Translation Policy and the Politics of Translation—The Translation of Power Relationships: An Afterword

Abstract

AbstractComplementing the deliberations set forth in the foreword, the afterword focuses on four strands of theoretically oriented reflection: to begin with, theoretical reflection on the relationship between translation, politics, and power as discussed by Michel Foucault, a relationship manifest in various phenomena such as political influence on translation projects or the cultural hegemony of certain source and target languages in translation. The second strand of reflection has to do with the role of different semiotically conceived materialities and text types in the context of translation, which implies a necessary systematic expansion of the traditional concept of translation beyond verbal and writing-based signs. Thirdly, we reflect on translation here as a complex (inter-)cultural contact zone in which, on closer examination, transcultural and power-determined processes of meaning negotiation—processes as diverse as they are ambivalent—can be observed between the poles of “domestication” and “foreignization” often schematically distinguished in the research discussion. And fourthly we are concerned with reflection on “historicity and anachronism”, particularly with regard to the problem of Eurocentrism and its epistemologically distortive influence on the historical analysis of translation processes.