Geographical Dimension and Translation
A Conceptual Inquiry
Abstract
Translation has always been shaped and reshaped by a geographical dimension since our contemporary world is marked above all by movement and connection. Against this background the current paper aimed at unfolding the relationship between geography and translation conceptualization in the discipline of Translation Studies. First the terms related to geography were defined and then the conceptualization process was investigated. Among space-related concepts, it became apparent that ‘territory’ and ‘nation’, in modern sense, have been used more than others to conceptualize and theorize translation. Then, the relationship between territory and nation in Translation Studies was studied, explicating the manifestations of these two notions in concepts and theories of the field. Upon critical analysis, it was discerned that translation is mostly defined as a linguistic movement between two distinct geographical territories, and the modern conception of ‘one nation-one language’ has been the underlying assumption of translation research. Such a positioning is problematic since fixity and stability assigned to ‘territory’ is contested in today’s world and there are also instances of translation that fall outside the realm of this positioning and are generally neglected.
Keywords:
territory, linguistic territory, nation and translation, translation studiesReferences
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Copyright Licensee: Iranian Journal of Translation Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0 license).
