Your tongue speaks in words unclear

Meaning is produced from words through a mobilization of language. Similarly, the act of translating and interpreting language has the ability to infer an identity upon the ambiguous- ascribing meaning to it. This meaning however does not always fully integrate concepts of the original text or idea. It is therefore important to acknowledge that any translation we encounter is usually a reflection of what was meant to be conveyed and like a reflection, is subject to inversion and imperfection. In my essay I aim to elucidate how the act of translation has the potential to forcefully assimilate those who occupy liminal spaces, under hetero-normative and occidental umbrellas and therefore the need to fight the impulse to ‘understand’ or ‘make sense of’ languages that do not belong to our socio-lect.

Homi K Bhaba, in the Location of Culture talks about how the colonized occupied a liminal space to escape the colonizers panoptical assertion of dominance. The colonizer had previously made attempts to assimilate everybody under one identity and their first line of attack was language, which they terra-formed by forcing natives to forfeit their own under the guise of encouraging “transparency” and “legibility.” This phenomenon stood directly in opposition to the Right to Difference which protects those who occupy liminal spaces from succumbing to the need to reduce their existence to more digestible forms. In the modern day we see how this phenomenon continues since acceptable languages, norms and socio-cultural backdrops usually belong to hetero-normative (often male), white and global northern paradigms.

We use these `acceptable` values as precedents or an ideal scale against which we make sense of our own languages, cultures and inevitably-existence. The problem with this is that language in particular, when measured against a scale, risks becoming a product of comparative study, rather than an independent entity in itself- losing its sovereignty. Additionally, during translation, language undergoes a series of screening processes before it is re-inscribed with meaning. After being measured against the `ideal scale`, language undergoes a reengineering process by the translator who works to appease an audience. Lastly the audience also filters what is presented to them using biases and their own preconceived notions. By this third stage, words no longer reflect the essence of what was meant to be conveyed and something is inevitably lost in translation.

José Santaemilia draws a parallel of how translation and sexuality may be inter- related. He theorized that in the way sex is the physical parallel of the “coming undone” of the corporeal self, translation manifests the coming undone of the linguistic body as an independent, sovereign, and territorialized entity. Here Dorothy Spivak’s suggestion that translation may be “the most intimate act of reading,” also affirms that there are linguistic, ideological, and political implications to translation. This specially holds true in the way queer sexualities are translated.

Queer language has been known to proudly occupy a liminal space, becoming a form of resistance by producing a parallel social space for self-expression alongside mainstream linguistic identities. The slang in particular, when used in the vicinity of outsiders, establishes a space for members of the queer community to be audible whilst remaining opaque, allowing the non-speakers to identify the speakers as belonging to a certain group, but not being able to pinpoint what group that is. This creates a much needed gap in the homogenous social fabric and also a space where outsiders know that their identities cannot be negotiated or infiltrated.

Such social spaces or socio-lects (often with specific geographic radii) allow for opacity and easier exchange of information between group members who navigate a line between visibility and invisibility. It shields them from outsiders and aggressors and offers them an opportunity to reclaim their language on their own terms. David Van Leer, an American scholar on queer culture theorizes that “often minorities speak most volubly between the lines, ironically reshaping dialogues the oppressor thinks he controls, finding new topics and modes of speaking to which the oppressor himself lacks access.” In this way, other than providing those who live precariously with a safer space, the use of their own exclusive language renders a level of proximity and relate-ability between the speakers.

Additionally, we must also encounter language with the vulnerability that it demands- a certain willingness to go where the text takes you. When venturing into a linguistic world completely unfamiliar to us, we often feel the impulse to organize and reduce the text to comfortable ideas that we can relate to but we must resist falling back upon mimicking subject-object binaries. Rather, embrace the “coming undone” of translation by being willing to go where the text takes us without inhibitions even if it makes us uncomfortable. Once we have accepted that there are places where verbal patterns do not translate the same way in different linguistic paradigms, we can truly understand the role of the translator.

The translator represents and caters to an audience for which they take liberties when translating- in an attempt to make what they present, more palatable to the audience. They enjoy a position of power with their ability to ascribe new meaning to what they interpret; bringing a certain level of subjectivity and bias, by virtue of their own pre-conceived notions. In such a situation it becomes imperative to question the translator’s attitude toward existing conceptualizations of identities, races, gender and nationality. While the translator may not always be serving a diabolical ulterior motive, or aim to distort the original meaning, it is still important to be weary of the scepter he carries.

By now it must be evident that perhaps the pursuit of the original and unadulterated might even be a thoroughly futile activity. Roland Bartes agrees with this and theorizes that the sovereignty of words is inevitably impeached the minute pen hits paper. He calls this phenomenon the “Death of the author,” whereby which the meaning the author intended to ascribe to the text becomes irrelevant since the reader furnishes the text with his own meaning regardless. In this way, the words belong to the author until they have been penned and belong to the reader as long as they read. In the case of translation, if the purpose of the translation is to serve an audience with something digestible, it should not be mistaken as being a representation of the original text. Perhaps in this way there is consolation in knowing that Coleman Barks` The Book of Love is a translation of the work of Rumi, not a book by Rumi. The heavily secularized and hyper romanticized poetry represents the motives of the audience more than it does the author and to view it as anything else would be damaging and disrespectful to language itself.

As language is ever changing, ever developing and undergoing constant negotiation and metamorphosis, we are reminded of how ‘If we continue to speak in this sameness – speak as men have been doing for centuries we will fail each other. Again, words will pass through our bodies above our heads – disappear, make us disappear.’ At one point language and socio-lects had the ability to incite the largest massacre described in the bible where between 1370 and 1070 BC, 42,000 people were killed as a result of a linguistic test that decided whether individuals belonged to a particular identity. Historically, the word Shibboleth was used as a test to differentiate between the Ephraimites and Gileadites after the battle of Jordan. The Ephraimites pronounced the word with a different dialect and so survivors of the war upon mispronunciation, were killed. Here it can be said that identities were put on trial on the basis of belonging- and this belonging was calibrated is through language.

Today, Doris Salcedos giant fissure at the Tates Turbine Hall talks about the metaphorical fissure in the agency of culture in today`s day of globalization where the world is described as a giant global village or melting pot- where some stubborn chunks are meant to stay afloat. Perhaps language is also meant to be unapologetically immiscible in this way and there is a need to fight reductionist impulses and let go of the need to understand everything. Reducing language to the obvious and transparent comes from a place of fear of the obscure- because we fear what we do not understand. But once conscious of this unfounded fear, we may accept that there are places of obscurity even in translation and therefore we may give up the impulse to fill in the gaps in the linguistically opaque.

Word count- 1439

Bibliography

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