Reine Meylaerts (FWO - KULeuven) - 3rd EST-Congress- Copenhague, 30/8 - 1/9/2001
Globalization: a Challenge to Translation Studies?
Is globalization a challenge to Translation Studies? The internationalization of communication questions the concepts traditionally used for the description of the
‘pre-globalised’ world. Among other things, the concept of ‘territory’ has become blurred: new communication communities are partially governed by principles other than spatial ones. Consequently, cultures seem to outgrow their former territorial grounds. The common neo-Romantic association between a nation-state, a territory, a language and a culture has become one of the most insistently questioned paradigms.
Due to their nature and object - cross-cultural communication, overlappings and intercultures - Translation Studies seem to hold a crucial position in the questioning of nineteenth-century nationalistic ideologies.
However, it is not only in this age of globalization that it appears fruitful to problematize these ideologies. In other words, the opposition between a globalised and a pre-globalised world very often proves to be a false one. The longevity of the neo-Romantic paradigm in Translation Studies has resulted in a kind of a conceptual blindness for the fact that national, international, regional models are always competing with each other. The assumption of two monolingual communities located in different, national spaces, of - more or less absolute - linguistic and spatial barriers between a sometimes naïvely distinguished source and target, is a still widespread misunderstanding in Translation Studies, whether they be source or target-oriented. As a result, translation is often defined as one way communication between cultures: the final product or translation has no effect on the source culture. “Translations are
(supposed to be) facts of the target culture” according to Toury.
Yet, just as is the case for the globalized world, translational research in historical situations can also benefit from a conceptualization of cultures which is not exclusively defined in terms of distinct monolingual, and often national, spaces.
Since the 90s, several reactions on this binary, geo-linguistic thinking developed within the target oriented approach itself, especially and not surprisingly from research on media translation and internationalization. José Lambert (1991) has repeatedly insisted on the complexity involved in mapping the areas occupied by languages, literatures or cultures: they are in constant displacement, overlapping, unification and fragmentation. Anthony Pym’s model, starting from actors rather than texts, most vehemently criticizes the axiomatic separation of cultures, pleading to take into consideration source and target side. This alternative conceptualization locates translation first and foremost in intercultures. In a welcome addition to Pym, in an attempt to integrate socio-institutional factors, D. Simeoni urges us to investigate the structuring and structured dimensions of the translator’s habitus which forms the
“elaborate result of a personalized social and cultural history” (1998:32). For postcolonial models then, translations proceed in a multilingual environment, where large numbers of readers know both the source and target languages. They thus challenge the presupposition of a linguistic gap separating source and target. Still, until now, these various criticisms are seldom related to institutional power relations between cultures, an idea proposed by Theo Hermans in The Translator in 1995. As a result, they continue to consider too much as an exception - limited to globalization or postcolonialism e.g. - what can be, as A. Pym rightly stresses, an alternative, or even a better way altogether to write translation history.
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Reine Meylaerts (FWO - KULeuven) - 3rd EST-Congress- Copenhague, 30/8 - 1/9/2001
So, for the time remaining, let’s look at a brief illustration. For the sake of my argument, it’s interesting to turn to a very traditional, historical research object, roughly characterized by four parameters. It deals with literary translations (is there anything more traditional?) (1) from a minority culture into a majority culture (2) within one and the same nation-state, i.e. in a context of geo-political closeness
(instead of separation) between the source minority and the target majority (3) in which the source minority formulates claims of socio-linguistic emancipation towards the target majority and (4) in a multilingual environment: a non-existent language barrier in large bilingual population groups points towards a high degree of interculturality. The interplay of these factors creates a situation in which binary oppositions and geo-linguistic cultural differentiation reveal oversimplifications.
Instead, intersections, overlappings, blurred edges, sources..., become important alternative explanations.
But let’s be more precise: what do we learn from research on the history of literary translations in Belgium? Belgium, a West-European nation-state, created in 1830, was a bicultural and bilingual country. In fact nothing will reveal less ambiguous than the idea that Belgium simply is a traditional illustration of the standard nation-state model. Its language distribution followed a two-fold geografic and sociological criterion. The South was French-speaking (upper classes standard French, lower classes dialects). In the North, lower social classes were Dutch-speaking (dialects), upper-classes were Francophone, middle classes were bilingual standard Dutch- standard French. French was the language of socio-cultural distinction and social mobility; it was the official language of the nation-state for state administration, justice, education... In terms of power relations, the majority culture was French, whereas Dutch was the minority culture. In order to counter this discrimination, the
Dutch middle classes lobbied so that Dutch could become the official national language in the North for state administration, justice, education. Important linguistic laws were voted in during the twenties and thirties of the XXth century. The
Francophone perceived these laws as a threat to their political and socio-cultural hegemony. It is in this context, more precisely during the twenties and thirties, that literary translations from Dutch into French started to boom. Literary translations from a minority culture into a majority culture, in a context of linguistic quarrels within a bilingual and bicultural nation-state functioned for the target side as a defensive reaction in order to maintain its socio-cultural dominance. Since translational contacts with the minority by definition passed through the majority language, they confirmed the monolingual upper class in its monolingualism and thus in its dominant position.
In short, for the Francophones, the translations were a work of patriotism, in honour of a monolingual Francophone nation-state.
Yet these goals were challenged because translations were not only facts of the target culture. The univocal distinctions between target and source texts, discourses, languages, cultures, agents were blurred by the high degree of interculturality within one and the same nation-state. At the same time, due to the unequal power relations between the concerned cultures, perceptions and evaluations of translational contacts could be radically divergent. All these oppositions could be described at various levels: discursive, institutional, socio-cultural... For the time being, let’s focus on the translator as one of the possible entries into an alternative way of studying translation history in a multilingual environment.
Translators could either have their roots in the Dutch minority culture or in the
Francophone majority culture. Those belonging to the Dutch bilingual middle class
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Reine Meylaerts (FWO - KULeuven) - 3rd EST-Congress- Copenhague, 30/8 - 1/9/2001 shared to a large extent the linguistic competences and socio-cultural background with the authors they translate. Very often the role of author and translator was interchangeable, authors e.g. intervening actively in the translation process. This is just one example of the so-called source playing a causal role and thus of ambiguous boundaries between target and source within the translation process.
What was happening in terms of the translation product then? The French translations were reviewed by the bilinguals of the minority culture both in French and in Dutch, both in the majority and minority language. Several Dutch critics appreciated the initiative as a service for the propagation of the minority culture, and as a way to take part in the prestige of the majority culture. This is a typical example of what Bourdieu calls symbolic domination: by internalizing their inferiority, the dominated continue their proper domination. Other Dutch reviews strongly disapproved of French translations: they accused them of giving the Francophone the possibility to maintain their unilingual majority position. Due to this negative perception, Dutch translators were sometimes so heavily criticized on the Dutch minority side that planned projects died prematurely end or they simply quit translating. Translation, due to its nature, is closely linked to perceived and internalized power relations between languages and cultures. In a multilingual context of linguistic struggles between a source minority and a target majority culture, translation which wants to be a mirror of these unequal power relations, is treachery for some groups within the source minority. This renders the position of intercultural agents very difficult. Again the source culture plays a causal role.
Translators originating from the majority target culture shared, sometimes more closely, the social origin and mental dispositions of the unilingual Francophone readers. However, in the translation process, source and target boundaries were equally ambiguous: Dutch authors kept intervening in the translation process and the roles of authors and translators remained interchangeable.
Because of the high degree of interculturality within one and the same nation-state, the
Francophone translator was also very well informed on Dutch cultural life. The Dutch disapprovals in the Dutch press were of little concern to him because they couldn’t reach the target public: a minority of Francophones were capable of reading Dutch and moreover, because of its minority position, Dutch literature was not considered worthy of paying attention to. Still, as a typical outcome of overlappings between commonly too naïvely distinguished monolingual source and target languages, texts, and discourses, Dutch disapprovals also appeared in French in the Francophone press.
They criticized the idea of translation in itself but also the selection strategies and the concrete textual translation strategies. The conscious limitation to regional literature, a secondary genre at the time, as well as the stylistic stress on the popular character of the translated texts were condemned for their reductive image of Dutch literature in
French translation. The most important Francophone translator of the inter-war period was particularly irritated by these negative reactions from Dutch bilinguals in the
Francophone press. He felt caught between his conservative unilingual Francophone public, his personal preferences and the severe criticisms of bilingual Dutch colleagues. When the gap between the personal history of the translator and the collective history of his Francophone readers started to develop, his translation activities ended. Thus, the divergent internalization of the structuring principles of source and target literary fields and of their mutual contacts between an intercultural individual, his multilingual source and unilingual target public, co-determine the end
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Reine Meylaerts (FWO - KULeuven) - 3rd EST-Congress- Copenhague, 30/8 - 1/9/2001 of his translations from Dutch into French. Again, the so-called source culture has played a causal role.
These few examples have thus illustrated that, in terms of methods and concepts, the opposition between globalization and pre-globalization, is a false one. Translational research in historical situations cannot naïvely conceptualize cultures in terms of distinct monolingual national spaces. Sources and hence selections and origins do matter; translations are not only facts of the target culture. Instead of binary oppositions and geo-linguistic cultural differentiation, intersections, overlappings, blurred edges, socio-institutional power relations and the concrete degree of interculturality become important alternative explanatory factors which cannot be limited to postcolonialism or globalization.
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