Abstract: The theories of translation prevalent in the West in the earlier centuries derived largely from Platonism. Critics in the twentieth century invoked the hermeneutical tradition of the great German Romantics and stressed that language was not instrumental in communicating meaning, but was constitutive in reconstructing it. Linguists emphasized the possibility of translation equivalence through the readability of linguistic features, levels and categories as well as a potentially infinite series of cultural situations. Culturally sensitive research in the 1990s suspected “universal meanings” and “transparent translations” and indicated the existence of subliminal social-historical differences underlying all processes of interpretation, including translation. The theoretical focus called upon attention to the illusions of “transparent language” and fluent (seamless) translations. The functions of both the translator and the praxis of translation changed. The translator became the critical reader-analyst of the text and the process of translation grew sensitive to the sub-textual determinations of ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, class and nation. The translator as an analyst was alert to the rhetorical play in the use of the language. Three different kinds of texts are offered as examples of three types of translation process to illustrate the problems of cultural transference in translation.

"…The origin of philosophy is translation or the thesis of translatability." - Jacques Derrida

         One of the many significant achievements of the twentieth century has been the coming of age of new disciplines of learning, among which Translation Studies occupies a prominent place.

     After centuries of incidental and desultory attention from linguists and literary scholars, the subject of translation has moved to the center-stage from the periphery by attracting increasing research interest. The Second World War marked a turning point in its reception in the academies.

      Through the succeeding years, the progressively growing interest has drawn scholars from adjacent fields of linguistics, literary studies, logic, sociology, anthropology, as well as from mathematics, information technology and media studies, who have brought into the discussion of translation new models and terminology, paradigms and methodologies towards the formulation of the different theories of translation. Having run the entire gamut of experimentation rather in the manner of the 'evolution of cosmos' - with ontogenic terms such as "the art”, "the craft”, "the theory / principles / fundamentals”, "the science”, and with epistemological metaphors such as "bridge”, "treachery”, "interpretation”, "invasion”, even "excavation”, "cannibalization”, and "parricide”, the accepted nomenclature is now taken unequivocally to be: Translation Studies. The vastness envisioned by the name indicates the dialectical richness of the subject.

     The changing cultural philosophy of the world finds remarkable parallels in the paradigm shifts in Translation Studies. Developing out of the legacy of Western theories of translation of earlier times, an ambitious array of conceptual exercises and analysis of texts have been offered through the past century by theorists and translators of varying orientations and ideologies. As a result, various methodologies and norms are now enunciated across cultures. Today, the translation theorist is aware of the full, inclusive and complex body of axioms, postulates, hypotheses, and methods that form the theoretical foundation for the praxis of translation.

     Enriched by the research input, the 1990s have seen Translation Studies achieve certain institutional authority, manifested most tangibly by the popular reception of translated texts across the world and the proliferation of translator training programmes and scholarly publishing. In keeping with the historical signposts of the time, the theories of 1990s have also stepped beyond the problematics of semiosis towards "depth" analyses. Now, the process of translation does not merely concern itself with the question of crossing languages, "re-coding" or carrying across meanings. The scope of its engagement has enlarged to encompass social and cultural nuances.

 II

     The theories of translation prevalent in the West in the earlier centuries derived largely from, as Antoine Berman puts it, the "figure of translation based on Greek thought” or more precisely, Platonism. Diachronically, this means that "the figure of translation” is understood here as the form in which translation is deployed and appears to itself, before any explicit theory. Berman explains the way Western translation has been "embellishing restitution of meaning based on the typically Platonic separation between spirit and letter, sense and word, content and form, the sensible and the non-sensible”. (Burman 2000:296). This viewpoint is responsible for valorising "restitution of meaning" over the examination of the function of the "word" in the performance of translation.

       It would be appropriate here to re-open the discussions offered by theorists such as George Steiner, G. Mounin, and J.C. Catford. Invoking the hermeneutical tradition of the great German Romantics like Shleiermacher, Steiner has stressed that language is not instrumental in merely communicating meaning, but is constitutive in reconstructing it. He argues that the individualistic aspects of language and the privacies of particular usage resist universalising norms of translation. He says, "Great translations must carry with it the most precise sense possible of the resistant, of the barriers intact at the heart of understanding”. I shall relate these aspects of the "resistant" and the "barriers" to my discussion of specific texts below. Here, I wish to place alongside Steiner, the positions held by linguists like Mounin and Catford who emphasize the possibility of translation equivalence through the readability of linguistic features, levels and categories as well as a potentially infinite series of cultural situations. Theories such as these have released what Herbert Marcuse calls "the power of negative thinking" against all "one dimensional" theories of reality (Marcuse 1964:11).

      Culturally sensitive research in the 1990s suspects "universal meanings" and "transparent translations" and indicates the existence of subliminal social - historical differences that underlie all processes of interpretation, including translation. The theoretical focus has therefore moved away from the earlier mimetic philosophies and in the light of Post-Structuralism, calls attention to the exclusions and hierarchies that are masked by the accepted realism-oriented illusions of "transparent language" and fluent (seamless) translations that seem "un-translated". The functions of both the translator and the praxis of translation have changed. As the translator becomes the critical reader-analyst of the text, it is required that the process of translation becomes sensitive to the sub-textual determinations of ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, class and nation. The translator as analyst must be alert to the rhetorical play in the use of language and thus the "re-production" of the translated text must move beyond mere transference of linguistic equivalence to encompass political inscription.

     According to Gideon Toury, "However highly one may think of Linguistics, Text Linguistics, Contrastive Textology or Pragmatics, and of their explanatory power with respect to trans-national phenomena, being a translator can not be reduced to the mere generation of utterances which may be considered 'translations' within any of these disciplines. Translation activities should rather be regarded as having cultural significance. Consequently, 'translatorship' amount first and foremost to being able to play a social role, i.e., to fulfil a function allotted by a community - to the activity, its practitioners, and/or their products - in a way which is deemed appropriate in its own terms of reference” (Toury 1980:198)(emphasis mine).

     Clifford Geertz, one of our best contemporary anthropologists declared once "there simply is no such thing as human nature independent of culture. We are… incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture - and not through culture in general but through highly particular forms of it” (Geertz 1973:49). Human language is, therefore, neither universal nor individual but each language is rooted in a specific culture as dialects or as national languages. The individual self becomes a medium for the culture and its language. The creative self mediates the linguistic and social construction of reality, the interpretation and negotiation of the meaning of the lived world. Some philosophers of language of the post-modern ethos have gone so far as to let "reality" disappear behind an "inventive language" that dissembles it [for instance, Derrida's observation in 1986 in a memorial address to Paul de Man where he described the interpretation of "essentialist" categories such as childhood, history, generations, regions, gender, woman etc as "inventions" to illustrate the cultural "constructedness" of communications.]

          To stress such directions in translation is to argue that, from the standpoint of the  analysis of the cultural situation or the contextual placing of the text - an analysis that might be termed political, certain purposes are productively served. The literary work contains a hidden dimension, an underlying text, where certain signifiers correspond and link up, forming all sorts of networks beneath the surface of the text itself - the manifest text, presented for reading. For a postcolonial society of many languages and classes like ours, this draws attention to the self-reflexive element in the text that must be addressed by translation. It alerts us to the existence of the "deep structures" of communication that need to be explored.    

      Transference is the process of conveying or projecting onto someone the available knowledge or information. The concept of Transference as developed through Freud by Derrida and Lacan suggests the dual process of passing thoughts, feelings, motivations, and conflicts to the "therapist" or what Jacques Lacan calls the "Subject Supposed to Know", the person who is capable of illuminating the "truth" of knowledge better than "patient" alone. But only by refusing the role of the "Subject Supposed to Know" and by initiating a sort of "counter-transference" does the analyst help the patient grow beyond the analyst (so that the therapist and the patient do not become locked in an enduring false relationship). Transference, as Lacan and Derrida both point out, occurs in many contexts outside of psychotherapy. Lacan claims that whenever a person (teacher, friend, priest, military leader) is believed to be the Subject Supposed to Know, transference exists. Likewise, transference is something that can happen to texts, to "authors", as well as to people. Transference operates through the dynamics of languages, in internal as well as external communication. However, not to become locked in the prison house of language and the metaphysics of a unified consciousness in control of languages, is to be aware of the fictions in the structuring of language. As far as the process of translation is concerned, then, it would mean the possibility of "counter-transference" always already existing in the text or which has to be initiated by the translator/analyst.

        I offer a few examples here to illustrate the problems of cultural transference in translation, let us read an extract from a memorable poem by the legendary Jibanananda

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