Translating (with) the Speculum
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2025.e109392Keywords:
feminist translation, translation criticism, theory of translation, gender studiesAbstract
This article presents the translation of Barbara Godard’s essay “Translating (With) the Speculum”, originally published in 1991 in the journal Traduction, terminologie, rédaction (volume Traduire la théorie). Godard analyzes the English translations of Speculum de l’autre femme (1974), by Luce Irigaray, and Vivre l’orange (1979), by Hélène Cixous, discussing the challenges and choices faced by translators in the face of polysemy and linguistic experimentation in the works. The essay offers a critical reflection on translation in light of the feminist theories of Irigaray, Cixous, and Beauvoir, which question phallocentrism in the structures of language, culture, and Western philosophy. For Godard, translating is a combinatorial and relational act—translating with the other, not in their place—which inscribes translation in an ethic of “with” and difference. Gender and translation are thus articulated as systems of symbolic exchange, highlighting the asymmetries of power that structure language and kinship. Inspired by Irigaray, Godard proposes the transition from a metaphorical and static economy to a “mechanic of fluids”, based on metonymy, contiguity, and multiplicity. Thus, “Translating (With) the Speculum” presents feminist translation as a critical and performative practice that destabilizes the regimes of meaning and power of logos, establishing a space of desire, creation, and continuous transformation, in which translating is always a gesture of relationship, reinvention, and difference.
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