THE TRANSLATOR AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN CULTURES
By Rainer Schulte
The German word for "to translate" is "über-setzen." In its most basic visualization,
the German word means "to carry something from one side of the river across to the other
side of the river." The English word "to translate" does not immediately evoke the same
visualization I the reader’s mind. In German, we can say : "mit der Fähre den Fluss übersetzen" which would literally mean: "to translate the river on a ferry boat."
The visualization of the word "über-setzen" --to move from one side of the river to
the other side of the river--leads to several important insights into the nature and
performance of translation. Translators are always involved in carrying something across
the river, whether it be to an unknown destination or from the land of a foreign country
to our own shores. Our cargo can have a multiplicity of shapes: a simple message to
communicate information, a specific cultural practice or historical highlight, a poetic
image, a metaphorical expression, or a human emotion, to name only a few.
Whenever we carry something across the river, we have to become sensitive to the
different landscape offered by the language on the other side of the river. The Mexican
poet and essayist, Octavio Paz, underlined the idea that each language is a way of seeing,
of interpreting the world in a specific way. Even though the shape of objects does not
change from one country to the next—whether it be a tree or the moon— the way we interact
with and interpret these phenomena varies from one language to the next. In German, the
moon happens to be "masculine" (der Mond), in French it is feminine (la lune); in German
the word for sun is feminine (die Sonne) in French masculine (le soleil). Thus, the French
and the Germans don't see the same thing when they look at the moon or the sun. The same
applies to human emotions. The emotions of love and hatred are probably present in all
cultures; however, how we react and respond to these emotions differs greatly from one
culture to the next.
Thus, as translators we cannot take anything for granted. We must look at our own
cultural and social habits with a critical eye, since the reactions of how we see and
interpret the world are not necessarily the same for people who have been brought up in
foreign languages. We have to realize that the body language and the emotional reactions
are rarely the same in two different cultures. The same situation can easily be read and
interpreted in totally different ways by people who come from different countries and
languages. The ways people act and react are shaped by centuries of history and
traditions. Throwing of a shoe at someone in an Arabic country reflects an emotional
intensity of anger and disdain that a person from a Western country cannot experience to
the same extend. In addition, we also have to take into consideration our possible
reluctance to open ourselves to different ways of looking at the world, because we assume
2
that our way of life is the better one, certainly a practice that has often been
detrimental in dealing with foreign governments.
In other words, if it is our intention to open a dialogue with the people on the other
side of the river, we have to change our attitude from certainty to uncertainty. We need
to worry about the form that would be appropriate to open a dialogue with a foreign
culture. Will we find people on the other side of the river who are open to receive what
we bring with us? Do they want to interact with us or are we going to impose ourselves on
them?
What we, as translators, carry across language borders is always packaged in words:
pronouns, verbs, nouns etc. However, the problem with words is their imprecision--hardly
any word can be forced into clearly defined conceptual contours that would suggest the
exact same thing to every person who comes in contact with the word. We know that words
create different conceptual and emotional resonances in each one of us. Because of the
fragile nature of words, we can hardly ever take them at their face value. Therefore, we
must consider the words on the page as signposts pointing toward a situation--the
situation behind the words--that we must reconstruct.
In order to reconstruct that which is or might be behind the words, it is important
that the translator become familiar with the nature of words. A pianist will listen over
3
and over again to the intrinsic quality of a note or a composition of a chord. With
respect to the word, we define its semantic parameters, we listen to its sound and rhythm,
and explore its existence within its immediate and larger context. The specific placement
of a word within a sentence or a page, even in terms of its graphic design (point size,
bold, italics etc) continuously changes the energy and the possible associations that the
word might be establishing with another word. This is particularly true in the realm of
literary works, and most conspicuously present in poetic works. The only way that a
translator can get close to the specific association that a poet attributes to a word is
through a contextual analysis. If indeed the poet has created a new way of seeing or
interpreting the world, or a moment in that world, then the established meanings of a word
are in a process of being changed or modified by cultural or social changes. Creation in
whatever form presupposes some kind of discontinuity, a degree of disruption. Whatever the
new creation might be, it constitutes a difference from what there was before. In a sense,
that is both the attraction of creativity and at the same time the reason we fear it. Some
of the established ways of thinking or interpreting are being challenged.
I come back to the concept of the "word." We are told that "in the beginning was the
word." Yet we know that the parameters of each word are quite fragile; no two people will
take the exact same meaning from a word. I am reminded of the discrepancy of perception
4
that could be connected with the word "culture." The associations that a humanist connects
with "culture" are quite different from those of a biologist. Thus, when we speak, we have
to make sure that we communicate the direction of thinking that we want a word or a
sequence of words to have. If each word had the same conceptual boundary, then we would
indeed all carry the same meaning away from each word. It would imply that several people
could produce the exact same translation of a given text. Translators know that this is
absolutely not true.
To further illustrate the impossibility of such an assumption, one could ask a
translator to transfer a text, let's say from Spanish into English, then ask a Spanish
translator to translate that same text back into Spanish, only to be followed by another
English translator who would transfer the Spanish translation back into English. Very
little resemblance would then exist between the final English translation-version and the
original Spanish text.
We know that translation is not the translation of words, even though the final
product of our translations appears in the form of words and sentences. Words in
themselves are very fragile entities. Each one of us develops different connotations in
our encounter with every word. Thus, we have to acquire a sense for the magnetic field of
words, their semantic fields both in the present as well as in the past. We often need to
5
go back to the origin of a word, the moment that a word came into existence to reconstruct
its connection to its visual image. Some of the visual energy inherent in words gets lost
over a longer period of time. We fail to experience the original power and intention of a
word. Very few of us still experience the meaning-ramifications behind the name "Mr.
Goodman." Does this word have a particular significance in the context of a literary text?
Does the name reflect a particular feature of the character in the novel? If so, what
should we do when we translate such a word into French, for example? The French word "le
bon homme" reverberates with entirely different emotional undertones. It probably creates
a drastically different reaction in the French reader.
The underlying implication of the previous comments could be formulated in the
following manner: each translator should receive a thorough training in the etymological
and philological development of words. Every word that we use today has its roots
somewhere in the past--and as we know new words are being created every day--which means
that we will better understand and experience a word, if we become familiar with the
original moment of the word's birth: in other words, its etymological origin. However,
words never stay the same, and so we should follow the transformation of meanings that
accompanies a word through a longer period of time, whether a few decades or a few
centuries: the word's philological history. Historical periods as well as each human
6
beings impress their own refined connotations on a word. The philological study allows us
to get a feeling for the semantic changes that words have undergone from one generation to
the next. When a 16th century person talked about "art," then the connotations and
implications of the word "art" indicate different directions of thinking from our
contemporary concept of art. Etymological and philological probing into the realities of
words in their cultural and historical contexts enriches the experience of the usage of
words in the present and brings those words to life for us.
The activity of etymological and philological investigation should be a regular part
of a translator's training. Ideally speaking this research activity should be materialized
in both languages: the source language as well as the receptor language. This research
procedure will refine the translator's perception of the magnetic field of each word.
Strangely enough, the appearance of a word on the page is static, the translators job is
to give movement back to the word. From behind the static appearance of a word or passage
emerges the energy of a situation, whether conceptual, emotional or factual. That
situation has to be transferred by the translator from one side of the river to the other,
from one language to the other, from one culture to the other. As Paz says: “words are
signs toward something, signs toward the situation that lies behind the words.”
For a text to be transported from a foreign language into English or vice versa, an
7
interpretation and an understanding of the text under consideration must be initiated
first. A great number of mistakes in translation occur because translators do not fully
understand the text that they are supposed to transplant. Naturally, the misunderstanding
or misinterpretation of the text has very little to do with the fact that the translator
might not know a word; on the contrary, the words are known as words but they are not
known as constructing elements of a particular situational context.
A short factual insert might be called for in this context. The English language has
about four hundred and fifty thousand words, the German and French languages hover between
two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand words. This fact immediately throws a
different light on the usage and practice of the respective languages. It so happens that
words in the French language in comparison to English words are much more clearly defined
in terms of the conceptual boundaries attributed to each word. In the English language we
might have eight or ten different adjectives to say the same thing, each adjective
expressing a slight nuance of meaning.
This bring me to an important insight into the translation process. We must start
with a process of unlearning each time we interact with a text. Our immediate--and
obviously natural--tendency is to assume that the word on the page has the same primary
meaning that I have in mind for that word. Any cursory look at a dictionary will tell us
8
that most words have developed a multiplicity of meanings throughout the centuries. Some
words even die for a certain amount of time and then they are called back into life--often
generated by the need of the present moment.
Thus, an invaluable exercise for any translator is the constant use of dictionaries,
not necessarily to learn new words, but to more fully comprehend the large spectrum of
connotations and directions of meaning that might be at work in a particular word. As I
said before, I the translator/interpreter has to recreate the movement that lies under the
surface of a word.
Gregory Rabassa cites the example of "la casa" in Spanish. Our immediate act of transferal
is probably “house”, but a look into the dictionary will tell us that "casa" can also be
"shack, hut, shanty, shack, cabin, cottage, log house etc. If,therefore, the translator
was translating a novel from the Spanish in which the main character lives in the jungle,
then the most appropriate corresponding word for "la casa" would probably not be "the
house." Thus, the dictionary assists the translator in refining
his situational thinking
in the other language.
We constantly say that we are transferring cultural situations from one language into
another. It almost appears as if we take this statement for granted without seriously
9
reflecting on the implication of such an assumption. We know that there is no such thing
as two words--within the same language--that project the exact same meaning. Similarly,
correspondences between two words from different languages never find an exact equivalent.
There can only be analogous correspondences. If we extend this thinking to the nature of
cultural situations, it becomes quite clear that the exact nature of a situation, whether
emotional, social or psychological, cannot be transferred to a new language. Something
always has to be left behind. In a sense, we actually create a new foreignness in the
receptor language that, however, corresponds in its atmosphere to the magnetic field of
the situation in the original language.
The notion of cultural incompatibility can be thought out in greater length. The
exact transferal of the nuances underlying cultural traditions seems questionable, if not
impossible. However, translators, because of their living intensely in two different
languages and cultures, develop an insight into the refinements of the other culture and
therefore keenly perceive the differences that separate cultures. In a sense, these
translators hold the keys to certain secrets in the other culture that they know cannot be
adequately transplanted into the receptor language. As translators, deeply rooted in the
language from which they translate, they recognize the refined differences of seeing the
10
world in the other language, and they are clearly aware of what cannot be carried into the
new language. It is also a recognition that causes us, the translators, moments of
frustration. Yet, because the translators are tuned in to these differences, they can
often illuminate, through the possibilities of critical language, the foreignness of the
other language. One might even say that translators hold certain secrets that they
discovered in the source-language environment, and that they alone--and not the critic or
the scholar--can provide entrances into these secrets for people who were not brought up
in that language. In our multicultural context, the translator therefore must become the
most indispensable mediator, if indeed true communication between people of different
languages were to happen. Translation fosters the understanding of a foreign culture, and
through the juxtaposition of our cultural habits with those of the other culture, we begin
to clarify how we think and feel, how we interpret the world--often in entirely different
ways from the people in other cultures.
Let me introduce another way of thinking about translation in the context of our
contemporary society. In the last few years, we have become the victims of a general
attitude that says all complex situations should be reduced to their lowest common
denominator. That view counteracts the realities of our age. Daily life has become so much
more complex and for us to navigate in that complex environment, we have to become
11
comfortable with complex situations. Translation thinking and research can train us to
feel comfortable with complex situations. The translator is always connected to the inner
movement of a word in relation to a similar, yet different movement in the other language.
The constant moving back and forth cultivates an associative way of thinking that
establishes connections and recognizes the impossibility of creating exact
correspondences. Complex situations are never static, they continuously create movement in
themselves and movement in the minds of those who are exposed to the intricacies of
complex interactions. Translators, more than any other specialists, are equipped with the
necessary tools to foster interaction between cultures and, at the same time, they are
keenly aware of the limitations of translation.
By its very nature, translators are always in between two places: the reality of the
source-language and the landscape of the receptor language. Through the act of translation
the translator opens the door for "dialogue". That must be the translator's greatest
mission in today's world, in which nations and countries fall back into building walls
between themselves rather than opening themselves to the foreignness of other cultures.
12