lunes, agosto 08, 2005

Sometimes translation sucks

Today, there is an article on the New York Times telling a translator who worked for a defense lawyer, faces 20 years behind bars for colaborating with terrorists. I don't know whether he's innocent or not, or whether he knew what his client was doing, but it's clear to me that the translator's job is not "a piece of cake", like some say.
In school we've always been told that you can make two kinds of translation. One in which you are transparent, you're unseen, and you only reflect what the author wanted to say. But then you can translate leaking your opinions, using it to vindicate your political or social thoughts, or whatever. Then the eternal question remains, how far can you go when you translate? Some think if you make the second kind of translation, you are not translating. You are making a statement about what some author wrote. If you don't stick to the original, you're not translating.
One of the best examples is "feminist translation". The women who started this movement talk about translator's responsability, decision-making, visibility, intervention, opinions.
And then, I think, there are those documents so political themselves that you have to be careful not to change the political aspects of them and not to make the author say things he hasn't said.
Man, ain't this tough!!
 

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