International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 4, Issue 6, Dec 2014, 89-94
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

TRANSLATION AS DIALOGIC AGREEMENT: A BAKHTINS PERSPECTIVE

AMITH KUMAR P V
Associate Professor and Head, Department of Comparative Literature and India Studies, The English and Foreign
Languages University, Hyderabad, India

ABSTRACT
Mikhail Bakhtins {1895-1975) theory of dialogism offers an open-ended potential for a creative translatability of
cultures. By enabling a translator to incorporate the cultural traces of both the source culture and the target culture,
dialogism provides an outlet to the dilemma between loyalty and freedom that has bothered translation studies for years.
A Bakhtinian theory for translation interweaves living dialogic threads between the source-culture and the target-culture
to create an ambience of open-endedness. This paper explores the various meanings of the term dialogue and attempts to
show the significance and implications of understanding the activity of translation as dialogic interanimation in the
Bakhtinian sense.

KEYWORDS: Translation, Mikhail Bakhtin, Dialogic Agreement, Otherness, Monologism, Utterances, Unfinalizability
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary theories of translation have provided multiple perspectives for an understanding of the intricacies
involved in the process of translation. While the traditional translation theories were concerned with a determinable
meaning in the original text and its substitution with secondary meanings in the translated text, the poststructuralist
theories, especially deconstruction, question the notion of an original. Hermeneuticians, on the other hand, have opined
that translation should interpretively resemble the original, so that it offers adequate contextual effects (Gutt 377).
Postcolonial translation theorists have extended Foucaults hypothesis to argue that translation is shaped by the operation
of power relations. Cultural theorists have viewed translation as an activity exemplifying trace of difference among
various communities where the relation of the one to the other is of utmost significance (Keith 466).
However, an approach based on Michail Bakhtins theory, discussing translation as a dialogue where both the
source text and the target text are constituted due to the dialogic relations they create for themselves, has not received
adequate attention.
Bakhtinian dialogism is a complicated phenomenon that defies definition. Unlike structuralism and formalism
which are more coherent and systematic philosophies, Bakhtinian thought is characterized by breakages, gaps and
discontinuities. Bakhtins troublesome life and problematic career in Stalinist Russia echo in his concepts and principles
too that have shades of darkness and elements of abstruseness about them. However, we can certainly locate certain
Bakhtinian concerns in the term dialogue. Though at a familiar plane it is used to denote communication between two or
more individuals, Bakhtins dialogue refers to human action and cognition as well. One of the meanings of the term is that
dialogue occurs when two voices assert their presence by mutual agreement or disagreement. A single voice or a single
existence fails to produce any meaning for Bakhtin as its existence does not find a response. According to Bakhtin,

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. every word is directed towards an answer and cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word that it
anticipates (Bakhtin, 1994a: 280).
Bakhtin also uses the term dialogue to refer to the constant agreements and disagreements that occur within a
language. In his words, Language lives only in the dialogic interaction of those who make use of it (1984: 183). As the
patterns of language usage among speech communities are never the same, Bakhtin identifies individual languages as
utterances. For him, there is a dialogic articulation and dialogic acceptance of utterances that constitute human existence.
In Bakhtins words, Any utterance is a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances Any utterance is a
link in the chain of speech communication(1994b: 84). Meaning is dialogically constituted, appropriated and recognized
against the background of the discourses that emerge from cultural concerns and traditions.
However, at a higher plane, the self and the other define their mutual relationship through dialogue. In this sense,
the term acquires an ontological significance as human existence is always dialogic; that is, the self finds a recognition
only if it is defined, recognized and re-cognized by the other. Consciousness is always a consciousness for the other,
because single consciousness is meaningless and akin to non-existence and death. As Michael Holquist writes,
In dialogism the very capacity to have consciousness is based on otherness in dialogism consciousness is otherness
(1990: 18). Monologism is characterized by single and unitary cognizance which leads us towards a narrow perception of
truth. As against this monologic truth, Bakhtin emphasizes an anti-systemic conception of truth, which is non-monologic
and pluralistic. The Hegelian understanding of dialectical opposition that would result in the realization of the absolute
spirit is unacceptable to Bakhtin. This understanding not only renders philosophical inquiry monologic, but it also leads to
abstract theoretism. As against the dialectical evolution of spirit, his concern was with a dialogical interanimation of the
multi-leveledness of reality. A genuine dialogue alone would help us realize a non-monologic truth.
Having examined the various meanings of the term dialogue, let us now shift the focus to the process of
translation. Translation is certainly not an activity that arises in a vacuum, lacking any reference whatsoever, to another
language/culture. It is always about two entities that are situated in different categories of time/space. Translation emerges
as a result of an interaction between two languages/cultures representing themselves in two texts which we call the source
text and the target text. As J. Levy points out,
A translation is not a monistic composition, but an interpenetration and conglomerate of two structures.
On the one hand there are the semantic content and the formal contour of the original, on the other hand, the
entire system of aesthetic features bound up with the language of the translation (qtd. in Bassnett 5).
This non-monistic nature of translation enables us to view the activity in Bakhtinian terms of a dialogue.
Translation, so far as it extends the influence of the source text to another culture, contributes to the open-ended nature of
the text and keeps alive the dialogue the source-text has initiated among its readers. In this sense, it is the answering
word to the source-text. Further, a translation is directed to the readers of the target culture. Therefore, the task of a
translator is also to compose an answering word which can meet the anticipation of the target readers. A translator is
entrusted with the complex task of speaking to both the source-culture and the target-culture. Any priority either to the
former or to the latter will prove detrimental to the exercise at hand.
Translation is a dialogue in the second sense of the term as well. Translation is the product of the
dialogic interaction within languages and cultures, which requires a meticulous understanding of the internal dialogic of

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the source text as well as that of the target text. What becomes important for a translator is to render the inner dialogicality
of the language/culture of the source-text to a target audience. This demands a clear investigation into the inner dynamics
of the source-culture as well as the target culture. A translator has to create a dialogic concordance in the new utterance he
composes for a different set of readers. Like a dialogue, which is directed towards the other for an answer, translation is
always oriented towards the other, that is, the audience of the receiving culture. It alters and modifies itself as it moves on
in the intersubjective links it creates for itself. The dialogic space of translation is a tensioned- -filled-enviroment in the
Bakhtinian sense, charecterised by agreements and disagreements.
At a philosophical plane, translation is always about the self and the other. Dialogue in the third sense does not
prioritize the former over the latter, but constructs a bridge between the two for mutual interaction and understanding.
For Bakhtin, the event of life finds meaning when there is co-being, that is, when both co-exist. In Michael Holquists
words
Both/and is not a mere wavering between two mutually exclusive possibilities, each of which is in itself
logical and consistent, thus insuring the further possibility of truth, since a logic of this restrictive sort is so
limiting that only one of the two options can be correct. Dialogue has its own logic but not of this exclusive
kind (Holquist 41).
Translation requires the same dialogic between the self and the other. This dialogic demands an appreciation
of both SL culture and TL culture. For a translator, in the Bakhtinian sense, consciousness is always consciousness about
the other. The other here is not merely the SL culture, but it is also TL culture. There is anticipation from both sides and
hence a translation should address either ends. For this reason, it would not be out of place, if we were to conclude that
translation is the product of a dialogic event, that is, an open-ended enterprise involving a creative understanding of the self
and the other.
Bakhtinian notion of outsideness has significant implications for a translator. For Bakhtin, understanding
depends on the ability of the subject to situate the self in the position of the other only to come back to ones own position
for the fulfillment of the creative task. To quote Bakhtin, In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person
who understands to be located outside the object of his/her creative understanding in time, in space, in culture (1994b:7).
This is termed as active understanding by Bakhtin as against passive understanding where the self completely
dissolves its individuality by totally merging into the territory of the other. Passive understanding is monologic because
it allows only a singular perspective to exist. Creative task is impossible with passive understanding as it hinders the
difference between the self and the other.
Translation before being anything else, is an understanding. It involves an understanding of the subtleties of
language, both intralingual and interlingual. As George Steiner writes, Where two or more languages are in articulate
interconnection, the barriers in the middle will obviously be more salient, and the enterprise of intelligibility more
conscious (Steiner 47). This enterprise of intelligibility demands an active understanding in the Bakhtinian sense. It is
not required for a translator to empathize with the source-text or the target readers and lose his identity. This has been the
case with the traditional theories of translation and the target-oriented theories in the recent times. Either by considering
translation as a secondary activity or by attempting to dismantle the notion of a source-text, theories of translation have
advocated a passive understanding. On the other hand, what is required is a live-entering into the territory of the other.
In Bakhtins words,
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I actively live into an individuality and consequently do not, for a single moment, lose myself completely
or lose my singular place outside that other individuality (qtd. in Morson and Emerson, 1989:11).
This dialogic act enables a translator to retain the difference between the self and the other. Translation will then
attain a voice of its own which can neither be categorized as an imitation of the original nor as a completely detached work.
Active understanding is what makes translation an answering word.
Prioritisation in any form freezes the possibility of having an active understanding for the accomplishment of
the task at hand. It is a monologic approach, which fails to recognize the inner-dialogues and the inter-dialogues of texts
during translation A dialogic approach solicits a comprehension of the ratios of otherness between the source-culture and
the target-culture; an understanding of the dynamic relation of the self and the other which are always in the process of
being made and unmade(Holquist 29). Hence, it transcends the claims of subjectivity and objectivity to create a
condition of shared-understanding and co-existence required for the task of translation
Having established the relevance of dialogical principles for translation, let us now proceed to explore what
Bakhtin calls metalinguistics and the crucial role it plays for a translator. In his essay, The Problem of the Text,
Bakhtin identifies two important poles in a text (1994b:105). The first pole consists of a language system, i.e. a system of
signs which is repeatable and reproducible. It refers to the linguistic and philological elements, and a text is unthinkable
without this pole: any text presupposes a language system and comes into being because of this system.
Nevertheless, every text is unique in its own right. Quite convincingly, Bakhtin argues that there are
extra-linguistic features in every text which are unrepeatable and unreproducible. This is the second pole, i.e. the dialogic
pole. The extra-linguistic features refer to the plan and purpose of authorship, qualities like honesty, truth and beauty of the
text, contextual meanings and their implications for the addresser-addressee, the temporal and the spatial dimensions of the
text etc. Meaning is not so much dependent on the language system; it is rather a product of the dialogic system of the text,
its second pole. A study of these features which fall beyond the limits of linguistics, acquires pivotal importance for
Bakhtin. He terms this study as Metalinguistics (1994b:114).
Metalinguistics has also been termed as translinguistics by theorists like Julia Kristeva (Kristeva: 66). The focus
here is on the sociological dimensions of the language, rather than its formal and codified features. Under the influence of
linguists like Ferdinend de Saussure and formalists like Roman Jakobson, the study of language and literature had become
a study of norms and deviations. For Bakhtin, a study of fixed and conventional features was not only a finalized enquiry
requiring us to engage ourselves in theoretism, but it also implied decontextualization of language and life. As he writes,
A code is only a technical means of transmitting information, it does not have cognitive, creative significance. A code is a
deliberately established, killed context (1994b:147).
Bakhtin views language as comprising diverse speech genres, starting from daily speech to literary discourses.
These speech genres differ in their voices, intonations and the unique moments in which we utter them. Hence for Bakhtin,
the basic speech unit is an utterance. Unlike a sentence which can be repeated any number of times, an utterance cannot be
completely repeated, either in the same language or otherwise. It is extra-linguistic, because it is always directed towards
the other to answer it. Utterances may be as short as a grunt and as long as War and Peace (Morson and Emerson,
2001:125).
Let us now shift our focus to translation. A translator, in the first place, is a reader. The source-text is the utterance
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Translation as Dialogic Agreement: A Bakhtins Perspective

of the author/addresser directed towards the reader/addressee. As this utterance is unrepeatable, a translator cannot imitate
or mirror it. However, one should be careful against a conclusion that for Bakhtin translation is impossible because
utterances are unreproducible. A denial of translation would mean monologic existence akin to non-existence. Bakhtinian
philosophy, in a way, necessitates translation, as it is only through translation that a source-text keeps alive its dialogic
spirit in another culture.
A crucial question that a translator has to answer is: while the language system of a text is completely translatable
into another language system, how to translate the dialogic system with its unfinalizable elements? As we have observed
earlier, the second pole is the uniqueness of the text. This pole, which does not adhere either to a logical coherence or to a
linguistic pattern, becomes a major issue for a translator. Can a translator perform the task of re-inventing the dialogic
system for his/her target readers situated in a different time, space and culture?
An answer to this complex question demands an understanding of the text-context and subject-addressee
relationships. The chain of meanings evoked by the source-text as an utterance is the result of an interaction between
author and reader. According to Bakhtin The event of the life of the text, that is, its true essence, always develops on the
boundary between two consciousness, two subjects (1994b:106). This is not to ignore the text-context relationship; the
context of writing and the context of reading are entirely different. Meaning arises out of a shared network of
textual/contextual and subject/reader relationships. David Shepherd in his essay Bakhtin and the Reader writes
....it is important never to lose sight of the fact that the character of the text-reader encounter is dialogic: if
the meanings of the text are indissociable from the readers active understanding, then that understanding in
its turn must strictly speaking be equally undissociable from the encounter from the text, must be precisely
context specific (99).
Shepherds analysis throws light on the significant role the context of reading plays in an active understanding of
the text. A new context of reading implies a different understanding of the text. This further implies that every reading act
is a deciphering of a different metalinguistics of the text. For a translator, who reads the source-text in a specific context,
the comprehension of the dialogic system of the text is dependent on the unique moment of understanding the text. We can
move a step further and argue that the context of reading for a translator is also the moment when the translator composes a
new dialogic system for his target-readers. Hence, dialogic encounter with the text enables the translator to implant a new
second pole in his/her utterance.

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