The Linguist

Chartered Institute of Linguists SUMMER 2026 The Linguist 15 FEATURES their fidelity toward the source culture and cause them to neglect the target reader's cultural sensibilities. However, if the self- translator inserts a buffer – time, geographical and/or psychological distance – between themselves and the source text, they may be able to achieve a more democratic balance between the cultural context of both source and translated cultures. Self-translators aren't necessarily professional translators. They often write in English but are not completely proficient, so their translations often fall into the category of 'bad' English (e.g. non-standard). In my research, I've found that 'bad' English enables writers to 'democratise' the English language by opening it up to a multiplicity of voices and perspectives. Doris Sommer builds on the idea of defamiliarisation, arguing that the jarring nature of the unpleasant gives people reflexive pause, shocking the beholder into pleasure. By forcing reflection, hybrid languages and multilingualism help cultivate a taste for the sublime and the unfamiliar, mirroring the 'double consciousness' of the migrant condition. 8 Mired in colonial discourse, the languages of European empires hamper linguistic diversity. Therefore, self-translation, particularly self-translation between more 'peripheral' languages into colonial ones, presents a unique opportunity for diversifying these colonial languages. Evelyn Ch'ien refers to the 'weirding' of English through exchanges with local languages, and notes how this remakes them as engines for social justice. 9 Such exchanges are driven by self-translators' ability to amalgamate English, in particular, with languages such as Chinese, Bengali, Arabic, Hindi, Quechua, Swahili and Basque. According to Ch'ien, "Weird-English writers de-normalize English out of resistance to it, and form their own language by combining English with their original language." In this way, they remake the English language through a multilingual dialogue that embraces jargon and non-standard language usage. This process also occurs with French, Portuguese and other colonial languages. Such writers resist the monolith of 'pure' English and debunk the notion that speaking a language from birth entails a superior command over the language. Building on this concept, my work focuses on émigré Sinophone authors' subversive potential to 'weird', 'hybridize' and 'badden' English, thus rendering it more inclusive to non-native speakers and ensuring its continued evolution. By weirding English, and thus inviting linguistic diversity and inclusivity, writers usher in community-building and experimentation across racial, class and linguistic divides. By 'taking back' English through creative interpolations, self-translators who embrace non-standard English reveal the language as a tool for democratic linguistic revolution. Self-translation, particularly the process of translating from a non-colonial language into English, thus provides a medium for catalysing linguistic evolution. Self-translation invites linguistic experimentation by offering authors a platform through which to experiment with syntax, narrative structure, dialogue and stylistic devices. In this sense, self-translators write against the grain and enable the English language to evolve beyond standard usage. Ursula Deser Friedman's Self-Translation as Method: Modern Sinophone self-translators and their transmediated afterlives is out now. Notes 1 Zafor, A (2013) 'Tagore's Poetry in English Translation: A critical review'. In Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 58,1, 67 2 Federman, R (trans. Federman and Privat- Standley, P) (2001) Aunt Rachel's Fur, Normal and Tallahassee, 13 3 Lahiri, J (2022) Translating Myself and Others, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 17 4 Ibid. 85 5 Hokenson, J and Munson, M (2007) The Bilingual Text: History and theory of literary self- translation, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 4 6 Shklovsky, V (trans. Lemon, LT and Reis, MJ) (1965) 'Art as Technique'. In Russian Formalist Criticism: Four essays, 2nd ed, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 3-24 7 Paz, O (trans. Del Corral, I) (1992) 'Translation: Literature and letters'. In Theories of Translation: An anthology of essays from Dryden to Derrida, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 152 8 Sommer, D (2004) Bilingual Aesthetics: A new sentimental education, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 134 9 Ch'ien, EN-M (2004) Weird English, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 6 MIRROR IMAGE Jhumpa Lahiri (left) and Rabindranath Tagore (right) translated their own work, while Octavio Paz (centre) wrote about translation CARLO BENINI CC BY-SA 3.0 FOTO: JONN LEFFMANN CC BY 3.0

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