THE ENIGMA OF THE TRANSLATOR: A POSTSTRUCTURALIST READING OF THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

Many of the problems in current translation theory have resulted from attempts to isolate the concept of translation, to reify it, and to establish it as a reality independent of other discursive activities. Such approaches tend to hypostasize translation, to treat it as something different from reading and writing on the one hand and imitation, adaptation, interpretation and paraphrase on the other. What is needed is a model which bases itself on a theory of practice where such pseudo-essential distinctions do not operate. Such a model, treating translation along with other discursive activities as practical actions performed in specific circumstances can illuminate the translation process in particular and may even have implications for our understanding of the functioning of signifying processes in general. Poststructuralist theories of discourse can suggest alternative strategies. Pierre Bourdieu\u27s theory of practice provides a framework for an exploration of the complex relationship between theory and practice in translation. His observation that the building and manipulation of theories are themselves practices, or discursive activities, prohibits any simple, clear-cut distinction between theory and practice. Applying this insight to translation theory enables me to identify more precisely the ways in which previous efforts at formulating adequate theories of translation have been simplistic and reductive. Jacques Derrida\u27s reading strategies supplement Bourdieu\u27s theory by allowing me to expose implicit theories of practice in existing theories of translation, thus laying bare their implicit enabling concepts and key hierarchies. Bakhtin\u27s notion of the dialogic nature of discourse offers another model for thinking about translation. The concept of intertextuality which emerges from poststructuralism is helpful in rethinking translation theory. From an intertextual perspective, a unified theory of translation is neither attainable nor desirable, nor is a total mastery of theory over practice. Instead, intertextual theories of translation resist closure. Translation, in this light, becomes dynamic and creative, always just as open as any other discursive activity to interaction among voices, registers, languages, readers, writers and texts, however these are defined