Von Flotow, Luise

von Flotow, Luise

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108 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 1, 1998 First On-Line Colloquium on TranslationThree points - Feminist Translators - Positionality - IntercultureLuise Von FlotowUniversity of Ottawa. CanadaAfter reading through the reams of mate-rial that have been posted over the lastfew days, I am glad that information andcommentary on specific translators/trans-lation situations is surfacing (the transla-tor in the Hawaiian courtroom). Long«theoretical» texts that discuss «the trans-lator» or «translation» as though they wereentities that can be taken out of their spe-cific contexts and generalized about geta little tiresome…1. On subversions of texts or text situa-tions that are actually verifiable and notjust thinkable (as in the anecdote on thetranslation of the Japanese term), peoplemight consider feminist translators’ acti-vities. This is a case where the context offeminist political action, a broad grass-roots women’s movement, and massiveinterest in and therefore translation ofwomen’s writing caused a «feminist trans-lator» to emerge, and to fashion herselfas a (pro)active, self-confident, powerfullysubversive manipulator of texts who drawsattention to her work and the influenceshe has and exerts as a rewriter. The trans-lations and essays of women such asSusanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood andBarbara Godard in Canada or DianeRayor, Carol Maier, Sharon Bell in theUSA are good examples of translatorstaking a clearly political stance and either‘subverting’ a text they find problematic,or simply demonstrating the empower-ment that translators can derive from aparticular political/cultural movement. 2. These and other women workingin feminist scholarship and translationhave also addressed the «translating sub-ject» (one of Pym’s topics, I think). Theydo not generalize about all translation,or all translators, however, but start fromthe particular context of feminist acti-vism, feminist responsibility and the self-assurance that comes with participatingin and being supported by a relativelypowerful group in contemporary Anglo-American culture. One of the terms thatis important is the ‘positionality’ of thetranslator (or writer, or theorist) —Michael Cronin referred to it briefly—in other words that person’s position ina particular culture (what is the statusof a translator at that particular time?and is the translator perhaps also an aca-demic? a writer? etc.), the position theythemselves assume (are they confidentand activist? do they work within a cer-tain political framework? for or againstor just in sympathy with a particularcause? are they relatively independent?),and do they declare their position? I think analyses of translators’ situa-tions and contexts along these morelimited lines may be more productive andmore interesting than theorizing about«the translator» as some kind of mono-lithic entity. EUTI 1 079-113  16/4/98 11:02  Página 1083. About intercultures: The «divided»cities of the world may be a place toobserve and research interculture —Iwonder whether residents of Jerusalem orMontreal or Berlin or Nikosia could des-cribe living in intercultural environmentswhere at least two languages are use-ful/necessary. (In Berlin it would not bean exaggeration to talk about two lan-guages). Big multicultural centres such as NewYork or Los Angeles or Vancouver mayalso be centers of interculture, especiallywhen the once dominant Anglo/Europeanresidents are quietly yet continuouslybeing displaced by «visible minorities».Luise von Flotow Ottawa, Canada[Final] statistical and geographical dis-tribution [data] of participants inTRANSFER-L: (.edu) [presumably USA] 26, (.com)[could be anywhere] 19, Canada (.ca),Spain (.es) 18, Brazil (.br) 11, (.net) …8, Australia (.au) 7, Sweden (.se), UK(.uk) 5, Italy (.it), South Africa (.za) 4,Netherlands (.nl), Portugal (.pt) 3Belgium (.be), France (.fr), Greece(.gr), Ireland (.ie), Yugoslavia (.yu) 2Armenia (.am), Argentina (.ar), Chile(.cl), China (.cn), Germany (.de),Denmark (.dk), Finland (.fi), Hungary(.hr), Iceland (.id), (.int), Korea (.kr),Luxembourg (.lu), Malaysia (.my), (.org),Poland (.pl), Turkey (.tr), Taiwan (.tw) 1First On-Line Colloquium on Translation Quaderns. Revista de traducció 1, 1998 109EUTI 1 079-113  16/4/98 11:02  Página 109

Three points - Feminist Translators - Positionality - Interculture

https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/poncom/1997/166281/11385790n1p108.pdf

Three points - Feminist Translators - Positionality - Interculture

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