Tymoczko Maria, Gentzler Edwin. Translation and Power

Amherst, Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. — xviii + 244 p. — ISBN: 1-55849-358-1The contributors to this volume see translation as an activity that takes place not in an ideal neutral site but in real social and political situations, with parties who have vested interests in the production and reception of texts across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Translation is not simply a process of faithful reproduction but invariably involves deliberate acts of selection, construction, and omission. It is inextricably linked to issues of cultural dominance, assertion, and resistance in short, to power.
Although governments, churches, publishing firms, and other powerful institutions may influence the translation process, many translators have found ways to resist that influence and have used translation to introduce new ideas and modes of expression. Exploring the nexus of translation and power, the essays in this volume offer a wide variety of examples, across multiple languages and societies. They range from case studies of historical episodes in which translation has played a role in the assertion of political and military power, such as an 1840 treaty between the British and Maori that continues to be a source of conflict in present-day New Zealand, to analyses of the work of specific translators, such as Germaine de Staël and Gayatri Spivak. Along with examining how translation contributes to ideological negotiations and cultural struggles, the essays reveal the dimensions of power inherent in the translation process itself in the relationship of translator to author, source text, and translated text.
In addition to the editors, contributors include Rosemary Arrojo, Michael Cronin, Sabine Fenton, Camino Gutiérrez Lanza, Christopher Larkosh, Alexandra Lianeri, Lin Kenan, Carol Maier, Paul Moon, Adriana S. Pagano, and Sherry Simon.Edwin Gentzler, Maria Tymoczko — Introduction
Alexandra Lianeri — Translation and the Establishment of Liberal Democracy in Nineteenth-Century England: Constructing the Political as an Interpretive Act
Sabine Fenton, Paul Moon — The Translation of the Treaty of Waitangi: A Case of Disempowerment
Michael Cronin — The Empire Talks Back: Orality, Heteronomy, and the Cultural Turn in Interpretation Studies
Rosemary Arrojo — Writing, Interpreting, and the Power Struggle for the Control of Meaning: Scenes from Kafka, Borges, and Kosztolányi
Adriana S. Pagano — Translation as Testimony: On Official Histories and Subversive Pedagogies in Cortázar
Christopher Larkosh — Translating Woman: Victoria Ocampo and the Empires of Foreign Fascination
Sherry Simon — Germaine de Staël and Gayatri Spivak: Culture Brokers
Camino Gutiérrez Lanza — Spanish Film Translation and Cultural Patronage: The Filtering and Manipulation of Imported Material during Franco’s Dictatorship
Lin Kenan — Translation as a Catalyst for Social Change in China
Carol Maier — Translation, Dépaysement, and Their Figuration
Edwin Gentzler — Translation, Poststructuralism, and Power