Translation as foreclosure

Abstract Negation is an enigmatic function of translation that has rarely been investigated. Instead of delivering the original text to the new language, translation also negates the incompatible in order to assert the validity of a target text by preventing access to the original. This form of negation is scrutinised in this article as an act of ‘foreclosure’, a term originated by Jacques Lacan and later adopted by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak to describe the disappearance of the ‘native informant’ figure in European grand narratives even before it enters the Symbolic Order. The renditions of two European, oriental-themed masterpieces — The Mikado and Der Pilger Kamanita — into Thai show how translation forecloses the original text by repudiating the source altogether to allow the totality of the Thai language as an emerging Symbolic Order befitting its time. The foreclosure of the West in these ‘translations’ points to the unconscious desire and the anxiety for the Thai cultural identity which was repeatedly undermined throughout its contacts with Europe. Translation, in this sense, serves as a defence mechanism against the encroaching West.