Introduction

The title of this lecture might mislead you into thinking that there is something like a poststructuralist theory of translation. There isn't. But the theories of language that evolved after Derrida and deconstruction (which can generally be classified as poststructuralist) revolutionized the concepts of language and meaning, and they had an impact on translation also. So this lecture is basically an attempt to understand a different direction taken by translation studies. To understand this new direction, it is necessary to understand the concepts that influenced translation theory.

Derrida's theory of deconstruction undermined the concept of stability of structures and fixity of meanings. According to him, there is no fixed relationship between signified and signifier, or word and meaning; meaning is continuously deferred along a chain of signifiers. As Gentzler puts it, “at the foundation of Derrida's thought is the assumption that there is no kernel or deep structure or invariant of comparison, nothing that we may ever discern – let alone represent, translate, or found a theory on” (147). Now if we accept this premise, then we have to reformulate the concept of translation as the carrying over of the ‘meaning' of a source text into the target language. If there is no stable meaning or rather, a stable text, then what can we possibly carry over? Can we really make a distinction between the ‘original' and ‘translation'? Deconstruction thus prompts us to reconsider the very foundation of the process of translation. This theory would invert the basic binary inherent in accepted notions of translation, which is that of the ‘original’ source text and the ‘secondary’ translation in the target language. Derrida’s perspective blurs the boundaries between the original and the translation.

However, it is not just Jacques Derrida whose theories influenced translation – there were others like Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault.