The Self-translator’s [In]Visibility

Domestication, Foreignization, and More

Abstract

This paper examines the translator's invisibility and visibility in applying the translation strategies of domestication and foreignization used in autobiographical self-translation from Japanese to English.  This study is part of a larger research project investigating the self-translation process I experienced while self-translating my autobiography, originally written in Japanese, my native language, into English, my second language. In this autobiographical self-translation process, the roles of the author, first-person narrator, protagonist, and translator are coterminous. Therefore, the narrative's translation process must be examined from multiple perspectives, which involve, for instance, the author-translator's perceptions of the new target audience, the events, and participants described in the story, etc. Focusing primarily on the influence of the audience, the present study examines, from a social-psychological perspective, the translator's style-shifting behavior as manifested in the application of the two translation strategies. Domestication, for instance, can be seen as the translator's convergence toward the target text audience (i.e., readers) and foreignization as a divergence from them.  Self-translators may apply foreignization, not only for divergence but for other reasons—e.g., their emotional attachment toward the source text, story, and characters. In self-translation, the author and translator are identical. This fact may make the issue of translators' invisibility insignificant.  Yet, self-translators may still become invisible when they apply domestication and converge toward the target text audience. But at the same time, the application of domestication or foreignization by self-translators may be regarded as their expression of their selves, which makes them truly visible as translators—likely not to the audience but to themselves.