1. Brittney Wright
Ellen Sprague
WRIT 158
November 24, 2015
Job of a Translator
In translating literary work, understanding the authors meaning is the most
important tool a translator can have. It allows the readers to fully understand what
the author is saying. If a sentence does not translate over completely into the new
language, then the translator has to understand the meaning of it and then come up
with other words to convey what the intended sentence was to mean. A good
translation is one where the reader can clearly understand the meaning of what the
original text/author was trying to imply. Translation between languages is only
effective if the authors meaning is conveyed.
Translation is a very important tool because it allows us to communicate
with people in different ways. We know the word “translate” mostly with
understanding languages. Translating different languages is very valuable to the
world because otherwise we would not comprehend fully what people from other
countries are trying to communicate to us. Many people in other cultures are now
learning English because it is so widespread in the world today. Even though other
countries are learning English, there are still language barriers between different
countries that do not speak English at all. The reason translators were brought into
play was to help with these barriers so that we could communicate and understand
others. But translators are not just used with people and communication; they are
also used for literature so that other languages can be translated into their own.

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Translation plays a very important part in the world today. An example of
why it is so important is The Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is only for authors whose
works have been translated into English because all of the judges can only read
English. If an author wants to get nominated for or win the Nobel Prize, he/she must
have their work translated into English. This example just goes to show how
valuable translation between different languages is. In order to win the award the
author must have a translator translate his work over so that the judges are able to
read his work and decide if it is decent enough to nominate or win the Nobel Prize.
In order for a translation to be considered good, it must be able to get the
entire message from the original text across in the new version of the text without
changing the meaning. “A good translation needs to carry the meaning and the tone
of the original text, while still remaining culturally sensitive and appropriate to the
target audience.” (Zart) If a reader reads the original text and then reads the
translation and it does not correspond at all then it is not a good translation.
Another form of a good translation is when the structure of the literature is used
correctly. In the book Is That a Fish in Your Ear? , David Bellos talks about
translating a piece by ‘Perec’. Perec’s piece was a block of twelve words with twelve
letters in each word, but the unique thing about this was that there was a word
running diagonal through the list. In order to properly translate the work done by
Perec, Bellos came up with another column of twelve words with twelve letters
each, and in order to keep the structure he put “Bellos Dunn It” diagonal through the
column. Bellos did not translate the work word for word because he did not need

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too; the important part of translating this piece was about accurately re-creating the
structure of what Perec wrote. (Bellos 306).
There are many words in languages that do not transfer over to another
language. If a word does not transfer over to another language, the translator must
come up with other words to get the message across. If a poem has thirty-four
words and five of those words do not transfer over into another language, then the
translator has to come up with another word or words to mean the same or similar
to the word from the original language. The poem may then end up being forty
words because they had to use two words for each word that did not transfer over.
In NINETEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT WANG WEI, the very first translation of the
Chinese poem that the reader comes across on page 6 is the character-by-character
translation. It does not make any sense and does not read how a poem normally
reads. That is because the characters in the Chinese language when put together
make sense but then when translated into a new language they do not make sense to
the readers because the meaning of the poem is lost during the translation. Whereas
on page 26 the “Deer Enclosure” translation makes absolute sense and is easily
readable by the readers. The translator took the original words from the translation
on page 6 and made them coherent to where they make sense and read like a poem
should; however, this poem is not effective because it does not get the authors
meaning across. This translation has been butchered and then re-written to where
the translator believes that they are writing what Wei said. (Weinberger, Eliot 6 &
26).

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A translator has different choices that they can make about their work. They
can be morally correct and translate the work to their best ability so that the
original author’s work is portrayed correctly, or they can translate the original work
into something that sounds decent but is not translated into what the author said.
The translator can both translate word for word, and fill in where words do not
translate directly to let the reader decide what it means for themselves, or they can
translate the literary work into their own words before changing languages. The
authors meaning is at stake when the translator chooses to translate the literary
work into his or her own words. When the translators decide to translate the
writers words into their own words, the authors meaning is completely lost and the
reader is actually reading the translators work instead of the supposed authors
work.
The choices that the different translators had in NINETEEN WAYS OF
LOOKING AT WANG WEI were to either translate accurately or not. The impact of the
choices that a translator has on a literary work is key to a good translation. In Wang
Wu there are nineteen different translations of one specific poem. Nineteen
translators translated it into their own translations and it had a huge impact on its
readers because each translation was similar yet completely different. Every
translation is somewhat similar to the fact that they all use a lot of the same words
but the meanings of the poem change from different translation to different
translation. A reader can start out somewhat understanding the poem and then by
the end of the book they are completely lost because Wei’s meaning was lost
throughout all the translations.

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A translation is an important part of culture. Translating from one language
to another and translating literature from one language to another are key to the
world today. A good translation is where the authors meaning is conveyed to the
reader. A literary translation should be translated word for word and then
rearranged to where it makes sense for the reader to understand, and also to where
the structure of the literary work is conveyed.