Translating India


Book Description

The cultural universe of urban, English-speaking middle class in India shows signs of growing inclusiveness as far as English is concerned. This phenomenon manifests itself in increasing forms of bilingualism (combination of English and one Indian language) in everyday forms of speech - advertisement jingles, bilingual movies, signboards, and of course conversations. It is also evident in the startling prominence of Indian Writing in English and somewhat less visibly, but steadily rising, activity of English translation from Indian languages. Since the eighties this has led to a frenetic activity around English translation in India's academic and literary circles. Kothari makes this very current phenomenon her chief concern in Translating India. The study covers aspects such as the production, reception and marketability of English translation. Through an unusually multi-disciplinary approach, this study situates English translation in India amidst local and global debates on translation, representation and authenticity. The case of Gujarati - a case study of a relatively marginalized language - is a unique addition that demonstrates the micro-issues involved in translation and the politics of language. Rita Kothari teaches English at St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), where she runs a translation research centre on behalf of Katha. She has published widely on literary sociology, postcolonialism and translation issues. Kothari is one of the leading translators from Gujarat. Her first book (a collaboration with Suguna Ramanathan) was on English translation of Gujarati poetry (Modern Gujarati Poetry: A Selection, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1998). Her English translation of the path-breaking Gujarati Dalit novel Angaliyat is in press (The Stepchild, Oxford University Press). She is currently working on an English translation of Gujarati short stories by women of Gujarat, a study of the nineteenth-century narratives of Gujarat, and is also engaged in a project on the Sindhi identity in India.




Siting Translation


Book Description

The act of translation, Tejaswini Niranjana maintains, is a political action. Niranjana draws on Benjamin, Derrida, and de Man to show that translation has long been a site for perpetuating the unequal power relations among peoples, races, and languages. The traditional view of translation underwritten by Western philosophy helped colonialism to construct the exotic "other" as unchanging and outside history, and thus easier both to appropriate and control. Scholars, administrators, and missionaries in colonial India translated the colonized people's literature in order to extend the bounds of empire. Examining translations of Indian texts from the eighteenth century to the present, Niranjana urges post-colonial peoples to reconceive translation as a site for resistance and transformation.




India in Translation, Translation in India


Book Description

India in Translation, Translation in India seeks to explore the contours of translation of and in India-how Indian texts travel around the world in translation, how Indian texts travel across languages in the subcontinent and how texts from various languages of the world travel to India. The book poses pertinent questions like: · What influences the choice of texts and the translations, both within and outside India? · Are there different ideas of India produced through these translations? · What changes have occurred over the last two hundred odd years, from the time of colonialism and anti-colonial struggle to that of globalisation? · How does one rate the success or otherwise of a translation? · What is the role of these translations in their host languages, in their cultural and literary polysystems? The book includes eighteen essays from eminent academics and researchers who examine the numerous facets of the rich and varied translation activity. It shows how borders-both national and subnational, and generic-are created, how they are reinforced and how they are crossed. While looking at the theory, methodology and language of translation, the essays also enunciate the role of translations in political, social and cultural movements.




Changing the Terms


Book Description

This volume explores the theoretical foundations of postcolonial translation in settings as diverse as Malaysia, Ireland, India and South America. Changing the Terms examines stimulating links that are currently being forged between linguistics, literature and cultural theory. In doing so, the authors probe complex sequences of intercultural contact, fusion and breach. The impact that history and politics have had on the role of translation in the evolution of literary and cultural relations is investigated in fascinating detail. Published in English.




India in Translation Through Hindi Literature


Book Description

What role have translations from Hindi literary works played in shaping and transforming our knowledge about India? In this book, renowned scholars, translators and Hindi writers from India, Europe, and the United States offer their approaches to this question. Their articles deal with the political, cultural, and linguistic criteria germane to the selection and translation of Hindi works, the nature of the enduring links between India and Europe, and the reception of translated texts, particularly through the perspective of book history. More personal essays, both on the writing process itself or on the practice of translation, complete the volume and highlight the plurality of voices that are inherent to any translation. As the outcome of an international symposium held at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2008, India in Translation through Hindi Literature engages in the building of critical histories of the encounter between India and the «West», the use and impact of translations in this context, and Hindi literature and culture in connection to English (post)colonial power, literature and culture.




Nodes of Translation


Book Description

The volume examines translation of key German texts into the modern Indian languages as well as translation from the vernacular languages of South Asia into German. Our key concerns are shifting historical contexts, concepts, and translation practices. Bringing an intellectual history dimension to translation studies, we explore the history of translation, translators, and sites of translation. The organization of the volume follows some key questions. Which texts were being translated? At what point or period in time did this happen? What were the motivations behind these translations? Topics covered range from thematic nodes or clusters, e.g., translations of Economics texts and ideas into Urdu, or the translation of Marx and Engels into Marathi, to personal endeavours, such as the first Hindi translation of Goethe’s Faust done by Bholanath Sharma in 1939. Missionary as well as Marxist activist translation work from Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu is included too. On the other hand, German translations of Tagore and Gandhi setting in shortly after 1912 are also examined. Also discussed are political strategies of publication of translations from modern Indian languages guiding the output of publishing houses in the GDR after 1949. Further included are the translator’s perspective and the contemporary translation and literary culture. What happens through the process of linguistic translation in the realm of cultural translation? What can a historical study of translation tell us about the history of Indo-German intellectual entanglements in the long twentieth century? The volume brings together multifaceted interdisciplinary research work from South Asian and German studies to answer some of these questions.




Translating India


Book Description

Post nineteen eighties, what made English translation from Indian languages a culturally desirable activity? This question leads Kothari to examine the changing cultural universe of urban, English-speaking middle class in India. She examines in detail readership patterns, attitudes to English, and the course of translation studies in general. The comfort with which English is used with an Indian language as in "Yeh Dil Maange More" or "Hungry Kya" reflects a sense of familiarity that has been made with English. From this broader context of bilingualism in the first part of the book, Kothari moves on to the state of Gujarat. Taking up the case of Gujarati, she demonstartes the micro issues involved in translations and politics of language. Kothari asks new questions in translation studies and makes the production, reception and marketability of English translation her chief concern. Translating India brings amultidisciplinary perspective to literature and translation, authenticity and representation.




India's Shakespeare


Book Description

This is a collection on the diverse aspects of the interaction between Shakespeare and India, a process embedded in the contradictions of colonialism - of simultaneous submission and resistance. The essays, grouped around the key issues of translation, interpretation, and performance, deal with how the plays were taught, translated, and adapted, as well as the literary, social, and political implications of this absorption into the cultural fabric of India. They also look at the other side, what India meant to Shakespeare. Further, they document how the performance of Shakespeare both colonized and catalyzed Indian theater - being staged in English in schools, in translation in various parts of the country, through acculturation into indigenous theater forms and Hindi cinema. The book highlights, and thus rereads, not just one of the longest and most widespread interactions between a Western author and the East but also part of the colonial and postcolonial history of India. Poonam Trivedi is a Reader in English at Indraprastha College, University of Delhi. Now retired, Dennis Bartholomeusz was Reader in English literature at Monash University in Melbourne.




Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies


Book Description

Praise for the previous edition of the Encyclopedia of Translation Studies: 'Translation has long deserved this sort of treatment. Appropriate for any college or university library supporting a program in linguistics, this is vital in those institutions that train students to become translators.' – Rettig on Reference 'Congratulations should be given to Mona Baker for undertaking such a mammoth task and...successfully pulling it off. It will certainly be an essential reference book and starting point for anyone interested in translation studies.' – ITI Bulletin 'This excellent volume is to be commended for bringing together some of [its] most recent research. It provides a series of extremely useful short histories, quite unlike anything that can be found elsewhere. University teachers will find it invaluable for preparing seminars and it will be widely used by students.' – The Times Higher Education Supplement ' ... a pioneering work of reference ...'– Perspectives on Translation The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies has been the standard reference in the field since it first appeared in 1998. The second, extensively revised and extended edition brings this unique resource up-to-date and offers a thorough, critical and authoritative account of one of the fastest growing disciplines in the humanities. The Encyclopedia is divided into two parts and alphabetically ordered for ease of reference. Part One (General) covers the conceptual framework and core concerns of the discipline. Categories of entries include: central issues in translation theory (e.g. equivalence, translatability, unit of translation) key concepts (e.g. culture, norms, ethics, ideology, shifts, quality) approaches to translation and interpreting (e.g. sociological, linguistic, functionalist) types of translation (e.g. literary, audiovisual, scientific and technical) types of interpreting (e.g. signed language, dialogue, court). New additions in this section include entries on globalisation, mobility, localization, gender and sexuality, censorship, comics, advertising and retranslation, among many others. Part Two (History and Traditions) covers the history of translation in major linguistic and cultural communities. It is arranged alphabetically by linguistic region. There are entries on a wide range of languages which include Russian, French, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Finnish, and regions including Brazil, Canada and India. Many of the entries in this section are based on hitherto unpublished research. This section includes one new entry: Southeast Asian tradition. Drawing on the expertise of over 90 contributors from 30 countries and an international panel of consultant editors, this volume offers a comprehensive overview of translation studies as an academic discipline and anticipates new directions in the field. The contributors examine various forms of translation and interpreting as they are practised by professionals today, in addition to research topics, theoretical issues and the history of translation in various parts of the world. With key terms defined and discussed in context, a full index, extensive cross-references, diagrams and a full bibliography the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies is an invaluable reference work for all students and teachers of translation, interpreting, and literary and social theory. Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. She is co-founder and editorial director of St Jerome Publishing, a small press specializing in translation studies and cross-cultural communication. Apart from numerous papers in scholarly journals and collected volumes, she is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge 1992), Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (2006) and Founding Editor of The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication (1995), a refereed international journal published by St Jerome since 1995. She is also co-Vice President of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS). Gabriela Saldanha is Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is founding editor (with Marion Winters) and current member of the editorial board of New Voices in Translation Studies, a refereed online journal of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies, and co-editor (with Federico Zanettin) of Translation Studies Abstracts and Bibliography of Translation Studies.