ROBINSON POWER DIFFERENTIALS

She says that translation plays 3 roles in postcolonial studies:

- As a channel for colonization, corrected by education and the control of
the market and institutions
- As a lightening-rod for cultural inequalities
- As a channel for decolonization
She mentions Jacquemond’s theory of translation inequalities. Jacquemond has 4
hypothesis in relation to this:
1. A dominated culture (DM) will translate far more of a HEGEMONIC
CULTURE (HC) than the latter will of the former.
In order to illustrate this, he uses the terms “language from the north” to
refer to the East, to the first world, to the hegemonic culture and
“language from the south” to refer to the rest of the world, the DC. This
means that Southern intellectual production will be translated only for
small circles of specialists, whereas books from the North are read on a
much wider scale in the South. This has to do with Venuti’s concept of
trade imbalance.
2. Texts of the DC translated by the HC will be perceived as difficult,
strange, mysterious, of interest only to a small group of specialists and
translations will tend to be literal full of footnotes, whereas a DC will
translate HC works accessibly for the masses.
3. A HC will only translate works from the DC that follow certain
stereotypes.
4. An author of the DC who dreams of reaching larger audiences will tend to
translate or write his/her work in the hegemonic language. Nowadays, it’s
common that the only way to get read in the world is to write or be
translated into English, which has always been the lingua franca, because
of a century of first British and the American economic, political, military
and cultural dominance.
To conclude, a DC will be represented in a HC by translations that are fewer in
number, perceived as difficult, chosen because they conform some stereotypes
and written following those stereotypes. A HC will be represented in a DC by
translations that are greater in number, perceived as interesting, chosen because
they come from the HC, and written in ignorance of the DC.

Jacquemond offers a dual schematization of power differentials when theorizing

them:
There is a colonial moment: translators working in the DC are mediators who
integrate foreign objects without questions. And there is a postcolonial moment:
translators working in a HC appear authoritative figures who keep the other
culture at distance and at the same time they make it comprehensible.

ROBINSON- BECOMING A TRANSLATOR

The author has the following thesis: translation for the professional translator is a
learning cycle that moves thorugh the stages of INSTINCT, EXPERIENCE,
HABIT, and within experience through the stages of ABDUCTIONS
(guesswork), INDUCTION (pattern building) and DEDUCTION (theories,
laws); the translator is at once a professional for whom complex mental
processes have become second nature and a learner who is constantly faced with
new problems and has to solve them.
The translator has two mental states and processes: the subliminal state, where it
seems as if the translator was not thinking, it’s a fast state which has to do with
habit and the analytical state where the translator looks up for words in the
dictionaries, checks grammar, looks for synonyms, etc.; it’s a slow state which
has to do with experience. The analytical material is stored for use and then in
the analytical process it becomes second nature. The translator needs both habit
to make the process speed up and make it enjoyable, and experience, fresh
experiences which impulse learning.
The process of translation can also be related with Pierce’s theory of a triad. The
translator starts with instinct, where he guesses the meaning of a word or phrase,
this is related to the abduction process. Then he continues with experience, where
he proceeds by translating those words and phrases, moving back and forth from
one language to the other, this is related to the intuition process. And finally, the
habit stage, where the translator sublimated gradually some solutions to specific
problems and makes problem-solution patterns, which become second nature.
This is related to the deduction process. Ultimately the translation feels more
competent and starts to regard himself as a professional.
Finally, the process of translation can be seen as a translate-edit-sublimate
process. The translator jumps into the text first and translates it intuitively, the he
thinks of what he has done and edits it intuitively too, allowing the first intuitive
translation to challenge a well-reasoned principle in which he believe deeply.
And finally he sublimates, he internalizes what he has learned and makes it
second nature, and makes it part of his intuitive repertoire. According to this
model, the translator is at once a professional who has internalized problems to
specific solutions and has made them second nature, and a learner who is faced
with new problems and must find solutions to those problems, and who thrived
on those problems since novelties mean variety, growth and enjoyment.
This model is an ideal model of the process of translation, but actually it not
always like this, because in real life there are several obstacles, for example, lack
of memory, inadequate dictionaries, untranslated words, etc.

LAVEFERE- TRANSLATING LITERATURE

Lavefere proposes some categories for translation analysis that go beyond
individual texts:
1. Authority: not only the authority which comes from the patron, institution
or person commissioning or publishing the translation, but also the
authority which comes from the text and from the culture.
- Patron: authority draws the ideological parameters of the acceptable, so it
influences the selection of texts to be translated and how they are going to
be translated.
- Culture: there are some cultures which are considered, at certain times,
more prestigious than others, so they are more authoritative.
- Text: there are some texts which are considered as authoritative, for
example, the first translation of a classical text sometimes remains the
authoritative text.
2. Expertise and 3. Trust: the intended readers who don’t know the original
trust the experts (whose expertise is guaranteed and checked). They trust
that the translation is a fair representation of the original. Patrons who
commission and publish translations also trust the experts because they
leave the task of checking the translation to them.
3. Image: of the source text a translator has consciously or unconsciously
sets out to develop and the intended audience (the readers).
Translation not only projects the image of the work that is translated and
the world it belongs to, but it also protects their world against images
which are radically different, by adapting them or eliminating them.

RABASSA – IF THIS BE TREASON

Rabassa talks about the many spots in which translation can be accused of
treason.
- The first and most elemental one is the treason of words, for the word is
the very essence of the language, the metaphor of what we see, feel and
imagine.
- Then, there is treason of the language, and as language is a product of a
culture, there is also treason of a culture.
- Finally, there are personal treasons: the first victim is the author, but the
readers are also betrayed, and the translator also betrays himself.
Most of these matters merge to form an indirect betrayal of the author,
since he is a compendium of all these factors: words, language and
culture. These are inseparable and the author is the product.
The author’s free will and originality only exists within the bounds of his
culture. If he is to betray it, he betrays it from within, but the translator
makes the opposite, he betrays it from without. Another difference is that
within the cultural limits, an author must set himself apart from the
commonplace, but with the translator it’s the opposite, he can’t and must
not set apart from the culture.

The translator is a writer, an ideal writer because all he has to do is to

write. And he is also a reader, he has to read the text closely to know what
it is about. Here he receives less guidance. And the translator has to know
that his translation is the best that he can do in this place and time and
must recognize that his work is always unfinished.

DE BEUGRANDE
According to De Beugrande potential audiences and reader’s perspectives
are conductive avenues to approach the issue of translatability. A text will
be translatable when the resulting translated text fulfills at least some of
the readers’ expectations in the target culture.
The CONTEXT is constituted by the situational configurations
surrounding the text.
The CO-TEXT is the textual, linguistic environment surrounding a certain
word.
INTERTEXTUALITY is the relation of the text with previous or
contemporary texts as regards a chain of texts, literary traditions and
conventions.
Sometimes a word has more than one meaning and the translator makes
use of the context in order to rule out inadequate meanings and choose the
appropriate one. However, there is a situation called POLYVALENCE in
which a word cannot be reduced to a single meaning, and thus produces
ambiguity and obscurity and may interfere in arriving at the correct
interpretation when reading. Polyvalence can be eliminated with a close
evaluation of the context, co-text and intertextuality.

The author also states that most contributions of translation of poetry do

not focus on the processes whereby a text is read and understood, so many
errors derive from inadequate reading rather than inadequate writing.
He says that there are many reasons why it’s important to focus on the
reading process when translating:
1. the basis of translation is not in the original text, but in the
representation of the text generated in the translator’s mind. So theory
 must account for typical obstacles in the reading comprehension and
how to tackle those obstacles.
2. Sometimes, some errors derive from the differences between the
original text and the representation of the text in the translator’s mind.
This happens because the translator adds some components to that
representation, such as his own knowledge, beliefs and conventions.
So theory should account for how the mental representation is reached
and how that representation typically differs from the original.
3. Reading and writing strategies are closely related. The writer generates
a stretch of discourse and the evaluates it with regard to its
effectiveness in conveying the mental representation that motivated the
discourse. This evaluation leads to reconsideration and revision. The
ability needed to evaluate a text is a reading skill, that’s why in order
to fully describe the act of translating, we have to describe the process
of reading.
4. The translator cannot produce an equivalent text if he does not have in
mind the response of the potential readers of the translation.
5. The reader perspective is the most conductive avenue to approach the
issue of translatability. A text will be considered as translatable when
the resulting translated text fulfills at least some of the reader’s
expectations in the target culture.
6. The matter of translation criticism can also be approached from the
readers perspective. When a translation is evaluated, the most frequent
question is whether the translation is suitable to represent a literary text
to a foreign reader. Sometimes the incompetence of translators derive
from lack of knowledge and experience in one or both languages, or
from lack of competence in the processes of writing, reading and
translating.
Stages in the reading process:
1. Readers must supply some the perceptions not presented in the text.
2. Readers reduce in this way the undefinedness of the text.
3. In order to accomplish the first 2 tasks, readers must actualize the
potential of language elements to refer to the real world.
4. Obstacles in a text must be overcome
- I’s essential to maintain the meaning potential of a text during translation.
As a reader, the translator naturally tends to complete the text, filling the
gaps. Danger: the translator’s own additions and responses.
 HOLMES
TRANSLATION OF POETRY
He states that problems in translation of poetry can be grouped in three
levels, related to 3 backgrounds in which the original text manifests
itself:
1. LINGUISTIC CONTEXT: the poet makes use of part of the
expressive means of a specific language in order to communicate
something, and the words of the poem take significance for the
reader only when they are interpreted in that context.
2. LITERARY INTERTEX: a poem is written in interaction with a
whole body of poetry, in relation with other texts, so the rhyme,
rhythm, assonance as well as the themes and topics of the poem
will we related to those in that array of text.
3. SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXTS: has to do with the society and
the culture in which the poem is written where the symbols, objects
and concepts will never be exactly the same in any other society or
culture.
So, when translating the translator has to make some choices between exocitizing
versus naturalizing, and between historicizing or modernizing. Theorists have
always argue that choices should be all of a piec: all exocitizing and
historicizing, with an emphasis on retention, or all naturalizing and modernizing
with an emphasis on re-creation. Holmes sees recreation and retention as two
extremes. He says that translators, in practice, perform a series of pragmatic
choices, here retentive, there recreative, at times historicizing, other times
modernizing, etc. There are some generalizations that can be made: translators
will tend to choose naturalizing and modernizing in the linguistic context and the
literary intertex; but they will tend to choose exocitizing and historicizing in the
sociocultural context.

Holmes states that no translation of a poem is ever the same as the original
because everything is different: the tradition, the language, the readers and the
author.
He says that translation consists of finding counterparts, matchings and then to
fulfill functions in the language and culture of the translation that are similar to
the language and culture of the original. In seeking counterparts, the translator is
faced with choices, and in order to make those choices he/ she uses his personal
experience and knowledge and also his/ her personal tastes and preferences.
There are 2 levels where choices are made: at the macrostructure (the level of the
poem as an entity) and at the microstructure (the level of secondary choices,
related to the translator’s preferences).
He also says that translations are maps and the original texts are the territories,
and as there is no map of a territory which is suitable for every purpose, so there
is no definite translation of a poem.
MODELS
1. Sentence-rank model in the 40s, where translators translated item by item.
2. Lexical-rank model: replaced the sentence rank model and translators
translated passage by passage.
3. Nowadays: translation occurs in 2 levels: the serial level (sentence by
sentences translation) and a structural level (where the translator abstracts
his map of original text and uses it as a criterion for testing the sentence
by sentence translation).

Holmes introduces 3 sets of rules:

a. Derivation rules: determine the way in which the translation abstracts
his source text map from the text itself.
b. Correspondence rules: determine the way in which the translation uses
the ST map to derive the TT map. (this is a specific translational
operation)
c. Projection rules: determine the way in which the translation uses that
map to formulate the text.
when the translator seeks correspondences to design his target text map, he is
faced with 2 dilemmas:
1. For each feature in the ST map, there are at least 2 features of the TT map
available. There may be 3 situations: one that corresponds to the form, but
not with the function; one that corresponds to the function but not with the
form; and one that corresponds to the meaning, but not with the form and
function.
2. The interdependence of correpondences: the choice of correpondences in
connection to each feature in the ST map. In this case the translator has to
make a hierarchy of correpondences. If it’s an informative text, he will
give priority to the semantic correspondence; if it’s a vocative text, he will
give priority to the correspondence of appeal, and if it’s a literary text, to
the poetics, aesthetics, etc.

The difference between a translator and an analyst is in the process they make.
- A translator derives a map of the ST from the text itself, then he applies a
set of correspondences to derive the TT map, and he uses this second map
as a guide to formulate the target text.
 - An analyst first derives the 2 maps from the 2 texts, then he compares the
maps to determine the network of correspondences and finally he makes a
hierarchy of correspondences.
2 kinds of analysts:
- The descriptive scholar who chooses a list of features that deserve
comparative analysis. As a consequence, the repertory will be incomplete.
- An ad hoc selection of the features that are always analyzed, no matter the
type of text. In this case the repertory will be complete, but too long and
complex.

CAMPBELL
MODEL OF TRANSLATION COMPETENCE
He says that a model of translation competence should show whether the
translation competence can be divisible into components, describe the
developmental path in the process of learning how to translate and include the
description of the differences in the performances by different translators.
In his model there are 3 independent components:
1. Textual competence: the ability to manipulate the genre. This is related to
grammar and lexis under the level of sentence.
2. Disposition: reflects the characteristics of the translator unrelated to the
language and how these characteristics impact on the translating job.
3. Monitoring competence: concerns how and to what extent the translation
output is checked.
The optimum combination of these components appears to be: high level of
textual competence and a risk-taking but persistent disposition.

This model is related to the 2 standpoints from which models of translation may
derive:
a. A functional standpoint which has to do with the textual competence.
b. A neo Cartesian standpoint, which has to do with mental processes, so it’s
related to the disposition and the monitoring process.
There are 4 principles in this model of translation competence:
1. Translation competence can be divided into independent components.
2. Translation education is a matter of development of the various
components of the translation competence.
 3. Students are likely to have different level of achievements in the
components of the translation competence.
4. Assessment of translation is better seen as a matter of learners.
For a student, it’s very important to have a model of translation competence,
since it can provide a great source of knowledge as regards their level of
achievement.
Without a model of translation competence, students obtain feedback from:
- Ephemeral reactions of the teacher during class discussion
- Marked translations as homework
- Ordinary academic grading
This kind of feedback is very poor and limited and fails to inform students.
Differences between marked translation feedback and translation competence
model feedback:
MARKED TRANSLATION TRANSLATION COMPETENCE
MODEL
Feedback is fast Feedback is slow
Feedback into teaching Feedback into learning
Focus on specific teaching points Focus on underlying competences
Low reliability High reliability
Face validity Construct validity

So, this model is very useful for teachers:

- In the diagnosis of student problems
- In the student assessment
- In the design of individualized teaching and learning strategies
- In the evaluation of teaching

BELL
There are 3 models related to the process of translation:
1. Deductive approach: which focuses on the ideal bilingual competence and
ideal translator. The translator is an ideal bilingual reader/ writer who
knows both languages perfectly and who is not affected by conditions
such as memory limitations, shifts of attention or lack of concentration.
2. Inductive approach: which describes competence in terms of observations
of translation performances. It focuses on an expert system which is an
specialized software formed by 2 components: a knowledge base (which
 combines knowledge and expertise of the domain) and an inference
mechanism (which uses the knowledge base to make inferences). The first
component consists of knowledge of the source language, the target
language, the text type, the domain and contrastive knowledge. The
second component permits the decoding and encoding of texts.
3. Communicative competence: which focuses on 4 areas of knowledge:
grammatical competence (the ability to master vocabulary, pronunciation,
sentences structure), sociocultural competence (the ability to produce and
understand utterances in context), discourse competence (the ability to
combine form and meaning) and strategic competence (the ability to
master strategies).
Bell says that the process of translation is not linear, it does not have a fixed
order. And it’s divided in ANALYSIS and SYNTHESIS, both in the syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic levels.
In the analysis, the first stage is reading the text, then the clause passes through a
frequent lexis store and a frequent structure store. Both are mental processes
which have the function of retrieving the short-term memory. There’s also a
lexical search mechanism which has the function of making sense of unknown
words.
In the syntactic level, the syntactic processor has the function of analyzing the
structure (the mood). In the semantic level, the semantic processor analyzes the
transitivity. And in the pragmatic level, the processor receives the information
from the previous stages and isolates the schematic structure (the theme) and
provides register (analyzes the field, tenor and mode)
In the synthesis, the translator has decided to translate, after analyzing all the
levels.
The pragmatic processor receives the information available in the semantic
representation and has to deal with 3 problems: how to deal with the purpose, the
schematic structure and the style of the original. The semantic processor receives
an indication of the illocutionary force and works to create structures and
propositions. And the syntactic processor checks the frequent structure store and
the frequent lexis store.

LEPPIHALME
An allusion is a cultural bump. They are expected to convey a meaning that goes
beyond the mere words used. As cultural bump elements, allusions depend on
familiarity to convey meaning. There are 2 kinds: KEY PHRASES and PROPER
NAMES.
The strategies the author proposes to translate proper names are:
 a. To leave the name unaltered.
b. To replace the name by another name.
c. To omit it, but to transfer the sense in another way.
The strategies for translating key phrases are:
a. To use a standard translation: commonly used for bible translations.
b. To use a literal translation: recommended when the translation is
transparent.
c. To use footnotes or explanations.
d. To use extra allusive guidance added in the text: for example the use of
inverted commas or italics, or some additions made to clarify.
e. To use simulated familiarity or internal marking
f. To replace the key phrase with a TL key phrase: usually done for
proverbs.
g. To reduce the allusion to sense by paraphrase.
h. To omit: only when the key phrase is not essential.
i. To recreate.
Recreation empower the translator to be creative, to be active, freeing him/her
from the limitations of the source text and emphasizes the necessity for
considering the target text readers’ needs. There are no rules or guideline on how
to achieve this, it can be seen as a fusion of strategies which is realized in
context. It usually involves internal marking and some changes and
replacements.

BERMAN
He says that translation is a trial of the foreign, because it established the relation
between the proper and the foreign and because the foreign work is uprooted
from his foreign ground.
He talks about the ANALYTIC OF TRANSLATION which is the system of
deformation which operates in every translation and prevents it from being a trial
of the foreign. It’s an analysis of the deforming forces which are unconscious and
make the translation deviate from its essential aim. The analytic is designed to
discover these forces and show where they are practiced.
There are 2 kinds of analytic:
- Negative analytic: which is concerned with ethnocentric translations
(adaptations, free writing, etc) and with the deforming forces which are
unconscious and are part of the translator’s being.
- Positive analytic: which has to do with the operations that have always
limited the deformation in an unsystematic way.
There are 12 deforming forces:
1. RATIONALIZATION: it is related to the syntactic structures, how they
are rearranged in a certain idea of discursive order and how nouns are
translated into verbs and verbs into nouns. A rationalization that is
obligatory for us is gerunds, because some gerunds which are possible in
English are not possible in Spanish, so rationalization there is obligatory.
2. CLARIFICATION: concerns the level of clarity in words and their
meanings. Explicitation can mean the manifestation of something that is
not apparent in the original, or it can aim to make clear something that is
not clear in the original text.
3. EXPANSION: it’s a consequence of the previous 2 tendencies. Every
translation is longer than the original, but sometimes the expansion is
empty: it adds nothing to the text, so we risk to have an overtranslation.
4. ENNOBLEMENT: it is an stylistic exercise which consists of producing
elegant sentences using the original text as raw material. It’s a kind of
rewriting.
5. QUALITATIVE IMPOVERISHMENT: replacement of terms, figures and
images in the original with terms, figure and images in the translation that
don’t have the same sonorous and iconic richness. A term is iconic when it
makes image.
6. QUANTITATIVE IMPOVERISHMENT: has to do with a lexical loss.
The translation contains less signifiers than the original. This results in a
translation which is longer and poorer.
7. DESTRUCTION OF THE RHYTHM: this is very difficult to destroy, but
one example is with the arbitrary change of punctuation.
8. DESTRUCTION OF THE UNDERLYING NETWORKS OF
SIGNIFICANCE: the literary work always has an underlying text where
certain signifiers link, forming a network. If this network is not
transmitted, then the signifying process is destroyed.
9. DESTRUCTION OF THE LINGUISTIC PATTERNING: this has to do
with the sentences construction. As a consequence, when the translation is
more homogenous, it’s more incoherent and inconsistent than the original.
10. DESTRUCTION OF THE VERNACULAR NETWORKS: exoticization
is used for translating the vernaculars. This can be done by using
typographical procedures, such as italics, to isolate what doesn’t exist in
the original and add it in the translation, or by translating a foreign
vernacular with a local one (for example, translating Parisian slag with
lunfardo de Buenos Aires).
11. DESTRUCTION OF IDIOMS OR EXPRESSIONS: prose is full of
images, expressions and figures. To translate them with an equivalent is to
attack the discourse of the foreign work.
 12. DESTRUCTION OF THE SUPERIMPOSITION OF LANGUAGES:
superimposition of languages is threated by translation, since the tension
in the original, for example between Guarani and Spanish, tends to be
effaced.

EVEN ZOHAR

Translated literature may occupy 2 positions in the literary polisystem: a

central position and a peripheral position.

To say that a translated literature occupies a central position means that it

participates actively in shaping the center of the polisystem. It’s an
integral part of the innovatory forces, and there is no distinction between
the original texts and the translated writings. When the literary models are
emerging, translated literature is one of the means of creating a new
repertoire.
3 conditions that may give rise to this situation:
1. When the polysystem or the literature is young. In this case a
translated literature fulfills the need of a younger literature to put into
use its newly founded tongue, so younger literatures benefits
themselves from other literatures.
2. When the literature is weak or peripheral- in this case they may not
have a repertoire, so this lack is filled with translated literature.
3. When there are turning points, crisis or literary vacuums.
To say that a translated literature occupies a peripheral position in the polysystem
means that it constitutes a peripheral system within the polysystem. In this case,
it does not have any influences in major processes and is modelles by the
dominant type in the target literature. It becomes a source of conservatism, a
means to preserve the traditional taste. There are no major changes in the
polysystem.

More often than not, the translated literature will occupy the peripheral position.
And sometimes it may be the case that a section of the translated literature is
peripheral whereas another section of the same literature is central.

When the translated literature occupies a central position, the translator’s main
concern is not to look for ready-made models in his home repertoire, bit he is
prepared to violate the home conventions. The adopted translational norms may
be foreign and revolutionary for the target literature. If this trend is defeated, then
the translation will not gain ground, but if the trend is successful, the repertoire
of the translated literature will be enriched and will be more flexible.
When the translated literature has a peripheral position, the translator’s main
concern is to look for ready-made secondary models for the following texts.

WAISMAN
SUMMARY
Borges does not explicitly state his theory on translation, but we can see it in his
many writings on the topic.
He challenges the traditional conceptions of translation by reformulating the
relation between the source and target texts and cultures, and by stating that there
are no definite texts, only versions or drafts, so there is no reason to believe that
the translation is inferior to the original.
He states this from a South American margin, so he also challenges the center-
periphery dichotomy.
The development of Borges’s theories is interconnected with his fiction, so we
can say that the processes of translating, writing and reading are interchangeable.
For him difference and multiplicity is not a disaster, but a field for potentiality.
He states that literature is always translatable, because literature is translation

1. LAS DOS MANERAS DE TRADUCIR

In this essay, Borges indicates a very important aspect of all texts (translations
and originals): that they will have different values for different readers, even with
readers that speak the same language. For example “el cuervo” by Alan Poe does
not mean the same for American readers than for Argentinian readers, the same
happens with texts read in Chile and in Argentina, although it’s the same
language. So, Borges alludes to the temporal and spatial displacement that exist
between the time and place a text is written and the time and place a text is read.
With this line of thought, he comes to the discussion of how the meaning and
interpretation of words change, even within the same language, from country to
country, from generation to generation and from readers to readers.
He also states that there are 2 ways of translating: literalness or paraphrase. The
former has to with the Romantic mentality and the latter with the Classicist
mentality. Romantics consider the artist important, every one of the artist’s words
is essential, so they translate them literally. On the other hand, classicists’ main
concern is in the work of art, not in the artist, so they seek perfection in
translation. Borges’s tone suggests his preference for Classicism and his
condemnation for Romanticism, since he states that a literal translation can never
be faithful to the original.

LAS VERSIONES HOMERICAS

Borges states that to talk about translation is to talk about aesthetics, and that
there is no better way to enter into literature and its mysteries than the study of
translation. When he talks about aesthetics through translation, he I talking about
the aesthetics of his writings, and the central role translation plays on them.
The most important concept in this essay is the concept of mobility of the
original. He considers that the original is a movable event, not a fixed and stable
text. And this mobility is inherent in all texts. By stating this, Borges challenges
the traditional translation theories which have always privileged the original over
the translation and have always considered the translation as inferior to the
original text. Borges says that there is no definite text, because all texts (originals
and translations) are drafts, they are versions of previous texts, re readings of
other texts. It is not the case that the translation is superior to the original, but it is
as legitimate as the original.
Borges suggests that literature is a series of multiply reflected versions. Every
text is a rereading of a previous one, constituted in a network of allusions,
reference and citation; so literature is an infinite system of intertextualities. By
saying this, Borges avoids the traditional practice of listing what is lost in the
translation.

LOS TRADUCTORES DE LAS MIL Y UNA NOCHES

In this writing, Borges demonstrates the importance of the displacement that
occurs when one goes from the original to the translation, and how these
displacements are the potential for new and unexpected meanings. He also
develops his theory of mistranslation.
First, he mentions one of the translators of The Nights, Burton, who makes a lot f
changes and almost rewrites the original. But these falsifications is what Borges
values the most, since he says that the merit of the translation resides in its
infidelities. This is why he values mistranslations. Burton becomes the best
translator/ recreator for Borges because he rewrites the original in order to
recreate a version that is capable of displacing it.
Then, he mentions Mandrus, another translator of The Nights, who, as Burton,
also makes countless changes, omissions and additions. He states that the
greatness in Mandrus’s translation is in its creative infidelities that lead him to
his transmutative translation.
By postulating that it’s mistranslation –the infidelities and not the degree of
fidelity— that leads merit to the translation, Borges inverts the relation between
value and fidelity and frees himself from the constraints of the traditional
translation.
Borges’s valorization of Mandrus and Burton’s infidelities confirms his idea that
translation is more than possible and that it’s site for potentiality and gain.
Finally he mentions Littman, another translator who is too honest and literal, and
does not make any changes or additions, and who does not take any from the
literary tradition to which he had access when he was translating the text. Borges
says that to fully realize the infidelities the translator has to take as much as
necessary from the tradition, if the translation does not undertake this process,
then the translation is unsatisfactory.
PIERRE MENARD
This is Borges’s most important writing on the topic of translation. Here he deals
with Pierre Menard and his efforts to translate Cervantes’s Don Quixote word for
word. The success of Menard’s work lies in his incompleteness and
recontextualization. This incompleteness shows that there is never a perfect
translation, either in the same language or from one language to the other.
Moreover, Menard shows an irreverent attitude, since he does not follow the
literary traditions. Borges has the same attitude, since he does not consider that
translation is what Jakobson called “interlingual translation”, translation for him
is a deep rewriting, which involves recontextualization and a collaboration of
previous texts which are available for new readers in new contexts.
In this essay, Borges also emphasizes again on the idea that there is no definite
text, that all his fictions are versions of previous texts, because all texts are drafts,
versions of versions. He shows this with the metaphor of the hall of mirrors: the
effect is of a hall of mirrors, of refractions represented in mistranslation, in which
what one repeatedly encounters is otherness.
He also states that the same text, the same utterance can never have the same
meaning twice. Texts accumulate meaning through changes and shifts in time
and space, and with each displacement they expand their potentiality.
Finally, he states that although Pierre Menard’s translation is incomplete and
“unfaithful” to the original, it can be of interest to certain readers, so he states
that the merit of the translation resides on its infidelities, its displacement with
the original text.
EL ESCRITOR ARGENTINO Y LA TRADICION
This essay is a road map for the Argentinian writers to position themselves with
respect to the occidental canons without being restricted to defined by them. The
key is to take a stance of irreverence towards the traditions of the center. Borges
claims marginality as a privileged site for innovation, since the margins provide
writers a great opportunity to innovate, as they are not bound to the canons of the
center. This occurs because South American writers are at once a part of the
center and apart from the center, so they have much freedom and mobility.
This essay is also a critical response to 3 ideas:
1. That Argentinian tradition is a continuation of the Spanish tradition.
2. That Argentina is not connected to the European heritage, and as it is a
young and primitive site it should not treat with European themes.
3. That Argentinian tradition should abound in local colour and should
exclusively deal with local themes.
Irreverence puts in motion the displacement that is so important for Borges. The
irreverence can be accomplished through different techniques: blurring the lines
between genres, languages and culture, fragmentation, recontextualization and
appropriation. The practice of writing as translation becomes a privileged method
by which peripheral writers can originate their own literatures and challenge
those of the center.
Borges finds himself in a privilege position, where he can innovate, an
innovation that challenges the center-periphery dichotomies and which
transforms periphery sites and minor sites into site of potentiality.
LA BUSCA DE AVERROES
This text contains interesting insights into linguistic and cultural difference and
its potential for writers in the periphery. It forces us to consider the unbridgeable
differences between cultures, languages, religions and historic periods.
In this text Borges does not consider difference and otherness as problematic, but
as rich in potential.
Averroes’s failed search shows us that there are fundamental differences between
cultures and languages that are too large to overcome. So Borges’s text
underlines the definitive role of the cultural and historical contexts in producing
and determining meaning.
The reader is considered a protagonist in the construction of meaning. But what
is important is not the meaning inherent in the text but the search of meaning.
The potential lies in the processes of rereading, rewriting and mistranslating.
Translation for Borges forces us to confront differences, but such difference or
multiplicity is not a disaster for him, it’s a field of potentiality.
AIXELÁ
Strategies to deal with culture-specific items (CSI) in translation:
CONSERVATION
1. Repetition: the translator keeps as much as he can of the original text. This
is the usual case for toponyms (eg. Seattle  Seattle). Paradoxically, this
strategy sometimes makes readers feel distant from the text since
repetition involves including a foreign element in the translation.
2. Orthographical adaptation: includes procedures of transcription and
transliteration, which are mainly used when the original reference is
expressed in a different alphabet from the one target readers use.
3. Linguistic translation: involves the translation of a CSI which belongs to
the source culture into an element in the target culture which denotes a
reality in the source culture but which is still understood in the TC (eg-
dollars  dolares)
4. Extratextual gloss: the translator adds some kind of explanation of the
meaning or implication of the CSI, extratextually, for example as
footnotes, glossaries, translation/ commentary in italics or in brackets.
5. Intratextual gloss: is the same as the previous situation, but the translator
feels that he/ she should include the gloss as an indistinct part of the
translation, so as not to disturb the reader’s attention.

SUBSTITUTION
1. Synonymy: the translator resorts to some kind of synonyms to avoid
repeating the CSI.
2. Limited universalization: the translator feels the CSI is too obscure for the
readers or finds another possibility and decides to replace it (eg. 5 grand
5000 dolares)
3. Absolute universalization: it’s the same situation as the previous one but
the translator does not find a better known CSI or prefers to delete it (eg.
Corned beef lonchas de jamon)
4. Naturalization: not so used nowadays. The translator decides to bring the
CSI into the intertextual corpus felt as specific by the target language
culture. (eg. dollarmango/duro)
5. Deletion: the translator considers the CSI is unacceptable on ideological or
stylistic grounds, or not so relevant for readers to make an effort to
understand it, or too obscure, so he/ she decides to omit it. (eg. Dark
Cadillac sedan Cadillac oscuro)
6. Autonomous creation: very little used strategy. Translators think it could
be interesting for their readers to put in some nonexistent cultural
reference in the ST. this is the usual case for the translation of film titles.
VON FLOTOW
In the 1960s the notion of gender evolved and extended the biological sexual
differences. The feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s focused on
2 aspects:
- They tried to show that the difference between women and men was due
to artificial behavioural stereotypes with gender conditioning.
- They de-emphasized women’s differences, stressing women shared
experiences, their solidarity.
Gender became an analytical category and a notion that has impact on business
decisions, educational institutions and government policies. It is recognized as a
basic substructure of society that must be examined, analyzed and understood.
As regards language and women, there are 2 important approaches:
- The reformist approach which views conventional language as a symptom
of society which generates it, and it sees it as reformable, if good
intentions prevailed. This has led to the creation of handbooks with non-
sexist language, language workshops and courses, which represent women
in language, rather than subsume them under a category.
- The radical approach views conventional language as one of the most
important causes for women’s oppression, a medium through which
women were taught and come to know their subordinate place in the
world. Women positioned themselves in a role of the individual who is
excluded and trivialized through conventional patriarchal language.
The remedies that were applied to patriarchal language took radical forms. Writer
too issue with standard language and criticized, rewrote and responded to
women’s reality.
Translation has long served as a way to describe what women do when they enter
into the public place: they translate their private language, specifically female
forms of discourse, developed as a result of gendered exclusion. Feminine
literature is translated writing, when women write, they have to translate from
darkness, from blackness, they have to translate to enter the public sphere. Men
don’t do that.
The work of translating in the era of feminism has had an acute effect on
translation practice:
1. Translators have sought out contemporary women’s writing to
translate them in their culture.
2. Women translators have made some interventions or censorship in the
translations.
3. Interest in women’s lost work.
 1. The radical writing of the 1960s was experimental. It was radical because
it sought to destroy the conventional everyday language used by
institutions such as universities, schools, publishing houses, the media,
dictionaries, etc. women considered conventional language as a cause for
their oppression, so they needed to reform patriarchal language. Radical
feminist writing was experimental because they seek new ideas, new
grounds and a new feminist language. Writers have tried new words, new
grammatical structures, metaphors and new language.
This have cause serious problems for translators. Some examples of this are
translating of the body and translating of the experiments with language. In the
first place, feminist writers have identified stereotypes when writing about the
female body: the devoted and unsexed mother, the lover, the holy virgin. So, they
have looked for and developed vocabulary for censored and denigrated parts of
the female body and they have tried to create an erotic writing that appeals to
women. So, the entire semantic field around issues of sexuality has caused
serious problems for translators.
As regards the translation of the experiments with language, such as change I the
syntax, in the grammatical structures, in words, or the creation of a new feminist
language, it was a difficulty for translators. When confronted with this kind of
texts, full of wordplay and fragmented syntax, translators had to develop similar
creative methods to supplement their work.
2. Translators who were politicized and found some texts as an offence, tend
to make some changes into the translations. They “correct” what they
considered unacceptable and translated them in the name of the feminist
truths. This has been controversial, since translators are normally expected
to keep their ideologies or politics out of work.
One example is Maier who translated Octavio Armand’s text and changed the
images of father/ mother because she considered it as offensive. The same
happened with Levine who translated Cabrera Infante and considered his
work oppressively male and misogynist. Infante uses language that obscure
women and their works, so the translator makes some changes.
Another example is Sussane who, as opposed to Maier and Levine, she
decides to censorship the parts she considers offensive. Maier and Levine
explain their discomfort and dismay at patriarchal language, she does not
mitigate her intervention with explanations, she assumes the right to change
what she cant approve of, and she considers translation as a political practice.
3. Finally, feminists point out that the literary canon has always privileged
male works to detriment women’s works, as a result there are much work
of women writers lost. So translation has begun to play an important role
 in making available the knowledge and experience of these writers.
Numerous publications of such work have appeared in translation
TYMOKZCO
In her book Translation in the postcolonial studies, chapter 4, she talks about the
2 traditions of translating early Irish literature.
There are 2 traditions: the scholarly tradition and the literary tradition.
SCHOLARLY TRADITION:
- Translations are unreadable gloss translations, lacking literary interest or
merit (example Whitney Stroke’s translation)
- The information load is heavy because the English syntax and grammar
follow the Irish patterns, even the obligatory norms of English are
violated. The English is full of calques, loan translations, loan creations,
borrowed words, etc.
- The main strategies consist of literal renderings.
- Their purpose is secondary to that of editions and they are subordinate to
the Irish texts.
LITERARY TRADITION:
- Translations are readable, constituting stylistic achievements in English,
but departing from textual material, formal properties and linguistic
structures in Irish (example: Augusta Gregory’s translation).
- The information load approximates the norms of English literary texts.
- Use of euphemisms when necessary.
- She leaves out unnatural expressions or words.
- Literary qualities achieved
- Omission of elements that might be offensive to the reader.

Tymockzco also proposed 3 factors playing a core role in the divergence of these
traditions:
1- Nationalism, which relies upon literalness and condemns domesticating
practices.
2- Irish literary revival which attempts to shift discourses and poetics of
English language literature and tries to challenge the English literary
canons and polysystems.
3- Irish language movement. Irish language was considered unique and
distinctive. There was an attempt to reflect the nation’s heritage tjrough
language.
As a conclusion, Tymockzco says that the polarization of English translations of
Irish literature is in many cases more apparent than real, because they function in
symbiotic and complementary ways. They form the system of translation which
in turn is a subsystem of the literary polysystem, so although they are divergent,
they are in turn complementary, one cannot exist without the other.

ASHCROFT
CALIBAN’S VOICE
Caliban’s voice offers a reexamination in the issue of language in postcolonial
literatures. The study takes as its point the figure of Caliban in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest, which is a major allegory of the colonial enterprise, a character
that has always been constructed as a creature outside civilization, as the
colonized other in postcolonial readings of the play. Caliban remains a symbol of
postcolonial resistance, while many would hold that the only function of colonial
language was oppression. Caliban is the key to the transformation of this allegory
in a postcolonial reading, since he is not colonized by Prospero.
It is not the simplicity of Caliban’s rebellion and striving for identity which
makes him so relevant to the postcolonial experience, it’s actually the
complexity, and we can find that complexity in language, because there is where
freedom resides. We discover how crucial language is in the process of colonial
control. Language is not just one strategy of the many colonizing strategies, it’s
the very mode of cultural control, the vehicle by which those strategies are
effected.
In this book, Ashcroft develops the relationships between language and race,
identity and translation.
LANGUAGE AND RACE
The concept of Caliban’s animalistic, language less identification with nature,
and not with culture, locates the origins of racism in what peter singer calls
speciesism. The indeterminacy of Caliban in the play is the indeterminacy of
species. It is the animal like nature in his lack of language what makes him a
less race, if human at all, and a slave.
This is one of the most common attitudes of colonizers: to identify colonized
people with nature, and not with culture, and as they are nature and not
human beings, they are part of the environment that has to be tamed. This
attitude was justified by a long-standing discourse of discrimination. Subject
people were subject races, so they had to be tamed and civilized.
Race exists almost entirely in language. We can see this in the 2 words that
have caused catastrophic consequences in human history: black and white,
and we can see how through language, in history, we have had differences in
race.
 The interest in race and language in this chapter comes from:
- The ways it reveals the function of language in constructing the most
pervasive category of human difference.
- The language of race has become an important instrument in postcolonial
writing.
- The language of race unveils difficulties which exist in other categories of
human discrimination
The connection between race and language has been formalized in the 19th
century because of a development in the race-based philology. The major
question of race has focused on the issue of origin. There were 2 sides: the
monogenesis which believe all races descended from Adam and polygenesis
which believe in multiple origins. In the middle of the two is that philology
emerges.
The philologist who has the most to say about the connection of race and
language is Ernest renan, who does not support biological races, but linguistic
races. He says that there are no pure races, and that race refers to 2 things: a
physical race and a cultural race. Language is the key for Renan because it plays
an important role in the formation of culture. For him, there are 5 documents
which determine the race within human species: a separate language, a literature
with identifiable characteristics, a religion, a history and a civilization.
LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
Language introduces us to an identifiable world, initiates us to family. It
identifies us and defines us. Our language is not just a language, it’s OUR
language, the language of the human beings. In postcolonial societies, the
question of language is related to the question of struggle. Central to this struggle
is the place of language in one’s construction of identity.
Language is associated with identity, because it constructs identity in many
ways: psychological, physical, ethnic, geographical, social. The active
engagement in language is a key to the role of language in the construction of
private, religious, national and cultural identity. The language we speak is crucial
for establishing who we are.
TRANSLATION AND TRANSFORMATION
Translation has become one of the most important issues in postcolonial studies.
The kind of inner translation that occurs when a writer write in a second
language could be the point where translation studies and postcolonial studies
meet. The argument of this chapter is that translation (the movement of a text
from a source language to a target language) and transformation (the shaping of a
text in a target language by the cultural nuances of the source language) are
overlapping in postcolonial literatures. They co-exist.
Transformation means that not only the language is transformed, but also the
reader and the writer are transformed in the cultural engagement represented by
postcolonial literatures.
Another idea proposed in the chapter is that translation occupies a third space, it
occupies the space of language itself. So translation not only negotiates between
language, it also inhabits the space of language itself. And what is important is
that language itself is transformative, a space which is unstable. This is the space
post colonial writers inhabit between imperial and vernacular cultures.
In the context of postcolonial writing there are 3 routes of translation:
- To translate the vernacular text into English
- To translate the English text into a vernacular
- The production of an English text by a bilingual writer.
This chapter also mentions the metonymic gap: the linguistic variation stands for
cultural difference. This gap is a cultural gap formed when writers transform
English according to the needs of the source culture. This occurs when they
insert unglossed words, phrases and passages and unknown allusions, references
or concepts. It’s always inserted into the text in the way of allusion, dialogue or
language variance.

Strategies of transformation in postcolonial writing:

- Glossing: parenthetic translations of individual words.
- Untranslated words: leaving some vernacular words untranslated in the
text for conveying the sense of distinctiveness and forcing the reader to
engage with the vernacular culture.
- Interlanguage: fusion of the linguistic structures of the 2 languages.
- Syntactic fusion: the adaptation of vernacular syntax to standard
orthography makes the rhythm and the texture of the vernacular more
accessible-
- Code switching and vernacular transcription

NIRANJANA
Etnography has always considered their project as one of translations, for
etnographers their activity consisted on translating, transcribing and clarifying
the non-civilized cultures not only to understand them, but also to expand their
culture’s knowledge. The invisibility of language serves to mask the power
inequalities and the colonial implication in the discourse of ethnography.
In ethnography, the non-western other has traditionally been placed outside
history, they have denied them the name of “history” and have given them the
name “nature”. This denial of coevalness, displacement in time and space, serves
to distance the observer from the observed.
The critique of ethnography is a critique of ethnocentricity, and it claims to see
the non western other as different from the western, not bad, just different. But
the same gesture that pretends to assign difference, actually denies it, since it’s
still the civilized ethnographer who acts as agent of knowledge reflection.
The new critique of ethnography focuses on coevalness: once cultures and
subjects are recognized as sharing the same time and place, an inversion of the
Western traditions will be allowed by the non-western other producing, reflecting
and translating their own realities.