Nathan and Hibbett Comments

 Nathan:

The most thought provoking aspect of Nathan's talk, to me, was when he asserted that a translation is "secondary and serves the original". He speaks extensively of the process of "domestication" of foreign texts, and how a good translation must find a balance between conveying the intended meaning by the original author and restructuring sentences to sound fluid to the native ear of the target language. Nathan argues that a translation can never be as "good" as an original, and that it should supplement the original text. Breathing new life into a foreign text requires the translator to take the liberty to change the text to a certain degree in order to suit their new audience. 

Hibbett:

In Hibbett's speech, I took note of the difficulties he had with translating the word manji and with handling dialects. Because the manji symbol elicits very different images than its original meaning when viewed by foreigners, finding a suitable translation proved very difficult. I found it particularly interesting that the French translation of the word was svastika. I feel that the images associated with the word svastika detracts from the original purpose of the title, and that Hibbett's discussion of different ways to express the concept carries a lot of merit. 

As far as conveying the nuances associated with varying dialects while translating goes, Hibbett stated that rather than attempting to translate the dialect word-by-word, he attempted to create a unique and particular tone in the dialogue he was translating. I thought about this, and came to the conclusion that, while dialect can prove nearly impossible to properly translate, creating a distinct manner of speaking applying only to dialogue in the writing containing dialect in effect reproduces the original intent of the author. Sometimes, reproducing an author's original intent in a creative way is more valuable than attempting a word-for-word translation. 

 

Alexa