TY - JOUR
T1 - Translation, colonialism, and the rise of English
AU - NIRANJANA, Tejaswini
N1 - This article also published in S. Joshi (Ed.) (1991), Rethinking English: Essays in literature, language, history (pp. 124-145). New Delhi: Trianka.
PY - 1990/4/14
Y1 - 1990/4/14
N2 - The introduction of English has been seen as "an embattled response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the English parliament and the East India Company, between parliament and the missionaries, between the East India Company and the native elite classes". Extending this argument, the author suggests that the specific resolution of these tensions through the introduction of English education is enabled discursively by the colonial practice of translation. European translations of Indian texts prepared for a western audience provided to the 'educated' Indian a whole range of Orientalist images. Even when the anglicised Indian spoke a language other than English, he would have preferred, because of the symbolic power attached to Englsh, to gain access to his own past through the translations and histories circulated through colonial discourse English education also familiarised the Indian with ways of seeing, techniques of translation, or modes of representation that came to be accepted as 'natural'.
AB - The introduction of English has been seen as "an embattled response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the English parliament and the East India Company, between parliament and the missionaries, between the East India Company and the native elite classes". Extending this argument, the author suggests that the specific resolution of these tensions through the introduction of English education is enabled discursively by the colonial practice of translation. European translations of Indian texts prepared for a western audience provided to the 'educated' Indian a whole range of Orientalist images. Even when the anglicised Indian spoke a language other than English, he would have preferred, because of the symbolic power attached to Englsh, to gain access to his own past through the translations and histories circulated through colonial discourse English education also familiarised the Indian with ways of seeing, techniques of translation, or modes of representation that came to be accepted as 'natural'.
UR - http://commons.ln.edu.hk/sw_master/4730
M3 - Journal Article (refereed)
SN - 0012-9976
VL - 25
SP - 773
EP - 779
JO - Economic and Political Weekly
JF - Economic and Political Weekly
IS - 15
ER -