subject: Translation In Context [print this page] Translation, seen as a mode of being in the world, should not be regarded per se but should be contextualized as a social system. Infidelity is built in translation because it inevitably describes domestic scenes that are loaded not only linguistically and culturally, but also socially and politically. Translation is simultaneous decontextualization and recontextualization, hence is productive rather than reproductive.
Communication takes place through a medium and in situations that are limited in time and place. Each specific situation determines what and how people communicate, and it is changed by people communicating. Situations are not universal but are embedded in a cultural habitat, which in turn conditions the situation. Language is thus to be regarded as part of culture. And communication is conditioned by the constraints of the situation-in-culture.
So is translation as a form of cross-cultural communication. The complexity of translation, one of the most complex things in human history, lies in the multitude of and the delicate relationship among its relevant factors. Translation is never innocent. There is always a context in which translation takes place, always a history from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed.
A complex "system of systems" composed of various subsystems such as literature, science, and technology. Within this general system, extraliterary phenomena relate to literature not in a piecemeal fashion but as interplay among subsystems determined by the logic of the culture to which they belong.
Seen in this light, culture refers to all socially conditioned aspects of human life. Translation can and should be recognized as a social phenomenon, a cultural practice. We bring to translation both cognitive and normative expectations, which are continually being negotiated, confirmed, adjusted, and modified by practicing translators and by all who deal with translation. These expectations result from the communication within the translation system, for instance, between actual translations and statements about translation, and between the translation system and other social systems.
An ideal translation is traditionally viewed as a perfect integration of two different texts in two cultures. According to Qian Zhongshu's notion of sublimation (huajing), it brings about a transparent foreignness without any strangeness when there disappears the mist of alien modes of thinking, speaking, and feeling associated with the source text. However, due to the asymmetry in cross-cultural communication, the translator "either leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him; or leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him" Venuti would define these as a domesticating method, namely, an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing foreign culture closer to the reader in the target culture, making the text recognizable and familiar; and a foreignizing one, an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, taking the reader over to the foreign culture, making him or her see the difference.
"Domesticating" and "foreignizing" here are two relative terms which can only be defined by referring to the formation of target cultural context. Using the foreignizing method cannot basically change the permanent trend of domestication in translation since the "foreign" in foreignizing translation is not a transparent representation of an essence that resides in the foreign text and is valuable in itself, but a strategic construction whose value is contingent on the current target-language situation. Foreignizing translation signifies the difference of the foreign text, yet only by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language.
The scale from foreignization to domestication indicates a discursive stance, always loaded with ideological factors which bear on self-image and self-perception. Robyns distinguishes four basic stances, depending on whether or not the "otherness" of the foreign is viewed as irreducible, and on whether or not the receptor culture adapts the intrusive elements to its own norms: "transdiscursive" stance, assumed when one culture sees another as compatible and translation is not a cause for concern or alarm; defective stance, assumed when a culture reckons it lacks something which is available elsewhere and can be imported; defensive stance, assumed when a culture wards off imports and tries to contain their impact because it feels they may threaten its identity; and imperialist stance, assumed when a culture only allows imports if they are thoroughly naturalized because it takes the value of its own models for granted.
Humans are social, rather than solitary beings. They constantly interact with their environment. Their modes of being are about their emergent attunement with their constantly-changing context. Translation, if seen as such a mode of being in the world, cannot be considered per se, but should be contextualized as a social system. It exists in a situation that includes a network of elements involving others, the objective economic conditions, cultural and political institutions and ideologies, and so on. Since the translator cannot avoid being faithful to his/her own circumstances and perspective, she/he cannot be really faithful to the text he/she translates. Infidelity is built into translation because it inevitably describes domestic scenes that are loaded not only linguistically and culturally, but also socially and politically. The source text does not reach the target society unscathed, but refracted. Communication in translation is simultaneous decontexualization and recontextualization; hence is productive, rather than reproductive. Translation as a product communicates more and at the same time less than the source text intended to. Translation as a process communicates different modes of being, or at least leads to intended understanding or/and misunderstanding of different modes of being in the world. This constitutes the predicament and the dynamo of cross-cultural communication, and points to that of communication in general.
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