Questions of power and ideology in an interpreting and translating event

Abstract

Recent developments in translation theory have emphasized the importance of considering power relations and language ideology in translation processes. One way of understanding the effects of power in shaping translation/interpreting processes is through the notion of interactional regimes which, in locally situated ways, differentially position languages and language varieties in relation to each other. Blommaert, Collins and Slembrouck (2005) have argued that language use including multilingualism is shaped not just by such interactional regimes but also by polycentricity. In Baynham and Hanusova (2017, forthcoming) we argue that the “centres” that constitute polycentricity are unequally distributed in relation to each other and hence that a centre can also be a periphery in relation to some other centre. Each centre exists in relation to one or more peripheries and each periphery in relation to one or more centres. Moreover in the bumpy and sharply unequal global and local terrains of economic, political and cultural/semiotic power and influence, each centre is not equally influential and attractive in the sense of attracting or drawing people and resources towards itself. Along with relations of attraction, there are also potentially relations of repulsion. Relations of power, influence and attraction/repulsion are of course played out in the interactional regimes that shape multilingual encounters. We will examine the production of interactional orders in a multilingual translating/ interpreting event which has two sharply contrasting parts. In the first a letter in a non-standard Slovak influenced variety of Czech is being translated into Standard Czech. Here the interactional regime favours the Standard Czech variety and features of a formal letter writing register. In the second part, the version in Standard Czech is discounted and a new version created in English following the generic characteristics of the affidavit. This is specifically not a translation of the Standard Czech version into English, but a completely new beginning. At each stage the translation is resisted to a certain extent by those participants who find themselves identified with the dispreferred variety. We conclude by drawing out implications for translation theory more generally.