Seventh Article :-On Translating a Tamil Poem by A. K. Ramanuja
Translation is the wandering existence of a text in a perpetual exile' -J. Hillis Miller.Western literary criticism provides for the guilt of translations for coming into being after the original; the temporal sequentiality 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’iv (sometimes pleasurable). This intrusion is desirable to the extent that it helps define one’s own identity, but not beyond that point. It is of course natural for the monolingual European cultures to be acutely conscious of the act of translation.
Key Points
The philosophy of individualism and the metaphysics of guilt, however, render European literary historiography incapable of grasping the origins of literary traditions.
Most revolutionary events in the history of English style has been the
authorized translation of the Bible.
The recovery of the original spirit of Christianity was thus sought by Protestant England through an act of translation.
Chaucer was translating the style of Boccacio into English when he created his Canterbury Tales. When Dryden and Pope wanted to recover a sense of order, they used the tool of translation. Similar attempts were made in other European languages such as German and French.
Fact that most literary traditions originate in translation and gain
substance through repeated acts of translation, it would be useful for a theory of literary history if a supporting theory of literary translation were available.
Most of the primary issues relating to ‘form’ and ‘meaning’ too have not been settled in relation to translation. No critic has taken any well-defined position about the exact placement of translations in literary history. Do they belong to the history of the ‘T’ languages or do they belong to the history of the ‘S’ languages? Or do they form an independent tradition all by themselves? 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: (1) Those from one verbal order to another verbal order within the same language system.
(2) Those from one language system to another language system.
(3) Those from a verbal order to another system of sign.
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 concept of a ‘translating consciousness’v 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. In India several languages are simultaneously used by language communities as if these languages formed a continuous spectrum of signs and significance.
The use of two or more different languages in translation activity cannot be understood properly through studies of foreign-language acquisition.
The field is stratified in terms of value based indicators L1 and L2, though in reality language-learning activity may seem very natural in a country like India.
Chomsky’s linguistics the concept of semantic universals plays an important role. However, his level of abstraction marks the farthest limits to which the monolingual Saussurean linguistic materialism can be stretched.
In actual practice, even in Europe, the translating consciousness treats the SL and TL as parts of a larger and continuous spectrum of various intersecting systems of verbal signs.
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’.
The privileged discourse of general linguistics today is closely interlinked with developments in anthropology, particularly after Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss.
1)Humanistic knowledge into a threefold hierarchy: comparative studies for Europe.
2)Orientalism for the Orient. 3)Anthropology for the rest of the world.
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.
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.
The problems in translation study are, therefore, very much like those in literary history.
The problems of the relationship between origins and sequentiality.
The problem of origin has not been tackled satisfactorily.
Question of origins of
literary traditions will have to be viewed differently by literary communities with ‘translating consciousness’.
The fact that Indian literary communities do possess this translating consciousness can be brought home effectively by reminding ourselves that the very foundation of modern Indian literatures was laid through acts of translation, whether by Jayadeva, Hemcandra, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, H.N. Apte or Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
Christian metaphysics that conditions reception of translation in the Western world.
Conclusion
Let us allude to Indian metaphysics in conclusion. When the soul passes from one body to another, it does not lose any of its essential significance. Indian philosophies of the relationship between form and essence, structure and significance are guided by this metaphysics.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.
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