defined/translated the colonized/savage/native in a way that would serve for his own benefits’ type of comprehension of the former has apparently lead to a call for ‘fighting the colonizer back with his own tool’ of the latter, which reposits ‘translation’ and make it stand at the side of the ‘native’ this time.
Here comes the major translational issue brought by this new means of ‘fighting back’- that is embracing hybridity and making the native the translator this time. In the second chapter of Translation and Empire, Robinson indicates the main point the proponents of ‘culture turn’ and ‘power turn’ diverge at: the former ‘is known for its explorations of the control of translation by the target-cultural system’, whereas the latter focuses on ‘the political control and influence exerted by dominant of hegemonic source cultures’ (Robinson 1997: 36). However, there’s a focal point at which they clash: ‘the more a given society imports texts, the more it tends to be unstable’ (ibid: 37). The influx of new discourses and practices through translation is constant; therefore, the position of the receiving culture is never stable since it is exposed to a constant change.
To such post-colonial scholars as Homi Bhabha, these hybrid and unstable cultures are untranslatable (Actually, since all cultures are hybrid in one way or another, no culture is translatable).[2] This assumption could prove accuracy if translation is seen as the practice of fixing cultures, finding fixed differences in the first step, and establishing fixed bridges in between afterwards. However, on the other side, isn’t translation also the practice of ‘mixing’ cultures? How else have those cultures become hybrid? (Here, I suppose, one needs to bear the association of the hybrid native with translated text in mind) Moreover, if we assume the accuracy of both sides, has translation become the agent of its own impossibility through mixing the very first two cultures on earth?
Unfortunately neither Niranjana’s ‘retranslation’ and Raphael’s ‘mistranslation’, nor Mehrez’s ‘in between languages’ provide these questions with sufficient answers. As Robinson indicates in the last chapter of his book, ‘foreignizing’ a text displays a mere interpretation among the thousands of others and claiming it to be the only accurate one challenges the post-structuralist nature of these scholars. Besides, asserting one dominant ‘right way’ doesn’t seem to be an act of ‘decolonization’ but that of ‘recolonization’. Nonetheless, it’s obvious that these scholars have provided the discipline with prolific grounds upon which other ‘right ways’ will be found in the near future.
[1] Here, I relate the positioning with the methodology Toury proposes for translation studies, one of the main aims of which is to understand the ‘position of translation’ within that specific culture (that is, target culture).
[2] And the ones who support translatability and see translation as a tool of decolonization, as in the works of Niranjana and Raphael, are insufficient in carrying their theories in the practical level.
References
Robinson, Douglas
1997 Translation and Empire
2 Aralık 2009 Çarşamba
Relativity as a Solution
Late studies within the field of translation seem to adopt ‘representation of reality’ as a point of departure in order to present translation as an active agent of culture/history construction. Here, the representation in question has nothing to do with Saussure’s structuralist view adhering each signifier to a specific signified. Together with the development of anti-essentialist views in phenomenology, rather than a Saussurrean systematic and stable nature, language has started to be qualified with such concepts as dynamicity, relativity and heterogenity. The denial of a universally absolute real (and even if there’s one language is incapable of represent that!) has been a great impact on author-oriented approaches in literary studies. As for translation, this seems to be both a challenge and a way out of the hegemonia of the source text, since now, both sides of the line (ST and TT) can be classified as a ‘tendency’.[1]
As Rosemary Arrojo also problematizes in her article, the approach of the poststructuralist era has shifted the roles of the literary agents (here I mean the reader, the author and the translator). Neither Jane Austen nor Emily Bronte would wish to provide their readers with a labyrinth in which a battle of power is about to start. Rather, there exists this ‘fill in these blanks and achieve the truth’ type of authorial encouragement promising the reader a purification- or eudaimonia one may call it- in the end. The involvement of the struggle of power within fiction is rather modern and seems to be appraised by contemporary critiques. Regarding the authorial reality as solely one among millions of others, today, heterogeneity is promoted as a productive object of study for the academy.
With a translational concern, Arrojo indicates the necessity of embracing plurality and rejecting fixed meanings in saving the translator from being a ‘kleptomaniac’ who steals author’s reality, and therefore authority. As implied within the article, it’s the translator’s own legitimate reality and authority presented within the target text. This is a different perspective towards the concept of translator’s in/visibility: Closed-texts (the texts whose meaning is considered as fixed and absolute) are the ‘textual properties’ of the author. Any intervention into this ‘private property’ constitutes a ‘crime’. Thus, translators are ‘urged to be as invisible and as humble as possible’ (Arrojo 2002: 74).
Luise Von Flotow’s study on the disunity of feminist approaches adopts a similar attitude in terms of embracing relativity. Here, the diversification of feminist discourse in translation studies, as exemplified with varying approaches of Spivak, Gilliam and Arrojo, is proposed far from leading the discipline to disintegration. Instead, the existence of different perspectives, and different ‘realities’ as Arrojo would call them, leads to highly productive work. Besides, it’s clearly seen that what Arrojo refers to in explaining the production of fiction is rather applicable here: the will to power triggers creativity, since each discourse is ‘constructed’ to become the ‘only one’.
Apparently, in terms of the evolution of translation studies, these contemporary theorists’ adopting the relativity aspect of post-structuralism is as much a beneficial method as Even-Zohar’s adopting the systemic approach of Russian Formalists. Such attempts bestow the field with legitimacies of various types: the legitimacy of the target text constructed, the legitimacy of translator’s task and interference, and the legitimacy of the scholars’ studies in the academy. However, it would be highly paradoxical if this attitude of embracing the relativity/dynamicity becomes the discipline’s ‘static position’ in the near future.
References
Arrojo, Rosemary
2002 “Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolanyi”
Luise Von Flotow
1998 “Dis-Unity and Diversity: Feminist Approaches to Translation Studies”
[1] This is a reference to Popovic’s statement regarding source text as a constant and the target text as a tendency.
As Rosemary Arrojo also problematizes in her article, the approach of the poststructuralist era has shifted the roles of the literary agents (here I mean the reader, the author and the translator). Neither Jane Austen nor Emily Bronte would wish to provide their readers with a labyrinth in which a battle of power is about to start. Rather, there exists this ‘fill in these blanks and achieve the truth’ type of authorial encouragement promising the reader a purification- or eudaimonia one may call it- in the end. The involvement of the struggle of power within fiction is rather modern and seems to be appraised by contemporary critiques. Regarding the authorial reality as solely one among millions of others, today, heterogeneity is promoted as a productive object of study for the academy.
With a translational concern, Arrojo indicates the necessity of embracing plurality and rejecting fixed meanings in saving the translator from being a ‘kleptomaniac’ who steals author’s reality, and therefore authority. As implied within the article, it’s the translator’s own legitimate reality and authority presented within the target text. This is a different perspective towards the concept of translator’s in/visibility: Closed-texts (the texts whose meaning is considered as fixed and absolute) are the ‘textual properties’ of the author. Any intervention into this ‘private property’ constitutes a ‘crime’. Thus, translators are ‘urged to be as invisible and as humble as possible’ (Arrojo 2002: 74).
Luise Von Flotow’s study on the disunity of feminist approaches adopts a similar attitude in terms of embracing relativity. Here, the diversification of feminist discourse in translation studies, as exemplified with varying approaches of Spivak, Gilliam and Arrojo, is proposed far from leading the discipline to disintegration. Instead, the existence of different perspectives, and different ‘realities’ as Arrojo would call them, leads to highly productive work. Besides, it’s clearly seen that what Arrojo refers to in explaining the production of fiction is rather applicable here: the will to power triggers creativity, since each discourse is ‘constructed’ to become the ‘only one’.
Apparently, in terms of the evolution of translation studies, these contemporary theorists’ adopting the relativity aspect of post-structuralism is as much a beneficial method as Even-Zohar’s adopting the systemic approach of Russian Formalists. Such attempts bestow the field with legitimacies of various types: the legitimacy of the target text constructed, the legitimacy of translator’s task and interference, and the legitimacy of the scholars’ studies in the academy. However, it would be highly paradoxical if this attitude of embracing the relativity/dynamicity becomes the discipline’s ‘static position’ in the near future.
References
Arrojo, Rosemary
2002 “Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolanyi”
Luise Von Flotow
1998 “Dis-Unity and Diversity: Feminist Approaches to Translation Studies”
[1] This is a reference to Popovic’s statement regarding source text as a constant and the target text as a tendency.
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