Tag: books

  • Translation Ethics and Choice

    Translation Ethics by Joseph Lambert was a well-written introduction to the sub-field that posed many questions while leaving the reader free to come up with his or her own answers. Of course, this left me plenty of time to mull over the different paths that could be taken in its various case studies (a few of which I will discuss here), and it also left me slightly peeved at the hesitancy of the modern author to take any firm stance on any issue—though I fully understand it. This is a short review of several tiny parts of the book that are on my mind at the moment. I shall come back to other parts in future posts.

    Once one accepts that direct word-for-word translation is not optimal in 100% of cases—let’s say, “red dust” for the Chinese “红尘” (红 = red, 尘 = dust), a word which means the world of mortals (as opposed to the world of deities), the translator is opened up to a world that is, on one hand, quite a fun and creative endeavor. This perhaps explains why some people want to be translators; it’s much more than just copy-pasting word by word from a dictionary, to put it very crudely. On the other hand, the book states that translators may be grappling with a long list of considerations: personal interest, competing ideologies, power dynamics, moral relativism, xenophobia, and the list goes on. I have seen situations where a translator is forced to choose a side because every word, for better or for worse, is laced with connotation; or better yet, if it is neutral, then the adage “silence speaks louder than words” can be applied directly to neutral writing. To use a few scapegoats that won’t get me in trouble, consider the reaction of Americans to calling North Korea’s state mouthpieces “independent news outlets,” or Kim Jung-Un a “duly-elected leader,” simply because that is how these terms might be written in Korean (I don’t know Korean; this is merely a fictional and exaggerated example).

    Surprisingly, that is basically what I do in my translating, though not all translators may have the same luxury. I think the translator has a basic veto right; that is, as one of many translators out there (i.e., not a monopoly providing a basic necessity), he or she has the right to refuse service to any client, for any reason, but particularly for reasons of ideology. Perhaps a translator may still take a client whose works go against their beliefs, and try to be neutral and invisible, but perhaps they ought to also let a client know if they have any biases that could impact the finished product, and let the client decide if the translator should be recused. One example from the book that stood out to me was a German translator translating a Finnish author’s novel to German. The protagonist of the novel had a very unfortunate birthday: April 20th, the same day as Hitler. What happened in practice was that the translator unilaterally decided to change the birthday to April 19th to avoid the novel being taken for Neo-Nazi Propaganda, choosing to not contact the author for fear of being disallowed the change. Recently, online, I have seen other cases brought forward by members of Japanese anime communities lamenting more heavy-handed changes made by localizers trying to scrub lines that are, to them, supporting “the patriarchy.” Different translators will feel that the line that shall not be crossed is in different places, and different readers want different levels of strict translation or ignorant bliss.

    I find it is much easier to ascribe nearly unlimited intelligence to the reader, and simply let the chips fall where they may. In cases of extreme discomfort, I come down on the side of the translator’s veto. If I’m uncomfortable working with the material, I won’t promise the client transparency while “saving the world” in the background. I may make suggestions on changes, which authors can sometimes be amenable to, and I may choose to not work on a specific project. It is true that certain viewpoints will be shared more by me as a result of this; no man is an island. I believe it’s better to respect the client and the work by talking upfront than to go behind their back and make stealth edits to appease my own sense of justice, morality, or what have you. I hope other translators do the same in order to lend more respect to our industry.

  • The Han Suyin International Translation Competition

    The 2022 Han Suyin International Translation Competition (韩素音国际翻译大赛) was my beginning in translation. I was encouraged to participate by a friend in China, and it was tough going at the time. Luckily, the competition took place over five months, and participants had simply to submit their translated text before the deadline.

    I was enamored with researching and trying to find the best English mapping for the text. Smitten, really. With my poor level of ability at the time, it took around 40 hours to produce seven drafts for three pages of text. The writing mechanics of the piece were excellent, and it was interesting to translate. The topic was China’s ICH, or Intangible Cultural Heritage, and I learned many new things while translating. Perhaps this is what I like about translation. I get paid to learn, explore, discover, and leave my own meaningful mark.

    As an aside, I do have a disdain for the UNESCO term “Intangible Cultural Heritage,” or at least how it’s used in China. It’s supposed to be used for intangible things, right? Things that cannot be touched, like, say, a method of dance or a system of language. But I can walk down a food street in China and see many vendors selling “ICH Fried Duck,” “ICH thousand-layer flatcakes,” “ICH dumplings,” etc. As people often remind me, it is the method of cooking that is intangible, not the foods themselves. However, I shake my curmudgeonly fist at that, yes I do. It’s overused and abused to the point that it’s becoming meaningless. Soon, a vendor selling ramen noodles on the street will call it ICH when he immerses them in boiling water, strains them, and adds the flavor packets. It’s laughable. Anyway, back to the translation competition.

    So, I had a rough go of it, but I managed to win an Excellent Translation Award. About three percent of the 30,000+ submissions that year earned awards, and in the Chinese to English category, no one got first place, 10 got second place, 22 got third place, and 188 got the Excellent Translation Award. Needless to say, I was very happy with the result, because anyone participating in the competition had to be at least somewhat serious. The result showed me that I had a talent for translation, though I will admit it’s an advantage to be a native English speaker in the Chinese to English category. Perhaps more on that in another blog post. Still, there are not many native English speakers who know enough Chinese to do better.

    Since 2022, I have participated each successive year, but have not managed to earn any more awards. We’ll see what 2025 brings! The submissions are due before June 1st, 2025.

    P.S. For the C -> E category, I really wish they would let us add footnotes or, barring that, at least italicize words if we want to (there are many reasons to italicize in translations).