Translation works demand cultural mastery

By S. Harmono

JAKARTA (JP): A letter to The Jakarta Post on Jan. 25 by Adrianus Hiyung Tjung declares: "Translators deserve high pay." Translators deserve to be better remunerated because theirs is a demanding job, he said.

It would be interesting to read the reaction of his fellow craftsmen and the public, but none was forthcoming.

Translating is a craft and a good, faithful translation may be a work of art. It is not solely a matter of language. One may possess language skills, one may labor through the texts fully armed with linguistic knowledge, the question remains, will the product in the target language be equally intelligible, provided that the original contains no ambiguities?

The absence of any response to the letter is not surprising. Most translators realize that the translation market is rather slack in this protracted economic crisis. There are still well- connected translation services which command high fees. They fill the demand for translation by (1) businesses in international trade; (2) bilateral cooperation projects, (3) foreign companies wishing to understand local government regulations and (4) individuals needing to send translated legalized diplomas for school enrollment abroad.

Less lucrative is translation ordered by education-, publisher- and foundation-related agencies due to their shoestring budgets. However, this type of work gives some people higher satisfaction.

Translation produced with craftsmanship and art does not yield adequate remuneration because there is hardly any market for it. So, on the practical side, if one desires to increase one's earnings, one must see translation as a trading commodity. With some business acumen one can create a rewarding clientele. One will not have to cudgel one's brains on detailed contents but one must guard against writing blunders. Some inconsistencies are all right because our society is indulgent and even permissive in this respect. Quality only rarely comes first. One must be punctual in delivery which is the crucial point in the business because clients want to see their text changed into the target language instantly as if by magic, although it took them weeks to write it themselves.

Good pay has nothing to do with a translator deserving it or not. He may have to put up arduous and energy-absorbing labor but in business one is dependent on the buyer.

International organizations abroad (e.g. some agencies of the United Nations) require a double degree from a prospective translator. First he must have a degree in languages (not necessarily an MA or a PhD) and additionally in another discipline, e.g. chemistry. The incumbent will be assigned the translation of texts on chemistry only.

As far as it can be ascertained none of our self-avowed translators ("sworn" or otherwise) have a double degree as required above. They are so-called generalists, which means they know something of nearly everything. It is only pure luck if a linguist is strongly interested in chemistry, for example. It would be better to find a chemist who has a knack for good writing. He would know what it is all about. The problem with a generalist is that he may not admit his ignorance on a subject. He should actually do some research if his professional conscience speaks to him.

As for the quality of translations, the subtitling of films seems to be afflicted with problems. One reads the weirdest Indonesian subtitles of English-speaking films on TV (and in the cinema). They are characterized by word-by-word transfer from English into Indonesian without regard for the meaning in context.

More seriously, there is an apparent lack of understanding of idiomatic and colloquial language. The team in charge of subtitling at each TV station (penerjemah, penyunting, penyelaras 0akhir and what-have-you) should give better service to TV viewers and not lead them up the garden path. It is necessary to study in greater depth the language and the culture on both sides. The problem with translation is that people are seldom completely bilingual even if they have lived in two countries for a long stretch of time.

Translating is risky if one does not know the other language and its culture well enough, and worse if one's knowledge of one's own language and culture is only approximate.

Another problem of translation is the faithful rendition of an original text. A free translation has the inherent danger of going too far afield thereby losing the original meaning of the text. The Italians, on the crossroads of many cultures for millennia, discovered that traduttore = tradittore, "to translate is to betray". Even in closely related languages like French and English some mistakes have remained.

It is generally accepted that Cinderella wears glass slippers. Who would be comfortable in footwear made of glass? Charles Perrault did not write verre (glass) but vair (furlike material). Perhaps because the two words are homonyms, the meaning of "fur" got lost in translation, a betrayal indeed. Homonyms are the Achilles' heel of many native speakers. They may speak their language fluently, though not necessarily in an impeccable manner, but they usually do not pay enough attention to written language.

Another example of cross-cultural communication is the following; the famous versatile American conductor James Levine shuttles between New York (the Metropolitan) and a number of cities in Southern Germany and Austria. He is used to working with German musicians. He likes to explain the music to them. Confident that he knows the German language well enough, he speaks German to them. Once, however, the musicians got lost because they had difficulty understanding Levine's German usage. "Mr. Levine, please" or perhaps "Sorry, Jimmy (he is highly popular in the south German state of Bavaria), could you continue your explanations in English?" Levine did not take offense. He switched to English and everybody was happy.

The two examples show how hard it is to master two languages at the same level. But that is the crux for doing responsible translation.

The writer is a translator who is interested in cross-cultural cross-purposes.