Exploring the non-substantive aspect of translation through a translanguaging lens

Abstract

ABSTRACT “Translanguaging” refers to the dynamic language practice of multilingual users that transcends the boundary between languages and other semiotic resources used in the meaning-making process. This paper explores how “Translanguaging” can be a useful framework for (1) considering the creative use of multifaceted languages as a space of a dynamic embodiment of creative assemblage comprising various distributed linguistic and semiotic elements; and (2) examining how translation can be regarded as a translanguaging practice showing generative interaction between languages and cultures. The Taiwanese novel Tanch’ê shihch’ieh chi and its English translation The Stolen Bicycle offer illuminating locales for such an investigation for its distinctiveness in the original writer’s use of multifaceted languages, including Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, English, and indigenous language. Through a qualitative textual analysis, this paper focuses on the consistent appearance of the direct textual approach and the deployment of non-textual semiotics. These textual and non-textual practices illustrate how the translanguaging acts of multifaceted languages and their translations in a fictional world make such texts visually and acoustically cacophonous. This research argues translanguaging as a conceptual framework can elucidate the non-substantive aspect of translation as a composite of transculturation and inter-linguistic/-semiotic interplay.