Terry:
What a terrible way to start the essay with that offhand remark about women, which I think is both untrue about women and translation. Being faithful in translation doesn't have to be literal or exact. Terry seems to have quite a pessimistic mindset, based on the negative perspective with which he looks at the differences in language between Japanese and English. He brings up repetition and rhetorical questions in Japanese as inherent problems that must be dealt with. Also I think one should be wary of making as many generalizations as he does when thinking about Japanese versus American writers or readers. His point about the difference in Japanese between written and spoken language is an important one however, and something that I do not think I could translate into Japanese. I was probably most shocked when Terry said he believes there are no more than four or five people who are bilingual in Japanese and English, even at the time he wrote this, it couldn't have possibly been true.
Riggs:
The point Riggs brings up about differences in audience when it comes to translation is an interesting one. Should a translator try to match the comprehensibility to a similar audience or translate so that as many people as possible can understand in the second language? When she talks about her beginning approaches, the second more thorough one seems very similar to how we review the materials in class, which I also agree helps a lot in my process. I feel like transmigration is a good term and refers to the translation of not only language but also culture and style that one has to do. It is like the piece has to immigrate to a new country and assimilate to the customs there. I feel like her points about restructuring the text will be especially important when approaching works such as the magazine article.
-Joanne
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