Most
of the discussions around translation in India, whether academic or otherwise,
seem to be struck in an obsolete paradigm. (Check out my blog on why translation studies)
It approaches translation from the perspective of practice- it sees translation as something to be DONE, and hence all the repetitive talk about ‘problems of translation’, whether particular translation is possible or not continues inanely. Not enough discussion about translation from the perspective of theory and methodology is available in the Indian context, i.e. the questions about how to READ/STUDY/RESEARCH translated texts. There are notable exceptions of course. Here I want to discuss the basic questions of how to READ translated texts for the beginners who have just started researching translation studies. (Check out my blog on some possible areas of research on literary translation)
It approaches translation from the perspective of practice- it sees translation as something to be DONE, and hence all the repetitive talk about ‘problems of translation’, whether particular translation is possible or not continues inanely. Not enough discussion about translation from the perspective of theory and methodology is available in the Indian context, i.e. the questions about how to READ/STUDY/RESEARCH translated texts. There are notable exceptions of course. Here I want to discuss the basic questions of how to READ translated texts for the beginners who have just started researching translation studies. (Check out my blog on some possible areas of research on literary translation)
One
obvious pitfall while studying translation is being judgmental (normative) , we
are obsessed with the questions like whether a particular translation is ‘good’,
‘bad’ or ‘readable’. Being judgmental closes the door of the inquiry into the great
significance of translations, however ‘bad’, as points of entry to the study a
particular cultural history.
As translation is a
decision-making process starting from the choice of the texts/ authors and
the direction of translation (e.g. from Gujarati to English or the other way
round) to the decisions involving choices of titles, cultural elements, idioms,
literary devices and so on, one way of reading translation is to see how
the history of target language culture has influenced these decisions.
A powerful theoretical tool in
translation studies is Andre Levefere’s idea of translation as a kind of
‘refraction’. Translation, according to Lefevere, can be considered as one of
the ‘ refractions’ or all forms of rewritings of texts from one language into
other , including cinematic, televisions or comic book adaptations of the Mahabharata
or The Godfather to critical commentaries, glosses, summaries of the
texts in other languages. Critical articles on Baudelaire by the Gujarati
critic Suresh Joshi or the Marathi writer Dilip Chitre ‘refract’ Baudelaire for
Gujarati and Marathi audience. Once you see translation as ‘refraction’ you
situate it within the larger cultural politics of the period and you can see
the role it plays and the agenda behind it.
Translation, like all other ‘refractions’,
Lefevere notes are done under certain constraints of translating culture (TL Culture) and the
task of reading a translated text is to understand the strategies of
translating ( the decisions made by translators) in the context of these
constraints. According to Lefevere these constraints are
as follows: i) the constraint of
language i.e. the verbal structure and
texture of the translating language force the translators to make certain
choices, ii) the constraint of poetics
i.e. the dominant poetics of the translating culture compel the
translator to choose a particular mode of translation (e.g. AK Ramanujan’s
choice to translate the oral -performative genre of Bhakti poetry where the
word-music is an essential feature into the imagistic -ironic free verse
developed by Eliot or William Carlos Williams), iii) the constraint of
patronage – for instance the demand to conform to what your publishers want (
or the publisher’s version of what the reader/market wants) or even the state
or political patronage ( what the Polit Bureau wants) and so on. Refractions, Lefevere argues, are basically
manipulative and have an agenda of influencing the audience. Reading translations as refraction helps us to
uncover the rich cultural history of the period. Reading multiple translations
of the same literary text or author (e.g. Shakespeare, Sharatchandra or Tagore)
over a period of time reveals the cultural politics of the period in which
these translations were made and help us reconstruct the history of culture.
Another significant question
while reading translated texts is to consider translation from functional
point of view, i.e. asking the
questions like what is the role and the function of the translated text in the
development of literary tradition. What is the role of translation in inaugurating
or consolidating a literary movement (like modernism or Dalit literature)? What
role does translation play in establishing a particular poetics or genre (e.g.
Romanticism, the Brechtian theatre, or the Theatre of the Absurd, or genre like
the sonnet, the ghazals, the short story or the novel. How does translation influence
not the author, but poetics and the form? As the term ‘influence’ is a
problematic one (creating a hierarchy between the influencer and the influenced),
more constructive way of looking at resemblances between literary traditions
and cultures is to see them as what Dionyz Durisin terms as ‘interliterary processes’. (Click here to read my blog on application of Durisin's ideas to Indian literatures)
Durisin’s
view of literary and cultural phenomena as processes avoids the tendencies to create hierarchies. When
we see that the product ‘Chai’ is produced by the process (mixing ingredients
like sugar, milk or tea leaves and boiling it) we no longer see chai as being ‘influenced’
by ‘milk’. Hence, if you see the films like Dharmatma or Sarkar as
involving the Hollywood ingredients, say the elements of The Godfather,
you no longer create a hierarchy between Hollywood and Bollywood. Hence
while exploring the function of translated texts in the translating culture, we
are interested in ways in which translation contributes to these ‘interliterary
processes’.
(Also check out my blog on Theorizing Indian literatures using semiotics of culture as theoretical framework)
Check out my Video Presentation on Contemporary Translation theory and Practice
(Also check out my blog on Theorizing Indian literatures using semiotics of culture as theoretical framework)
Check out my Video Presentation on Contemporary Translation theory and Practice
1 comment:
Hello Sachin,
A voice from the past! You may remember some correspondence about your Narasinh Mehta dissertation, back around 2010-2011 from me. Since then looks like you've been doing fabulous things. I really enjoyed this post and I have a feeling I'll be checking on several others. Just wanted to say that it is delightful to see your thoughts because you have combined so many of my interests (some of them sadly long left behind), Literature, Poetics, Semiotics, Translation, especially across Gujarati and English. I used to know Marathi in my distant past but no longer so cannot speak to that wonderful literature.
Just FYI, once upon a time I had a blog called semiophile2010@wordpress.com about Narasinh poems. It was a spectacular failure as far as getting readership except the random student commenting that one of the poems translated helped with their project... Oh well, the Narasinh bug is still alive and well in my mind.
I will look forward to reading your posts from Aurora, Colorado, USA
best regards,
Meena Desai
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