In this age of relentless globalisation, certain groups of people are routinely disenfranchised due to gender, ethnicity, nationality and social class. In this context, it’s helpful to consider the role translation plays in all of this, and whether it can ever help to empower the disenfranchised – or only serve to increase their vulnerability.
The controversial translation theorist Lawrence Venuti has argued insistently that fluent translations frequently perpetuate socio-political inequalities. In his view, translation is not an innocuous activity that facilitates communication – it can entrench inequality by bolstering the supremacy of dominant cultures.
Recent research has started to explore these complex issues. The translation scholar Israel Hephzibah focuses on English translations of Tamil literature produced by members of the so-called “untouchable” Dalit communities in India. These translations inevitably destabilise the traditional caste system by conferring literary credibility on the writings of a severely marginalised group. Such cases suggest that translation can become aligned with social justice.
Becoming extinct
But the fraught issue of endangered languages and cultures complicates the picture. UNESCO has estimated that 50-90% of the world’s languages will have become extinct by the year 2100.
It has been recognised for some time now that translations of indigenous texts (whether oral or written) can hasten language erosion in communities where there are few surviving native speakers. In contrast, translations into the endangered tongues can help to strengthen those languages.
On the whole, we seem to care less about vanishing languages than we do about endangered species – especially cuddly ones. When the last giant panda finally goes to the great bamboo grove in the sky, there will undoubtedly be prolonged global lamentation. But the Native American Klallam language expired on February 4 2014, when Hazel Sampson (its last speaker) died. Few news organisations felt its passing merited more than a cursory mention.
And even some translation theorists are sceptical. Emily Apter declared bluntly that she has “real reservations” about mingling translation studies and linguistic ecology – the study of how languages interact with their environment. Apter is concerned that the exoticising of expressions by native-speakers and other distinctive characteristics of a language risks imposing a fixed grammar where a natural variation should instead be allowed to prevail.
There are many different kinds of periphery in the modern world, and life close to them can be difficult, even precarious. But languages are spoken there too. They may not be the same languages as those uttered closer to the “centre” of things, but that does not invalidate them.
What place did translation have in the making of modern literature? And how might our understanding of a nation’s literature change when approached through the lens of translation?
Translation, Cho argues, was not supplementary but was essential to creating a national literature. That is “particularly visible” in East Asian literature from the late 19thand early 20th centuries, she said — a time when countries were “building a concept, canon, and language of national literature as part of establishing themselves as modern nations.”
Also, the public perception of translations has changed over time, she said; translators used to be “highly visible authors and public intellectuals and translation itself was not expected to be ‘faithful’ or invisible, as it is today.”
Αν η αρετή, όπως διαβάζουμε στον Αριστοτέλη, αποτελεί απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση για την ευτυχία του ανθρώπου και αν η αρετή είναι η μεσότητα και αν μία από τις μεσότητες είναι το θάρρος, η κατάσταση δηλαδή ανάμεσα στο θράσος και τη δειλία, ο δειλός μεταφραστής είναι ένας δυστυχισμένος ή – ορθότερα – ένας μη ευτυχισμένος άνθρωπος; Και τι μπορεί να είναι αυτό που τον φοβίζει; Και γιατί τον φοβίζει; Και, εν τέλει, ποιος είναι ο δειλός μεταφραστής; Μήπως τελικά όλοι οι μεταφραστές είναι δειλοί;
The Marketing Cookbook For Translators, is not just another book about marketing. It’s specific to your niche, targeted to your needs like a pinch of salt to a soup. It contains the tools to market your translation services in an efficient way, methods and systems to perform the marketing to your ideal clients, strategies to maintain a continuous marketing plan to find new clients and keep your existing clients and to get the word out about your translation services so that the clients can find you instead of you trying to find them.
By writing the Marketing Cookbook for Translators, Tess wanted to create an easy to follow guide for freelance translators looking to build or grow their business, outlining all the marketing and client retention strategies to make that dream a reality. She wanted it to be as easy as following a recipe in a cookbook!
What place did translation have in the making of modern literature? And how might our understanding of a nation’s literature change when approached through the lens of translation?
The Marketing Cookbook For Translators, is not just another book about marketing. It’s specific to your niche, targeted to your needs like a pinch of salt to a soup. It contains the tools to market your translation services in an efficient way, methods and systems to perform the marketing to your ideal clients, strategies to maintain a continuous marketing plan to find new clients and keep your existing clients and to get the word out about your translation services so that the clients can find you instead of you trying to find them.