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#8 Nov 16 - Gender ＆ Translation

張貼者： NTNU GITI BLOG on 2009年10月27日 星期二
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#8 Nov 16 ‘Taking Fidelity Philosophically’ by Barbara Johnson in Difference in Translation (1985): 142-148; Luise von Flotow, ‘Gender and Translation,’ in Kuhiwczak & Littau.

5 意見:

明哲 提到...

After reading about so many gendered metaphors related to translation and the original text, Barbara Johnson’s analogy that the translator “ought to” be deemed as a “faithful bigamist” humorously re-examines the nature of fidelity between the foreign language and the vernacular. This is surely a big thinking outside the traditional box. For example, Yang Jiang(楊絳), a well-known contemporary translator in China, had similar opinions on this matter, but she remains trapped in the fixed framework of the text’s authority over the translation. (Yang Jiang : Translators are subject to the command of the source text and they cannot make their own decisions. They must minister to two masters at the same time: one is the source text; the other is the target readership.) On the other hand, Barbara Johnson further elaborates the possible tension between the translator and the mother tongue with the term “incest.” This is so interesting, because I have never even thought about the possibility of separating the translator (self) from another self (the native tongue) rather than from the “other” (the foreign language). More interestingly, such radical splitting on the notion of gender can also be discovered in Flotow’s analysis on gender instability of the second paradigm of feminist translation studies.
Although the use of “inclusive language” in biblical annotations, proposed by feminist translation theorists such as Sherry Simon and Haugerud, was initially in service of gender politics, it can still be applied to accelerate the inclination that obscures the gender identities in translation, which I suppose, may after all be accepted as a marker of the materialization of the second paradigm thinking. Since it is impossible to deny the real world we are living in, and the world is more than as-matter-of-factly filled with various sexual identities (gay, lesbian, heterosexuality, bisexuality,…), shouldn’t we feel gratified that the choice is in the translator’s hands? ( Just as Flotow says, “It is up to the translator to accept or refuse the identification.)

2009年11月18日 晚上11:12
Craig 提到...

In her pithy and often amusing essay “Taking Fidelity Philosophically,” Barbara Johnson employs a litany of metaphors to describe translation: from marriage, bigamy, incest and Mother to bridges and what we currently might call 'media generated simulacrum.' This ranging collection of ideas may make one feel that characterizing translation is futile, but futility doesn't scare translators.

Using marriage as a metaphor for translation seems apt, but maybe only because there are as many definitions of a functional marriage as there are people who are married. Drawing parallels between marriage and translation seems facile: easy because it conjures strong associations with the complex notion of fidelity and thus creates a satisfying feeling of understanding; and problematic because these associations are very likely different in each person who reads the word 'marriage,' and therefore confounds communication if we believe communication implies consensus.

The separation of the semantic tenor from it's vehicle, or decoding, is an initial stage in the translation process; a process where the translator moves from language to ever-widening contexts, seeking the logic that rules the original text. Both Johnson and Derrida remind us that non-rationality and discord lie beneath most texts due to the inherent instability of language, complexity of sign systems or overdetermination, making the possibility of extracting 'true' meaning from language a very tricky, and very personal, affair (see 'marriage' above). Johnson's amusing anecdote of the thriving industry of Derrida translations in the U.S. points out how this inherent instability, complexity or overdetermination has manifested itself in action; the multiplicity of Bible translations over the last two millennia is another good example.

Johnson's appropriation of Heidegger's bridge is interesting—as much as a bridge may connect two sides, it is also a symbol of separation or difference. This metaphor resonates with von Flotow's statement that “cultural and contextual differences impose themselves, making difference, and not equivalence, the constant of translation.” Johnson's caveat—we find out too late that we “don't get to the other side”—leaves us at the crest of the bridge impossibly longing for both shores, striking at the heart of the conundrum that is translation.

Luise von Flotow's division of gender in translation into two stages is a useful way of conceptualizing theoretical developments. While the more recent notion of gender as a complex and multivalent construction seems to supersede binary thinking, identity formation based on sex is still a useful notion in many contexts. The notion of gender identity as a contingency enacted may complicate matters for translators since it demands that they take clear responsibility for gender-related information when decoding and reconstructing, but it seems possible that this kind of problematizing has the potential to result in fuller, more complete and more faithful translations.

2009年11月21日 晚上8:55
加真 提到...

#7
Luise von Flotow distinguished the two paradigms in the study of gender and translation. The first paradigm focuses on women as an identifiable group in a subordinate position while the second paradigm emphasizes the instability of gender. Von Flotow bases her study on the development in the western world such as Canada, the U.S., and the European countries. In order to see the feminist translation studies in China, I found 穆雷’s research of gender and translation studies in the context of China (book title: 翻譯研究中的性別視角). In China, most of such research focuses on the criticism of western feminist translation theories because, according to 穆雷, there are no feminist translators in China, such as Barbar Godard, and Suzanne Jill Levine in Canada. From the statistics cited in the book, I think most of the papers written in Chinese about gender and translation belong to the first paradigm of von Flotow’s classification.

However, in an interview with穆雷, Eva Hung did mention the distance she felt when she translated male writer’s works and thus she preferred woman writer’s works. Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood also cited the example of Lucy Irigaray’s book title translation. In the translation of Irigaray’s book titled Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un, two translations done by women translated the title as “This Sex Which Is Not One,” while another translation done by men translated it as “That Sex Which Is Not One.” From “this” to “that,” the gender difference and the distance are quite clear. Several Chinese papers were written to address such gender difference, and maybe they can be categorized as von Flotow’s second paradigm (maybe not exactly the same, but identical in the way that both think gender as a kind of performance). In these papers, the term “androgyny” was used to describe perfect translation—the happy union of male writers and female translators.

2009年11月21日 晚上10:36
素勳 提到...

It is interesting to find that Johnson would, in tackling with the issue of “fidelity,” start with the “reproduction” of Xerox and the “dissemination” of the texts. Which reminds me that Benjamins once talked about the “aura” of the original (e.g. paintings) and the copies(e.g. the photographs.) Maybe in a not so distant future when Machine Translation completely takes over, there would be simply “reproductions” and no more “disseminations” of texts---and no more “aura” either?

It seems that one cannot talk about fidelity without equivalence. In Professor Ma’s class, we’ve read a lot of Theo Hermans’ articles, all dealing with the issue of “equivalence.” In one of them, it is argued that in the electronic age, there could be simply no original text, since texts of different languages are produced simultaneously. Also, Hermans emphasizes that what is worth of examination is “the difference”( not the equivalence)---- and what is suppressed in the name of equivalence.

Since Johnson is the translator of Derrida’s “Dissemination,” it seems that she pick up a lot of things from Derrida. Like the original is already a translation (To me, her article is an original, yet also a translation.)… the impossibility and the necessity of translation…… and how Derrida would like to find the pressure points previously lost in translation and go on with his de-construction. (See “ Des Tours de Babel.”)

It seems that Johnson does not agree that translation is all about the “meaning” of the texts--which gives priority of the signified over the signifiers as quoted from a note from Hegel’s translation. Maybe the relationship between the signified and the signifier is much like the core and the pulp of the fruit (see Benjamin’s trope in “The Task of the Translators”)? In this article, the translator is likened to a faithful bigamist, thus doubly unfaithful yet also trying to be as faithful as he/she can. ( A real dilemma!) But is it really the case? For as the bigamist may show a certain preference for one of his wife, the translator may have to sort out his/her a priority among his divided loyalties to the Source Text and the Target Text---or as David Hawkes put it, the author, the text and the reader, which would make the translator a tri-gamist? (Hawkes confessed that he gave the priority to the reader. However, he also said that he would try to be as faithful as he can to all of them……) Barbara also referred to the translation act as an incest relationship with our mother language as translators would often find the strangeness/deficiency of their mother tongues in translation. I guess this is a statement that rings many bells. The most extreme examples would the Early Republic translators who even came to hate their mother tongue. However, translators in late-Ching like林紓, 嚴復often showed no guilty over mastering the original text since they aimed only to translate the signified/the meanings of the text?

About Flowtow’s “Gender and Translation” :
In this article, she introduces the first gender paradigm( a more fixed concept of gender identities ) and the second paradigm (a more liquid concept of gender identities, emphasizing on [theatrical] performances.) She runs a brief introduction of a lot of important works in this area, some of which we have read before or will read in the next week. I guess the most interesting example would be Maier’s translation of the “ Spaniard.” Is it a good choice of word? What about leaving it untranslated as recommended in the note?

2009年11月22日 凌晨12:45
Lisa Liao 提到...

在”Gender and Translation”這篇文章裡，如作者von flotow所言，當一種語言翻譯成另一種語言，進入另一個語境脈絡，政治和意識形態等因素不免介入操弄，服膺這兩種paradigm的譯者認為翻譯是production，而不是reproduction，譯者在譯文裡展演自己的identity(as a woman, gay,….)，想要凸顯差異(women as a group versus men/gay groups versus heterosexual people)，不過後殖民學者認為這樣的做法反而可能抹煞了這些group成員裡各種因素(種族、階級、教育、文化等)造成的差異。我有幾點好奇之處，首先是von flotow說“By and large, however, translation has sought to minimize difference”，又說翻譯是representation，這是否表示von flotow不贊同兩種 paradigm這種凸顯identity的做法?另外，von flotow提到，當代理論把gender看成是performance/performative activity，而von接著提到translation is always a performance of another author’s work，我想說的是，如果譯者透過翻譯來展演，那麼翻譯究竟是展演還是展演的一個場域呢？再來，後來的研究將主要焦點放在gay writing and translation，卻很少提到lesbian textuality in translation，是否有什麼特別的社會、歷史、文化等因素?

2009年11月22日 晚上11:46

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