Translation and the political: antagonism and hegemony

ABSTRACT

Interest in the political dimensions of translation is well established. There has been less focus in translation studies, however, on understanding the nature of the political itself. This leaves the concept fuzzy and limits its analytical power. This article begins to address this gap by drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to offer a precisely articulated understanding of the political. This approach is illustrated through examination of divergent concepts of “translation” in translation studies and in the field of knowledge translation in medicine, suggesting that antagonism and hegemony, key aspects of the political in Laclau and Mouffe’s approach, play central roles in both cases. This approach allows the political to be more clearly differentiated from the social, cultural and aesthetic while also bringing the relationships between it and those other dimensions more clearly into view.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation
• the political
• hegemony
• antagonism
• identity
• discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Rather than political theory, scholars of translation tend to draw on postcolonial, feminist, sociological or narrative theories, and often on no specific theoretical model at all.

2 This is particularly significant because unlike literary translation, for example, conference interpreting is closely regulated by AIIC, a powerful institution which has long acted as gatekeeper of the profession and controlled the codes of practice for professional interpreters.

3 Although Laclau and Mouffe do not engage with translation, this is an obvious point to make, both in terms of the narrow and broader definition of discourse and of translation.

4 Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 112) here build on Jacques Derrida’s notion of an arche-writing, a textual interplay that has no outside (il n’y a pas de hors-texte). Similarly to Derrida, they abandon the idea of a transcendental signified on which the meaning underlying the flow of differences is fixed.

5 This aspect of Mouffe and Laclau’s approach draws substantially on Derrida’s critique of Ferdinand de Saussure, which highlights the inadequacy of assuming a straightforward internal/external distinction in relation to any system (Derrida 1974, 27–73).

6 There are exceptions to this (e.g. Lacorte 2018; Ben-Ari 2010; Bandia 2010).

7 From a slightly different but complementary perspective, in discussing normativeness as a feature of all narratives, Mona Baker (2006, 98) asserts that even oppositional movements that work for justice and equality produce their own hegemonic understandings and cannot do otherwise if they are to remain intelligible, attract adherents, and effect durable change.

8 Susan Bassnett and David Johnston implicitly address this issue when they ask “who actually uses translation theories and methods outside the pool of TS scholars?” (2019, 186).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Sadler

Neil Sadler is Associate Professor in Translation Studies at the University of Leeds. He is author of the monograph Fragmented Narrative: Telling and interpreting stories in the Twitter age (2021) and articles in journals including New Media & Society, Disaster Prevention and Management, and Cultus.

Mona Baker

Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University.

Eivind Engebretsen

Eivind Engebretsen is Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. He is Circle U Chair of Global Health and Executive Chairman of the Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE).