Theorizing About Translation and Translation Studies

The act of translation between languages and cultures has been going on for centuries, but the act of theorizing about-translation is of recent origin. In the last forty years translation scholars have attempted to understand the process of translation and evaluate its merits giving rise to a whole range of conceptualizing which is now called translation studies. Translation studies , therefore, has grown within important scholastic enclosures of the west attempting to conduct political and institutional interventions to maintain their force and transmute the text and its context. In an attempt to transform the minor area of translation studies into a major scientific discipline, scholars in linguistics, cultural studies and other associated areas have taken methods from structuralism and linguistics to theorize about the act of translation and its related activities. The growth of English language as a global lingua franca, the process of globalization and the proliferation of the Internet have all expanded the boundaries of translation studies and made it into a lucrative trade. Today translation studies is not only a new academic discipline but is vigorously promoted by private and governmental organizations to gain political and economic advantage. Post-structuralism has exposed some of the smug assumptions of translation studies and its hegemonic intentions whenever it happens. It has been argued that there can be no perfect translation as translation always exists within the translatable and the untranslatable. A text possesses the ‘metaphysics of presence’ and therefore cannot be reduced to a formula, ideology or method. Nonetheless the future of translation studies seems bright as universities compete with each other to open translation studies programs to cater to the needs of both aspiring translators and the translation industry.departmental bulletin pape