This paper brings together the fields of sociolinguistics and translation studies and examines translated texts through the translanguaging lens. Translanguaging is not only a pedagogical concept, but also a sociolinguistic concept for bilinguals’ languages use. Translanguaging is a human instinct to gain knowledge, express ideas, and communicate through social interactions without language boundaries. In the foundational concept of translanguaging presented by García and Li (2014), translanguaging applies to any semiotic mode of communication and is trans-system, transformative, and transdisciplinary.
Although occurrences of linguistic features of the source text are not normally expected in translated texts, translators occasionally push and flout language boundaries to communicate their interpretation with their target audience. Such a risk-taking, but strategic language use taken by translators is doubtlessly translanguaging. Evidence of translanguaging in translation can be found in a recent English translation of Godaan, Premchand’s masterpiece novel written in Hindi and published in 1936. Godaan, translated by Anurag Yadav in 2009, contains more than three hundred instances of Hindi words in the English text.
This paper analyzes the Hindi words in Yanav’s translation, as well as the sociohistorical and sociopolitical background of the novel in order to explore the driving force and resulting effect of translanguaging in translation. Using the methodology of the grounded theory, injected Hindi words are coded, categorized, and correlated with linguistic, cultural, ethical, ideological, and philosophical perspectives in the field of translation studies.
The analysis reveals that (i) injected Hindi words are creatively scaffolded by contextual information to allow adequate intelligibility in most cases; (ii) they instantly dissolve the issue of untranslatability across cultures; (iii) they bring the readers to the culture of the source text, contrary to domestication practices prevalent in Anglophone societies; (iv) they balance the power-imbalance between the former colonizer and colonized; (v) they liberate pure language to release the energy of the source text. These findings further support the transformative and trans-disciplinary nature of translanguaging and enable us to view theories of translation studies from a sociolinguistic perspective.
References:
García, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: language, bilingualism and education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
