Translation and Power

Edwin Gentzler and Maria Tymoczko explained their thesis on power in the collection of essays they edited called Translation and Power (2002). They placed translations within the larger framework of socio-political happenings of the 1960s and 70s in their bid to understand the growing interest in the machinations of power. Western society of the post World War II and Vietnam war era, was increasingly aware of the way readers could be manipulated through literature. This awareness made translation theorists also to explore the relationship between power and translation, or the socio-political contexts of translation practice. This was given a concrete shape in The Manipulation of Literature, a 1985 anthology of essays edited by Theo Hermans; it included essays by Gideon Toury, José Lambert, André Lefevere, Susan Bassnett and Maria Tymoczko. The main thrust of their arguments was that translation was a primary, rather than secondary or derivative, literary tool that was used by governments and other power centres to manipulate readers around to their viewpoint. Gradually, the hidden agenda of power behind translations became the focus of many translation theorists, especially after the cultural turn. The attention given to the contexts of translation, its impact on a given culture, and the choice of texts to be translated, in some way or other point to the role of power in this activity. In fact, Gentzler and Tymoczko argue that “the ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies has become the ‘power turn', with questions of power brought to the fore in discussions of both translation history and strategies for translation” (xvi).

Translation, they maintain, is associated with all aspects of meaning of the word ‘power’, because “translation is a metonymic process as well as a metaphoric one” (xvii).  This is because the source text is the storehouse of a range of meanings that the translation can never hope to capture; at best it can only choose what it wishes to represent. In other words, it represents a part of the source text in its attempt to represent the whole, which makes it a metonymic process. It is metaphoric as it substitutes words or phrases for those in the original. The activity of translation is always partial as it depends upon the translator’s personal choice and also will always be incomplete because it cannot ever represent all the possible meanings of the source text. However, Gentzler and Tymoczko are of the view that this partiality need not be considered a defect. It is what makes a translation ‘partisan’ and capable of being committed, thereby becoming an “exercise in power” (xviii). The methodology of translation like the inclusion of analysis of words and phrases and other paratextual material like footnotes etc can reveal a translator’s commitment, and her desire to expose the workings of power in the source text. In fact, many translators have felt liberated from the need to be ‘faithful’ to the source text, “and deliberately subvert traditional allegiances of translation, interjecting their own worldviews and politics into their work” (Gentzler, “Translation, Poststructuralism and Power”, 197). He thinks that one aspect of the ‘power turn’ in translation studies is that translators have started to assert their presence or power.