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Translation and the Construction of Identity: Abstracts
Date: 12-14 August 2004
Venue: Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea
E.V. Ramakrishnan The present paper is an attempt to understand the
complex transactions between Indian writing in English and Indian writing in
English translation. (India has 22 major languages with their separate
literary traditions. Indian Writing in English Translation refers to
literary texts translated from these languages into English.) Both these
categories have a problematic relationship with the discourse of the Indian
nation. It is generally assumed that Indian writing in English signifies a
pan-Indian “modern” cultural space, while those texts that are translated
into English from Indian languages are rooted in the culture-specific
discourses of the region. It is also argued that the former has an
ambivalent relation with the region while the latter resists the hegemonic
and unitary elements of the nation. These assumptions will be examined in
the course of the paper with reference to specific examples from Indian
English Poetry and Indian Poetry in English Translation.
Panel 5: Translation and the (De-)construction of National/Cultural Identities
Re-presenting the Region and Re-inventing the Nation: Language, Nation
and Identity in Indian Poetry in English Translation
South Gujarat University, India
The post-colonial context provides a comparative framework for examining
these cultural texts derived from different socio-political domains. It is
observed that the translation of contemporary Indian literature into English
has gained momentum and significance during the post-Independence period in
India. The various factors that influence these translations such as
institutional patronage, desire to retrieve collective memory and the
attempt to resist cultural assimilation will be examined in detail. The
question of minority voices in Indian English poetry has special relevance
to the post-colonial phase of asserting differences. The role played by
translation in shaping the sensibility of Indian poetry in regional
languages also merits attention. Using the poetry of Tagore in English
translation as a frame of reference the problems of cultural translation
will also be discussed at length.
In the course of the paper the following inter-related issues will be
addressed: does the nationalist discourse in the post-colonial period
influence the discourse of poetry? Is there a dialogic realm of shared
meanings and metaphors that has emerged in Indian poetry through
translation? How far does the prevailing aesthetics and ideology of regional
Indian languages resist/enable the process of translation? Is there a new
canon of Indian poets being shaped by the process of translation? Can
translation be used as a model for critiquing/ comprehending the hybridized
discourses/sensibility of Indian English poetry?
© IATIS 2003