Translation: Language article I

“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