Fidelity, Alterity and Shifting Borders in Translation

Abstract

The translator as communicator across linguistic and cultural boundaries should be aware of the cultural power differentials and develop a set of feasible strategies in dealing with such a text type. The text type can be seen as carrying over the text producer’s beliefs and his/her own identity, which is shaped by the higher pre-potent one: the global social and cultural identity of the speech community to which s/he belongs. Things become more complex with the translated text since there is multiplicity of identities: those belonging to the source language culture and those characterising the target language culture.

Keywords

• translation
• cultural power differentials
• identities