Translation and colonialism

Abstract

Colonialism has been among the most debated and widely deployed terms in modern translation studies. Unequal cultural exchanges and their impact on translation in the modern world has been a common theme in postcolonial studies. Apart from theoretical conceptualisations of translation, feminist postcolonial critics have highlighted the predicament of female translators or translated authors who have to suffer the double bind of patriarchy and colonialism. Some postcolonial critics have adopted what may be termed a prescriptive position on translation strategies. While cultural and linguistic incompatibilities are inevitable in any translation, postcolonial scholars are concerned about the cases where it is not simply a problem of asymmetry, but rather of inequality. Theorisations of resistant strategies have been around since the early postcolonial approaches to translation. Postcolonial scholars have drawn on anthropology to formulate resistant translation strategies. The most important contribution of postcolonial translation studies has been its investigation into the effects of power inequalities in intercultural transfer.