Translation and migration

Abstract

The link between translation and migration is a recurrent trope of recent critical writing. Its popularity underlines the increased centrality of both notions (and corresponding practices) in contemporary society, as well as the anxieties associated with them. Starting from translation as a linguistic activity, this article asks in what ways language practices connected to migration can be linked to translation. It considers the different positions occupied by migrants as agents or objects of translation, and the sites where translation and self-translation take place. The language practices which emerge from migrant writing are then discussed as a possible example of self-translation, asking whether the migrant-asartist can offer at least a partial response to negative models of translation as a form of control over linguistic heterogeneity. Finally, the article examines the connection between migration, translation and political action, suggesting the need to understand how these relate to a contemporary biopolitics of language.Keywords: translation and migration; self-translation; migrant writing; biopolitics of language; globalization Linking translation with migration has become a recurrent trope in critical writing over the past few years. The connection between the two notions has been drawn by translation studies scholars but also, and increasingly, by specialists in anthropology, sociology, philosophy or literary theory. The popularity of the link is in itself revealing: it underlines the increased centrality of migration and of translation (as notions but also as practices) in contemporary society; and it foregrounds the suggestive as well as anxiety-inducing nature of any interweaving of the two. Since both terms are connected to the way in which we, as individuals and as groups, mark the boundaries that define who we are, their coupling holds out the promise of

Language, silence and translation in Emanuele Crialese’s polyglot migration film Nuovomondo – Golden Door (2006)

“…Her ultimate act of silence and her refusal to accept assimilation shed light on the forms of inclusion, subversion or legitimation articulated in the American system. The US is indeed seen in the film through the lens of its un-ethical response to otherness, and attention is thus driven along the guiding master narratives of homeland, citizenship, identity, gender, language and migration (Polezzi 2012).…”

Italian Mothers and Italian-Canadian Daughters: Using Language to Negotiate the Politics of Gender

“…The movement between different languages and cultures breaks the constitutive relation between language and identity. 2 Indeed, migrants have been defined as 'translated beings' (Cronin 2006;Polezzi 2012) because, in order to function within the new community, the way they perceive and relate to reality has to be redefined and transferred from one linguistic and cultural dimension to another. In light of this parallelism, I investigate what new forms the relationship with the mother (tongue) assumes in migratory contexts, and what these new forms entail for the reframing of the daughter's identity.…”

«Tu cuerpo debe ser escuchado»: la postraducción del cuerpo femenino

“…Por otro lado, el aumento de las migraciones y la apertura hacia fuera de la disciplina han hecho surgir numerosos dilemas éticos relacionados con la gestión de la diferencia, como exponen Bermann y Wood (2005), Tymoczko (2006), Vidal (2009) y Polezzi (2012). No obstante, estas cuestiones comenzaron a plantearse varias décadas atrás.…”