Quarterly Essay 52 Found In Translation

Whether we’re aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world in the act of translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture. As a traveller, a mistranslation might land you a bowl of who-knows-what when you think you asked for noodles, and mistranslations in international politics can be a few steps from serious trouble. But translation is also a way of entering new and exciting worlds, and forging links that never before existed. Linda Jaivin has been translating from Chinese for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry and fiction, and interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he gave his take on socialism to some Beijing rockers. In Found in Translation she reveals the work of the translator and considers whether different worldviews can be bridged. She pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori. This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, and the prism – occasionally prison – of culture. “About six years ago, President George W. Bush was delivering a speech at a G8 summit, when, made impatient by the process of translation, he interrupted his German interpreter: ‘Everybody speaks English, right?’ ...” —Linda Jaivin, Found in Translation

The postcolonial states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu operate today in a global arena in which human rights are widely accepted. As ratifiers of UN treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, these Pacific Island countries have committed to promoting women’s and girls’ rights, including the right to a life free of violence. Yet local, national and regional gender values are not always consistent with the principles of gender equality and women’s rights that undergird these globalising conventions. This volume critically interrogates the relation between gender violence and human rights as these three countries and their communities and citizens engage with, appropriate, modify and at times resist human rights principles and their implications for gender violence. Grounded in extensive anthropological, historical and legal research, the volume should prove a crucial resource for the many scholars, policymakers and activists who are concerned about the urgent and ubiquitous problem of gender violence in the western Pacific. ‘This is an important and timely collection that is central to the major and contentious issues in the contemporary Pacific of gender violence and human rights. It builds upon existing literature … but the contributors to this volume interrogate the connection between these two areas deeply and more critically … This book should and must reach a broad audience.’ — Jacqui Leckie, Associate Professor, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago ‘The volume addresses the tensions between human and cultural, individual and collective rights, as played out in the domain of gender … Gender is a perfect lens for exploring these tensions because cultural rights are often claimed in defence of gender oppression and because women often have imposed upon them the burden of representing cultural traditions in attire, comportment, restraint or putatively cultural conservatism. And Melanesia is a perfect place to consider these gendered issues because of the long history of ethnocentric representations of the region, because of the extent to which these are played out between states and local cultures and because of the efforts of the vibrant women’s movements in the region to develop locally workable responses to the problems of gender violence in these communities.’ — Christine Dureau, Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, University of Auckland

Responding to the growing interest in the role of language in international business, this book presents language as a critical management challenge for the internationalizing firm. Several perspectives are explored, including the individual, the firm

This edited volume explores emotion and its translations through the global world from a variety of different perspectives, as a personal, socio- cultural, ideological, ethical and political, even business investment in the latest phases of globalisation. Emotions are powerful in engaging or disengaging individuals, communities, the masses, peoples and nations with distinct linguistic and cultural backgrounds for good, but also for evil. All depends on how emotions are interpreted, that is, translated in “words” or in “facts”, in any case in “signs”. Semiotic reflection on emotions and their interpretation/translation is thus of essential importance. An adequate understanding of emotional phenomena and their complexities calls for different views which together reveal and illustrate inconsistencies in our modern life. The contributors argue that an investigation of types of emotional translation – linguistic and non- linguistic, audio-visual, theatrical, literary, racial, legal, architectural, political, and so forth – can contribute to a better understanding of emotions and how they are exploited to engender injustice, unfairness, absurdity in contemporary life. Nonetheless, emotions are also exploited and oriented – and this is the intent of our authors – to favour the development of sustainable multicultural societies and facilitate living together. A major reference for students and scholars in translation, semiotics, language and cultural studies around the world.

This book explores international trends in naming and contributes to the growing field of onomastic enquiry. Naming practices are viewed here through a critical lens, demonstrating a high level of political and social engagement in relation to how we name people and places. The contributors to this publication examine why names are not only symbols of a person or place, but also manifestations of cultural, linguistic and social heritage in their own right. Presenting analyses of geographically and culturally diverse perspectives and case studies, the book investigates how names can represent deeper kinds of identity, act as objects of attachment and dependence, and reflect community mores and social customs while functioning as powerful mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. The book will be of interest to researchers in onomastics, sociology, human geography, linguistics and history.

Last year was a “blood year” in the Middle East – massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters – many from Europe, Australia and Africa – flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong? In Blood Year, David Kilcullen calls on twenty-five years’ experience to answer that question. This is a vivid, urgent account of the War on Terror by someone who helped shape its strategy, as well as witnessing its evolution on the ground. Kilcullen looks to strategy and history to make sense of the crisis. What are the roots and causes of the global jihad movement? What is ISIS? What threats does it pose to Australia? What does its rise say about the effectiveness of the War on Terror since 9/11, and what does a coherent strategy look like after a disastrous year? “As things stand in mid-2015, Western countries . . . face a larger, more unified, capable, experienced and savage enemy, in a less stable, more fragmented region. It isn’t just ISIS – al-Qaeda has emerged from its eclipse and is back in the game in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Syria and Yemen. We’re dealing with not one, but two global terrorist organisations, each with its own regional branches, plus a vastly larger radicalised population at home and a massive flow of foreign fighters.” —David Kilcullen, Blood Year Winner of the 2015 Walkley Award for best long feature writing.

America is fading, and China will soon be the dominant power in our region. What does this mean for Australia’s future? In this controversial and urgent essay, Hugh White shows that the contest between America and China is classic power politics of the harshest kind. He argues that we are heading for an unprecedented future, one without an English-speaking great and powerful friend to keep us secure and protect our interests. White sketches what the new Asia will look like, and how China could use its power. He also examines what has happened to the United States globally, under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump – a series of setbacks which Trump’s bluster on North Korea cannot disguise. White notes that we have got into the habit of seeing the world through Washington’s eyes, and argues that unless this changes, we will fail to navigate the biggest shift in Australia’s international circumstances since European settlement. The signs of failure are already clear, as we risk sliding straight from complacency to panic. ‘For almost a decade now, the world’s two most powerful countries have been competing. America has been trying to remain East Asia’s primary power, and China has been trying to replace it. How the contest will proceed – whether peacefully or violently, quickly or slowly – is still uncertain, but the most likely outcome is now becoming clear. America will lose, and China will win.’ —Hugh White, Without America ‘This important essay clarifies China’s brinkmanship in Asia and confronts the hard facts of what it means for Australia’ —Fiona Capp, The Sydney Morning Herald ‘In ... Without America: Australia in the New Asia, Hugh White has given us possibly his best piece of writing, and on a subject of the first importance.’ —Weekend Australian ‘Just when the foreign-policy orthodoxy seemed to be catching up with him, White [has] upend[ed] it again.’ —The Interpreter

How did the big banks get away with so much for so long? Why are so many aged-care residents malnourished? And when did arms manufacturers start sponsoring the Australian War Memorial? In this passionate essay, Richard Denniss explores what neoliberalism has done to Australian society. For decades, we have been led to believe that the private sector does everything better, that governments can’t afford to provide the high-quality services they once did, but that security and prosperity for all are just around the corner. In fact, Australians are now less equal, millions of workers have no sick leave or paid holidays, and housing is unaffordable for many. Deregulation, privatisation and trickle-down economics have, we are told, delivered us twenty-seven years of growth ... but to what end? In Dead Right, Denniss looks at ways to renew our democracy and discusses everything from the fragmenting Coalition to an idea of the national interest that goes beyond economics. ‘Neoliberalism, the catch-all term for all things small government, has been the ideal cloak behind which to conceal enormous shifts in Australia’s wealth and culture ... Over the past thirty years, the language, ideas and policies of neoliberalism have transformed our economy and, more importantly, our culture’ —Richard Denniss, Dead Right