Of Masters and Tools
2013; Routledge; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/1369801x.2013.824756
ISSN1469-929X
Autores ResumoAbstractAlthough translation has been a key topic in reflections around the postcolonial, the issue of power and position of languages has eluded much of the discussion in English-speaking Academia. For speakers of non-hegemonic languages, such as Galician, the meaning of translation and the power struggles to speak as subalterns have great political implications. Such implications become all the more visible when peripheries try to communicate with each other. While it is precisely from the position of a periphery that new emancipatory projects may be developed to change power-centre asymmetries through cross-cultural communication, there is also the very practical but also highly political conundrum of the impossibility of having translators (knowing the languages and knowing how to translate) in all possible language combinations. This essay therefore analyses the theoretical underpinnings of postcolonial theory and translation from the point of view of a non-hegemonic language and literary system, the Galician one, and the practical implications of such considerations through a practical example. It discusses the translation of Tamil feminist writer Salma's The Hour Past Midnight (Irandaan Jaamangalain Kathai) into Galician (Despois da medianoite) through the mediation of English. What differences are there in using an intermediary (hegemonic) language for the translator? What are the requirements for such a feminist text from an apparently distant cultural background to speak to Galician readers? What position have I taken, as a feminist translator, to use the language of one colonizer to rewrite Salma into Galician?KeywordsfeminismGalicianpostcolonialTamiltranslation Notes1 All translations by the author.2 This point is clear if we look at a reference work such as Venuti (Citation2000). These topics appear only in four of the reference articles collected in the book (those by Chamberlain, Spivak, Appiah and Brisset.) The original edition of over five hundred pages included only four articles by women.3 There are of course notable exceptions to this rule, including Ashcroft et al. (Citation1989) and Spivak (Citation1995). See also Young (Citation2001).4 According to renowned Canadian Anglophone writer Erin Moure, the number of books she sells in English in Canada does not exceed those of any well-known Galician poet in Galician.5 For an English-language study of the Cantigas, see O'Callaghan (Citation1998).6 A recent example of such attitudes occurred in the Spanish version of Big Brother. A Galician contestant claimed that if a man spoke to her in Galician it was already a ‘turn off’, for Galician speakers were ‘brutes’ and Galician was almost non-existent. See http://www.laopinioncoruna.es/sociedad/2011/02/15/corunesa-gran-hermano-lengua/467682.html.7 Two of the most important international children's literature publishers, Kalandraka and Oqo, are Galician and Galician authors have received wide international acclaim, including the Premio Iberoamericano SM to Agustín Fernández Paz and the White Ravens to several Galician authors.8 I define this trend as the search for the enxebre, that which is considered the ideal of Galicianness in language: use of rare words, a command of vocabulary that has been well developed in Galician due to the traditional uses of the language (descriptions of land, agricultural practices and tools, etc.).9 By ‘poor’ language use I mean a deliberate non-colourful, spare approach to language, exemplified by Herta Müller's ‘simple’ and broken German.10 I was the instigator of this initiative and had the chance to meet all authors in the collection personally (except for Andaal, the tenth-century poet!) and was the translator of the poems into Galician through the mediation of English.11 For example in India, as a brief report by the Indian Foundation of the Arts clearly states: http://www.indiaifa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57&Itemid=27.12 Salma's position as a subaltern is grounded in the fact that she is a woman of a religious minority (around 85 per cent of Tamils are Hindus), writing in a language that is non-hegemonic in its context (the central state has imposed Hindi and English on Tamils since after Independence) and belonging to a nation with a culture quite distinct from the ‘Indian’ construction of the nation. The fact that she is a subaltern because she is a woman is self-explanatory – being taken out of school before she finished her compulsory education, and forced to marry or locked in a home for several years are just concrete examples of how gender identity has located her at the margins. In the literary world she is the only Muslim woman writing fiction in Tamil.13 Although as a Galician woman I am peripheral to many centres, I may be central in my position in relation to other women and cultures.14 ‘In 2003, Salma and three other women poets faced obscenity charges and violent threats, a controversy that inspired filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K. P. Jayasankar to make SheWrite (2005), a documentary on Tamil women poets.’ See http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/01/27/stories/2008012750130500.htm.15 Galicians have taken part in the colonization of the Americas, in wars against the other and, a more recent example, one of the largest textile industries exploiting women and children in the world, Inditex, was founded by a Galician businessman and still has its main headquarters in Galicia. However, when developing a discourse around the nation, identification with the Other has been key and keen on overlooking such actions. (See, for example, identification with Africans in Celso Emilio Ferreiro's poetry or with Native Americans in Manuel Rivas'.)16 See all reviews or summaries here: http://www.xerais.blogaliza.org/?s=Despois+da+medianoite.17 See http://www.xerais.blogaliza.org/2011/09/23/dolores-vilavedra-aborda-%C2%ABdespois-da-medianoite%C2%BB-e-%C2%ABvia-secundaria%C2%BB-no-ultimo-repaso-de-novidades/.
Referência(s)