Let’s take as a starting point an artwork by Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović made in 1992 when the final integration of the so-called post-communist East into global capitalism was rapidly underway. It consists of one pinky banner and a single sentence in English sewn on it: “AN ARTIST WHO CANNOT SPEAK ENGLISH IS NO ARTIST”. 

Like all great artworks, Stilinović’s banner, besides its provocative irony, triggers, in a very explicit way, that strange effect of ostranenie. The term, as is well known, was coined by Viktor Shklovsky and widely used by Russian formalists in literary criticism. It is usually translated in English as defamiliarization or estrangement while German uses the notions of Verfremdung or Verfremdungseffekt. It is, however, particularly challenging to translate the original Russian term ostranenie, which is why it belongs to the so-called untranslatables—the terms or concepts that are mostly left untranslated when they, throughout history, move across languages. Take for instance words like phenomenon, catharsis, classic, common sense, or those German words like Bildung, Weltanschauung, including concepts that belong to particular jargons of philosophy or psychoanalysis, for instance, Hegelian Aufhebung, Heideggerian Dasein or Freud’s Lust.

The persistence of the untranslatables in our languages, and the knowledges (re)produced in them, does not necessarily point to an intrinsic impossibility of translation in the case of particular words and their meanings. One should be careful to avoid pathetic complaints about allegedly unavoidable losses in translation, quite widespread today, and, in general, the entire quasi-dialectics of gains and losses understood as intrinsic to translational practice. It tacitly implies that there is another non-translational or, rather genuine or proper linguistic practice that takes place within a language, where there are no gains and losses, but instead an uninterrupted continuity of communication, and an omnipresent transparency, in which every message always finally reaches its addressee without losing any meaning on its way.

What, in general terms, is the ideal of transparency for our linguistic practice, is, more specifically, the paradigm of communication for the theory of translation—a paradigm under which translation appears as an auxiliary form of linguistic practice that helps us to bridge an already existing gap between two different languages and so to restore the broken communication. The paradigm of communication is deeply embedded in our commonsensical understanding of translation, which entirely relies on the clear differentiation between the so-called source and target language—the concepts taken for granted in the academic education and training of translators and interpreters. Moreover, it is on the same conceptual ground that the translator is seen as a somewhat heroic figure, a sort of benevolent mediator between languages and cultures who helps people to understand each other and come together, or, in a more ideological sense, as an agent of tolerance that pursues the noble vision of a borderless world.

This idealistic image of the translator is wrongly one-sided. The truth is that under the same paradigm of communication, translation realizes itself also as an act of bordering that confirms and performatively reproduces the existing—historically created—linguistic, social, cultural and political borders according to the dominant picture of the world as being a cluster of separate languages, cultures, nations and their states. In this world translation then appears as arriving at the scene only after languages as autonomous, homogenous, and enclosed entities, together with their equally homogenous linguistic communities had already been established. What keeps together such a community, its commonness so to say, is built around an assumed assurance of immediate apprehension.¹

It is from this perspective that the position of translator is set aside and viewed to be secondary to a proper, authentic form of linguistic practice; and that the task of this translator is to transfer a message from one clearly circumscribed language community into another equally enclosed language community. It appears then that not all of the message in its original form arrives at its destination, which creates the already mentioned impression of an unavoidable loss in this transfer, or, in other words, the impression of a certain hard kernel of the language that resists translation, which is then presented as the untranslatable.

The problem is, however, that what is translated or not translated “can be recognized as such only after translation. The translatable and the untranslatable are both posterior to translation as repetition. Untranslatability does not exist before translation: translation is the a priori of the untranslatable.”²

But what exactly this excursus on the concept of translation has to do with the language of theory, or more precisely, with the language of the theorist, who, as it is said in the title, does not exist outside of one single—English!—language. It seems, however, that in answering this question we must first ask ourselves what this “theory” actually is, or to put it more precisely: what is called “theory” today?

There is actually a very explicit answer to this question. We can find it in the Dictionary of Untranslatables, meaning the translation of the book edited by Barbara Cassin and first published in 2004 in French under the title: Vocabulaire européen de philosophie: Dictionaire des intraduisibles. In the Preface to the English translation of the book, Emily Apter praises the Dictionary’s acknowledgement of what is called in the Anglophone world “theory.” It is, in Apter’s words, “An imprecise catchall for a welter of postwar movements in the human sciences—existentialism, structural anthropology, sociolinguistics, semiotics, history of mentalités, post-Freudian psychoanalysis, deconstruction, post-structuralism, critical theory, identity politics, post-colonialism, biopolitics, nonphilosophy, speculative materialism—that has no equivalent in European languages.” What is in an Anglophone world referred to as “theory,” is in Europe simply called “philosophy.”³

What we can learn from this is, first, that “theory”—itself an untranslatable—is in fact an English, or shall we rather say an “anglophone,” translation of what is in Europe called philosophy. Secondly, “theory” is culturally and linguistically a very particular concept. It does not exist in other languages or other cultural or intellectual traditions. Or, in other words, what is in these other languages and traditions called “theory,” might be something else, for instance, a pejorative counterpart to what is called praxis and as such a particular problem or topic of philosophy. But it is not, to repeat, what is in an Anglophone world meant by theory. A person could be a philosopher in his or her respective language, but at the moment when such a philosopher switches to English, he or she automatically becomes a theorist.

One can optimistically think that this is a matter of equivalence in translation, that “theorist” is simply an English translation of “philosopher” in other (European) languages. But such a translation would presuppose, at least to a certain extent, a symmetry between two words. Yet in reality such a symmetry does not exist, or better, it no longer exists.

Take as an example the notion “Slovenian philosophy.” Few internationally well-known names come immediately to our mind: Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupančič, etc. We could even call it a school, for instance, the so-called Slovenian Lacan school. The problem is, however, that they all write in English, and since they write in English, what they write is rather theory, not philosophy, nor even a former philosophy. To what then does the notion “Slovenian philosophy” really refer? As far as it refers to a philosophy in the Slovenian language, we know almost nothing about it. But there are more questions: Have all Slovenian philosophers ceased to theorize in their mother tongue? If they haven’t, how do they use their language, for instance, in teaching? Which language dominates the reading lists they compile for their students? Is the language in which they read philosophy—the language of their, say, theoretical input—the same as the language in which they teach and discuss it, that is, the language of their practical, educational output? If not, are they philosophers or rather translators? Do they translate theory into philosophy, for instance, the theory they write in English into the philosophy they teach and discuss in their mother tongue?

Instead of dwelling on such questions endlessly, we can rather concentrate on the one concerning the future—the future of both philosophy and theory.

First, it has become evident that philosophy, as far as it is still articulated under the condition of multilinguality, increasingly takes the form of translational practice. One can go a step further and openly ask: is a philosopher who cannot, or does not want to translate, still a philosopher? It may well be that philosophizing-as-translating, and in more general terms, thinking-as-translating, is the form in which philosophy is trying to find its afterlife, after the dream of its full monolingual realization has reached its end. This would necessarily imply a radical critique and/or rewriting of the entire—monolingual!—history of philosophy. An exemplary case of such a claim to monolingualism in philosophy is, for instance, Heidegger for whom German was a genuinely philosophical language, that is, the language of philosophy, which means, more philosophical than other languages.

This, however, raises another, more disturbing question: philosophy-as-translation takes place in a rapidly changing social, cultural and political environment in which the standardized national languages increasingly lose their social meaning, cultural value, political influence and, finally, their cognitive abilities, not least due to the rise in power and influence of English language as the new Lingua Franca of the globalized world.

When it comes to philosophy and more generally to higher forms of cultural production, the historical decline of national languages is even more painful. They are increasingly forced to abandon the claim to universality, which was once intrinsic to both literary expression and philosophical thinking within one single language. In fact, the only way left to them to reclaim universality relies on translating from and, more importantly, into an exclusively monolingual—English speaking—theory. A Heidegger of our days would most probably either write his famous work from the twenties originally in English under the title Being and Time, or have troubles in getting his Sein und Zeit translated into English, without ever achieving the fame he enjoys today.

Before speculating about the further development of this transformation and its consequences for both philosophy and theory, let’s return to the previous question: Is a monolingual, exclusively English-speaking theory, the only future of philosophy? In other words, will thinking be possible only in the English language?

The editors of the English translation of the Dictionary of Untranslatables are explicitly concerned about the global hegemony of English. Within the European Union, and in many countries of the world, English is made “the official language of instruction in scientific and technical fields (if not the social sciences, area studies, and the humanities as well), students increasingly naturalize English as the singular language of universal knowledge, thereby erasing translation-effects and etymological histories, the trajectories of words in exile and in the wake of political and ecological catastrophes.”⁴

On the other hand, the editors argue that the English translation of Barbara Cassin’s Vocabulaire Européen Des Philosophies: Dictionnaire Des Intraduisibles makes it possible for the book to disseminate broadly and reach new communities of readers, for instance in Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. “The English edition,” as they hope, “will help to advance experimental formats in research, data-mining, and pedagogy, as well as models of comparativism that place renewed emphasis on the particularities of idiom.”⁵

This is a well-known dilemma: I know that by using English in philosophy and theory I support and even foster the imperialism of the English language, which in the end corrupts both, but nevertheless it makes my philosophy and theory globally accessible and, consequently, more inclusive and more universal. This quasi-dialectical balance of losses and gains implied in the hegemony of the English language in theory and philosophy sounds convincing and realistic at least as long as we exclude from our picture of global reality the forces of its rapid transformations. The situation is, however, much more complicated, especially when it comes to the future of English as the language of linguistic, cultural and political imperialism.

For some language theorists, the dominance of the English language in the global world has already reached its peak and is now in an unstoppable decline. Nicholas Ostler, for instance, argues that English will follow the fate of Latin, which, finally, lost its almost two thousand years long dominance in Europe. The reason was in what Ostler calls a weak point in the profile of every global language—its elitism. Today, according to Ostler, the same elitist position of English among the world languages will most probably result in a similar fate. It will sooner or later lose its dominance. The problem is, however, that we don’t know what will replace English as a global language. For Ostler, it won’t be any single language: “[T]he world is moving not to English monolingualism, but to a much more multilingual, diverse, and potentially incalculable future.”⁶

This of course applies fully to the future of philosophy and theory. It is potentially incalculable, which, however, does not prevent us from speculating about this future.

First of all, there is a crucial difference between Latin and English as lingua francas. Latin reached its status of lingua franca only after it had died, that is, after it was left without its native speakers. This is not the case with English, which is still quite alive as native language. But, here too there are significant shifts. The majority of those who speak English in today’s global world use it as a lingua franca. Its native speakers are a minority. This very fact alone raises an important question: Who is entitled to claim ownership over the English language, or more concretely, who is in charge of its codification, the minority of its native, or the majority of its non-native speakers? 

Those times when the answer to this question was clear—its native speakers!—are gone. An exclusive sovereignty of the native speakers over the English language does not have to be taken today for granted, all the more so because it alienates and humiliates its non-native speakers. Viennese Anglicist and linguist Barbara Seidlhofer points clearly at this injustice: “[T]hey cannot, by definition, be members of that native-speaker community, no matter how hard they try, no matter how long they study.”⁷

At this place one cannot but ask: Can a theorist who is not a member of the native-speaker community of English ever theorize on the same level as a member of this community? Shall we, accordingly, speak of two types of theorists—the native and the non-native ones? If yes, then we shall also speak of two types of theoretical thinking. The first is a thinking in English that has been either produced by its native speakers or has passed the check by their authority. In fact, no text can pass the threshold of academic publishing, and in more general terms of higher discourses—in politics, economy, cultural and knowledge production—without an approval from the native authority, mostly in the figure of a copy-editor who is a member of the native-speaker community of English.

But what about the rest of theoretical thinking produced by the non-native speakers of English that either has never passed the “English native check,” or has never reached its threshold? As long as it persists nevertheless, that is, as long as it does not disappear in the obscure spaces of a “private language.” it will stay trapped within the vernacular domain, i.e., remain merely vernacular thinking.

At stake is an asymmetry that is reminiscent of the hierarchical order and power relations of feudal times: “The global community of English speakers—including theorists—is split into two ‘estates’—on the one side, the nobility of the native speakers whose hereditary rule over the English language is well protected by the bulwark of cultural and academic institutions and the Praetorian guard of native intellectuals, publishers and copy-editors; on the other, the non-native linguistic commoners who live, work, create cultural and cognitive values, and finally theorize, in this same English language, yet without the rights and privileges of its native speakers.”⁸

In fact, this asymmetry also applies to the theory produced in all languages other than English. In their relation to the global hegemony of the English language, or more precisely, to the hegemony of native speaker’s English, they have taken the status of “neo-vernacular” languages. It is in this sense that the entire theory production of non-native English speakers, including other languages, can be said to have become vernacular.

To cut a long story short—it seems that theory has found itself in a sort of linguistic feudalism: Above, the theory production in the native English and below a vernacular theorizing. The latter, as said above, goes far beyond a non-proven English of its non-native speakers. We could say that it includes the entire non-English theory production. The fact, however, that the theorists who speak, read, write and teach theory in their respective standardized national languages would never accept a vernacular status of their theories, if only because of its derogatory connotation, does not necessarily contradict the argument. Within the logic, or to put it more accurately, within the ideology of monolinguality, there is no place for a critical self-reflection on the vernacular character of one’s own linguistic praxis. The ideal of transparency that does not tolerate opacities, non- and misunderstandings, heterogeneity of linguistic competencies and, accordingly, social or class differentiations within the standard language understood as an indivisible entity with a clear boundary between its inside and its outside, has to be strived for at any cost. Linguistic differences within this language, which normally cannot be avoided, are treated rather as an anomaly that must be fought until its final elimination. It goes without saying, that the ideology of monolinguality—and, by the same token, of homolinguality: the idea of language as an enclosed entity—necessarily implies the claim to universality. Since every standardized national language is believed to be intrinsically able to articulate universal thoughts and truths, without the mediation of any other language, it can never recognize its own vernacular status in relation to these other languages. On the contrary, it always sees itself as equal to other languages. This equality, however, is of an abstract character resembling the political equality of citizens within a (democratic) state, which can be, at least on a political level, articulated only in abstraction from their particular differences, their social status, income, education, gender, ethnicity etc. From this perspective, Slovenian and English are considered equal in their ability to articulate philosophical thoughts. The fact that Slovenian philosophers increasingly do it in English—while English or American philosophers would never do it in Slovenian—has to be structurally suppressed if the paradigm of monolinguality and its ideological twin, multilinguality, is to survive, and the illusion of equality and universality to be adhered to. 
 

Is there any solution to this problem, any chance that theory rearticulates itself under these rapidly changing linguistic and cultural conditions that, before all, imply the processes of re-vernacularization—or better, neo-vernacularization—of most of the standard national languages.

What decisively differentiates these new neo-vernacular spaces from the old forms of linguistic praxis, now in decline, is the essential role translation plays in them. At stake is, of course, a different concept of translation, aptly defined in Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilsen’s Border as Method: “Far from representing a movement between national languages or normative grammars, this is the discourse of foreigner to foreigner, which creates a language that is common precisely because it is forever in translation and rooted in material practices of cooperation, organization, and struggle.”⁹

This “language that is common precisely because it is forever in translation” can be conceived of only as a vernacular, or better, a neo-vernacular linguistic and, in more general terms, cultural, cognitive, social and political praxis. Translation has always been the mother tongue of the vernacular. To conclude, it is now this new neo-vernacular praxis, intrinsically grounded in translation, where both philosophy and theory can find their afterlife. Eventually, translation is for Walter Benjamin “the afterlife (Fortleben)” of the original.

Footnotes

1. See Naoki Sakai, Translation and Subjectivity. On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Especially “Introduction: Writing for Multiple Audiences and the Heterolingual Address” (pp. 1–17). ↑

2. Ibid., p. 5. ↑

3. Emily Apter, “Preface”, in Barbara Cassin (ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014, (pp. vii–xvi), p. viii. ↑

4. Ibid., p. i. ↑

5. Ibid. ↑

6. Nicholas Ostler, The Last Lingua Franca: The Rise and Fall of World Languages, London, New York: Penguin, 2011, p. ix. ↑

7. Barbara Seidlhofer, “Closing a Conceptual Gap: The Case for a Description of English as Lingua Franca,” International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2001, (pp. 133-158), p. 136. ↑

8. Boris Buden, “The Return of Sonafabitches: On Vernaculars, Properties, Translations and the Language of the Future,” Lish Journal. Hägglund, E. & Olas, A. (eds.). Vol. 1. issue 1, December 2020. URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IZGINgcupdsKssG_U9DJsaJLr5eExyJy/view (accessed 2020.01.28) ↑

9. Sandro Mezzadra, Brett Neilson, Border as Method, or: The Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013, p. 275. ↑