Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era

Ronald R. Henry is director of the School of Translators and
Interpreters at Laurentian University.

This is the age of globalization, “a dream of universal if not
homogeneous commerce, science, language and culture”—a time when
both the practices and the effects of colonialism are distant yet close
enough to allow for observation and analysis, as well as visceral
reaction.

As it turns out, post-colonialism is as difficult to define as
translation itself. The shapes of one are as complex as the forms of the
other: shifting from country, to language, to culture, to individual
translator. Indeed, it could be argued that colonialism and translation,
as severally described here, are polysemic and multidimensional—hence
the variety of perspectives, both historical and actual, that contribute
to the ever-changing facets of cross-cultural exchange.

The 15 essays in this collection position the act of translation as a
process identifying, developing, asserting, and changing languages and
cultures. Translators who have always been traders in stories, ideas,
and facts are readjusting their philosophies and perspectives. Forever
on the cusp of economic, political, and cultural expansion or
contraction, these outsiders to monoglot societies are refining their
positions and reinterpreting their roles in history. They are often
deemed profiteers and spies by all sides, and they are familiar with
movements of repression and liberation worldwide. Naturally, however,
the sons and daughters of the Empire on which the sun never used to set
are more than adequately represented here. For example, about half the
essays deal with the translation situation evolving in India through
colonial times into the post-colonial period. Only four papers deal
primarily with other colonialisms than the British.

In her tour-de-force introduction, Sherry Simon maps out the tensions
and complexities of the topic viewed “within the context of global
power relations.” She also provides a summary overview of the essays
in Part 1 (Post-Colonialism and the Powers of Translation) and Part II
(Scenes of Negotiations), all of them discussions detailing activities
at the points where cultures transit. Practitioners and students of
language, literature, translation, culture, and even politics will find
here a wealth of reflection.