Copeland, Roundtable Discussion

    For Copeland, I found the beginning where she talks about her experiences as a new translator interesting. Starting out, the feeling of wanting to translate faithfully and translate everything is something I felt when I first entered this class. And as Copeland learned, I too learned that the endeavor is practically impossible. So then comes the question of what to sacrifice; it’s difficult in certain scenarios to keep the original context and at the same time expect to have the audience understand it.

    A good point Copeland brings up is dialect; translation becomes even more complicated when dialects are brought into play. I’ve seen works where characters with rural Japanese accents have been translated to have country accents, but then one must wonder if it’s an appropriate adaptation given the original context. We’ve also discussed in class the idea of creating an original dialect for the occasion, but of course not every translator has the ability to do it effectively.

    As for the roundtable discussion, it was interesting to see the translators’ individual voices as they interacted with each other. Each brought their own experiences with language into the discussion, and even their experiences with other translators. One part that stood out to me was Seidensticker’s criticism about Waley’s translation and how Waley left out the Suzumushi chapter. Seidensticker noted that Waley disliked ceremonials, while he himself enjoyed the chapter.

    As Copeland mentioned as well, the roundtable discussion eventually touched upon the topic of dialect. A good point that was made was about how a lot of translated novels are about the middle-class, so the speech style would reflect similarly. For example, Seidensticker recalled his experiences with translation the Tokyo dialect vs. the Osaka dialect. He was told that people from Osaka tended to favor contractions more. The translators also had differing opinions of how to translate dialect, such as interpreting accents. It goes to show that each translator thinks differently, and one will approach a work differently than another.

Alex