Sunday, 17 April 2016

Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications,
Jeremy Munday, Routledge, 2016
Chapter 8, "Cultural and ideological turns" (pp. 197-221), page 210

From Spivak, Munday moves to the work of Tejaswini Niranjana, an Indian critic of translation theory.

The central intersection of translation studies and post-colonial theory is that of power relations.

How much power is still being exercised by the ex-colonial power? And how does the choice of language and translation methods play into that power relationship. Niranjana presents an image of the post-colonial as 'still scored through by an absentee colonialism.' Clearly, for some, the effect of ex-colonial power remains a sharp reminder of the past by influence in the present. Munday comments:

Niranjana's focus is on the way translation into English has generally been user by the colonial power to construct a rewritten image of the 'East' that has then come to stand for the truth.

Once again, this presents a powerful example of the way the church has imposed its view of Jewish culture, tradition and values on the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and continues to have an overwhelming monolithic influence upon the way those Scriptures are heard and interpreted today.