Although traditional understandings of translation define it generally in terms of reproduction, reflection, correspondence and equivalence, translation must nevertheless be thought of not simply in terms of its carrying across concepts from one signifying system/language to another, but rather as a negotiation of difference, a linguistic and cultural inscription, a rewriting which always takes place in a particular historical and temporal context. In the case of the translation of literary texts, translation marks the continued life of the original text at another moment in time so that both the history from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed definitely matters. In other words: translation does not exist in a vacuum. Translation is not a mere passing from one container to another but rather a complex transference, an action which transcends the original text and often re-functions and converts it into the arena in which two cultures meet and interact dialogically. In as much the translation process implies untold selections, omissions and other types of manipulation that have to do with the needs and projections of the context of reception, the translated text becomes a new framework appropriating and re-activacting the ideology of the original text.In other words, translation must be reconsidered as a complex operation of cultural negotiation. The translator works reshaping and intervening texts, thus providing us with a valuable ground for the study of how ideology travels in a, sometimes subtle or apparently invisible way.
