Globalization and Translation: A Tool for Extending the American Ideological Empire?
Imperialist ventures into underdeveloped territories has resulted in the genocide of entire civilizations at worst and the complete assimilation into the dominant culture with resulting loss of identity at best. Although none but the most vociferous of activists in the anti-globalization movement-a movement well known for being stocked with vociferous members-would compare the current globalization movement to the European expansionism of the 16th century, there remains little doubt that the move toward globalization of contemporary society is having adverse affects upon certain cultures and almost all subcultures. So far the incredibly shrinking world has yet to result in actual genocide, but there can be little doubt that cultural assimilation is taking place. The driving force behind both post-medieval European expansionism and modern day globalism cannot be reduced down to a matter of mere economics and power; the nature of both movements must be considered in terms of negotiating for authority and a reconstruction of what is considered natural and what is considered reality.
Translation as an architect of authority and reality has a long history, and it is possible to apply this viewpoint to how translation impacts globalization. Historically, the dominant culture has always been compelled to impose their language upon the submissive, forcing their language upon those they’ve conquered. Language, in fact, is usually the first thing about a subjugated culture that the conquerors attempt to take from them. Although the initial motivation for this may be merely to ease communication, the primary motive is to establish control. Forcing a new language upon a people always results in several consequences, all of which serve to the benefit the interests of the dominant party at the expense of the acquiescent. The initial inducement in taking away a culture’s native tongue is to reinforce the feeling of inferiority in the vanquished race. Language is after all communication and communication is ultimately power. Learning a new language is always a difficult process and is certainly not made easier when one is forced to learn; the learner cannot help but feel less powerful than the teacher. Another result of forced translation is to induce an atmosphere of alienation among those who must stand by helplessly as they are systematically and irrevocably removed from their system of civilization. Which is also part of the most important result of forcible learning of a new language: Reconstructing the reality of the new society created from the blending of the dominant and the submissive. With a loss of language comes a loss of the ability to recreate history in exact detail. History becomes transformed into something that is viewed through the prism of misinterpretation in the form of new words that haven’t retained the full meaning of those that were lost to history.
An alternative theory suggests that translation works to bring cultures closer together. By translating works of literature, for instance, those who cannot read Russian are enabled to read the works of Tolstoy and those who cannot read French are enabled to read Zola. Of course, one isn’t really reading Tolstoy or Zola; at best one is reading a very close approximation of the intended meaning of the original work. If the translation is handled correctly, the cultural divide is barely noticeable. Another example of the benefits of translation on cultural connectivity would be a subtitled or dubbed film. It is through the use of either of these translation devices that such international filmmakers as Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa achieved international acclaim. The international success of filmmakers from around the world could be taken as an example of the positive aspects of globalization through translation. It would probably be impossible to determine how many Americans have viewed a film by a Swedish or Japanese filmmaker and subsequently been moved to further study those societies, much less emigrate there. Less difficult to determine would be the number of people who have viewed an American film and been moved to study American society or emigrate there. What undermines the theory that translation in particular and globalization in general works ultimately to bring cultures together is, once again, the concept of translation as a process of negotiating for authority. What differentiates the exportation of American films from the exportation of films made in other countries is that the ultimate product being sold by American films isn’t the movie itself, but Hollywood and by extension America itself.
America isn’t interested in importing foreign-language films unless they are proven moneymakers. And when Americans go to see a foreign language film, it is almost without exception a movie that has been not only commercially successful, but critically successful in its home country as well. In other words, the product being sold is that one particular movie. Foreign language films are sold to America as art; American films are sold to foreign countries as advertisement. Advertisement for American-style capitalism which is the bedrock foundation of the globalization movement. The film industry-arguably the most important cross-cultural communications medium in the world-stands as a perfect example of how the globalization process is at cross-purposes to the theory that translation works to bring cultures closer. There will always be a dominant player and just as America is the dominant player in the filmmaking world, so it is the major player in the movement toward a global economy. Interestingly, however, the movement toward globalization is less about America in particular than it is about the English-speaking western capitalist world.
While America sits atop the pyramid overseeing globalization, the fact remains that without the rest of the English-speaking world beneath it and supporting it, it could not succeed alone. The relentless push to make English the global language of choice for communication has been an ongoing agenda for more than a century, but it became necessary to put it into high gear with the rise of the internet. Film still remains the most powerful force in the world for espousing ideology because it is, at heart, a visual medium which can be shared and understood even with a less than perfect translation. Misrepresentations and misinterpretations of all types in the translation of the script can be forgiven if the accompanying visual image is understandable. The power of film to articulate authority and challenge reality, however, pales in comparison to the potential power of the internet to do the same. It is hardly accidental that the rise of the internet coincides with the rise of the globalization movement. For most people globalization means commerce and economics, and even a cursory session on the internet reveals that commerce and economics are the driving force behind its success. But the economic power of the internet is really just an extension of the larger power of authority. The engine driving the lasting success of the internet may be commerce, but the oil that lubricates that engine is the ideology of the capitalist culture and the agenda to saturate everyday discourse in every corner of the globe with that ideology. The omnipresent ads that seem to appear on every web site aren’t really there to sell the item they are advertising, they are there to sell the concept of western culture. Advertising that promises happiness through consumption permeates practically every site on the internet and reaches into the least populated sites of every country in the world. It is through advertising these false expectations of an impossible promise that western culture constantly reconstitutes itself by creating its own reality through its unchallenged authority.
This authority has now come to be seen as a natural fact. That the internet is dominated by the English language, that all over languages of the world have a marginalized presence on the web, has been successfully historicized. In fact, the very idea that the dominant language of the internet could be French or German or Italian, much less Arabic or Chinese, seems ludicrous. And yet, we could very easily inhabit a world in which such a thing took place. The fact that the internet is dominated by the English language and that the proponents of globalization are predominately English-speaking is anything but fortuitous. It was absolutely necessary for English to become the dominant language of the internet. Had those marginalized languages been allowed to carve out large niches for themselves in cyberspace, the globalization movement would have come to, if not a sudden halt, then at least a very slow crawl. Had English not quickly been established as the de facto natural language of the internet, the power of e-commerce might have been divided equally among the less economically empowered nations, thereby giving rise to the power of localized banking institutions. Globalization depends upon the power of centralized western banking interests and if that heart of the global economic system were to take a hit, its ripples would be felt at every point along the process. The global banking system is staked to the US dollar and the English speaking world and interference in that system cannot be allowed. The ultimate effect of the drive by the global economic powers to make English the official language of cyberspace is that if you are a foreign producer of internet content you are forced to hire a translator or invest in translating software if you want your content to reach a wide audience or make it to the top of the search engines.
Which serves to introduce a significant factor when speaking of the effect of globalization on translation and translation on globalization. With the rise of globalization and its impact being felt at every level of society, the need for translations has never been greater. Unheard of ten years ago, it is now not uncommon at all for a small business owner in India to hire a translator in France to write an English version of his business plan. Consider the possibility of mistranslation and misinterpretations if the French writer is not a native English speaker. The English he’s translating may actually be the third or fourth language he has learned and his familiarity with the many different languages spoken in India may or may not include a highly skilled proficiency with that spoken by the Indian business owner. The irony is that as the need for translators has reached an all time high, the possibility that less skilled translators are being engaged has reached an all time high as well. The impact of the globalization movement and the growth of the internet has been a boon for the translation industry, as it has for many other industries. And just as in many of those other industries the possibility of incompetence has risen dramatically. Unfortunately, the translation industry can afford incompetence less than, say, the advertising industry or graphic design industry. Globalization and the internet has served as a boon to those industries as well, but a lackluster advertising campaign or a less than thrilling logo, while it may cost a company money and may cost someone their job, doesn’t possess the destructive capability that a mistranslation does.
It is perhaps too much to say that language is culture, but the fact remains that when confronted with a different culture our understanding of it is almost entirely, at least at first, shaped by language. If we don’t understand the rituals of a culture upon viewing it, we can be made to understand it when told what the ritual means. Alternatively, upon witnessing a cultural ritual we may view with distaste because we misunderstand it visually, our distaste may be further cemented by a mistranslation of its actual meaning. If we could have understood the explanation in its original language and content, we may have instead learned that our initial distaste was based on a misunderstanding of the visual component. To put it more plainly, cultures different from our own are almost always viewed at first with suspicion and cultural stereotypes almost always are created by lapses in communication. The growth of the global economy and the internet has created a cottage industry for this eventuality.
Cultural differences and the possibility for miscommunication giving rise to cultural stereotypes used to be inhibited by geographical distancing. A hundred years ago, most people had no stereotypical view of a different culture unless they had seen the culture firsthand or read a book on the subject. Film put an end to the need to travel personally to meet with different cultures. Now millions of people could see for themselves what primitive tribes in Africa looked and acted like. Of course, the filming of those tribes was part of the negotiation for authority and it was an ideological imperative that they be made to appear as primitive as possible, in urgent need of the help of western society. And so began the systematic, ideological stereotyping of cultures. The possibility of cultural imaging due to mistranslation by unskilled translators finding jobs due to the growth of the internet and the global economy should not be considered part of this system, at least not directly. Mistranslation due to lack of skill is an indirect offshoot of the system in that there wouldn’t be enough jobs for unskilled laborers to find were it not for the success of the globalization movement. Nevertheless, translation miscues are contributing to problems in cultural identity and this does play into the system of ideological stereotyping, though ironically it is not the translator who made the mistake that pays the price, it is the cultural identity of the client who hired the translator.
The great promise-some would say the great lie-of globalization and the internet is that it finally affords the opportunity for the disenfranchised and marginalized to succeed. Of course, because the globalization movement is driven by western capitalism, the definition of success in this case is making enough money to buy those things advertised on the internet so that you can own a business that you can advertise on the internet. Because the promise and the means of attaining that promise are both controlled by the same dominant culture bent on reconstituting itself, the opportunities for the disenfranchised and marginalized to succeed on any other terms is not only limited, but almost non-existent. The small business owner in India who wants his website to succeed in the English speaking world must conduct his business according to the rules of the western world, not his own. Whether the culture is Indian, Bulgarian or Kenyan, in order to “succeed” on the global scale promised by the backers of globalization has little choice but homogenize his business to the detriment of his own culture. This would be difficult enough were he capable of marketing his business in English himself. For though an Indian or Bulgarian or Kenyan may be proficient in the English language, that does not necessarily mean he is proficient in English-language culture. And so therefore standing between him and global economic success is a translator. A translator who himself may not be proficient in either English-language culture or the culture of the client hiring him.
Two theories abound when it comes to translation. One is that the translation is merely the presentation of an equivalent idea in another language. The other is that the translator is a power broker, making linguistic determinations in order to present not an equivalent idea, but an authoritative one. Most languages possess multiple meanings for the same word and multiple words for the same meaning. Making the decision on which word and which meaning to use is a conscious decision. Mistakes in translation, therefore, can occur as a result of various factors. The most obvious, of course, is sheer incompetence. Mistakes can also happen when a very competent translator misunderstands the cultural connotation of a word; when he picks the word with a slightly different meaning than he thinks it has. Finally, mistranslations can occur not because of a mistake at all, but because a highly skilled translator knows exactly what kind of connotation a certain word carries in its original language and how his choice of the translated word will differ significantly. In this case, the translation error is once again part of the systematic devaluation of a culture in the attempt to impose authority over it.
The global economy is dominated by western capitalist countries, specifically those speaking English. But the global economy is a multicultural mix of multinational conglomerates. CEOs of leading companies come from a multitude of companies with a multitude of cultural backgrounds. About the only thing they almost all share is the fact that they can speak English. For a CEO of a major company in play in the global economy, the ability to speak English is paramount. Depending upon translators is far too dangerous. Depending upon the psychology of the person, using a translator either makes you look so powerful that you don’t have to learn English, or inferior because you don’t know what the lowest level employee of a rival company is saying. Most CEOs seem to be constructed of the latter psychological makeup. But because multinational corporations conduct business across the globe, in as many countries and with as many different cultures as possible, they make sure they employ the finest translators on the market. If a translation error is made in a multinational conglomerate, it tends to be of the kind that isn’t a mistake, but an authoritative choice. Why would a multinational conglomerate purposely make a translation error that left a submissive culture in a bad light; that added to stereotypical viewpoints?
Translation is one of the easiest methods available of reconstructing reality and negotiating for authority and power. Those who will be reading the translation are not going to be familiar with the source material more often than not; they would be reading the source material otherwise. A translation is a method for redefinition as well as delimiting. Through the translation, one can redefine the source material in whatever image you choose while at the same time distancing oneself from the culture that created the source material. The global economic movement is about redefining the power base of those already in power, expanding it, recreating it. The cultural superiority of western, English-speaking world is reconstituted every day through the forced need for other cultures to translate their ideas into English.
At the same time, multinational corporations also find the need to translate English text into foreign languages. After all, the majority of the world’s population do not speak English. It is one of the ironies of the globalization that the dominant culture is the one that has the most need to translate its text into different languages. However, it is exactly because it is the dominant culture that English-to-foreign language translations work in exactly the reverse way socially and politically speaking. Because western capitalist interests hold all the economic cards, the translation is done in such a way that the translation still carries all the hallmarks of the dominant culture at the expense of the submissive culture.
One should take into consideration all cultural dimension related to foreign society, ethics and morals when conducting the translation. Ideally, a translation would be concerned with not being culturally offensive, but in the context of globalism what’s more important is reconstitution of the dominant ideology. Authority can be expressed either by overly sensitive attention, or less than sensitive attention. Certain social and ethical considerations must be made in choosing whether to conform the translation specifically to its foreign audience or to use a simple equivalence method, attempting a word for word translation. In doing so, certain cultural assumptions would have to be made by the translator. On the other hand, if the decision were made to create a translation based on retaining the dominant cultural characteristics of the original, the translator would have much more leeway, not to mention power and authority, in crafting his translation. Ultimately, this decision would reflect the current mode of globalist psychology, which has proven to be much more concerned with redefining the dominant culture than with constituting indigenous cultures.
The explosive growth of globalization and the internet has created a concurrent explosive growth in the crucial need for translators. As such, translation plays a major role in the globalization process and the globalization process has had a major role in the process of translation. Because the worldwide explosion of e-commerce has given the ability of the smallest business in the most remote corner of the globe to chart out a global presence for itself via the internet, translators have become a sought-after commodity such as never before. Globalization is an attempt to inculcate the prevailing ideology of consumer capitalism, dominated by western English-speaking countries and corporations. The net effect is that translation has become a tool of the dominant ideology, used in the methodology of negotiating for authority and power and reconstructing reality in an attempt to naturalize its own reconstituted cultural superiority.
