How do we count a language? Translation and discontinuity

Abstract

Can translation be regarded merely as a bridging of a gap between national languages? Is it not an act with which to produce difference, inscribe borders and thereby identify the unity of a language? This article proposes that translation is anterior to the organic unity of language and that this unity is posited through the specific representation of translation. Accordingly, a regime for the modern representation of translation is construed in terms of the schema of co-figuration. Here translation is understood not only as the bridging of a gap or distance between two language communities. It is also an ambiguous act of creating continuity out of discontinuity; it pertains to a political labour which generates social relations. Translation is investigated with a view to bordering.