Texts in Translation

A translator, using language as their medium, offers insight into the social and historical aspects of a country. In doing, this allows for the reader to understand a culture that was previously unfamiliar to them, and therefore serves as a way to share its intricacies; thus, preventing oversimplification. As, literature serves as a way to view the lifestyle of others and therefore promote a more sympathetic and open-minded understanding. BBC writer, Hephzibah Anderson, refers to this as “cultural cross-pollination” which is an accurate description as it is an exchange of ideas of which no author’s talent is silenced due to humankind’s general incapability to be polyglots. Furthermore, this argument is strengthened due to the inherent value of translation as can be seen from Naguib Mahfouz’s novels where this grants a clear view into Arabic culture that counters the robust stereotypes offered by news outlets. With providing a more three-dimensional profile of the country by translating storylines that depict how the people “work and suffer and fall in love”, this offers an authentic and accurate representation. However, the key component needed to translate is a translator’s ability to correctly interpret the intended message of a text. As a result, this can lead to misinterpretations where the author’s message is distorted due to the wrong use of words. Other instances similar to this can be seen as certain languages contain idiomatic expressions that cannot directly be converted to another language which grants support to the statement, “lost in translation”.  For example, Feng Tang’s translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s poems were controversial as he rendered the poems overly sexualized that distanced the text from the original meaning. Not to mention that, the poem has lost certain aspects that contribute to its beauty that then led to a loss of the original stylistic quality that made it widely appreciated. All in all, although translation can act as a tool to share cultures and thus promoting global collaboration of ideas, it also creates a risk of misinterpretation that can harm the author’s intended presentation of the historical and/or social context.