This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The syllabus of the Department of English, MKBU includes paper no.- 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies which includes around 9 articles. We (students) are assigned a task of classroom presentation of assigned articles in a pair. In this blog we are supposed to write abstract, key points / arguments and concluding remarks on all two articles of Unit 3 of paper Comparative Literatures and Translation Studies. It also includes the recording of class presentations presented by respective students. Blogger and her partner have made a presentation on the third article, presentation and a video of a particular article is embedded (as per the task).
ARTICLE 1
“Translation and Literary History: An Indian View”
Ganesh Devy
[This article is taken from ‘Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice
(Ed. Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi)]
J. Hillis Miller says:
‘Translation is the wandering existence of a text in a perpetual exile,’.
In Western metaphysics translation is an exile, a fall from the origin; and the mythical exile is a metaphoric translation, a post-Babel crisis. Given this metaphysical precondition of Western aesthetics, it is not surprising that literary translations are not accorded the same status as original works. Western literary criticism provides for the guilt of translations for coming into being after the original; the temporal sequentially is held as a proof of diminution of literary authenticity of translations. The strong sense of individuality given to Western individuals through systematic philosophy and the logic of social history makes them view translation as an intrusion of ‘the other’ (sometimes pleasurable).
The philosophy of individualism and the metaphysics of guilt, however, render European literary historiography incapable of grasping the origins of literary traditions. One of the most revolutionary events in the history of English style has been the authorized translation of the Bible.
During the last two centuries the role of translation in communicating literary movements across linguistic borders has become very important. the tradition of Anglo-Irish literature – branched out of the practice of translating Irish works into English initiated by Macpherson towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Translations are popularly perceived as unoriginal, not much thought has been devoted to the aesthetics of translation. No critic has taken any well-defined position about the exact placement of translations in literary history. This ontological uncertainty which haunts translations has rendered translation study a haphazard activity which devotes too much energy discussing problems of conveying the original meaning in the altered structure.
Roman Jakobson in his essay on the linguistics of translation proposed a threefold classification of translations:
(a) those from one verbal order to another verbal order within the same language system,
(b) those from one language system to another language system, and
(c) those from a verbal order to another system of signs .
As he considers a complete semantic equivalence as the final objective of a translation act – which is not possible – he asserts that poetry is untranslatable.
Linguistic changes within a single language are predominantly of a semantic nature, the linguistic differences between two closely related languages are predominantly phonetic. Technically speaking, then, if synonymy within one language is a near impossibility, it is not so when we consider two related languages together.
Structural linguistics considers language as a system of signs, arbitrarily developed, that tries to cover the entire range of significance available to the culture of that language. The signs do not mean anything by or in themselves; they acquire significance by virtue of their relation to the entire system to which they belong. If translation is defined as some kind of communication of significance, and if we accept the structuralist principle that communication becomes possible because of the nature of signs and their entire system, it follows that translation is a merger of sign systems. Such a merger is possible because systems of signs are open and vulnerable. The translating consciousness exploits the potential openness of language systems; and as it shifts significance from a given verbal form to a corresponding but different verbal form it also brings closer the materially different sign systems. If we take a lead from phenomenology and conceptualize a whole community of ‘translating consciousness’ it should be possible to develop a theory of interlingual synonymy as well as a more perceptive literary historiography.
The concept of a ‘translating consciousness’ and communities of people possessing it are no mere notions. In most Third World countries, where a dominating colonial language has acquired a privileged place, such communities do exist. The use of two or more different languages in translation activity cannot be understood properly through studies of foreign-language acquisition. Owing to the structuralist unwillingness to acknowledge the existence of any non-systemic or extra- systemic core of significance, the concept of synonymy in the West has remained inadequate to explain translation activity. And in the absence of a linguistic theory based on a multilingual perspective or on translation practice, the translation thought in the West overstates the validity of the concept of synonymy.
J.C. Catford presents a comprehensive statement of theoretical formulation about the linguistics of translation in A Linguistic Theory of Translation, in which he seeks to isolate various linguistic levels of translation.
‘Translation is an operation performed on languages:
a process of substituting a text in one language for
a text in another; clearly, then, any theory of translation
must draw upon a theory of language – a general linguistic theory’
During the nineteenth century, Europe had distributed various fields of humanistic knowledge into a threefold hierarchy: comparative studies for Europe, Orientalism for the Orient, and anthropology for the rest of the world. After the ‘discovery’ of Sanskrit by Sir William Jones, historical linguistics in Europe depended heavily on Orientalism. Translation can be seen as an attempt to bring a given language system in its entirety as close as possible to the areas of significance that it shares with another given language or languages. All translations operate within this shared area of significance. Such a notion may help us distinguish synonymy within one language and the shared significance between two related languages.
The translation problem is not just a linguistic problem. It is an aesthetic and ideological problem with an important bearing on the question of literary history. Literary translation is not just a replication of a text in another verbal system of signs. It is a replication of an ordered sub-system of signs within a given language in another corresponding ordered sub-system of signs within a related language. After the act of translation is over, the original work still remains in its original position. Translation is rather an attempted revitalization of the original in another verbal order and temporal space.
The problems in translation study are very much like those in literary history. They are the problems of the relationship between origins and sequentially. And as in translation study so in literary history, the problem of origin has not been tackled satisfactorily. The point that needs to be made is that probably the question of origins of literary traditions will have to be viewed differently by literary communities with ‘translating consciousness’.
In conclusion alluding to Indian metaphysics, Indian metaphysics believes in an unhindered migration of the soul from one body to another. Repeated birth is the very substance of all animated creations. When the soul passes from one body to another, it does not lose any of its essential significance. Elements of plot, stories, characters, can be used again and again by new generations of writers because Indian literary theory does not lay undue emphasis on originality. If originality were made a criterion of literary excellence, a majority of Indian classics would fail the test. The true test is the writer’s capacity to transform, to translate, to restate, to revitalize the original. And in that sense Indian literary traditions are essentially traditions of translation.
Video recording of this article's presentation, presented by my classmates Emisha Ravani and Nilay Rathod
Presentation of the article by Emisha Ravani and Nilay Rathod
It is common to find it challenging to read original articles and summarize them. As a result, I have simplified this article through my understanding and with the help of ChatGPT. Simplifying articles is helpful in achieving a better and clearer understanding of the concept, which will make reading the original article easier. The main aim is to help students or readers understand the concept so that they can read the original article with ease. CLICK HERE FOR A LAYMANISED ARTICLE.
-A.K. Ramanujan
(From collected essays of A.K Ramanujan ed. Vijay Dharwadkar)
I hope this blog is useful.
[words- 1167]
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