Power struggle defined by Arrojo should not only be thought as between the author and the regular readers. The reader can also be a professional reader as defined by Lefevere. And when the reader profile changes, profile of the reading activity, thus interpreting activity also changes which will finally affect the profile of the struggle.
28 Ocak 2010 Perşembe
Meta-response on Translator as Reader
Reaching Diversity through Artistic Property?
Both Luise von-Flotow and Rosemary Arrojo highlight both the existence and the importance of plurality in translation studies. According to Flotow, this plurality provides the productivity in the field. Translator scholars began referring to more personal examples derived from their lives and their cultures. With this influx of different perspectives into the field, the scope of translation studies would eventually be expanded to cover diverse cultures, identities, and thoughts.
Arrojo focuses on the relativity of the act of reading, thus interpreting. Every reader and translator as one of these readers have the liberty to interpret the meaning in a text. However, referring a source text, or any text for that matter, as the original, like Arrojo does, gives it a divine authority meaning that it is created for the first time and no one else has ever created a text like that before and maybe never will in the future. This perspective legitimates the inferior position of the translated text in comparison to the source text. Thus the author’s struggle, defined by Arrojo, for keeping the original as it were is also legitimatized. If we adapt this kind of an idea on literary text as the original then it would be more meaningful to associate literary product with Nietzsche’s concept of “longing for property”. As this original is the property of the author she has every right to protect it from any interventions from outside. And the translator would be the “mere copyist”
REFERENCES
Arrojo, Rosemary. 2002. Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolanyi. in Edwin Gentzler and Maria Tymoczko. Translation and Power. 2002.
von-Flotow, Luise. Dis-unity and Diversity: Feminist Approaches to Translation Studies. [Online] [Cited: January 23, 2010.] aix1.uottawa.ca/~vonfloto/_articles06/Unity_in_Diversity.pdf.
19 Aralık 2009 Cumartesi
Douglas Robinson's book Translation and Empire mainly focuses on the imperial use of translation throughout the colonization period and the resistance against this use of translation by certain scholars (such as Niranjana and Rafael) via offering alternative ways to translate. Robinson tries to show how translation studies and post-colonial studies can affect and at the same time feed one another. Because analysing how the act of translation was used by the imperial power can help post-colonial theorists shape their translation strategies against the empire while these new strategies will definitely nourish the field of translation studies.
"The old assumptions about translation, that is purely linguistic and largely impersonal process for achieving semantic equivalence between texts, still dominate thinking about translation in many parts of the international translation-studies community." [Robinson: 12] The eternal dualism (word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense) in translation studies lies of course at the heart of the issue since translation has been defined with these terms through the ages and no other way has been thought through much. However, postcolonialists try to strengthen the political aspects of translation other than the concepts of meaning, equivalence, accuracy, and technique [Robinson: 8] with which translation has been studied for years and challenge the dualism. Because as Cheyfitz suggests "Our imperialism historically has functioned (and continues to function) by substituting for the difficult politics of translation another politics of translation that represses these difficulties." [Robinson: 68] In other words, challenging power relations (mostly inequalities) in translation has been deliberately supressed by the "powerful" -which can be named differently according to where you stand: patron, colonialist etc.-, and postcolonial theorists try to position and these inequalities/assymetries in the act of translation.
Robinson's questions throughout the book are quiet important to keep in mind while choosing your strategy prior to or during translation; because they are actually shaking the throne of such terms as adecuacy, effect, and equivalence. Especially questions like this one "How does one rephrase an American English text in Mexican Spanish so that it will make anything like the same sense to a member of a poor third-world country that it makes to a member of one of the richest countries on earth?" [Robinson: 28]. It actually shows us that dynamic equivalence as suggested by Nida will not be the first and easiest solution since it is hardly possible to create the same effect in two distinct cultures. Or the sense-for-sense translation as suggested by many translation studies scholars throughout the ages since then it reveals another basic question which is; what is sense at all? Then there is the issue of diaspora and exile -or perhaps self-exile as suggested by Aijaz Ahmad. Diaspora has come to represent difference, alienness and mixedness, the fact that most or all of the peoples on earth came from somewhere and now live elsewhere. [Robinson: 29] As these postcolonial theorists, many people in the colonized land and many of those who are in the diaspora actually "belong too many places" [Ahmad: 127]. So in this situation of excess of belongings then the question becomes what is foreign actually?
Postcolonial translation studies take shape around these problems. And the approaches to these problems differ according to the ideological background of the translator and experiences s/he has gone through during the colonialization hence these approaches are not universal. Being not universal is the "inherent" concept of poststructuralism, anyway.
Niranjana's suggestion of retranslation is one of these approaches taken form around a nativist idea. She suggests a nearly impossible going back to past by highly disregarding the fact that after all that the culture has gone through it has changed drastically. Actually Niranjana's idea is quite nostalgic and contradictory in itself, since it is impossible in a post-structuralist thinking to assume the past as the "pure", "good" and "uncorrupted" as the post-structuralists' world is a morally complex one in which good and evil are always mixed [Robinson: 90]. Thus most probably her suggestion of a foreignized translation (retranslation) similar to Venuti's will not serve to go back to her presumed "good" state in time.
While Rafael mentions translation's role to create a feel of solidarity between the indiviuals in the culture by creating a mistranslation, Samia Mehrez suggests a perspective -namely hybridization- different from both Niranjana's and Rafael's. Because it is important for her to communicate with power-holders while still to be able to communicate with her family and friends.
As Robinson mentioned in the conclusion and all these different strategies showed postcolonial translation theory is still a new field of study; thus both being a new field of study and people's having different experiences on colonial times bring a productivity in this field. And since all these strategies propose some kind of resistence to colonial powers, all of them are ideologically motivated and suggest embracing the difference by different methods.
REFERENCES
Aijaz Ahmad, 1992. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. New York: Verso Books.
Robinson, Douglas, 1997. Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchaster: St. Jerome Publishing.
"The old assumptions about translation, that is purely linguistic and largely impersonal process for achieving semantic equivalence between texts, still dominate thinking about translation in many parts of the international translation-studies community." [Robinson: 12] The eternal dualism (word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense) in translation studies lies of course at the heart of the issue since translation has been defined with these terms through the ages and no other way has been thought through much. However, postcolonialists try to strengthen the political aspects of translation other than the concepts of meaning, equivalence, accuracy, and technique [Robinson: 8] with which translation has been studied for years and challenge the dualism. Because as Cheyfitz suggests "Our imperialism historically has functioned (and continues to function) by substituting for the difficult politics of translation another politics of translation that represses these difficulties." [Robinson: 68] In other words, challenging power relations (mostly inequalities) in translation has been deliberately supressed by the "powerful" -which can be named differently according to where you stand: patron, colonialist etc.-, and postcolonial theorists try to position and these inequalities/assymetries in the act of translation.
Robinson's questions throughout the book are quiet important to keep in mind while choosing your strategy prior to or during translation; because they are actually shaking the throne of such terms as adecuacy, effect, and equivalence. Especially questions like this one "How does one rephrase an American English text in Mexican Spanish so that it will make anything like the same sense to a member of a poor third-world country that it makes to a member of one of the richest countries on earth?" [Robinson: 28]. It actually shows us that dynamic equivalence as suggested by Nida will not be the first and easiest solution since it is hardly possible to create the same effect in two distinct cultures. Or the sense-for-sense translation as suggested by many translation studies scholars throughout the ages since then it reveals another basic question which is; what is sense at all? Then there is the issue of diaspora and exile -or perhaps self-exile as suggested by Aijaz Ahmad. Diaspora has come to represent difference, alienness and mixedness, the fact that most or all of the peoples on earth came from somewhere and now live elsewhere. [Robinson: 29] As these postcolonial theorists, many people in the colonized land and many of those who are in the diaspora actually "belong too many places" [Ahmad: 127]. So in this situation of excess of belongings then the question becomes what is foreign actually?
Postcolonial translation studies take shape around these problems. And the approaches to these problems differ according to the ideological background of the translator and experiences s/he has gone through during the colonialization hence these approaches are not universal. Being not universal is the "inherent" concept of poststructuralism, anyway.
Niranjana's suggestion of retranslation is one of these approaches taken form around a nativist idea. She suggests a nearly impossible going back to past by highly disregarding the fact that after all that the culture has gone through it has changed drastically. Actually Niranjana's idea is quite nostalgic and contradictory in itself, since it is impossible in a post-structuralist thinking to assume the past as the "pure", "good" and "uncorrupted" as the post-structuralists' world is a morally complex one in which good and evil are always mixed [Robinson: 90]. Thus most probably her suggestion of a foreignized translation (retranslation) similar to Venuti's will not serve to go back to her presumed "good" state in time.
While Rafael mentions translation's role to create a feel of solidarity between the indiviuals in the culture by creating a mistranslation, Samia Mehrez suggests a perspective -namely hybridization- different from both Niranjana's and Rafael's. Because it is important for her to communicate with power-holders while still to be able to communicate with her family and friends.
As Robinson mentioned in the conclusion and all these different strategies showed postcolonial translation theory is still a new field of study; thus both being a new field of study and people's having different experiences on colonial times bring a productivity in this field. And since all these strategies propose some kind of resistence to colonial powers, all of them are ideologically motivated and suggest embracing the difference by different methods.
REFERENCES
Aijaz Ahmad, 1992. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. New York: Verso Books.
Robinson, Douglas, 1997. Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchaster: St. Jerome Publishing.
Meta-response to Conscious Choices vs Internalized Actions
As Ceyda has mentioned in her paper, Conscious Choices vs Internalized Actions, a Bourdieusian approach to translation seems to be too homogenizing as Bourdieu is more into "internalized rationals" behind the actions thus reducing the translation to a communal/societal level by highly disregarding the indiviual differences between translators. And this results in seeing the translator as the representator of her/his society since s/he realizes what is actually going on around her/his habitus in the text and actually this kind of a perspective really blocks the way for a foreignizing approach to translation and an ideologically oriented translation. And as suggested by Latour, maybe it would be better that social phenomena (in our case, translation) is examined through actor-networks and the associations between them.
Translation not as an individiual but as a social activity
In his paper, “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation”, Jean-Marc Gouanvic tries to describe the act of translation through field, “habitus”, capital, and “illusio” concepts of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in a way described as “providing new sets of analytical concepts and explanatory procedures to theorize the social nature of translation practices” by Moira Inghilleri [Inghilleri: 279]. Gouanvic’s aim is to reflect the sociological environment (fields and agents such as publishers, series directors, literary directors and critics) of the act of translation and how this environment is effected by translation and affects the translation.
Unlike Functionalist Approaches to translation that put the commissioner and translation’s purpose in the target culture in the centre of the translation activity and give a role to translator to realize the commissions only -although given the name expert-, Sociological Approaches’ focus is not on the individuals in the field or one specific translation activity, but rather the whole society and despite this idea, Sociological Approaches are less restricted in defining the translator’s choices during the process. According to the Functionalist Approaches as the translator is the expert of translating, s/he has a purpose during the process and translates appropriately for this purpose, thus has a conscious activity throughout the process shaped by her/his commission. However, Sociological Approaches take Bourdiue’s term habitus -embodied dispositions acquired through individuals’ social and biological trajectories and continually shaped and negotiated vis-à-vis fields [Inghiller: 208]- and define the act of translator through her/his habitus. According to Gouanvic, translation as a practice has little to do with conforming to norms through the deliberate use of specific strategies; in other words, it is not a question of consciously choosing from a panoply of available solutions [Gouanvic: 157, my emphasis]. The only freedom of the translator is to choose between translating a text or not and following the original closely or not. The other decisions of the translator actually are not her/his decisions, but they are decisions made unconsciously with the effect of habitus. Besides, the translator places him- or herself at the service of the writer to this capacity[*] in the target language and culture [Gouanvic: 157]. Thus, translator actually has no individualistic role in the process since all s/he does is to make explicit what the author implicit for the target culture. Translator has to understand the author in author’s own habitus and interpret her/him in her/his own habitus, therefore the translator is only a messenger between two cultures because of his/her expertise in both cultures’ habitus and her/his only job is to express the habits and the conventions.
The same approach to translator as a dependent entity in the field of literature is also apparent in the social capital gain. An author gains capital if her/his writing becomes a classic; however, translators’ role in turning these writings into classics are not discussed. Authors achieve these ranks, i.e. being an author of classic, all of a sudden by themselves and translator only “benefit” from this capital which the original text already has had. I think what Gouanvic misses here is examples such as translation of Edgar Allen Poe by Baudelaire, since through his translation Edgar Allen Poe gained his capital in Europe and became a classic in gothic literature.
And finally, the difficulty of translating is defined in the interaction between the original and the translation and keeping the “resemblance in difference” as if any room is made for any extreme. The translator is described as the agent of the writer, transferring the writer’s discourse into the target culture [Gouanvic: 158], so in other words, it has to resemble the writer’s text. And at the same time, the translator translates according to the norms defined by her/his habitus, so in a way the translation has to be different since it is encoded in a totally different environment. Therefore a translation has to resemble the original, but also has to be different from it somehow. The obscurity in Gouanvic’s paper actually lies particularly in this point. How resembling or how different should the translation be in order to be called a translation? The loose boundaries between all the concepts in the text make it ambiguous and confusing. The difference between the writer and the translator, between the translation and adaption, and between the resemblance and difference. They are all represented as binaries, but no clear limits are drawn around them. Thus it creates the question if the borderline between the activities of the writer and the translator are so blurred, how can Gouanvic define the role of the translator, habitus of the translator, and the capital of the translator so easily?
REFERENCES
Gouanvic, Jean-Marc. “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances” in The Translator. Volume 11, Number 2 (2005). pp. 147-166.
Inghilleri, Moira. “Sociological Approaches” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies ed. by Mona Baker and Gabriel Saldanha. Abington (2009). pp. 279-282.
[*] “The capacity to ‘[make] public things which everyone felt in a confused sort of way’ and the capacity of ‘publishing the implicit, the tacit’” [Gouanvic: 158].
15 Kasım 2009 Pazar
A methodology suggestion to look at three rewritings of Dracula
The three rewritings of Dracula in Turkish that will be covered in this essay are Niran Elçi's Drakula published by İthaki Yayınları, Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula published by Kamer Yayınları, and Ali Rıza Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da published by Kamer Yayınları. The version accepted as the original writing is the version published by Penguin in 1993.
I will try to form a methodology to follow for this kind of an analysis study. What I will look at through the essay consists of the different parts of the rewritten text, namely the publishing house, the re-writer, the context (i.e. the time and place), genre, number of pages, and pictures; and I will not analyse the texts line by line rather I will look into the context of the rewriting process.
Publishing houses: It would not be surprising at all to look at the publishing houses at first, since publishers are one of the most powerful components of the literary system. Because they hold the authority to publish, to censor, and to distribute the literary texts. They can be well defined as patrons with Andre Lefevere's terminology. In this situation, publishing houses "try to regulate the literary system and the other systems, which together, make up a society, a culture." [Lefevere, 15]. They have to regulate the literary system, because needs and preferences of the market are also defined by them. Thus, while analysing these rewritings a brief look into the publishing houses, their ideologies and preferences will be beneficial to find out the differences in the translations. The reviewer has to have some questions in mind: What kind of novels has this publishing house published so far? How have these novels been published, whether there are any abridgements, adaptation or so? What is the general pricing strategy of the publishing house for these novels?
The question about the pricing is also important; because this will define the reader profile, whether the novels are for professional readers or non-professional readers. For whom have these novels been published? Translations are a way of creating the communities imagined by the patrons. And these "imagined communities fostered by translation produce effects that are commercial, as well as cultural and political" [Venuti, 496] And most probably it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the main aim of the publishers would be creating a bestseller rewriting out of a original writing.
"To translate" and generically to rewrite "is to invent for the foreign text new readerships who are aware that their interest in the translation is shared by other readers" [Venuti, 495] and this interest of the readers will coincide with the interest of the publishers, thus with the market. And naturally the community built will be shaped by the reader profile.
Another important question would be: Why have there been two rewritings of the same original writing published by the same publisher, in our case by Kamer Yayınları?
Other works of the re-writer: Re-writers are another important factor, maybe a more important factor than the publisher, in shaping the text since s/he is the actual creator of the text. What this translator have translated so far? What is her/his approach to translation? What are her/his priorities while rewriting? What is her/his experience with the genre? Because if they are known well and respected, their work will be "propagated as an example for future writers to follow" [Lefevere, 28] and canonized by the system as the proper/accepted version of the original writing. Thus their names may be published on the cover. However, none of the re-writers is mentioned on the cover.
The context in which the rewriting was published: The year in which these rewritings published is also important. The political climate of the time, popularity of the genre in those days, and the novelty brought to the literature of the time by these publications, if there is any, are important criteria for the analysis. And whether the two different Dracula's published by Kamer Yayınları have any effect on the later publication by İthaki is also important. The publication date of Drakula İstanbul'da was 1997 and Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula was published in 1998 while Elçi's translation was published five years later in 2003. So Elçi's translation have the opportunity to enjoy the fame of the Drakula after two published books and the movie.
Front and back covers of the rewritings: Cover of the novel gives a clue about what is expected inside. If the commentary writings on the cover satisfies anticipation of readers, s/he buys it. So the blurbs are important. Generally the back covers are the place to print these blurbs. Elçi's Drakula and Akkuş' Drakula have blurbs. The former one has a direct quotation from the book while the latter has a promotional writing, the reason for which is promoting the first translation of Drakula in Turkish. And it also has supported the promotion by mentioning the movie, Dracula.
Another significant detail about the covers are the pictures. On Elçi's Drakula the only picture on the cover belongs to the Dracula himself. Seyfi's cover picture has Drakula in front of a city setting which is consistent by the name, Drakula İstanbul'da. Akkuş' cover, on the other hand, has Dracula and a woman bit on the neck by him. The way woman is exposed quite sexually with her dress and the way her breasts are shown may be appealing to some readers.
The genre in which the rewriting was classified: All three publishing houses classified the book as a horror book.
Number of pages and other parts of the rewritings: "Contemporary canons of accuracy are based on an adequacy to the foreign text: an accurate translation of a novel must not only reproduce the basic elements of narrative form, but should do so in roughly the same number of pages" [Venuti, 484]. When the first thing to look at is the number of pages of the three rewritings without paying attention to the names or cover pictures of them, it is easy , and maybe wrong, to assume Elçi's and Akkuş' rewriting, with pictures, are "translations" of Stoker's Dracula while Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da is an adaptation most probably for children.
Number of pages are one of the elements that shows our biases in our perception of translation. Because generally we tend to focus on the exactness of the rewritten text and closeness to the original. So the closer the number of pages to the original, the closer the translation to the original is. The others are more likely to be called adaptations.
While Kamer Yayınları has contents page for both rewritings, İthaki Yayınları prefers not to put a contents page on a novel.
Finally, the pictures inside the books create a difference. Akkuş' Drakula has pictures directly taken from the movie which is consistent with its promotion on the blurb. Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da has pictures looking more like sketches which supports the children's book anticipation. Elçi's Drakula has no pictures in it.
REFERENCES
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence 2004. "Translation, Community, Utopia" in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 482-503.
I will try to form a methodology to follow for this kind of an analysis study. What I will look at through the essay consists of the different parts of the rewritten text, namely the publishing house, the re-writer, the context (i.e. the time and place), genre, number of pages, and pictures; and I will not analyse the texts line by line rather I will look into the context of the rewriting process.
Publishing houses: It would not be surprising at all to look at the publishing houses at first, since publishers are one of the most powerful components of the literary system. Because they hold the authority to publish, to censor, and to distribute the literary texts. They can be well defined as patrons with Andre Lefevere's terminology. In this situation, publishing houses "try to regulate the literary system and the other systems, which together, make up a society, a culture." [Lefevere, 15]. They have to regulate the literary system, because needs and preferences of the market are also defined by them. Thus, while analysing these rewritings a brief look into the publishing houses, their ideologies and preferences will be beneficial to find out the differences in the translations. The reviewer has to have some questions in mind: What kind of novels has this publishing house published so far? How have these novels been published, whether there are any abridgements, adaptation or so? What is the general pricing strategy of the publishing house for these novels?
The question about the pricing is also important; because this will define the reader profile, whether the novels are for professional readers or non-professional readers. For whom have these novels been published? Translations are a way of creating the communities imagined by the patrons. And these "imagined communities fostered by translation produce effects that are commercial, as well as cultural and political" [Venuti, 496] And most probably it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the main aim of the publishers would be creating a bestseller rewriting out of a original writing.
"To translate" and generically to rewrite "is to invent for the foreign text new readerships who are aware that their interest in the translation is shared by other readers" [Venuti, 495] and this interest of the readers will coincide with the interest of the publishers, thus with the market. And naturally the community built will be shaped by the reader profile.
Another important question would be: Why have there been two rewritings of the same original writing published by the same publisher, in our case by Kamer Yayınları?
Other works of the re-writer: Re-writers are another important factor, maybe a more important factor than the publisher, in shaping the text since s/he is the actual creator of the text. What this translator have translated so far? What is her/his approach to translation? What are her/his priorities while rewriting? What is her/his experience with the genre? Because if they are known well and respected, their work will be "propagated as an example for future writers to follow" [Lefevere, 28] and canonized by the system as the proper/accepted version of the original writing. Thus their names may be published on the cover. However, none of the re-writers is mentioned on the cover.
The context in which the rewriting was published: The year in which these rewritings published is also important. The political climate of the time, popularity of the genre in those days, and the novelty brought to the literature of the time by these publications, if there is any, are important criteria for the analysis. And whether the two different Dracula's published by Kamer Yayınları have any effect on the later publication by İthaki is also important. The publication date of Drakula İstanbul'da was 1997 and Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula was published in 1998 while Elçi's translation was published five years later in 2003. So Elçi's translation have the opportunity to enjoy the fame of the Drakula after two published books and the movie.
Front and back covers of the rewritings: Cover of the novel gives a clue about what is expected inside. If the commentary writings on the cover satisfies anticipation of readers, s/he buys it. So the blurbs are important. Generally the back covers are the place to print these blurbs. Elçi's Drakula and Akkuş' Drakula have blurbs. The former one has a direct quotation from the book while the latter has a promotional writing, the reason for which is promoting the first translation of Drakula in Turkish. And it also has supported the promotion by mentioning the movie, Dracula.
Another significant detail about the covers are the pictures. On Elçi's Drakula the only picture on the cover belongs to the Dracula himself. Seyfi's cover picture has Drakula in front of a city setting which is consistent by the name, Drakula İstanbul'da. Akkuş' cover, on the other hand, has Dracula and a woman bit on the neck by him. The way woman is exposed quite sexually with her dress and the way her breasts are shown may be appealing to some readers.
The genre in which the rewriting was classified: All three publishing houses classified the book as a horror book.
Number of pages and other parts of the rewritings: "Contemporary canons of accuracy are based on an adequacy to the foreign text: an accurate translation of a novel must not only reproduce the basic elements of narrative form, but should do so in roughly the same number of pages" [Venuti, 484]. When the first thing to look at is the number of pages of the three rewritings without paying attention to the names or cover pictures of them, it is easy , and maybe wrong, to assume Elçi's and Akkuş' rewriting, with pictures, are "translations" of Stoker's Dracula while Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da is an adaptation most probably for children.
Number of pages are one of the elements that shows our biases in our perception of translation. Because generally we tend to focus on the exactness of the rewritten text and closeness to the original. So the closer the number of pages to the original, the closer the translation to the original is. The others are more likely to be called adaptations.
While Kamer Yayınları has contents page for both rewritings, İthaki Yayınları prefers not to put a contents page on a novel.
Finally, the pictures inside the books create a difference. Akkuş' Drakula has pictures directly taken from the movie which is consistent with its promotion on the blurb. Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da has pictures looking more like sketches which supports the children's book anticipation. Elçi's Drakula has no pictures in it.
REFERENCES
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence 2004. "Translation, Community, Utopia" in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 482-503.
8 Kasım 2009 Pazar
Politics in Rewriting
As mentioned by Douglas Robinson in the introduction of his analysing of Lefevere’s book Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, translation studies has experienced a social turn over the last decades by including rich social processes into the field and this turn actually has turned translation studies into a field where politics is discussed, produced, and reproduced. System theorists, foreignists, and post-colonialist theorists are given as examples of those following this kind of an approach to translation.
Being one of the system theorists Andre Lefevere touches upon the role of the ideology, power and culture in “translation”, or rather in rewriting as defined by him. Rewriting includes translations, criticisms, historiographies, anthologizing, and editing; that is what is written over the original writing. Thus he made two distinct categories in literature: one being the original writing and the other is the rewriting.
In spite of the “power” of rewritings in literature (i.e. reaching more people than original writings, being produced as a service of a certain ideology), they tend to be treated more like ‘“ancillary” in kind’ [Lefevere, 4] by the professional readers. Non-professional readers, on the other hand, will probably tend to choose rewritings over the originals. This can be explained by the power relations between the professional and non-professional readers, similar to the relations between the patron and the rewriter. Power of professionals comes from the easier access to economic resources, to language, to transportation opportunities in order to get the original. And this will also give them the chance to manipulate the rewritings of these texts, since the rewriters of them will most probably be among the professional readers of the texts in the first place. This manipulation is a way to create, maintain and change the cultural system [Robinson, 28] requested by the patron in order to preserve the stability of the social system as a whole. Patrons in power want to control the literary production because their power is based on it [Lefevere, 17].
This power is also based on the consumption of these rewritings by the culture/society. Making such a deduction would not be wrong since the stability of the system both in economical and ideological terms depends on the reading of these rewritings by non-professional readers. As a result, these texts should be congenial to the public. While appearing to be produced for the public taste, these rewritings serve to a bigger objective, the maintenance of the system. It is part of the “naturalization” process, the process of making the artificial (seem) natural, the imagined (seem) real [Robinson, 27]. This is actually quite similar to the situation criticized by Spivak in translation of Third World literature into English, or into other powerful languages of the West. While taking Third World to the majority, the First World, there is nothing noble about the law of the majority [Spivak, 371]. Although the objective seems to recognize and/or promote Third World literature in West, it is merely the easiest way of being “democratic” with minorities [ibid, 371].
Since Lefevere wants to analyze the systemic functioning of power, but does not want his analysis to be (mis)taken for an indictment [Robinson, 31], he makes a decision on not to take part in this political process. However, when power relations, hence the politics, come to the scene of the literary production, the rewritings will differ dramatically from the original writings as they will be shaped according to a certain ideology. Thus, even not making an indictment will be a political choice.
REFERENCES
Robinson, Douglas 1997. What is Translation?. The Kent State University Press. pp. 25-42.
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 1992. “The Politics of Translation” in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 369-388.
Being one of the system theorists Andre Lefevere touches upon the role of the ideology, power and culture in “translation”, or rather in rewriting as defined by him. Rewriting includes translations, criticisms, historiographies, anthologizing, and editing; that is what is written over the original writing. Thus he made two distinct categories in literature: one being the original writing and the other is the rewriting.
In spite of the “power” of rewritings in literature (i.e. reaching more people than original writings, being produced as a service of a certain ideology), they tend to be treated more like ‘“ancillary” in kind’ [Lefevere, 4] by the professional readers. Non-professional readers, on the other hand, will probably tend to choose rewritings over the originals. This can be explained by the power relations between the professional and non-professional readers, similar to the relations between the patron and the rewriter. Power of professionals comes from the easier access to economic resources, to language, to transportation opportunities in order to get the original. And this will also give them the chance to manipulate the rewritings of these texts, since the rewriters of them will most probably be among the professional readers of the texts in the first place. This manipulation is a way to create, maintain and change the cultural system [Robinson, 28] requested by the patron in order to preserve the stability of the social system as a whole. Patrons in power want to control the literary production because their power is based on it [Lefevere, 17].
This power is also based on the consumption of these rewritings by the culture/society. Making such a deduction would not be wrong since the stability of the system both in economical and ideological terms depends on the reading of these rewritings by non-professional readers. As a result, these texts should be congenial to the public. While appearing to be produced for the public taste, these rewritings serve to a bigger objective, the maintenance of the system. It is part of the “naturalization” process, the process of making the artificial (seem) natural, the imagined (seem) real [Robinson, 27]. This is actually quite similar to the situation criticized by Spivak in translation of Third World literature into English, or into other powerful languages of the West. While taking Third World to the majority, the First World, there is nothing noble about the law of the majority [Spivak, 371]. Although the objective seems to recognize and/or promote Third World literature in West, it is merely the easiest way of being “democratic” with minorities [ibid, 371].
Since Lefevere wants to analyze the systemic functioning of power, but does not want his analysis to be (mis)taken for an indictment [Robinson, 31], he makes a decision on not to take part in this political process. However, when power relations, hence the politics, come to the scene of the literary production, the rewritings will differ dramatically from the original writings as they will be shaped according to a certain ideology. Thus, even not making an indictment will be a political choice.
REFERENCES
Robinson, Douglas 1997. What is Translation?. The Kent State University Press. pp. 25-42.
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 1992. “The Politics of Translation” in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 369-388.
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