Juliane House, M. Rosario Martín Ruano and Nicole Baumgarten (2005)
Translation and the Construction of
Identity. Seoul: IATIS.
ISBN(paperback): 978-89-957454-0-1
In recent years, the topic of ‘identity’
has turned into a highly productive field of study in the humanities. The
contributions to this First IATIS Yearbook, based on papers presented in
August 2004 at the
IATIS Inaugural Conference held in Seoul, Korea,
encompass a wide range of perspectives and approaches. They deal with
different dimensions of identity, and are based on a variety of
methodologies, diverse theoretical backgrounds and geographically distant
case-study settings. The aspects discussed range from considerations of
professional identity, in relation to translators, intercultural mediators
and/or scholars in the field, to the problems, conflicts, gaps and
misunderstandings conditioning the translation of identities; from the
role translation plays in shaping various types of identity to the role
played by certain identities in determining the outcome of translation;
from the factors and agents which influence the acceptance of identities
projected in or through translation to the social structures, institutions
and networks of authority shaping a group’s expectations, which may be
reinforced or subverted through translation; from the way translation
reflects and expresses identities to the manner in which identities are
performed, made or unmade through translation; from the potential of
translation to disseminate and give access to other identities to its
potential for distorting and misrepresenting the identity of the Other.
Juliane HOUSE, M.
Rosario MARTIN RUANO and Nicole BAUMGARTEN
3-13
1. The
Interpreter’s Identity Crisis
Sandra HALE (University of Western Sydney, Australia)
This paper argues that community interpreting suffers from a
professional identity crisis which hampers its development as a
recognized professional discipline. It discusses some of the many
pressures interpreters face in the course of their work from the
institutional sphere, the professional sphere and the interpersonal
sphere, all with competing demands. The paper also argues that the lack
of a pre-service university education requirement, an ambivalence about
the interpreter’s role, the interpreters’ own insecurity about their
competence, as well as a tendency to undermine the most complex and
difficult task of accurate interpreting, all contribute to the
interpreter’s identity crisis.
14-29
2. Projected
and Perceived Identities in Dialogue Interpreting
Ian
MASON (Heriot Watt
University, UK)
In face-to-face interpreter-mediated encounters, the negotiation of
identity is a constant activity of all participants. At this interface
between cultures and languages, behavioural mismatches become evident to
all concerned but are not necessarily understood in the same way. This
paper looks at such encounters in terms of an overall participation
framework, which may include bystanders as well as primary participants,
and examines both projected and perceived identities. The attribution by
any party of words/discourses and meanings to any other party is
instrumental in constructing a perceived identity. Fundamental to this
process is, for example, the perceived ownership of the meanings attaching
to an interpreter’s output. In sites of linguistic and cultural difference
– but even more so in sites of linguistic, cultural or situational
inequality – the ability of each participant to control/preserve his or
her own identity will be affected in a number of complex and interesting
ways. Examples are adduced from a number of distinct dialogue interpreting
settings to illustrate what is at stake for the identity of each
participant.
30-52
3. Creative
Mediation in a Multilingual, Multicultural South Africa: Possibilities and
Constraints
Stanley G. M. RIDGE (University
of the Western Cape, South Africa)
This paper attempts to reveal some of the challenges to translation in a
multilingual and multicultural country, and the extent to which even
overtly enlightened legislation and policy may fail to support efforts at
meeting those challenges. It examines two translations, the first of a
literary text based on the realities of modern South Africa, the second of
an oral historical account of a rebellion in the country nearly a century
ago. Their success and failure in interpreting across cultures raises
important issues for translation studies. In the second part of the paper,
careful attention is paid to the provisions relating to language in the
new democratic South African Constitution, in many ways a remarkable
document. However, the underlying assumptions, when teased out, are
startlingly at variance with the views of language informing the excellent
translations that function well in a multilingual, multicultural society.
The paper closes with some reflections on theory.
53-67
4. (Re)constructing
Bosnia: Ideologies and Agents in Poetry Translation
Francis R. Jones & Damir
Arsenijević
(Newcastle University & De Monfort University, UK)
This case-study of “translator partiality” shows how poetry-translation
players (source poets, translators, publishers, etc.) participate in a
conflict between source-culture discourses. In post-1992 Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BH), ideologies of civil-society tolerance have been pitted
against extreme nationalist ideologies based on denial of the cultural
Other. A web survey of verse translations from Bosnian into English plus
metatexts (reviews, readings, etc.) shows that poetry translation players
consistently support anti-war and civil-society ideologies, despite a
slight risk of stereotyping the Balkans as folklore or barbaric mayhem.
However, they tend to favour the poetic establishment, at the expense of
the female/young/queer “margins” which the authors see as crucial to BH’s
development. In wider terms, this case study supports a model of literary
translation based on source+receptor alliances; the authors explore under
what conditions translation into a global language globalizes
source-culture agendas and show how ethical and power factors interact in
literary translation.
68-95
5. Aiming at
the Target: Problems of Assimilation and Identity in Literary Translation
Kyongjoo H. RYOU
(Sookmyung
Women’s University, South Korea)
Approaching literary translation as a way of transforming the target
language and culture which insists upon its own cultural and formal
characteristics offers a more balanced view of literary translation in
today’s global setting and ever shrinking cultural boundaries. The
peculiarities and foreignness that a translated text can have should be
maintained not just for staying close to the meaning of the original text,
but because they may serve also as catalysts by which cultural exchange is
promoted, and one culture is challenged to extend its cultural boundary
while the other is assured of the value of its own cultural heritage and
tradition. Although catering to a target culture carries a substantial
weight in ensuring the success of a translated work, it shouldn’t be taken
for granted that the markers of cultural identities that literary
translators produce should work toward creating a global network of
cultural exchange. The process of identity negotiation involved in cross
cultural literary transfer favors cultures with established power; this
kind of humanities approach to literary translation can help create the
equilibrium the process needs.
96-108
6. Othello
in Egypt: Translation and the (Un)making of National Identity
Sameh
F. HANNA (University of Manchester, UK)
The long held view that national identities are natural entities whose
formation is not conditioned by human agency, and hence are constitutive
rather than constituted, has been challenged by a whole range of
scholarship which underlined the constructedness of national identities
and the role of intellectuals in their formation. The role of translators,
as intellectuals, in fashioning and subverting versions of national
identity is discussed in this paper in relation to two translations of
Othello in Egypt, one by Khalil Mutran (1912), and the other by
Mustapha Safouan (1998). The translation strategies adopted by these two
translators are deployed towards the (de)construction of the national
identity of the target culture. In reading the two translators’ (un)making
of national identity, this article relates their translation strategies to
their discourse on translation.
109-128
7. Translation
in Translation: Colonialism and Caste in Mysore, an Indian Princely state
V. B.
Tharakeshwar
(Kannada
University, India)
This paper sketches the politics and nature of the identity that was
envisaged as evident in two moments in the history of translation in
Princely Mysore. The two moments are, first of all, the debate around
Bhashabhimani’s review of a Shakespearean play translated by Srikantesh
Gowda in 1895, and, second, a translator’s preface to a translation of a
work by Walter Scott, written by Bhashaanthara Vairy (an enemy of
translation) in 1918. Tentative remarks on caste differences and the new
identity, along with different ways of scripting the modernity that was
underway in Princely Mysore, are also made.
129-147
8. The
Gilded Translator: Issues of Authority, Control and Cultural
Self-representation
Eva
HUNG (The
Chinese University of Hong Kong)
In the last 2000 years China witnessed two translation movements which
changed her culture fundamentally. Initiated by evangelical foreigners and
a small number of Chinese keen on cultural transfer, these movements
gained momentum when they received government support which brought about
an elevation of the translators’ status. Yet the new status did not apply
to all translation activities, just to work which caught the government’s
eye. This paper examines how and why prestige and material benefits were
given to some translators in the form of patronage or direct employment.
Case studies show that such relationships were intimately linked to issues
of authority and control; they also mirrored the evolving self-image of
the host culture. Our analysis is based on the interaction between
translation patrons and the most influential sutra translators, and on the
position of foreign-language translators of the last Chinese dynasty in
the context of a new world order.
148-166
9. The
Afrikaans Bible Translations and the Formation of Cultural, Political and
Religious Identities in South Africa
Jacobus A.
Naudé (University
of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)
Translation sets in motion a double-edged process of identity formation:
constructing both a domestic representation for a foreign text and
culture, while simultaneously constructing a domestic subject, a position
of intelligibility and also an ideological position. The issue of identity
boils down to linguistically inscribed preference in the choice and
construction of discourses in Bible translation. Four Afrikaans Bible
translations coming from distinctly different periods in twentieth century
history are analyzed and explained in the manner in which particular
cultural, political and religious identities are formed. They brought
about significant social change by revising ideological qualifications and
thereby modifying institutional functions.
167-179
10. Translating
the Museum: On Translation and (Cross-)cultural Presentation in
Contemporary China
Robert NEATHER
(City University of Hong Kong)
This paper explores the way in which foreign museum visitors experience
and reconstruct cultural identities through the museum text. It examines
in particular how translations at one semiotic level ― the linguistic or
“verbal” ― influence interpretation of the broader museum text system as a
whole, and draws on examples of Chinese/English museum exhibit captions
and text-panels as a basis for discussion. It focuses on the contemporary
museums sector in the People’s Republic of China as an example in which a
range of issues are particularly acutely focused. These include the extent
to which partial or inadequate translation may lead to cultural
misinterpretation and misreading; the way that bilingual materials are
used differently by Source and Target Culture visitors in relation to the
visual and spatial dimensions of meaning; and the presence of curatorial
or ideological manipulation in the production of museum translations.
180-197
11. Translation
Serving Global Narratives: The Case of ‘Poverty’ in Niger
Daniel
EMANUELE GRASSO
(University of Geneva, Switzerland)
There is an increasingly popular observation in the field of Translation
Studies that, instead of enhancing understanding between nations and
cultures, translation can serve the interests of the economically
strongest actors. Consequentially, from a sheer economic point of view,
translation mostly expands the narratives of the most economically
powerful actors. If this hypothesis is confirmed, this could lead to
important observations on the way we all interpret the world around us.
While this might be difficult to study in monolingual settings, diglossic
(or two-language) countries provide a perfect laboratory for the study of
this phenomenon. This paper examines this hypothesis and argues its
reality in the unconscious association (indexicality) of the glocal
narrative of poverty in Niger with the official language (French).
