Literary scholars and linguists have argued extensively that language is not simply a purely representational vehicle of thought but its determining medium, whose ordering powers not only shape cognizance of reality but are also actively involved in processes of imperialism and cultural erasure. It is the determinative yet slippery quality of language, prompting the loss of meaning in attempts at translation, that colonial powers manipulated to violent effect and which, as enacted in the plays of Nyoongah Indigenous Australian playwright Jack Davis, continue to haunt history and the present. This article considers how a history and culture made unspeakable by colonialism through the erasure of Indigenous Australian oral traditions, languages, and historical perspectives is translated on to the Anglophone stage in the plays of Davis, one of the first Indigenous playwrights to be published and performed internationally, and how this was received by the witnessing audience. Davis achieves this theatrical translation not only through the negotiation and manipulation of colonial language and verbatim history alongside Indigenous languages, enacting a kind of linguistic double consciousness, but also through physical theatre and dance. The latter are the central means of communicating meaning and knowledge in Nyoongah culture. Jacqueline M. Brown is a graduate student at Worcester College, University of Oxford, studying for a Master of Studies in English (1900–present). This article received first prize in the 2022 TORCH Reimagining Performance Network Graduate Essay Prize competition run in collaboration between the University of Oxford and New Theatre Quarterly. For more information on the Reimagining Performance Network, see <https://torch.ox.ac.uk/reimagining-performance-network>.

中文翻译：

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舞台上不为人知的土著历史：杰克戴维斯的后殖民戏剧

文学学者和语言学家广泛认为，语言不仅是思想的纯粹表征工具，而且是决定思想的媒介，其秩序化的力量不仅塑造对现实的认知，而且积极参与帝国主义和文化抹杀的过程。正是语言的决定性但又不稳定的特性，促使翻译尝试失去意义，殖民列强操纵它产生暴力效果，正如澳大利亚土著剧作家杰克·戴维斯 Nyoongah 的戏剧中所表现的那样，它继续困扰着历史和现在. 这篇文章考虑了如何通过抹杀澳大利亚土著口头传统、语言和历史观点，将殖民主义变得无法言说的历史和文化在戴维斯的戏剧中被翻译到英语舞台上，首批在国际上出版和演出的土著剧作家之一，以及目击观众的反应。戴维斯不仅通过与土著语言一起协商和操纵殖民地语言和逐字记录历史来实现这种戏剧翻译，表现出一种语言双重意识，而且还通过物理戏剧和舞蹈。后者是 Nyoongah 文化中传达意义和知识的核心手段。杰奎琳·布朗 (Jacqueline M. Brown) 是牛津大学伍斯特学院的一名研究生，正在攻读英语研究硕士学位（1900 年至今）。这篇文章在由牛津大学和新戏剧季刊。有关 Reimagining Performance Network 的更多信息，请参阅 <https://torch.ox.ac.uk/reimagining-performance-network>。