Translation Tomorrow

This form of resistance can be expressed strongly in the field of literary translation. Although translation of literature is but a minor part of translation activity as a whole, it has the potential to become an agent of subversion that can upset the plans for domination by any single language. Perhaps translation is the only means to maintain the precious diversity that can keep a monolingual world at bay. Cronin terms this as a translation that is based in cultural negentropy, which is “primarily concerned with the ‘emergence of new’ cultural forms through translation practice and the way in which translation contributes to and fosters the persistence and development of diversity” (Translation and Identity, 129).     
                                                                                               
Borrowing a term from John Urry, Cronin argues that translations should be modeled on the hologram, where the hologram becomes a metaphor for the modern age. “Information in a hologram is not located in any particular part or it. Rather any part contains, implies and resonates information of the whole” (qtd in Translation and Identity, 132). A translator while translating, has to not only love the text she is translating, but have a comprehensive view of the literature she is translating from and into – in short, she has to perceive the whole in the part; this strategy is what Maria Tymoczko describes as metonymic and is what is meant by the hologrammatic dimension to translation. “This is translation’s contribution to ‘diversality’, to the negentropic, as it shows how diversity persists in the elaborateness of the particular, how translation’s commitment to close reading and linguistic attentiveness shows that in the case of each text, the ‘monde, aussi petit soit-il, est vaste’ (world as small as it is wide)” (Translation and Identity, 133).

Translations, especially literary translations, might appear ridiculously flimsy attempts at resistance to the overwhelming flood of homogeneity that is a consequence of western-oriented globalization. However, when an English text is translated using the domesticating strategy into Kokborok to suit the reader or when a Tamil text is translated into English using the foreignizing strategy to be faithful to the source text, what is happening is a small but meaningful gesture of acknowledging and respecting difference. This is where translation gives us hope.

Assignments

1. What are the ways in which the diversity of the world is threatened by the powerful economic and political forces?
2. Attempt to locate and recognize the ways in which globalization has affected your culture and language.
   
   

References

Cronin, Michael. “Minority”. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Eds. Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanah. 1998. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2009: 169 – 172.
Cronin, Michael Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge, 2003. Rpt.2004.
Cronin, Michael.Translation and Identity. London: Routledge, 2006.
St-Pierre, Paul. “Translation in an Era of Globalization”.  In Translation: Reflections, Refractions, Transformations. Eds. Paul St-Pierre and Prafulla C.Kar. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2005: 162 – 172.