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Lost—and Found—in Translation? The Practice of Translating, Interpreting, and Understanding the Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Susan Elizabeth Ramírez
Susan Elizabeth Ramírez*
Affiliation:
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas
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Introduction
Information
The Americas , Volume 62 , Issue 3: Translating Native Voices in Colonial Latin American History , January 2006 , pp. 305 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2006

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References

1 de Ayala, Felipe Guamán Poma, Nueva coranica y buen gobierno (Paris: Institutu Frances de Estudios Andinos and Mexico: Siglo XXI, [1936] 1613/1980)Google Scholar. On problems of literal translations, see Greene, Diana, “On Translating ‘Sacrifice’, Offering’, and ‘Altar’,” Notes on Translation 8:3 (1994), pp. 17–19 Google Scholar; and Hohulin, Richard M., “Inspiration, Authority, and Translation,” Notes on Translation 1: 91 (1982), pp. 3–10 Google Scholar. On the failure of literal translations, see Thompson, Greg, “What Sort of Meaning is Preserved in Translation?” Notes on Translation 3:4 (1989), pp. 30–54 Google Scholar (especially p. 41); and Harrison, Regina, Signs, Songs, and Memory in the Andes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), pp. 1–2 Google Scholar.

2 Keesing, Roger M., “Exotic Readings of Cultural Texts.” Current Anthropology 30:4 (1989), pp. 460–61, 469CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fabian, Johannes, “Ethnographic Misunderstanding and the Perils of Context.” American Anthropologist 97: 1 (1995), p. 43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fabian, , “Scratching the Surface: Observations on the Poetics of Lexical Borrowing in Shaba Swahili,” Anthropological Linguistics 24 (1982), pp. 14–50 Google Scholar; and Boehm, Christopher, “Exposing the Moral Self in Montenegro: The Use of Natural Definitions to Keep Ethnography Descriptive,” American Ethnologist 7:1(1980), pp. 1–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar on ranges of meanings.

3 Adams, Willi Paul, “The Historian as Translator: An Introduction,” The Journal of American History 85:4 (1999), pp. 1285–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also on “word borrowing”: Willis Ott, “On Using Borrowed Words in Our Translations,” Notes on Translation 1:88 (1982), pp. 18–25 Google Scholar (specifically on problems of using this practice); Nae, Niculina, “Concept Translation in Meiji Japan,” Translation Journal 1999 at wysiwyg://1/http://accurapid.com/journal/09xcult.htm Google Scholar 1999; Rafael, Vicente L., Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 20, 29, 110Google Scholar; Giffiths, Nicholas, “Sacred Dialogues: Christianity and Native Religions in the Colonial Americas, 1500-1700,” typescript, pp. 72–77 Google Scholar.

4 Werner, Oswald and Campell, Donald T., “Translating, Working Through Interpreters, and the Problem of Decentering, in Naroll, Raoul and Cohen, Ronald, eds.. Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), pp. 398–420 Google Scholar. See also Werner, , “Short Take 15: The Case for Verbatim Cases,” Cultural Anthropology Methods Newsletter 7:1 (1995), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar On “back-translation,” see Link, Christa, “Experiences with Back-Translations,” Notes on Translation 1:113 (1986), pp. 32–36 Google Scholar; Blight, Richard C., “Back Translations: A Means for Reviewing the Work of Translators and Consultants,” Notes on Translation 1:81 (1980), pp. 38–39 Google Scholar; Wiens, Hart, “Inter-Language Concordance in Translation,” Notes on Translation 1:91 (1982), pp. 10–13;Google Scholar and Bartsch, Carla, “Finding Errors that Don’t Show Up in a Back-Translation,” Notes on Translation 12: 4 (1998), pp. 30–36 Google Scholar; and Ramárez, Susan Elizabeth, “From People to Place and Back Again: ‘Back Translation’ as Decentering, An Andean Case Study,” Ethnohistory (forthcoming 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Schelf’, Thomas J., “Is Accurate Cross-cultural Translation Possible?” Current Anthropology 28:3 (1987), p. 365 Google Scholar; Nazarova, Tamara and Zadornova, Velta, “On Cross-cultural Translation,” Current Anthro pology 30:2 (1989), pp. 209–10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keesing 1989: p. 459; Feleppa, Robert, “Ernies, Etics, and Social Objectivity,” Current Anthropology 27:3 (1986), pp. 243–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, Richard, “Shifting Frontiers: Historical Transformations of Identities in Latin America,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 14:1 (1995), pp. 1–7 Google Scholar; Adams 1999: 1283; Werner and Campell, 1973; Geertz, Clifford, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983 Google Scholar) especially Chs. 2 and 3; Lockhart, James, “Some Nahua Concepts in Postconquest Guise,” History of European Ideas, 6:4 (1985), pp. 465–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Bharadwaj, Tápati, “The Politics of Position,” Jouvert 6:3 (2002) at http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v613/amireh.htm Google Scholar; Anderson, John L., “Culture in Relation to Translation Checking,” Notes on Translation, 1:111 (1986), especially p. 2 Google Scholar; Beekman, John, “Anthropology and the Translation of New Testament Key Terms,” Notes on Translation 1:80 (1980), pp. 32–42 Google Scholar; Farrel, Timothy and Hoyle, Richard, “Translating Implicit Information in the Light of Saussurean, Relevance, and Cognitive Theories,” Notes on Translation 9:1 (1995), especially p. 2 Google Scholar; Bartsch 1998; A. E. Pike, Julia, “Cross-Cultural Awareness,” Notes on Translation 5:4 (1991), pp. 14–22; Google Scholar and Daniel Shaw, R., “Transculturation: Perspective, Process, and Prospect,” Notes on Translation 8:1 (1994), especially p. 47 Google Scholar; Ramirez, forthcoming 2006.

6 Rostworowski, Maráa, “La visita de Urcos de 1562. Un kipu pueblerino,” Historia y cultura XX (1990), p. 296 Google Scholar; Whitehead, Neil L., “The Historical Anthropology of Text: The Interpretation of Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana,” Current Anthropology 36:1 (1995), p. 53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fabian, Johannes, “Ethnographic Misunderstanding and the Perils of Context,” American Anthropologist 97:1 (1995), p. 43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also (especially the Conclusions) in Ramárez, Susan Elizabeth, To Feed and Be Fed: The Cosmological Bases of Legitimacy, and Identity in the Andes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005 Google Scholar); and The World Upside Down: Cross-cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth Century Peru (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996 Google Scholar). Harrison (1989) also struggled with contextuality. See especially her Introduction.

7 Spalding, Karen, “Resistencia y adaptación: el gobierno colonial y las élites nativas,” Allpanchis XV:17–18 (1981), pp. 5–21 Google Scholar. On translations that are subject to power relations and manipulation, see Adams (1999) for an example in the context of modern diplomatic settings.

8 Harrison 1989, p. 31; and Brown, Jennifer S. H. and Vibert, Elizabeth, eds., Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1996 Google Scholar). See also James, Paul, “Staging Cultural Translation,” at http://www.thepander.co.nz/art/reviews/pjames2000.php. Google Scholar

9 Harrison provides a similar analysis of the Quechua term “cupay,” which referred to “morally neutral” spiritual beings, but came to represent the “devil” (Ibid., especially pp. 47-48).

10 Asad, Talal, “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology,” in Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), especially p. 142 Google Scholar.