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Translation and the Construction of Identity: Abstracts
Date: 12-14 August 2004
Venue: Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea
Lawrence Venuti
This paper will examine the relations between translation and nation by
formulating theoretical concepts and analyzing case studies. Basic antinomies
will be considered: nationalisms grounded in biological concepts of ethnicity
and race assume the integrity and sufficiency of national languages, cultures
and identities, but also find it necessary to enlist translation in constructing
national literatures; nationalist movements claim to represent collective
interests, but are often advanced by elite minorities. The question of whether
translation can serve a nationalist agenda without the translator's conscious
intention will be considered on the basis of William Weaver's 1968 translation
of Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics. A second case study will be drawn from
Catalonia, focusing on literary translations into Catalan produced by two
generations of twentieth-century translators, notably Josep Carner and Joan
Sales. Although they both used translation to build the Catalan language and
literature in opposition to the dominance of Castilian, shaping a national
identity for Catalan readers through linguistic and stylistic innovations, their
projects raise the question of whether this identity changed in different
historical periods, before and during the repressive Franco regime. Carner's
translating constitutes a cultural politics that questions the essentialisms
that so often accompany nationalist thinking.
Plenary Session
Local Contingencies: Translation and National Culture
Temple University, USA
© IATIS 2003