Translation

Translation is a process whereby a body of meaning expressed in one semiotic medium (namely a book, a speech, a ritual, and so on) is conveyed through another semiotic medium. Translation is a ubiquitous mode of communication that is to be found within as well as between languages or cultures. It is accordingly an important element in understanding the communicative and interpretive aspects of governance.

Translation is a complex interpretive endeavor. First, it involves an understanding of the source text; in turn, this understanding requires sensitivity to the specific circumstances and to the general linguistic and cultural conventions involved in the formulation of the text. Then, once understood, the original meaning is reconstructed and given a new semiotic form. This reconstructive process requires the same sensitivity to circumstances and conventions, only this time with respect to the target audience and language (or culture). In other words, a fine translation is that which not only transfers a body of meaning but also displays understanding and recognition of the mutual distinctness of the source and target languages or cultures.

Translation is an important aspect of governance that is understood as social and political communication, given the developments in the practice and study [Page 983]of governance that have exploded the classical, Weberian (from Max Weber) model of government. According to this model, political authority is exercised by a monolithic bureaucracy, characterized by a uniform administrative culture and standardized procedures of political communication. Furthermore, the state is conceived in the classical model as exercising authority over a clearly demarcated, relatively homogeneous national entity. Such a model implies a conception of political communication that, in its ideal form, is fully transparent and purged of any need for translation.

Conversely, the contemporary concept of governance involves an inherently pluralistic understanding of political activity. Governance is viewed and practiced as taking place across networks comprising state institutions, nonprofit organizations, private firms, and transnational actors. Such political diversity necessarily entails, in turn, a plurality of cultural identities and organizational languages and practices. Under such circumstances, the challenge of exercising political authority across these semiotic boundaries becomes, in some of its most fundamental aspects, a problem of translation. Moreover, translation is not only involved at the macrolevel of political life, it also constitutes part of the stuff which everyday, microlevel organizational practices are made of.

Finally, issues of translation have started to attract the attention of theorists of deliberative democracy as well as of governance. Future theoretical reflections situated at the intersection of those two fields might consequently find the conceptual framework provided by translation theory to be of value.