Travelling languages? Land, languaging and translation

Phipps, A. (2011) Travelling languages? Land, languaging and translation. Language and Intercultural Communication, 11(4), pp. 364-376. (doi: 10.1080/14708477.2011.611249)

Abstract

What does translation become if we uncouple language from culture and link language to perception and experience of the land? What would happen to translation if the culture concept was not the starting point for theorizing? In order to answer this question I examine the contributions of Eagleton, Keesing, Cronin and, most particularly, of the anthropologist Tim Ingold and his important work The Perception of the Environment. From this I then proceed to examine pertinent extracts of the works of two Celtic authors; Brian Friel's Translations and Margaret Elphinstone's A Sparrow's Flight in order to develop a relationally grounded view of translation. This view privileges both the land and the work of languaging as key aspects of translation, inhabiting positions in the world, rather than constructing and mediating views of the world. I therefore come to see translation as a mode of perception, a sensory even empathic mode, a languaging response to phenomena, its primary relationship, not with culture and genealogy but as positionality – in and with the land and to develop towards a geopoetics of the taskscape of the translator.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This is an electronic version of an article published in Phipps, A. (2011) Travelling languages? Land, languaging and translation. Language and Intercultural Communication, 11 (4). pp. 364-376. Language and Intercultural Communication is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14708477.2011.611249
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Phipps, Professor Alison
• Authors: Phipps, A.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Creativity Culture and Faith; College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Culture, Literacies, Inclusion & Pedagogy
• Journal Name: Language and Intercultural Communication
• Journal Abbr.: LAIC
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1470-8477
• ISSN (Online): 1747-759X
• Published Online: 09 November 2011
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2011 Taylor and Francis
• First Published: First published in Language and Intercultural Communication 11(4):364-376
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher