Intertextuality in Translation: A Critique from Bangladeshi Perspective

Abstract

In his book The Scandal of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference, Lawrence Venuti vehemently asserts that translation “…entails the creative reproduction of values,” and at the same time, it is usually seen with suspicion (1). He examines a bunch of reasons which instigate this suspicion. According to him, translation domesticates a foreign text and goes through a continuous inscription process in the stages of production, circulation and reception. While a foreign text is inscribed with linguistic and cultural values of the target readers, it runs into the risk of surrendering its individual tone and voice to the target readers’ interest and thus, the target text is re-written and reproduced in the local dialects and the framework of local discourses. It is a common belief that translation causes violence to the source text because intertextuality between two distinct languages, cultures and minds gives rise to a new space where it “suffers from an institutional isolation” (Venuti, The Scandal of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference, 2). If it is so, a lot of suspicion regarding the authenticity of translation immediately emerges out of this limitation. As translation contributes to the mobility and multiplicity of understanding, it goes hand in hand with ambivalence and destabilization in establishing communication while intertextualizing the source text with the target text. To reduce this ambivalence and bring about equivalence between the source text and the target text theoretical framework is followed sometimes knowingly and very often unknowingly by the translators. In Bangladesh, translation at present turns into a field of study and so it invites a critical evaluation. This paper seeks to explore from a Bangladeshi perspective how intertextuality impacts translation.