post-colonial_translation

30 Maria Tymoczko
meanings of names may be of concern to both the writer and translator. 21
Similarly, transposing the literary genres, forms, proverbs and
metaphors of the source culture will be equally problematic to
translators and post-colonial writers alike. Each will struggle with the
question of naturalizing material to the standards of the receiving
audience; each will consider whether to adopt representations that tend
towards formal or dynamic standards. 22 Such dilemmas influence the
representation of the largest elements of text (e.g. genres, character types,
plot materials) down to the smallest (phonemes, lexis, idiom, metaphor).
Indeed, in Gideon Toury’s terms, both types of intercultural writing
involve norms: preliminary norms involving general principles of
allegiance to the standards of the source culture or the receptor culture,
as well as operational norms guiding the myriad small choices that are
made in textual and cultural transposition (Toury 1995: 53–69; cf.
Holmes 1994: 81–92). The discernment of such norms is essential to
any analysis of a translation, but it is essentially impossible to determine
from the vantage point of the receptor culture alone; typically
judgements about translations are made by people who know both the
source language and the receptor language, and can evaluate the
adaptations and adjustments in the transposition on the basis of both
languages and cultures. This situation should strike a cautionary note
about criticism of post-colonial works: detecting the norms governing
cultural transposition in a piece of post-colonial writing is an equally
important point of departure for an evaluation of the aims and
achievements of the work, but at the same time it is difficult to do without
a standpoint in both cultures that permits comparison. 23
Recent work on translation theory and practice indicates the
importance of patronage as a determinant of translation practice, and
this is another area that bears on post-colonial writing. Patrons – once
wealthy aristocrats – now take the form of presses and publishing
houses, universities and granting agencies, which are in turn dependent
on such groups as a readership, a critical establishment or government
officials. Patrons determine the parameters of what is translated just as
they determine parameters of what is published; that the effects of
patronage are currently achieved largely through self-censorship does
not invalidate the point. Studies of translation are increasingly alert to
the circumstances under which books are chosen for translation and
translations are published, 24 and similar questions are relevant to postcolonial
writing. Literary merit, though not insignificant, is rarely the
only or even the chief issue to consider in answering such questions.
Here it is germane that many – perhaps most – post-colonial writers