'More Than a Language ... No More of a Language': Merriman, Heaney, And the Metamorphoses of Translation (Critical Essay‪)‬

It is impossible, according to Jacques Derrida, to give a brief synopsis of the meaning of deconstruction, but in a manner typical of such assertions, this statement is immediately followed by exactly such a description. Writing in Memoires: For Paul de Man, Derrida made the following connection between deconstruction and translation. Deconstruction, he says, consists: In an Irish context, this definition of deconstruction would seem to be particularly apt, given its positing of a form of transference that allows for a transformation of the 'givens' of language. It proffers deconstruction as demarcating a broad contextual framework wherein issues of language and identity can be negotiated. In Irish Studies, such transference is not the norm, with the Irish and English languages being viewed as hermetically sealed within mono-cultural contexts. Gerry Smyth has flagged the dangers of such a linguistic epistemology by pointing to a degree of 'self-obsession' which he sees as characterizing discussions about Irishness. He has gone on to diagnose this epistemological introspection as symptomatic of a postcolonial refusal to submit to broad comparative analyses, something which he terms a protracted colonial concussion. Smyth sees such a perspective as continuing 'to limit the possibilities of Irish identity decades after the onset of the postcolonial era.' (2)