THE SCANDALS OF TRANSLATION

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HETEROGENEITYor by ethnic stereotypes in the United States (or in the other major Englishspeakingcountry, the United Kingdom). At the same time, translationdiscourses can be developed to exploit the multiplicity and polychrony ofAmerican English, “conquer[ing] the major language in order to delineate init as yet unknown minor languages” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987:105). Foreigntexts that are stylistically innovative invite the English-language translator tocreate sociolects striated with various dialects, registers and styles, inventing acollective assemblage that questions the seeming unity of standard English. Theaim of minoritizing translation is “never to acquire the majority,” never toerect a new standard or to establish a new canon, but rather to promotecultural innovation as well as the understanding of cultural difference byproliferating the variables within English: “the minority is the becoming ofeverybody” (ibid.: 106, 105).My preference for minoritizing translation also issues from an ethical stancethat recognizes the asymmetrical relations in any translation project. Translatingcan never simply be communication between equals because it is fundamentallyethnocentric. Most literary projects are initiated in the domestic culture, where aforeign text is selected to satisfy different tastes from those that motivated itscomposition and reception in its native culture. And the very function oftranslating is assimilation, the inscription of a foreign text with domesticintelligibilities and interests. I follow Berman (1992:4–5; cf. his revision in1995:93–94) in suspecting any literary translation that mystifies this inevitabledomestication as an untroubled communicative act. Good translation isdemystifying: it manifests in its own language the foreignness of the foreign text(Berman 1985:89).This manifestation can occur through the selection of a text whose formand theme deviate from domestic literary canons. But its most decisiveoccurrence depends on introducing variations that alienate the domesticlanguage and, since they are domestic, reveal the translation to be in fact atranslation, distinct from the text it replaces. Good translation is minoritizing:it releases the remainder by cultivating a heterogeneous discourse, opening upthe standard dialect and literary canons to what is foreign to themselves, to thesubstandard and the marginal. This does not mean conceiving of a minorlanguage as merely a dialect, which might wind up regionalizing orghettoizing the foreign text, identifying it too narrowly with a specific culturalconstituency—even though certain foreign texts and domestic conjuncturesmight well call for a narrow social focus (e.g. Québec during the 1960s and1970s, when canonical European drama was translated into joual, theworkingclass dialect, to create a national Québecois theater: see Brisset 1990).The point is rather to use a number of minority elements whereby “oneinvents a specific, unforeseen, autonomous becoming” (Deleuze and Guattari1987:106). This translation ethics does not so much prevent the assimilation ofthe foreign text as aim to signify the autonomous existence of that textbehind (yet by means of) the assimilative process of the translation.11
HETEROGENEITYInsofar as minoritizing translation relies on discursive hetereogeneity, itpursues an experimentalism that would seem to narrow its audience andcontradict the democratic agenda I have sketched. Experimental formdemands a high aesthetic mode of appreciation, the critical detachment andeducated competence associated with the cultural elite, whereas thecommunicative function of language is emphasized by the popular aesthetic,which demands that literary form be not only immediately intelligible,needing no special cultural expertise, but also transparent, sufficientlyrealistic to invite vicarious participation (Bourdieu 1984:4–5, 32–33; cf.Cawelti 1976, Radway 1984, Dudovitz 1990).Yet translation that takes a popular approach to the foreign text isn’tnecessarily democratic. The popular aesthetic requires fluent translations thatproduce the illusory effect of transparency, and this means adhering to thecurrent standard dialect while avoiding any dialect, register, or style that callsattention to words as words and therefore preempts the reader’sidentification. As a result, fluent translation may enable a foreign text toengage a mass readership, even a text from an excluded foreign literature,and thereby initiate a significant canon reformation. But such a translationsimultaneously reinforces the major language and its many other linguisticand cultural exclusions while masking the inscription of domestic values.Fluency is assimilationist, presenting to domestic readers a realisticrepresentation inflected with their own codes and ideologies as if it were animmediate encounter with a foreign text and culture.The heterogeneous discourse of minoritizing translation resists thisassimilationist ethic by signifying the linguistic and cultural differences ofthe text—within the major language. The heterogeneity needn’t be soalienating as to frustrate a popular approach completely; if the remainder isreleased at significant points in a translation that is generally readable, thereader’s participation will be disrupted only momentarily. Moreover, astrategic use of minority elements can remain intelligible to a wide range ofreaders and so increase the possibility that the translation will cross theboundaries between cultural constituencies, even if it comes to signifydifferent meanings in different groups. A minoritizing translator can draw onthe conventionalized language of popular culture, “the patter of comedians,of radio announcers, of disc jockeys” (Lecercle 1988:37), to render a foreigntext that might be regarded as elite literature in a seamlessly fluenttranslation. This strategy would address both popular and elite readerships bydefamiliarizing the domestic mass media as well as the domestic canon forthe foreign literature. Minoritizing translation can thus be considered anintervention into the contemporary public sphere, in which electronic formsof communication driven by economic interest have fragmented culturalconsumption and debate. If “the public is split apart into minorities ofspecialists who put their reason to use non-publicly and the great mass ofconsumers whose receptiveness is public but uncritical” (Habermas12
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THE SCANDALS OF TRANSLATION

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