deconstruction in translation

Aisha Maniar wrote:

The writings of this Indian/American academic should provide you with a good starting point, as would a closer look at postcolonial translation theory (Cheyfitz, Bhabha, Niranjana, Tymoczko, etc.). Professor Spivak translated Derrida's "De la Grammatologie" into English and provided a useful introduction on the translation task in her preface. She has also written other essays and articles on the issue. Names dropped in those works, as well as books and articles by the persons named above should give you further pointers.
"Deconstruction in translation" sounds like a rather broad remit (to me), so perhaps you should do the background reading first and then focus on a specific aspect you wish to look at.
It sounds difficult but interesting, good luck!

Phil Hand wrote:
Like many other translation academics, Derrida thinks that literary translation is the only type worth talking about.

Phil Hand wrote:

We're mostly working translators here, not academics. We tend to work on commercial texts. Derrida posed the question "What is a relevant translation?", and his answer starts:

"How dare one speak of translation before you who, in your vigilant awareness of the immense stakes - and not only of the fate of literature - make this sublime and impossible task your desire, your anxiety, your travail, your knowledge, and your knowing skill?"

Like many other translation academics, Derrida thinks that literary translation is the only type worth talking about. In response to which, I cordially invite the old fraud to go and boil his head, and do not read his work.

Do you not Google, though? Putting the words Derrida and Translation into Google produced a series of links with dozens of idea for time-wasting research.

Samuel Murray wrote:



This is a very good point. Many of the more weird theories of translation applies only to literary texts. I have on occassion tried to apply such theories (in particular Derrida's work, of which I used to be a fan) to commercial translation, but one ends up with translations that are not sellable to clients.

One problem with Derrida's work is that his method of analysis isn't really a method of analysis, so any method of analysis based on his work is really just guess work. He himself says the his ideas do not constitute a method of analysis, but that is the only way in which it can possibly applied in practice.

If I remember Derrida correctly from my student days, then you (laaya) must have stopped running recently (because you come from Iran), and Phil has a groovy kind of hand (or else he'd tell you whether to expect 6 more weeks of leg).

Phil Hand wrote:

Thanks, Samuel. I don't have anything against the continental "thinkers". You remind me that the raspberries they blow at convention and grandiose theories are, in fact a valuable contribution.

Actually, your reminder about the wordplay aspect does make me wonder if I could adapt some Derridean thought. I'm wading through some publicity (read: propaganda) texts by a Chinese government authority. The style of these texts is very difficult to reproduce in English - there is a logic and a pattern to it, but it's very unlike the conventions for such documents in the US/UK. I haven't developed a systematic way of dealing with this problem yet, so the way I handle it is in fact a sort of free association. I take a concept, work it in English, then go back and weed out all the meanings which are not consistent with the source text. I wonder if this process could be understood as a sort of deconstruction?

So there you go, Laaya. An idea for you. I'm sorry if I sounded overly negative - your question has ended up giving me quite a stimulating idea. Thank you!