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Last semester, for one of my English courses I read The Vegetarian<\/em> by Han Kang.\u00a0 The novel was originally published in 2007 in South Korea, Kang\u2019s home country, and later translated into English in 2015, where a year later Vegetarian<\/em> became the first Korean novel to win the Man Booker International Prize<\/a>. Deborah Smith, the English translator of the novel, was also credited in the reward; however, controversy over the quality of Smith\u2019s translation arose.\u00a0 Despite Kang\u2019s approval of the translated version, literary translator and professor Kim Wook-dong \u2014 who has translated well-known English-written novels such as Animal Farm<\/em> and The Great Gatsby <\/em>into Korean \u2014 pointed out the mistranslations<\/a>\u00a0that Smith had made, such as confusing \u201carm\u201d (pal<\/em> in Korean) for \u201cfoot\u201d (bal<\/em>).\u00a0 Among other criticisms included the stylistic errors between the English and Korean version of Vegetarian<\/em>.\u00a0 Charse Yun, who teaches at Korea National Open University and Ewha Womans University in Seoul, wrote about<\/a> how the tone of Vegetarian <\/em>in Kang\u2019s voice had been a \u201cspare, quiet\u201d style, which Smith took \u201csignificant liberties with\u201d in translating the novel to English.<\/p>\n Translation is never a clean-cut process. In the case of The <\/em>Vegetarian<\/em>, while it had only been published less than a decade ago, my class held two different editions of the English novel.\u00a0 We\u2019d realized the contrast when referencing passages and discovered that half the class had their quotes on a different page.\u00a0 The changes were minute, as the quotes were only ever one or two pages off, and ultimately, we still understood the story \u2013 the characters\u2019 names were the same, the plot progressed identically, the gist was there. The Devil lies in the details, however.<\/p>\n This raises the question: how different is a translated novel from its original source? To which I answer, they are different novels<\/em>. They are always different. \u201cTranslation is rewriting,\u201d said Marlon Sales. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to have a 100% equivalence between languages.\u201d Sales is a literary translator and professor at The University of Michigan, and he attested how he considers the source novel and a translated version of it to be separate pieces. \u201cThe very fact that we are human beings who are capable of interpreting and reading between the lines…suggests that even if we speak in one language…there will still be some room for deviations.\u201d<\/p>\n Inevitably, each language carries its own idiosyncrasies; for instance, an expression specific to one culture may not translate smoothly into a different language.\u00a0 The translator always must keep their intended target audience in mind when making any changes to a novel.\u00a0 While you can never shoot for a one hundred percent accuracy rate, a translator should aim to be as faithful to the source as they can. You might ask, \u201cWhy?\u201d\u00a0 What does it matter if there are a couple sentences that aren\u2019t perfectly accurate if the general concept of the story is understood?\u00a0 I consider this an insult to the source author\u2019s intentions of writing a novel. Altering one sentence in the translation process can shift our views on characterization; mistranslating several parts of a novel leads to more a skewed perception of the story, which can impact our views of the themes and social commentary the author is making in their work.\u00a0 The translator bears this responsibility in this \u201cliterary ecosystem\u201d, as Sales put it.\u00a0 From my interpretation of this, the ecosystem is the make-up of every work in every language, and how those works interact and influence one another.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion these days, but at the very heart of all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives lies translation,\u201d he said. \u201cYou cannot say that an institution is diverse, inclusive, and equitable if you don\u2019t recognize what role translation plays in the communication process.\u201d<\/p>\n Competent literary translation is more than having a dictionary ready at your side. In the long run, according to Sales, translation has a role to fill in this literary ecosystem, where that role evolves with whatever languages the novel is being translated into.\u00a0 Being bilingual isn\u2019t an automatic qualifier for well-translated material either, said Sales. \u201c[Being bilingual] gives you…an opportunity to access [the] meaning of that language, but to bring that text from that language to another culture requires more than just knowing the language.\u201d<\/p>\n This leads into what is called translation theory, which takes on not only the idiosyncrasies of the source language of a novel (e.g. idioms and expressions) but understanding the pulse behind the language in which the source novel is written in.\u00a0 This includes regarding the author themselves and the era in which they published their novel. Knowing the historical context–political, economic, and social issues–surrounding the novel gives context for a translator to work with and fundamentally grasp the backdrop which this story is being told.<\/p>\n Americans tend to stick to English books<\/a> and consume less translated material than Europeans.\u00a0 Yet on the flip side, many American-English and British-English books get translated into other<\/em> languages, but there is a lack of diversity when it comes to books being translated from other languages into<\/em> English.\u00a0 Even then, according to Sales, those books hail mostly from Spanish, French, and German.\u00a0 Essentially, there is more exporting of English works than importing of works from authors outside of the English language, which blinds us to hidden gems or impactful authors from other countries.<\/p>\n What determines if a book will be translated and distributed to other countries?\u00a0 Books that are expected to be \u201cpotential bestsellers \u201d will be translated into more languages, as Sales told me.\u00a0 It\u2019s harsh, but it\u2019s the reality of the publishing business. However, in my talk with Sales, he enlightened me with the steps one can take to expose themselves to lesser-known languages in the world of literary translation.<\/p>\n One step for translators is to work with independent publishers. There are companies advocating for minor literature to be translated into English, e.g. authors popular in their own countries but not known in the English-speaking market. There are also publishing houses specializing in specific languages, like Croatian or Indonesian. Independent initiatives online also advocate for translating minority literature, such as Asymptote<\/a>, which began as a student-led world literature initiative in Taiwan; making translated sources of different literature (Lebanese, Czech, etc.) more visible to the public.\u00a0 Asymptote is a community-led initiative; that is, people based in the countries directly work with the literature they are translating and representing. There is also ProZ.com<\/a>, another community-translation effort, functioning as a glossary of terms from different languages for translators.<\/p>\n With all that taken into consideration, then, how does one go about preventing mistakes in the translation process, or at least accurately representing a different culture? Sales laid out the following:<\/p>\n #1 \u201cKnow Your Shit\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s no other graceful way to put it. \u201cIf you want to translate between this language and that language,\u201d Sales said, \u201cthen the main requirement would be to know your languages.\u201d<\/p>\n #2 Be Prepared to Research<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people tend to forget that translation–as with any sort of writing– requires study and research,\u201d he said. Referencing thesaurus still applies to translation, but research can also mean brushing up on other works written by the author to understand their style or other novels written in the same time period to get a better concept of the social and political issues of the time.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the misconceptions of translation is that a good translator doesn\u2019t require a dictionary. But that doesn\u2019t make sense. You\u2019re probably a heavier user of a dictionary.\u201d<\/p>\n #3 Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe first time you try translating you will encounter a lot of problems,\u201d Sales said. Tips to help are reading the translation to yourself aloud to see if it\u2019s convincing\/makes sense\/pleasing to the ear.<\/p>\n #4 Don\u2019t Let Obstacles Stop You<\/strong><\/p>\n Translating can be a lonely, frustrating, and even overwhelming process at times, said Sales. There is the stress of working with deadlines and the book itself never giving the translator feedback when the hit a mental block.\u00a0 Other challenges include the consistency of words throughout the novel, and words you\u2019ve never seen before.\u00a0 But as Sales divulged, the intention with translation isn\u2019t to have the right answer right away. \u201cYou will develop the translation as you go along,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Language is always evolving.\u00a0 Even with human voice beyond the written text, our perception of the voice varies from context to context, Sales said. Meaning when it comes to recorded speech versus speaking in person, voices are always changing. It\u2019s a spectrum when it comes to translating, whether to domesticate the language, which is to make the text more familiar to your intended audience, or to foreignize it, which is sticking to how the prose is written in source text.<\/p>\n Ultimately, it\u2019s a joint effort.\u00a0 Translators need to have an intimate understanding of the language which they are translating from, and the language which they are translating into. In turn readers, namely the readers of my own country, should aspire to consume more translated work to support the hard work of these translators and educate themselves on cultures outside of their own.\u00a0 In a world as connected as the one we live in, there is no excuse to remain ignorant to other cultures, and an entertainment through reading is one of the easiest ways to being that path of opening your eyes to other walks, sprints, and crawls of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last semester, for one of my English courses I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang.\u00a0 The novel was originally published in 2007 in South Korea, Kang\u2019s home country, and later translated into English in 2015, where a year later Vegetarian became the first Korean novel to win the Man Booker International Prize. Deborah Smith, the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[85,172,93,170,171],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-opinions-reflections","tag-books","tag-language","tag-literature","tag-translation","tag-translator"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/03\/words-300x196.png\")
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