Translation
- Submitted by: jessiekat
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 05/02/2011 04:50 PM
- Pages: 7
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Translation Process Paper
The process of translation is a detailed and time consuming practice. Some argue it should be rooted in both the language and the culture of the original language, and in the targeted language. Many translators engulf themselves in the culture of a source language in order to truly understand and translate a piece. This was the advice of poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay who read here at Queens College the semester.
It isn’t a process that’s just a word to word method but an image to image, tone to tone, and sense to sense translation. While working on my translation project I realized that there’s a huge benefit of knowing the language and culture even though I didn’t have a strong hold on my targeted language. But I also found strength in some of the online translation programs that helped me to make major breakthroughs in understanding translation better.
Being that most of my translated pieces in my project were written by me, I of course knew my intent on every word and image. However, there were many tricky words that slowed me down severely and forced me to think of what word would fit best in order to keep the tone I wanted. I can now understand and fully appreciate what a translator goes through in order to produce the best possible work. Finding a word to fit a tone or an image can change the meaning of the piece therefore translation should be approach with an artful precision.
I started out my project by first defining translation because there are so many different forms of translation. This includes word to word and sign language; body language also goes hand in hand with sign language. I targeted my project on translating images from my childhood into poems. Also, I included a small section of translating body language and reading in between the lines.
As I moved into my project and placed my focus on body language I found an interview online by a woman who had helped her boyfriend kill her son. This piece was...
The process of translation is a detailed and time consuming practice. Some argue it should be rooted in both the language and the culture of the original language, and in the targeted language. Many translators engulf themselves in the culture of a source language in order to truly understand and translate a piece. This was the advice of poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay who read here at Queens College the semester.
It isn’t a process that’s just a word to word method but an image to image, tone to tone, and sense to sense translation. While working on my translation project I realized that there’s a huge benefit of knowing the language and culture even though I didn’t have a strong hold on my targeted language. But I also found strength in some of the online translation programs that helped me to make major breakthroughs in understanding translation better.
Being that most of my translated pieces in my project were written by me, I of course knew my intent on every word and image. However, there were many tricky words that slowed me down severely and forced me to think of what word would fit best in order to keep the tone I wanted. I can now understand and fully appreciate what a translator goes through in order to produce the best possible work. Finding a word to fit a tone or an image can change the meaning of the piece therefore translation should be approach with an artful precision.
I started out my project by first defining translation because there are so many different forms of translation. This includes word to word and sign language; body language also goes hand in hand with sign language. I targeted my project on translating images from my childhood into poems. Also, I included a small section of translating body language and reading in between the lines.
As I moved into my project and placed my focus on body language I found an interview online by a woman who had helped her boyfriend kill her son. This piece was...