“Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it
is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.” –
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Some might read the above quote and think it’s out
of line. Sexist. Inappropriate. And maybe it’s all of those things, but I also
think that it’s pretty funny. It gave me a chuckle, particularly the part about
a translation being too faithful to the text of origin – the end result is usually
quite cumbersome and repulsive. I’m thinking specifically about a practice test
I recently took for the American Translators Association (ATA). The ATA offers
exams in an unlimited number of languages, to and from one language or another.
If you pass the test, you are certified by the ATA in that language group. And
it’s desirable to have this certification, because it means you have achieved a
certain level of adeptness in translating between the two languages. But
passing, here, is the operative term, indeed. I must say, having just handed in
my practice exam, I did not imagine that it would be so difficult.
My language
pair of interest is, as it should be painfully obvious to anyone who’s read my
blog, Spanish into English. I’m a native English speaker. I studied Spanish in
grade school, high school, college, graduate school and I’ve taken courses in
translation. I thought, how hard can this be? But there is so much to think
about when translating. You want to preserve the meaning of the source
language. In order to do that, sometimes you have to greatly alter the way the
material is expressed in the target language. If you do this, you have to work
hoping you don’t obscure or change the original meaning. You have one and a
half hours to translate two small paragraphs—at least this is what I had to do
during the practice exam. But the level of second-guessing myself and
back-tracking was incredible! I am entirely expecting that my end result, once
graded, will not be good. However, I’m using this as a learning experience,
hopefully from which to glean some know-how before taking the test for real.
In an effort to improve translation skills and
increase Spanish non-medical vocabulary, I have decided to start taking
articles of interest from the internet and translate them in sections in my
blog. My method of translation is to initially write what I know. Then I look
up words and/or phrases that are unfamiliar or potentially confusing in the Spanish-English
dictionaries, both online and in text, and look for parallel text examples
either via Google searches or a very helpful site I found called “Linguee.es”. I
follow the newspaper, El Mundo, on social media sites, and recently they posted
an article regarding the on-going battle to feminize some traditionally
masculine words in the Spanish language. I love reading pieces like this, where
feminism takes the fight to the linguistic level.
In English, words are not masculine or feminine
unless they are structured that way, ie,
the mailman, the waitress. But these can
easily be changed to be neutral, by changing the word altogether or having the
formerly masculine word be used to denote both men and women, ie, mailperson,
mail carrier, waiter
(m & w), waitperson. This article
addresses similar terms in Spanish, one of them being: portavoz
which means spokesman. The argument is, women can be spokespeople too, so make
the word feminine: portavoza.
I will
translate the article to go into more detail, but I am just thinking now, if I
had to translate an article that contained the word portavoz, I would likely translate it as spokesperson in keeping with the trend of neutrality in language
today. In this way, to the reader, the spokesperson can be either man or woman.
But if I was translating an article that said portavoza, I would have no choice but to translate it spokeswoman. I’m just thinking, maybe in
the end, this isn’t liberating at all – only just as restricting? Maybe it’s
not about changing the word, but changing how we think about the word? Well,
let’s find out what the author Salvador Gutiérrez Órdoñez has to say in the
article and reconvene after the translation of all the sections is completed.
Sobre
'Pilota', 'Portavoza', 'Miembra' y Otros Femeninos
Salvador Gutiérrez Órdoñez
De vez en cuando los políticos sacuden la
conciencia normativa de los ciudadanos con la propuesta de femeninos
rupturistas. Así ocurrió con jóvenas, miembra y, estos últimos
días, con el uso de portavoza.
En tales casos, se producen debates intensos, incluso encarnizados, que, con
independencia del costado al que se incline la razón, denotan una saludable
preocupación por la salud y pureza de la lengua. Todos hemos interiorizado en
los años de formación, primero, y, luego, a lo largo de toda la vida, una
preocupación por las normas de la corrección (el recte loquendi del que
hablaban dos gramáticos hispánicos de relieve universal: Quintiliano y Nebrija). Es normal asimismo
que, en el fragor de la discusión, los ciudadanos airados giren la mirada hacia
los gramáticos y hacia los académicos pidiendo una condena inquisitorial
("crucifícalo, crucifícalo"). Las personas menos airadas, pero
sorprendidas, solicitan una aclaración: "¿Está bien dicho?".
Every once in a while, politicians shake the
normative conscience of its citizens with the proposal of breakthrough feminine
(words) . As it’s happened with youths,
member, and in recent days, with the use of spokeswoman. In such cases, there are intense debates, rather
brutal ones, which, regardless of the side to which reason is inclined, they
denote a healthy concern for the health and purity of the language. We have all
interiorized during the formative years, first, and later, for as long as a
lifetime, a concern about the corrective rules (the recte loquendi spoken about by two Hispanic grammarians of
universal importance: Quintiliano and Nebrija). It is normal, likewise, in the
heat of the discussion, angry citizens
turn their gaze toward the grammarians and to the academicians asking for an
investigative condemnation (“crucify him, crucify him”). The less angry, but
surprised, people ask for clarification: “Is it being said correctly?”
Reference
Goonjur, Medhav K. (2017 September 6). Funny
translation from Chinese to English. MTA
Network the Sign of Success. Retrieved from: mtanetwork.net/funny-translation-chinese-english/
Gutiérrez, Salvador Ó. (2018 February 10). Sobre
'pilota', 'portavoza', 'miembra' y otros femeninos. El Mundo. Retrieved
from: www.elmundo.es/espana/2018/02/10/5a7df963ca474179478b4698.html
 |
| Courtesy: MTA Network, Goonjur MK |
