Lawrence Venuti: The scandals of translation (Towards

an ethics of difference)
I've read a book titled The scandals of translation by Lawrence Venuti. In
his book, he represents an examination, a research of the marginalization
of translation and translation studies by the current ruling social and
political powers (mostly UK and US). At the very beginning of his book he
points out that the scandals of translation are cultural, economic and
political. He then continues that the translation nowadays is stigmatized as
a form of writing, discouraged by copyright law, depreciated by the
academy, exploited by publishers and corporations, governments and
religious organizations. His goal through the book was to expose these
scandals of translation, find the practices that contribute to the marginal
status of translation, examine ethical questions and improve the current
thinking about translation.
He also talks about the strategic focus on the marginality of translation
and that it can be assumed that a study of the periphery in any culture can
illuminate and ultimately revise the center. Here he talks about the
relationship or a cross-cultural exchange between dominant cultures over
developing cultures.
The book is divided into eight chapters, or we could also say factors that
are crucial for the marginalization of translation and need to be reformed.
These eight factors are: heterogeneity, authorship, copyright, the
formation of cultural identities, the pedagogy of literature, philosophy, the
bestseller and globalization.
In his first chapter HETEROGENEITY, he questions himself about the
theorist's capability of bringing translation to the attention of a larger
audience. This concern guides his own theory and practice of translation
and he later on discusses some of the characteristics of a good translation.
A good translation is demystifying (it manifests in its own language the
foreignness of the foreign text) and a good translation is also minoritizing
(it releases the remainder by cultivating a heterogeneous discourse,
opening up the standard dialect and literary canons to what is foreign to
themselves, to the substandard and the marginal). A good translation is
also the one that adheres to the current standard dialect, while avoid any
dialect or register or style that calls attention to words as words, to
present translation as readable (fluent translation). He then also points out
the concept of remainder that is left over in a sense (here we talk about
the transition of the foreign language into domestic language) that gives
evidence to what degree a translated text has retained or lost his original
form. He shows us that the foreign languages remain intact when
remainder is retained.
He also points out his preference about translating foreign texts that
possess minority status in their cultures. This preference is based on a
political agenda that is broadly democratic: an opposition to the global
hegemony of English (English is the most translated language worldwide
but at the same time one of the least translated into).
In the second chapter he defines AUTHORSHIP as originality, self-
expression in a unique text and at the same time points out that
translation is derivative and not unique because it imitates another text.
He questions himself whether the translator should take over the role of
the new author and make new literary text or should he stay invisible and
let the original speak through the translated text. Here rises a problem of
academic community not wanting to acknowledge or approve the
translated text but they rather assume that the translated work is actually
an original (translation is ignored and rarely considered as a form of
literary scholarship, it does not constitute a qualification for an academic
appointment in a particular field or area of literary study). He also talks
about scholar's Don't-tread-on-my-path attitude when texts of foreign
literature are translated by non-specialists. They correct errors in
conformity with scholarly standards and interpretations. That means that
academic specialists or scholars can reject any new interpretation of a
specific work because it does not coincide with a particular translated text.
There is a blurred distinction between the translation and the original
authorship. He talks about double allegiance to the foreign text and the
domestic culture. So translation is scandalous because it crosses national
and also institutional boundaries.
In the third chapter on COPYRIGHT he talks about translators translating
for cultural and political reasons. Even though the translator has freedom,
at the same time he/she has the least legal freedom and little or even no
economic incentive. Publishers and capitalists control output of
translations and shape cultural developments at home and abroad (an
increasing trend has been to invest in the translation of foreign works
because dramatic or film adoption promise wider reader recognition and
greater sales). So although translations have a high cultural value they
have a low profit value and this means little value to the publisher. The
only way the status of translation will change is if the legal status of
translator and translated texts get clarified and improved.
In next chapter he examines the enormous power in constructing
representations of foreign cultures. He shows that the colonizers' ruthless
effort to force English literacy upon its conquered population has actually
worked against the colonizer.
In his chapter on PEDAGOGY OF LITERATURE he shows his disapproval of
the academic community's massive contribution to the marginalization of
translation. He again points out the importance of English language as the
most translated language worldwide, but at the same time one of the least
translated into. The marginality of translation reaches even to educational
institutions, where it is manifested in a scandalous contradiction: he claims
that scholars knowingly neglected translation studies, even though a big
amount of their classes are based on translated texts. He then adds that
studying translation can make students more aware of the domestic
interests to which any translation submits the reader, as well as the
foreign text.
In the next chapter scholars have claimed that philosophy is a scientific
language based on logical formulations and that is why the translation as
such is accurate because of its scientific nature. [He then says that
philosophical translation should become more literary so as to release an
appropriate domestic remainder for foreign concepts and discourses. At
the same time translators are required to respond creatively to the stylistic
pressures exerted by the philosophical project of concept formation]. For
the translator a more literary approach turns the philosophical translation
into minor literature within the literature of philosophy. The experimental
translation creates a philosophical language that challenges the domestic
hierarchy of philosophical languages.
Another factor in the current marginality of translation is its tenuous
economic value. Publishers keep the volume of translation low because
such books are financially risky.
In his book he is criticizing an American academy, more precisely on
American publishers and scholars for their ignorance and neglect and
marginalization od translation studies. He is trying to point out that they
should depart from their ethics and sameness and adopt a new ethics of
difference.