constructing pathways to translation - Higher Education Commission

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In order to be ethical, we have to shape the other into something like the self.
This is humanistic universalism, but in translating relationship there has to be
more respect for the irreducibility of otherness; this respect is more erotic than
ethical in nature (Simon, 1996 :140).
In the context of post-colonialism, Spivak feels that the translator must be able to
discriminate on the terrain of the original, The persistent heritage of this colonialism
means that the accountability of translation is different when you are dealing with a
language most reviewers do not know. This is a point of political import of translating
from a Third World to a First World language. This is exactly what has been traced in
Chapters 5-7, of the thesis, in the findings of Abdullah Hussein’s translation analysis:
‘The Weary Generations’.
Spivak’s ‘Politics of Translation’ is a part of her larger project of post colonial
pedagogy, in which she also draws attention to language as a necessary condition for
understanding singular cultural forms. She warns that if such sensitivity is not
maintained, a new form of orientalism could emerge, that would include a canon of
Third World literature in translation, in which ‘all alien shapes take on the same line.’
Spivak’s goal is to situate the critical project of translation within the parameters of the
evolving relationship between cultural poles. There is an emphasis now on the
performative aspect of culture, on the ways in which cultural identity is constantly
enacted through practices of representation.
The reflection of cultural concerns, moral norms and values, linguistic trends and
educational issues of indigenous cultures and native peoples, is essential in an honest
translation. That includes feminism and other gender issues and human rights. This is all
the more important in view of the current challenges of the 21st century, new
International Imperialism and Colonialism as reflected in globalism and globalization.
Literature and Literary criticism cover these contemporary challenges.
Bhabha’s elaborates a powerful conceptual framework for the translator. Instead of
serving as a bridge between already given cultural entities, translation becomes an
activity of cultural creation. The bridge brings into being the realities it links: “the
boundaries become the place from which something begins its preserving”. In that sense,