Name :-Darshangi Andharia K.
Paper no:-05 Translation Studies
Topic :-A.K. Singh's View on Translation
Sem :-III Part:-II
Year:-2012-2013
Submitted to,
Dr.Dilip Barad
Dept. Of English
M.K Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar
What is translation?
Translation is the interpretation
of the meaning of a text in one language which is known as source language and
the production in another language, of an equivalent text which is known as
target text or translations that communicates the same message. It is, in that sense a bridge that makes the journeys into newer territories of alien
literature.
Avadhesh
kumar has discussed about outs nature and strategies, and he has
discussed his essay with the experience of Milan Kundera when The Jock was translated. When he himself
has read all those work he felt surprise because in all of the translation some
major changes were done by the translator. He says in France, the translator
rewrote the novel by ornamental language, in England, the publisher cut out all
the reflective passages, eliminated the musicological chapters, changed the
order of the parts, recomposed the novel. Through that epigraph he says that
translation has often been condemned as an act of violence-parasitic an subservient
to creative act. It is second hand product ignited by an already existing work.
He further discussed about T.S
Eliot’s view that language is disconnected from reality. The moment writing commences
the disjunction between author “Enters onto his death.” It is the death of
empirical author who employs language to express himself. It is the language
which speaks not the author, for author fails in mastering the language. In the
process of mastering language he ‘surrenders’ himself to language and becomes
it servant. Baths here death of ‘Historical’ and implied author as well. In non
existence of the implied reader, the text fails in finding a fixed meaning but
a “Plurality of meaning and irreducible plurality.” The meaning of the text
exists in the system of rules and conventions-not in the text itself as believed
for long.
A.K Singh accept the idea of
‘Decentering’ presumes presence of center before it was disinterred and thus followed
reentering which is given by Jaques Derrida.And the moment we are in view of
the center, the author creeps in. Thus Derrida at least succeeded in pushing
the author to periphery. There is no denying the fact that translation is an
act of violence. But creative act too, if examined closely, terms out to be an
act of violence, we would try to see that creativity too is an act of violence
in the sense criticism is an act of violence.
There
are five stages in the process of creation like
(1)Experiential/perceptional intentions
(2)Systemic/linguistic intentions
(3)Authorial/writer intentions
(4)Textual intentions
(5)Reader intentions
In the initial stage the creator wrestles with his/her experiences and perceptions.
When a situations, event or experience, real an imaginative, factual or
factional. But prier to its textual formation the systematic/linguistic
intentions clash with experiential intentions. The author surrenders himself to
linguistic system in the process of mastering it but the system too does mat remain
unaffected when it trams grasses other of intentions. Language is an artificial
system and it perpetuates artificiality as may be witnessed in emptiness of the
language of social translation. However
incompetent artificial and limited system may be, it is the only articulating
device that serves as social and mental ‘Safety valve’ by giving an outlet to
surging complication .Nevertheless, as it deals with experiences real and
unreal ‘Bitten’ and ‘Beautiful’ it contrast some of the properties of these
perilous problem and at times get trapped in itself.
It is also to be admitted
that language/linguistic as a medium of articulation suffers from limitation,
incompetence and in adequacies. That is why the linguistic meaning weavers so
much. It has failed in coping with demands for newer idiom capable of
expressing increasingly complex experience, perception and realities rendered
more complicated by every fleeting moment of explosion of new experiences, sicknesses,
situations and sensations. The experiential and perceptions intentional are
conditioned violently by linguistic system and than by authorial intention and
limitations and further by textual intentions. Which constraint authorial intention,
its possible interpretation, its form and medium. Thus, the authorial
intentions tri to grasp certain experience/experiential intentions with the
help of linguistic system, and authorial intentions wrangle with textual
intentions. And the ultimate synthetically issue of this continuous yet invisible
violence results in a creative work.
In the last stage text goes through
violent processes at the hands of reader –critic it is inconceivable to indulge
in critical enterprise without doing some-sort of violence to the work
concerned. It is ironical may e even tragic to some that violence and critical
acts are inseparable as Barthes called criticism as an ‘Act of Violence.’
Violence is centripetal to critical exercise. As a critic lays his hand on a
creative work to criticize or create meaning, there beings a tug of war in intentions
particularly between ‘Authorial intentions’ and ‘Reader intentions’ to use
archaic physiological terms. It is reader critic who sees the work he wants to
see it and the work becomes what this reader critic intends it to be. As the
text is ‘Dead’ It’s beauty and ugliness to a good measure depends on the way of
viewing it. Thus, creation of a new text outside the text rests on violence –Gentle,
invisible and creative violence. This new text
and meaning are created through subtle persuasive violence of the text
by competent reader-critic. This reader imposes his intentions on the text and creates
his own text which is resisted by textual intentions and at times he may react
so violently to the text that he may reject the textual intentions and make his
own text absolutely different from the text itself.
Translation is an extension of
creative exercise in the same sense as critical act is extension of creative
exercise characterized by almost the same process. Translation is like serving
two masters. It is a demanding task as the translator is in continuous quest of
proper words. Translation helps in preserving ancient literary and cultural heritage.
When translator translates language one translates culture. Thus translation
becomes a cross cultural event.
He ends his essay with question
that “Can the author be the ideal translator?” And gives the example of
Ravindranath Tagore’s work “Geetanjali” and he says that no author should do
wait for other translator for itself in deference period and ages and responded
to its emotional and social needs.
