The Translator ( IF 0.744 ) Pub Date : 2020-04-08 , DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2020.1735091 Hephzibah Israel 1 , Matthias Frenz 2
ABSTRACT
This article focuses on a challenge faced by a collaborative research team working on autobiographical accounts in South Asian languages. Although several documents stated they were translations, both source and target texts were not preserved in each case. How could could we engage constructively with the implied presence of the source texts in the face of their material absence? This meant developing a new set of questions on translation and its relationship with the archive. Drawing on Foucault’s critique of ‘the archive’ and his argument for an ‘archaeological’ engagement with archives, we examine how to study what we term ‘translation traces’ in the documents: bilingual texts, translated extracts, fragments, and evidence of repeated relay translations. We ask further, what role translation, invisibilized as it is, plays in the documentation of lives. The archive can be conceptualised as a ‘contact zone’ where languages, texts, and collective memory intersect through translation. We suggest that archives from the past inevitably shape our study and understanding of material presence and function of translation in specific historical periods. Finally, we argue that highlighting the role of translation opens up new ways of conceptualising and working with historical archives.
中文翻译:
档案中的翻译痕迹:解开文档,破坏稳定的证据
摘要
本文着重研究以南亚语言编写自传帐户的协作研究团队所面临的挑战。尽管有几份文件说它们是译文,但在每种情况下都没有保留源文本和目标文本。面对源文本的实质性缺失,我们如何能够建设性地处理源文本的隐含存在?这意味着就翻译及其与档案馆的关系提出一系列新的问题。借助福柯对“档案”的批评以及他对档案进行“考古”研究的论点,我们研究了如何研究文档中的“翻译痕迹”:双语文本,翻译的摘录,片段以及反复中继的证据翻译。我们进一步询问,角色翻译本身是不透明的,扮演生命的记录。可以将存档概念化为“联系区域”,其中语言,文本和集体记忆通过翻译相交。我们建议,过去的档案不可避免地影响着我们对特定历史时期物质存在和翻译功能的研究和理解。最后,我们认为突出翻译的作用开辟了概念化和使用历史档案的新方法。