*Douglas Robinson, in his book “Translation and Empire” touches upon the different understandings of and approaches to translation. For him, translation is a political act of communication. This idea preserves the common function of translation which is communication but specifying it with the feature of politicalness. He deals with the Descriptive Translation Studies with a critical point of view and criticizes them for the fact that they put too much emphasis on the linguistic side of translational act. Robinson states that this is not enough and translation studies should also delve into the issues of politics, ideologies, power relations. But one can not deny the importance of the descriptive, linguistic translation studies as they provide grounds for the specific debates of power relations, hierarchies between languages etc. Robinson's ideas on the relationship between the translation and empire are quite interesting. His intention is to draw the attentions to the translation as a channel between the colonized and the colonizer in the colonial period. The communication between the higher power group and its unfamiliar colony is realized via translation. On this point he touches upon the interpreter trainings of the time. But it is also possible to ask whether these acts are monolateral or bilateral. That is to say, do both sides try to understand each other? Or is it just the colonizer that understands and the colonized is in the understood position? Is this communication on equal basis? The subject matter of the post colonial theory is another issue problematized in his book. It seems to me that the cases exemplified are the deals taking place between the colonized and the colonizer in the colonial period. Like the India vs. UK situations. What I am curious of is that whether is it possible to apply these theories (I am not sure whether theory and application are good companions) on the recent events. The issue is not colonization but we can define the very concept of hegemony in them. The case I would like to raise is the issue of USA occupation in Iraq. Iraq is not a colony in the sense used before but it is almost under control of US. It would be interesting to see the translational act (if there is any) taking place between these cultures since the US invasion. Also the concepts of subjectivity and interpellation are key concept in understanding Robinson. Because they provide the grounds to establish the framework to understand the situation and relation between the self and the other. The dual sense of subjectivity leaves room to understand both parts. That is to say, the dominating one in a way helps the dominated to become aware of itself as a subject, this dominated subjectified part then becomes the object of the dominating one's act. Interpellation also helps us gain a perspective on the reception of the attributions in both parts. Robinson also provides us with different approaches to translation in the colonial and postcolonial period. As an example, for Cheyfitz translation is a purely harmful tool of imperial acts while for Rafael translation would gain its nature according to its usage. That is to say, unlike Cheyfitz he states that translation can also be used as a good tool to decolonized the ideas that are colonized. As the views on translation vary, the methods suggested by different scholars also vary on the point of the realization of that decolonization. As an example, for Niranjana it is the “retranslation” which is a possible way to decolonize. That is to say, to retranslate the texts that are heavily loaded with colonized perspective and with their elimination come up with culturally aware texts. Whereas for Rafael it is the “mistranslation” that would serve for this purpose. It means that the translator purposefully may mistranslate some concepts ideas so as to retranslate the position of the subordinated. He also touches upon the “metisse translation” issue of Samia Mehrez. What Mehrez suggests is the realization of a text of a language which is in-between. However, the concept of in-betweenness is open to debate as it is not very possible; if possible not very easy; to come up with a clear definition and determination of the limits of this in-betweenness.
*Michaela Wolf's main point is the sociological perspective that is to be integrated into the translation studies. It is important for the fact that it takes the issue of translation studies from the linguistic level and draws our attentions to the sociological side of this act. She presents a clear picture of the studies done in the sociology and their relation to translation studies. However, there are some points in her statements that are open to debate. First of all, her distinction between the cultural and social side of translation is problematic. Because one can easily ask whether is it possible to separate them from one another. That is to say, what produces culture is the society and what represents the features of the society is the culture. But her claim for interdisciplinary approach is profitable for the translation studies as it expands the field and thus its subject matters by providing different perspectives. Furthermore, I am curious about the positioning of sociology of translation studies. Does it take place under the branch of sociology or translation studies? In an interdisciplinary approach both may overlap but I think this distinction is important for the fact that both social sciences apply different methodologies. She also differentiates between different sides of translation like agent, process and cultural product. Again the question “is it really possible to divide these under different categories or don't they overlap” is valid here. But her emphasis on the agent is important as it draws attention to the actor of the translational act which is generally disregarded. She also touches upon the flow of the translation between societies in relation to power relations, which is a dominant feature of societies and all the act realized by these translations. She presents the situation of dominant language which is regarded as the source and the flow taking place from central to peripheral; or in the cases between peripherals the act takes place via a mediator dominant language. As she states historical and institutional perspective is important for the understanding of these relations. However, what sound weird to me is that according to the general assumption in relation to the hierarchies of languages, periphery languages translate from the central languages and it is quite true when we look at the statics about the translation ratios of cultures i.e: %3 in American culture. Is it such a neutral act? Is so, then where do all of these postcolonial discourses come from? Is this act just related to the situation of the peripheral language or in more general sense the peripheral society? Or this flow is manipulated by higher hands? Finally, her emphasis on the necessity of sound methodologies for the sociology of translation is quite important as it is the methodology that enables a science progress. However, she is far from suggesting grounds for the realization of these new brunch of social science which is, with her terms, “under construction.”
REFERENCES
Robinson, Douglas. 1997. Translation and Empire. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome.
Wolf, Michaela. 2007. "Introductio: The Emergence of a Sociology of Translations Studies" in Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari (eds.) Constructing a Sociology of Translation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
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