In Other Words

[hdw]

The translators' journal In Other Words can be viewed online -

http://www.bclt.org.uk/index.php/publications

Harry

[Loki]

Thank you, I'll have a look at it!

Do you write (have written) articles for translation journals, Harry?

[hdw]

Thank you, I'll have a look at it!

Do you write (have written) articles for translation journals, Harry?

No, theory isn't my strong point.

Harry

[Mirabell]

Thank you, I'll have a look at it!

Do you write (have written) articles for translation journals, Harry?




Eric has and I've been trying to acquire copies, though, admittedly, not very hard.

[Eric]

I've written a few things for that journal but I'm very much in Harry's league when it comes to the theory of theoretical theory, so this issue (No 37) was quite heavy, I feel. The previous issue (No 36) was about something that doesn't affect me personally, but parts of the issue were interesting: gay & lesbian concerns when translating. I started a thread about it but literally got no replies at all.

When it comes to translation studies and theory, I constantly wonder why academics write so much about something that is so rarely put into practice in the UK and the USA, i.e. translation. That 3% figure may be legendary and now inaccurate, but it is highly symbolic. Imagine if people started a university department to examine American football in the UK, a country where it is hardly played, if at all. That is analogous to the situation of translation theory versus translation practice in the English-speaking countries.

[hdw]

I'm not much given to introspection and to examining what I do and why, whether it's literary translation or anything else. I take my cue from the story of the spider and the centipede. The spider said to the centipede: "How on earth do you manage to walk with a hundred legs?" "Do you know," said the centipede, "I've never thought about it!" So he thought and he thought, and the more he thought, the more he came to realise that it was logically impossible to walk with a hundred legs, so the result was that he never walked again.

Teachers and other professionals are always being urged to "reflect on their practice" these days. And somebody famous once said that "the unexamined life is not worth living". No doubt some of the philosophy buffs here will know who that was (Voltaire??).

Harry

[Eric]

About twenty years ago, when I'd hardly translated anything, I used to read (or try to read) artilcles about the more theoretical aspects of translation, but for the past twenty years or so, I've simply been doing it without too much centipede-leggery. There are one or two useful books covering the practice of translation, including one by Peter Newmark that contains no end of commonsense tips. But they are ulimately tips and presented in a rather random order. Those of us, like Harry and myself, who actually do translation, pick up such things as we go along. And something learnt from experience sticks in the mind far better than something pulled out of a book.

What I do find sad is that the theory brigade seem to treat practising translators with a certain element of condescension, especially if we haven't actually got at least an MA in translation studies. Once again, I was keen twenty years ago to do such an MA, partly in order to furnish proof to others that I was a "real" translator. But I have now translated eight books from Estonian (by no means my best foreign language!) with only a few semesters of Estonian at beginner's level - and no qualification whatsoever in translation. These books include three postmodernist novels. And I have not done a doctorate in postmodern literature either.

[hdw]

Some years ago I did the Institute of Linguists postgraduate Diploma in Translation, as I thought it would be a useful qualification to have, but I must say that having it has not made a blind bit of difference to my translating career as no-one who has commissioned a translation from me has ever asked if I had a qualification in the subject. Personal contacts are much more useful.

We are off to Italy tomorrow for a week's holiday and I kept meaning to brush up my Italian first but it hasn't happened. However, I usually find when I go abroad that I slip back into the language, insofar as I know any of it (and my Italian is pretty rudimentary).

Harry

[Eric]

Happy holidays, and all that, Harry. Italy is sometimes warmer than Sweden. It's hotting up again this week in Sweden, according to the weather forecast, but no more than 24 Celsius, while looking at the map it will be in the lower 30s in Italy.

With regard to translation, yes, I too have realised that personal contacts count for more than this piece of paper that will bring translation in our time, to paraphrase some dithering and gullible Brit from long ago. I've not seen too many theoretical articles in IOW about how to get a lucrative jiob as a literary translator, without going through a twenty-year apprenticeship as the Benjamin-Heidegger Professor of Cultural Translation Wherewithal and Ramifications at Coventry Poly.