Is Everything Fine with the Fine Art of Translation?(Amrutha Jose Pampackal

Is Everything Fine with the Fine Art of Translation?

Among the many gifts of globalization to the developing world is the establishment of a translation industry in every country with a sizeable reading population. Thanks to India’s rich linguistic diversity and ever-growing IT sector, the machine-centered act of translation has grown into a USD 500 million industry. However, there is an aspect of human involvement attached to the act that lies beyond the mechanical use of Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools. It is this realization of translation as a fine art that urges me to write this piece. I will be attempting in this small space, to deal with the issues encountered by the translator, in the process of translation and by the reader in understanding the text, and suggest what is required of both parties to do justice to the art of translation.

In many cases, the translation gets ‘popular’ simply because the work gets circulated in a language with a large global presence among the educated. But this educated new readership has lots of limitations in associating with the original text, some of which are self-imposed. Hardly anyone bothers to notice the name of the translator, even of much appreciated works. I am sure that not many of us know who has translated Anna Karenina and The Alchemist into English though we have read and admired these works. Added to it is the deplorable condition that many of us, while reading the so called ‘great works of twentieth century literature’ by authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda, fail to notice that they were not originally written in English and that we are reading it in translation.

It is sad that we ourselves are creating such obstacles when there are enough problems imposed by the language barrier. If we consider the Indian context, our recognition of the source language is mainly restricted to the identification of certain familiar surnames like Singh, Nair and Iyer scattered around in the text, which lets us guess the culture associated with the characters’ experience. It is also very difficult to translate certain colloquialisms, metaphors and innuendoes to the target language. This results in a thwarted representation of the culture among the readers who, in most cases, are devoid of any knowledge of the socio-cultural aspects being represented. The problem arises either out of the absence of exact lexical equivalent in the target language or due to cultural associations of certain words. For example, the words ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’, when used in India, have multiple definitions unlike the single definition it has for the English. In many cases, such drawbacks lead to misrepresentation of the sourcelanguage’s cultural values.

It is on such occasions that the translator emerges as an important figure. Very often, it is solely through the translator that the new readership gains access to the author, and when the translation does not do justice to the original, their criticisms are misdirected at the author who might be alien to the target language, and hence unaware of the violent death of his work in the hands of a translator. Thus the crucial role of a translator is as a creator

of text along with the author, which is performed where a mere literal translation of words is inadequate to convey the idea signified by them. Then, it is the translator’ s choice of words that determine what he intends to do with the text. His choice can result in an entirely new reading, which need not necessarily be bad, as witnessed in certain cases where the translated text receives greater appreciation than the original.When the translator gets actively involved in reworking the text, translation gets replaced by ‘transcreation’, which in fact, is better than a literal translation, especially in the case of poetry. If the act of transcreation is absent, the famous observation attributed to Robert Frost , “what constitutes poetry is exactly what is lost in translation”, becomes true, because each word in a poem has an idea or a sea of ideas behind it which mostly gets lost by merely restating them literally.

For a translator to perform the above mentioned roles is not an easy task, for, if we take Walter Benjamin’s definition, a real translation “is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully”. It might be easy to be merely accepted by a new readership in a new market which lacks knowledge of the source language and culture as it just requires a very good command over the language into which the text is translated, even while your knowledge of the source language is not laudable. However, to do justice to the art and act of translation you should have mastery over both the languages and the culture associated with these languages so that there is no lack of congruence in the texture of the two texts. A translator also has to remain faithful to the original while exercising his freedom of reproduction whenever necessary.

I hope that it has become evident by now that the translator is not merely copying the text to a different language, but recreating it while trying to bridge the cultural gap despite various linguistic barriers. So henceforth, as true readers, the least we can do is acknowledge the presence of the translator and appreciate his efforts wherever it is noteworthy.

- Amrutha Jose Pampackal,English (2009-12)