ABSTRACT
Investigating translations as part and parcel of their historical context is nothing new to translation studies (despite Niranjana's complaints, 1992:ch.2). Studies in the history of translation, polysystems and other sociological approaches to translation have tried to do just that, and it is these rather than translation quality or cognitive processes orientations which promise to be most useful in the study of colonial-era ethnographies. Since we are looking at what are actually source-less target texts, we don't have the option of making interlingual, comparative analyses — and in the opinion of critic Eric Cheyfitz that kind of analysis is anyway nothing more than a distraction from the heart of the matter: “Our imperialism historically has functioned (and continues to function) by substituting for the difficult politics of translation another politics of translation that represses these difficulties” (1991:xvi). By treating translation as a technical, self-explanatory linguistic process, says Cheyfitz, we ‘repress’ the actual dynamics of translation and its implication in concrete contexts of domination and power.
