Translation and the Pedagogy of Literature

Abstract

he reflections that follow derive fundamentally from the current predicament of English-language translation in the global cultural economy. English remains the most translated language worldwide, but one of the least translated into. The translations issued by British and American publishers comprise about 2 percent of their total output each year, approximately 1200 to 1400 books, whereas in many foreign countries, large and small, west and east, the percentage tends to be significantly higher: 6 percent in Japan (approximately 2500 books), 10 percent in France (4000), 14 percent in Hungary (1200), 15 percent in Germany (8000), 25 percent in Italy (3000) (Grannis 1993). This asymmetry in translation patterns ensures that the United States and the United Kingdom enjoy a hegemony over foreign countries that is not simply political and economic, as the particular case may be, but cultural as well. The international sway of English, furthermore, coincides with the marginality of translation in contemporary Anglo-American culture. Although British and American literature circulates in many foreign languages, commanding the capital of many foreign publishers, the translating of foreign literatures into English attracts relatively little investment and notice. Translation is underpaid, critically unrecognized, and largely invisible to English-language readers. The power of Anglo-American culture abroad has limited the circulation of foreign cultures at home, decreasing the domestic opportunities for thinking about the nature of linguistic and cultural difference. Of course, no language can entirely exclude the possibility of different dialects and discourses, different cultural codes and constituencies. And this fact is borne out by the current variety of Englishes, not just the differences between British and American usage, but the diverse linguistic and cultural forms that exist within English