Thinking about "Untranslatability"

    “Untranslatability is not a temporary barrier to be broken into but a fundamental right.” From Nariman Youssef and Gitanjali Patel’s essay, this quote lingered with me as I read the other articles for this week. What does it mean for untranslatability to be a fundamental right? It means, I think, that we, as a community of readers and translators, need to recalibrate our positionality to the work we undertake. The authors of this piece bring up the question of “Whose English?” when tasked with determining fluency along the lines of what “works in English”. This helped me to articulate one of the reasons why I felt uncomfortable with Damion Searls’ approach to his ‘Philosophy of Translation:’ throughout his talk, he continuously made statements along the lines of “this isn’t full English,” or, “this is almost English.” It seems painfully clear that he, as a white American man, has never had to stop to think about why he gets to be the judge of what is English and what isn’t. He may have had to justify his translation choices, but thanks to the privilege afforded to him because of his identity, he is not asked to justify why he translates, or if he should. As Youssef and Patel write, “Because power breeds entitlement, unquestioningly accepting and benefiting from the supremacy of standard English leads to the belief that anything can, and should, be translated.” This follows in to their point on untranslatability, which again puts them in stark opposition to the likes of Searls (I know I am using him as a scapegoat here, and he represents a more widespread school of translation thought), and his argument that “nothing is untranslatable.” The way I see it, to say that untranslatability exists is not to say that we should not translate those things. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that some ideas, feelings, beliefs, etc. in any given language cannot always be perfectly conveyed within hegemonically valued means, and arguing that they can be constitutes an act of violence that many scholars (such as Rebecca F. Kuang) believe is an intrinsic part of translation itself. 

I could go on about this essay, but I will also try to connect it to the other articles: it brings up the important question of the “heritage speaker,” and challenges this nomenclature as means of neocolonial control: “‘heritage’ is code for non-European, and functions as a perpetual reminder that we don't belong.” Sindya Bhanoo’s article tackles this question, and discusses how many ‘heritage speakers’ often are translators, though they do so naturally and not as a professional endeavor. Increasingly, however, authors and translators themselves are discussing the role of the translator vis a vis the text and the author, like we see in the case of Amanda Gorman’s translations and Bhanoo’s example of Junot Diaz’s preference for a Caribbean translator – though perhaps these discussions have been happening for years and simply have not received mainstream attention due to the Eurocentric nature of translation scholarship throughout modern history. Like the other articles, Bhanoo raises the question of who should translate what, and I believe we are offered some interesting solutions. One, among which, from Alex Marshall’s article, is the idea of team translations. At the end of the day, I think the main takeaway is that as translators, we always need to consider our relationship to the work. I don’t think that we should be boxed into only doing certain translations based on how many aspects of our identity align with the original work (unless this is explicitly requested by the author), but I think we need to remember that as translators, we must also be advocates for linguistic justice.

- Luisa