NOTES ON SPIVAKS TRANSLATING INTO ENGLISH What the theorists said The translator should make an attempt to grasp

p the writers presuppositions. (Spivak 93) and the reasoning behind it In her essay, Spivak makes use of some examples of difficulties in translation. These are the texts of Kant, Marx, Lacan and Foucault. Whats important to note is that those she mentioned arent just considered to be literary theorists but for the most part philosophers. Given that, they already carry within them certain standpoints or positions (although the same would apply to any other writer) These positions rest upon certain assumptions, which is what the translator has to always consider when translating.

Grasping the writers presuppositions as they inform his or her use of language as they develop into a kind of singular code, is what Jaques Derrida the French philosopher who has taught me a great deal, calls entering the protocols of a text not the general laws of language, but the laws specific to this text. (Spivak 94)

What does Spivak / Derrida mean by this? Again, if you look at the examples Spivak mentioned, a lot of the words used by the translated philosophers are (to borrow a term used by my philo teacher) pregnant with meaning. They dont just mean one thing, but carry within themselves a whole history of connotations and etymologies. The word, form for examplewhat exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean form in the Russian Formalist sense? In the Platonic sense? In the Kantian sense? The words in themselves already carry a ton of meaning, which makes them impossible to 1 translate. The many levels? Etymology, history, tradition, influence, etc.

The translator must not only make an attempt to grasp the presuppositions of an author but also, and of course, inhabit, even if on loan, the many mansions, and many levels of the host language. (Spivak 95) Ashomoyer Noteboi = Untimely Notebook (Spivak 96)

Translation requires a good grasp of intertextuality. Pondering upon the Bengali text, Spivak calls to mind the texts of Nietzsche, Derrida and Foucault.

The word for this is catachresis, which means the misapplication of a word, especially in a mixed metaphor" (Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory) or to use an existing word to denote something that has no name in the current language

 The impossibility of translation is what puts its necessity in a double bind. It is an active site of conict, not an irreducible guarantee. If we are thinking denitions, I should suggest the thinking of trace rather than of achieved translation: trace of the other, trace of history, even cultural traces although heaven knows, culture continues to be a screen for ignoring discussions of class. (Spivak 105) This is a lesson: to enter the protocols of a text one must other its characters. (Spivak 107)

Cases in point: A: Kant. If you are going to translate Kant, you have to know that he presupposes that mere (rather than pure) reason is a programmed structure, with in-built possibilities of misfiring. B: Marx - form C: Lacan apologue, logos D: Michel Foucault vis--vis (meaning over-against? or opposite?) ______________________________________________ NOTES ON UNGARS WRITING IN TONGUES Objective: I want...to consider how issues surrounding the practices of an emergent field of translation studies over the past twenty-five years has contributed to the evolving discipline, discourse, and institutions of comparative literature. I want to state from the start what draws me to translation is less a matter of what it is, and how to do it, than what it could and should be doing. No poetics of translation, then without its concomitant to politics and ethics. [So now we move on to discussing the political implications of translation, which is largely connected to Postcolonial theory / theorists]