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Politics of Translation: - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

This document discusses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's views on translation as expressed in her work "The Politics of Translation". Specifically: - For Spivak, translation is not just a technical transfer between languages but a political act that shapes how a text and its ideas are received. The translated text takes on a new form. - Effective translation requires an intimate, "surrendering" relationship with the original text in order to convey its original meaning and flavor across cultural and linguistic barriers. - The politics of translation often privilege powerful languages like English, marginalizing texts from other linguistic contexts and cultures. True feminist solidarity requires understanding women's experiences across languages.

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559 views5 pages

Politics of Translation: - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

This document discusses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's views on translation as expressed in her work "The Politics of Translation". Specifically: - For Spivak, translation is not just a technical transfer between languages but a political act that shapes how a text and its ideas are received. The translated text takes on a new form. - Effective translation requires an intimate, "surrendering" relationship with the original text in order to convey its original meaning and flavor across cultural and linguistic barriers. - The politics of translation often privilege powerful languages like English, marginalizing texts from other linguistic contexts and cultures. True feminist solidarity requires understanding women's experiences across languages.

Uploaded by

Tina Thomas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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POLITICS OF

TRANSLATION
- GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK
Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak

 Indian scholar, postcolonial theorist and a prominent


feminist critic of the 20th and 21st centuries.
 Major interests: Literary criticism, Feminism,
Marxism, Post colonialism.
 Major influences: Jacques Derrida, Gramsci and
Marx.
 Translated Jacques Derrida’s De la Grammatology
and short stories of Mahasweta Devi from Bengali to
English.
 Major works: Can the Subaltern Speak? / The Politics
of Translation
DISCUSSIONS
1. Through the essay she has brought in feminist, post cultural, and post-structural approaches
of translation.
2. She states that “ Translation is the most intimate act of reading. I surrender to the text when I
translate”. Here she means the surrender of her self in the text is a must before translating to
create the original flavour of the work.
3. Here for Spivak, translation is a vital political act in which the self engages with reading a text.
4. Not the technical superimposition from one language to the other but it in itself is a different
act of reading. The translated text thus becomes a new text altogether.
5. The feeling of love and affinity between the text and the translators protects many important
aspects of the text. Translation should be more of erotic / surrender than ethical.
6. As the language changes many other aspects too changes along with it as it is received by a
different set of audience with different cultural ethos.
7. As a feminist translator she thinks language is to be perceived as a sign of gendered agency ,
stressing on three aspects of translation – rhetoric, logic and science.
An example she quotes is Mahasweta Devi’s popular text “Sthanadayani” which was originally written in
Bengali.
Two translation were made to the same text namely: “Breast Giver” and “The Wet Nurse". She indicates that
the first translation talks about power, strength, soundness; whereas the second transln. is rather discouraging
and undermining to the agents of the text.

8. Politics of translation is primarily oriented to the language of power and hegemony such as English and
many other languages of the ex-colonizers countries.

9. She openly challenges the western feminist movements dominated by the English language over the third
world countries of Asia and the Arabs. The feminists of the European countries often expect translation to be
in their English language. Thus, she questions the preoccupied notion of the Eurocentric feminism and the
domination of English language in postcolonial literature and society.

10. The main concern of the author in the essay is that non-European women texts cannot sufficiently care
about the rhetoricity of the original text.

11. Ex. from Toni Morrison beloved- the impossibility of translating certain deep rooted cultural context only if
a translator relies on the technical knowledge of the language. Can only be translated through a seductive /
erotic relationship with the text.
12. So Spivak sees translation as an act of understanding the self and
others, as it gives women access to work on various languages and
cultures of the world.
13. Feminist of the hegemonic countries of the world should learn the
mother tongue language of the third world countries to show the real
sense of women solidarity avoiding an imposing condition of feminism.
14. Thus the role of any language should be to determine the contextual
variations and situational realization.
15. Translation is context oriented and perceived differently

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