Terrific Translations!

Happy New Year everyone!

You know what that means, New Year new WOW word. Courtesy of this new beginning, “tabula rasa,” is a noun that describes an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals, a clean slate. An apt use of this would be, “Following their graduation, the students began the next chapter of their lives. Working from a tabula rasa that would act as the foundation of the rest of their lives.”

Starting our final unit of this year, well for standard level students at least, the next few posts will pertain to the heralded novel. “The Thief in the dogs,” by renowned Arab author Naguib Mahfouz. Before delving into the novel, an interesting piece of trivia in relation to this novel is that it was originally written in Arabic and then translated into English. This brings up the question of the art of translation. A tricky field, an analogy compared the work of a translator to that of a boat master navigating from one shore to another, passing over a great expanse of sea. To a great extent this is true, as so much meaning can be unearthed within this simple analogy. Equivocal in its meaning, I very much see the job of a translator as having the daunting responsibility of taking a insightful, stylistically sophisticated text in one language and effectively recreating into another language being careful the preserve the complexity and nuances intrinsic to the text in its original form. This relates back to the previously stated analogy, as so many times, in the process of crossing the divide of languages and the matching metaphorical sea, the meaning and intricacies of the text can be lost. This ultimately results in a product that is only a shell of what it was. This in turn creates an inaccurate representation to forging readers.

The art of translation, when done well, is beautiful. It offers insight into the cultures and lives of others in an authentic manner not found in novels written for a foreign audience. Having been written in the concerned language, the target audience is obviously those who speak the language which in most cases are those belonging to the concerned country, As a result the images painted are authentic, not sugar coated and bluntly real. These texts explore the deeper elements of the concerned society, focusing on specific elements rather than painting an overall picture.

`This lines up with the learning outcomes of Part 3 of the course as we see texts written for a specific audience now available to a foreign readership. These texts often highlight social and cultural issues discussing them in a creative, interesting manner. It also allows us to see culture specific attitude and values and how they play a role in shaping a text.