Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing and Representation in North American Indian Texts

by David Murray

Overview

" . . . creates a new definition of American Indian literary texts as a self-representational genre. This is an intelligent and insightful application of post-modern critical methods to American Indian texts. The scope of the study is broad and ambitious, and the attempt to define Indian self-representations from colonial times to the present is innovative and instructive." —Raymond J. DeMallie

" . . . very suggestive, provocative, engaging . . . —Studies in American Indian Literatures

" . . . Murray's book establishes itself as the single best introduction to Native American text-making in particular and the betrayals of the translation in general. An essential acquisition for all college and university libraries, and highly recommended for larger public libraries." —Choice

"It is a pleasure to recommend with wholehearted enthusiasm David Murray's Forked Tongues." —Western American Literature

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253206503
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	03/22/1991
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Translation
2. Languages
3. Indian Speech and Speeches
4. Christian Indians: Samson Occom and William Apes
5. Autobiography and Authorship: Identity and Unity
6. Grizzly Woman and her Interpreters
7. Dialogues and Dialogics

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Moving beyond the linguistic truism that an exact equivalency between a text and its translation is impossible, Murray argues that claims for authenticity in the translation of Native American texts are ideologically loaded by the various social and political needs that motivate the act of translation. In doing so, the translator simultaneously displaces and disempowers the native speaker while authenticating himself as able to legitimately and accurately represent form and intent of native discourse. The displacement is rooted in the assumption of most translators about the wholeness of meaning within a closed system of language and culture, a notion Murray effectively deconstructs. Much of the power of Murray's slim volume derives from his clear, forcefully written demonstration of the sociocultural problematics of translation across a number of genres, including oratory, autobiography, and contemporary anthropological textualizations. Both as argument and as demonstration, Murray's book establishes itself as the single best introduction to Native American text-making in particular and the betrayals of the translation in general. An essential acquisition for all college and university libraries, and highly recommended for larger public libraries.June 1992"—A. O. Wiget, New Mexico State University

From the Publisher

Moving beyond the linguistic truism that an exact equivalency between a text and its translation is impossible, Murray argues that claims for authenticity in the translation of Native American texts are ideologically loaded by the various social and political needs that motivate the act of translation. In doing so, the translator simultaneously displaces and disempowers the native speaker while authenticating himself as able to legitimately and accurately represent form and intent of native discourse. The displacement is rooted in the assumption of most translators about the wholeness of meaning within a closed system of language and culture, a notion Murray effectively deconstructs. Much of the power of Murray's slim volume derives from his clear, forcefully written demonstration of the sociocultural problematics of translation across a number of genres, including oratory, autobiography, and contemporary anthropological textualizations. Both as argument and as demonstration, Murray's book establishes itself as the single best introduction to Native American text-making in particular and the betrayals of the translation in general. An essential acquisition for all college and university libraries, and highly recommended for larger public libraries.June 1992

New Mexico State University - A. O. Wiget

"Moving beyond the linguistic truism that an exact equivalency between a text and its translation is impossible, Murray argues that claims for authenticity in the translation of Native American texts are ideologically loaded by the various social and political needs that motivate the act of translation. In doing so, the translator simultaneously displaces and disempowers the native speaker while authenticating himself as able to legitimately and accurately represent form and intent of native discourse. The displacement is rooted in the assumption of most translators about the wholeness of meaning within a closed system of language and culture, a notion Murray effectively deconstructs. Much of the power of Murray's slim volume derives from his clear, forcefully written demonstration of the sociocultural problematics of translation across a number of genres, including oratory, autobiography, and contemporary anthropological textualizations. Both as argument and as demonstration, Murray's book establishes itself as the single best introduction to Native American text-making in particular and the betrayals of the translation in general. An essential acquisition for all college and university libraries, and highly recommended for larger public libraries." —A. O. Wiget, New Mexico State University, Choice, June 1992

— A. O. Wiget, New Mexico State University

Choice