Jacques Lacan and the intrinsic (un)translatebility of names: "Name" in the English-Chinese translation of Winterson's art & lies

Abstract

The objective of this essay is to highlight the significance of a heuristic usage of psychoanalytical and critical theories in the production of creative translation. Regarded as both a feminist and a postmodernist novelist, Jeanette Winterson's preoccupation with the (un)translatability of proper names and the consequent theme of gender ambiguity marks the difficulty of translating some of her work in gender sensitive languages. Focusing on the example "name" in "Say my name and you say sex" in Art & Lies (1995), I investigate the nature of proper names through the application of Jacques Lacan's "Schema L" and Jacques Derrida's essay 'Des Tours de Babel' (2002). The act of naming and the designation of proper names are also examined, which explicate how gender instability leads to the direct impossibility of naming, hence destabilizes the relationship between language and sex and problematizes the process of translation.