Mamta Kalia

called words but whole languages were
specific to indeed the culture they
belonged to, to some degree or the other.
Thus in a crucial paradigm shift, the
translation of literary text became a
transaction not between two languages,
or a somewhat mechanical sounding act
of linguistic ‘substitution’ as Catford has
put it, but rather a more complex
negotiation between two languages. “The
unit of translation was no longer a word
or a sentence or a paragraph or a page
or even a text, but indeed the whole
language and culture in which that text
was constituted”. It is as if translation
too moved from the structuralist to post
structuralist phase, where it stands
compatible to the “increased valorization
of diversity and plurality” in cultural
matters. This expansion of scope has
brought socio-economic and political
matters in the folds of translation and
vice-versa. The postcolonial theory is
one such example.
Post national and Post-colonial
An important test that center staged
“Post-colonial theory” was Orientalism
(1978) by Edward Said. Said applied a
revised form of Michel Foucault’s
historicist critique of discourse to analyze
what he called “Cultural Imperialism”.
This mode of imperialism imposed its
power not by force but by the effective
means of disseminating in subjugated
colonies a Eurocentric discourse that
assumed the normality and pre-eminence
of everything “occidental”, as well as,
representing the “oriental” as an exotic
and inferior other. Said says– “Orientalism
is a style of thought based upon an
ontological and epistemological
distinction made between the orient and
(most of the times) the occident”. Thus
a verylarge mass of writers among whom
are poets, novelists, philosophers,
political theorists, economists and
imperial administrators, have accepted
the basic distinction between East and
the West as the starting point for
elaborate theories, epics, novels, social
descriptions and political accounts
concerning the Orient, its people,
customs, mind, destiny and so on.”
Postcolonial theory looks closely at
the “enormously systematic discipline
by which European culture was able to
manage and even produce the Orient
politically, sociologically, militarily,
ideologically, scientifically and
imaginatively during the post
Enlightenment period”. In other words
it questions the grand narratives of the
West. Here it seems to be in a similar
position to Lyotordian post modernism.
Jean-Francois Lyotard is a significant
Post modern voice who gave it its
undeniable cognitive–epistemic status in
the seminal text “The Post modern
Condition”. He uses the term “modern”
to designate any thought or science
that legitimizes itself with reference to
the meta discourse by making an explicit
appeal to a “grand narrative” such as,
for example, the dialectics of spirit, the
hermeneutics of meaning or the creation
of wealth. Lyotard simply defines the
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