Translation (in/of/as) history: Toward a model for historicising translation in Hispanic Filipino literature

Abstract

The task of researching the history of translation within the framework of a national literature overlaps with the task of interrogating the uses of translation in imagining a nation's history. Although translation may be represented in this context as a neutral and unproblematic search for equivalence between languages, translational acts have been employed, either wittingly or unwittingly, to privilege a past and inscribe it into the accepted national narrative. Such is the role of translation in the history of Hispanic Filipino literature. In this article I argue that the endeavour of writing a translation history using Hispanic Filipino texts is called upon to examine translation in history, of history and as history, that is, how translation operates as a material, method and mode of commemoration. Translation is considered here as a fundamental component in the production and mediation of a text. It fulfils a gatekeeping function through which historical information is repatriated into the national consciousness.