NARRATIVES IN AND OF TRANSLATION

Abstract

This article questions one of the narratives that dominate our disciplinary and professional discourses on translation, namely the narrative of translation as a means of promoting peace, tolerance and understanding through enabling communication and dialogue to take place. It starts with a theoretical overview of the dimensions and some of the main features of narrative, as defined in social theory. Examples of the role played by translation in constructing narratives of peace and tolerance, precisely by ‘enabling’ communication to take place, are then offered. The article ultimately argues that translators and translation scholars must resist the temptation to over-romanticize their role in society and must instead acknowledge the fact that they participate in very decisive ways in promoting and circulating narratives and discourses of various types – some promoting peace, others fuelling conflicts, subjugating entire populations and providing precisely the kind of bridging of language gaps that allow such atrocities to take place.