By Ravi Kumar
In this Modlingua Live lecture, Dr. Jancy James, Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Kerala, explains why she sees translation as a force that bonds people, knowledge and cultures. The video is titled "Mastering Motherhood in 2024 with Dr Jancy James" on YouTube; this page keeps the original theme of translation as a bonding force.
What the lecture covers
Dr. James opens a three-day conference on translation by describing herself as a literature scholar, a translator and, above all, a mother. She argues that mothers perform intralinguistic translation every day when they put adult language into words a child can understand, until the child can follow adult speech.
Translation as a unifying force
She notes that, even in a "global village", people often fail to understand one another, and that better communication tools do not remove misunderstanding by themselves. In her view translation can bond people, information and sources of knowledge, and the conference talks reflected a change in how translators are seen: from a "traitor" to the original, to a creator who builds another language route for readers.
Translation as a field of study
As a comparative literature scholar, she says translation is a subject to study and not only a practice. The choice of an equivalent word reflects the translator's attitude, understanding of the source language, cultural background and competence, and some things resist translation altogether. She also mentions machine translation as a necessity and describes how her university is adding linguistics and language technology, with computer science experts on the team.
Examples she gives
Dr. James recalls studying translations of Tagore's Gitanjali in Malayalam, of which she says there are more than 60, and explains how the language of those translations drew on earlier Malayalam translations of the Psalms. These are her observations and personal examples; readers who want details should consult specialist sources.
Questions to take away
- How does the idea of a mother as a translator change the way we think about everyday language use?
- What does a translator's choice of words reveal about their background and understanding?
- How should translators and linguists prepare for machine translation and language technology?
Related reading
For more on why translators matter, see International Translation Day, St. Jerome and UN celebrations.
