Translation as a bonding force by Dr Jancy James, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Kerala
Creative Summary by Rishita
Modlingua will be starting a lecture series by some of the senior academicians at the Vice Chancellor level. In the past their team has interacted with large number of academicians at senior level especially at Vice Chancellor level. So in the series we have Dr Jancy James, one of the most prominent Vice Chancellor who has been very active as an academician, as a translator and as a linguist. She was the first Vice Chancellor at Kerala University when she interacted with the Modlingua team.
After this introduction Dr Jancy James then gives us some important wisdom on languages and translation. She addresses the important people present there and distinguished participants of the 3 day conference where this speech was given. She mentions how translation has been an important topic in all the lectures that had taken place before hers. From translation as a distancing agent, from a traitor, to the originator, to a creator, as someone who creates another language and another medium for people to understand and reach out to the original speaker. She is from the discipline of literature and is herself a translator. Above all that she is a translator as a mother. The intralinguistic translation which is happening is compulsory for all mothers. Translating the adult's language to the child for him to understand what the mother thinks, what the child has to do, how the child has to function. But today the scenario is so different from what it was 10 years ago, translation has become a necessity. More the communication facilities improve, more we would understand one another.
According to her translation is an unifying agent. Translation is an interpreter. Translation is a positive force in bonding people, in bonding information, in bonding sources of knowledge. Translation is not merely a practice or a linguistic activity but also a category of general studies. Translation needs to be studied as a topic. The choice of equivalent word is a reflector of the translator's attitude, understanding of the source language, cultural background, linguistic competency, etc. There are so many issues with the task of translation. She has launched a new department of linguistics in her University where they offer an M.A. program in linguistics. She feels that the very approach to language studies has changed. Translation is a vibrant, creative activity which bonds people and makes information accessible.
Many thought-provoking developments also take place through translation. As the Tagore celebrations were going on in the last one year, in spite of her daily chores, she managed to go through the translation of Geetanjali in her mother tongue, Malayalam. It has more than 60 translations. The language used in the Malayalam translation of Geetanjali is actually something which has emerged from the Malayalam translation of Psalms. Because of the translation that was inevitable for the European missionary, who translated the Psalms into Malayalam, a new Malayalam emerged. It is lyrical, simple, direct and heart touching. She expects that young translators will combine the human and mechanical (machine translation) in translation to get optimum results. She ends her speech with the hope that translation emerges as a globalizing and peace making agent.
