The
Process of Translation
1) The Process of Translation
"Here, then, is the full process of translation. At one point we have a writer in a room, struggling to approximate the impossible vision that hovers over his head. He finishes it, with misgivings. Some time later we have a translator struggling to approximate the vision, not to mention the particulars of language and voice, of the text that lies before him. He does the best he can, but is never satisfied. And then, finally, we have the reader. The reader is the least tortured of this trio, but the reader too may very well feel that he is missing something in the book, that through sheer ineptitude he is failing to be a proper vessel for the book’s overarching vision."
(Michael Cunningham, "Found in Translation." The New York Times, Oct. 2, 2010)
"Here, then, is the full process of translation. At one point we have a writer in a room, struggling to approximate the impossible vision that hovers over his head. He finishes it, with misgivings. Some time later we have a translator struggling to approximate the vision, not to mention the particulars of language and voice, of the text that lies before him. He does the best he can, but is never satisfied. And then, finally, we have the reader. The reader is the least tortured of this trio, but the reader too may very well feel that he is missing something in the book, that through sheer ineptitude he is failing to be a proper vessel for the book’s overarching vision."
(Michael Cunningham, "Found in Translation." The New York Times, Oct. 2, 2010)
2)
The Untranslatable
"Just as there are no exact synonyms within a language ('big' does not mean precisely the same as 'large'), there are no exact matches for words or expressions across languages. I can express the notion 'four year old male uncastrated domesticated reindeer' in English. But our tongue lacks the economy of information packaging found in Tofa, a nearly extinct tongue I studied in Siberia. Tofa equips reindeer herders with words like 'chary' with the above meaning. Furthermore, that word exists within a multidimensional matrix that defines the four salient (for the Tofa people) parameters of reindeer: age, sex, fertility, and rideability. Words are untranslateable because [they] do not exist in a flat, alphabetised dictionary style list, but rather in a richly structured taxonomy of meaning. They are defined by their oppositions to and similarities to multiple other words--in other words, the cultural backdrop."
"Just as there are no exact synonyms within a language ('big' does not mean precisely the same as 'large'), there are no exact matches for words or expressions across languages. I can express the notion 'four year old male uncastrated domesticated reindeer' in English. But our tongue lacks the economy of information packaging found in Tofa, a nearly extinct tongue I studied in Siberia. Tofa equips reindeer herders with words like 'chary' with the above meaning. Furthermore, that word exists within a multidimensional matrix that defines the four salient (for the Tofa people) parameters of reindeer: age, sex, fertility, and rideability. Words are untranslateable because [they] do not exist in a flat, alphabetised dictionary style list, but rather in a richly structured taxonomy of meaning. They are defined by their oppositions to and similarities to multiple other words--in other words, the cultural backdrop."
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