Mamta Kalia

things” did happen in the colonial period?
What even more “Odd things” are
happening today? What is the fate of
translation in the “global village”? How
does translation relate to the posts of
post–colonial and post-modern? To tackle
these issues, it would do good to
problematize and historize translation
and do so fast so that not translational
“indologists” should arrive, and theories
trickle to us manufactured in Paris and
sent to New York, (to borrow a phrase
from Edward Said).
Translation “in theory”
The etymology of “theory” goes back
to the greek word “thea” “meaning”
“vision”. Thus the idea is basically “to
see”. And this vision cannot be just
monotiered . Theory has to see and
question the prevalent modes of thoughts
and practices, as well as see “beyond”
and “seek” what alternatives are out
there. Theory is “the critique of
established practices and the beliefs and
values that justify this practice and
second, the inspection of new theories
and forms of practice that get proposed
as substitutes for what has formerly
been in place …….it remains skeptical
if also hopeful about alternatives for
the future. Thus theory is simultaneously
a connection to and a disjunction from
the temporal. Even the Hindi word for
theory “Siddhant” (Siddha + Ant) speaks
of an end (‘ant’) which is not here, but
desirable, to be strived for (siddha).
Translation in theory first of all leaves
the simplified guise of being just a
150 :: April-June 2010
“linguistic process”. Earlier any study
of translation was pursued under either
of two different subjects or disciplineslinguistics
and comparative literature.
Translation was seen as a sub-section
of linguistics, on the basic assumption
that it was a “negotation, a transaction
between two languages”. Thus the
definitions like- “Translating consists in
producing in the receptor language the
closest natural equivalent to the message
of the source language first in meaning,
secondly in style” (Nida). J.C. Catford’s
book “A linguistic theory of translation:
An essay in Applied Linguistic” (1965)
was perhaps the last major work written
on this premise, in which he defines
translation as comprising, ‘a substitution
of TL (i.e Target language) meanings for
SL (i.e. Source language) meaning.’ He
also explains translation as “the
replacement of textual material in
language by equivalent textual material
in another language.” But still we can
see the shift from syntactic to semantic
equivalence.
But gradually it was seen that language
was just a part of the big picture called
culture. Language is in fact, a carrier
of the culture. Whole chapters in
traditional translation text books were
devoted to discuss the “cruxes of
translation” i.e. the items which proved
particularly, tricky to “translate, often
described as being “culture specific” for
example words like kurta , ganga –nahana,
maya, payal, dupatta etc. Then the
realization grew that not only these so–