Negotiating Polysemy and Norms of English in Translation for a “Globalized” Readership

Abstract

In this paper, the translation of polysemous lexical items used to express “code” meanings in folk literary-religious traditions in the South Asian region is problematized. The challenge of such translation is sought to be situated in the wider context of challenges of rendering into one or more globally acceptable normative varieties of English the structural, stylistic, and historical-cultural norms entrenched in these traditions. As case studies to illustrate this twofold set of challenges, this paper discusses translations into English of lyric song-poems originally authored by three cultic figures in three different regions of South Asia. These are the Sindhi mystic poet Bulleh Shah, popular in at least two nations of South Asia and among diaspora from these nations; the syncretic weaver-poet Kabir, whose corpus of lyric song-poems are celebrated both in India and among the Indian diaspora of different regions of the world; and the mystic poet-singer Lalon Shah Fakir, whose poetry and Baul-Fakir philosophy are likewise celebrated both by resident cults in eastern South Asia and by more “modern” performative traditions (notably theatre and film) within and beyond South Asia. It is observed that the lexical polysemy co-occurs with syntactic and stylistic lucidity in the work of all of these cultic figures. Of particular interest, here, are the challenges of translating the lexical polysemy and the structural lucidity of the original language texts into one or more globally acceptable stylistic varieties of English. The paper concludes by suggesting that, with appropriate introduction and annotation, these challenges can be met, with the result that functionally successful translations are obtained for these texts, balancing the competing norms of lucidity in the source languages and readability in English translation.

Retired as Professor of Linguistics from the University of Delhi in 2019.