Nothing is Untranslatable
a conversation with Susie Gordon
I’m very happy to have Alluvium editor Susie Gordon back for another conversation at A Polite Lie this month, where we will once again cover a wide range of topics.
Susie’s upcoming course with Tender Leaves, entitled Editing Literary Translations, includes 6 video modules (audio and written transcripts available), a suggested reading list, and 1-month paid access to all content at A Polite Lie.
SHELLY:
Hi Susie! It’s great to have you back this month.
I am thinking about where we ended our conversation last month. We were talking about direct translation as opposed to faithful translation, and how the two are more often than not two entirely different things. Can you give some examples you’ve come across that illustrate that idea?
SUSIE:
Hi Shelly! Thanks for having me back. I often come across this issue in my work as an editor, both in literary texts and non-literary. An example from the latter: I used to work for a Chinese corporation that operated a joint venture with a British company. It was my job to edit the English translations of the internal communications that were sent to the staff. The corporate jargon used by this company's head office used the militaristic register that is common and perfectly normal in Chinese. However, for the English readers, talk of the firm "marching forward like soldiers" with "the spirit of battle" sounded very jarring. It took me a while to convince the Head of Communications that a direct translation of these phrases wouldn't pass muster!
On the literary side of my work, I've come across direct translations of idioms, usually by translators who are just starting out. One of the unique aspects of Chinese is the use of chengyu – idiomatic expressions, usually consisting of four characters, where the meaning is often based in mythology or history. I was once editing a translation of a short story in which one of the characters made a remark, and was said to be "throwing out a brick and getting jade back." I was puzzled by this at first, as it bore no relation to the plot. I asked the translator to clarify, and he told me it was a direct translation of the chengyu 抛砖引玉 (pāo zhuān yǐn yù), which conveys the meaning of getting the ball rolling in a conversation with an opening gambit. This was a lesson for both the translator and me: for him, that chengyu can very rarely be translated directly into other languages due to their cultural specificity; for me, that if I come across something incongruous and inexplicable in a translation, it could be a direct translation of a chengyu!
SHELLY:
Those are both excellent examples. I am often asked about my approach to translating chengyu, perhaps because I have translated so much of You Jin’s work and she uses chengyu so frequently and adeptly. Only on rare occasions do I take the approach of translating the idiom directly, though there are rare occasions in which it seems the direct translation will communicate the idea effectively. Generally, though, direct translation of a chengyu will dull the impact, which is precisely the opposite of the way the chengyu operates in the original. A chengyu is an encapsulation of a broader story or idea, putting a fine point on the concept so that it can be conveyed in a brief, impactful way, giving it a real punch. A direct translation – or worse, an explanation of the entire story (!) – opens the hand of the chengyu, turning the punch into a light slap. (Forgive the violent metaphor!) This is a huge issue, I think, because the entire point of the chengyu is to say what needs to be said in the least possible words without losing any of the weight of it. It is concise, and it is weighty. Drawing it out (which both direct translation and explanation always do) lessens the impact. Even worse, it calls attention to the idiom, rather than using the idiom to draw attention to the point being made. In the original, the idiom is almost a sideways means of expressing the impact, and it is usually not the focal point of a sentence. If we translate it directly, that will usually shift all the attention to the idiom itself, instead of the idiom serving as a means of focusing attention on the actual point being made.
SUSIE:
I thought about this today as I was reading the transcript of an interview between Daniel Hahn – then director of the British Centre for Literary Translation – and Fahmida Riaz, an Urdu translator. Riaz asked Hahn what he thought were the most difficult linguistic qualities to translate, to which he replied, "There’s not a single word in any of the languages I translate that can map perfectly onto a word in English. So it’s always interpretative, approximate, creative. Anything that is, itself, a ‘linguistic’ quality will by definition be anchored in a particular language — whether it’s idiom, ambiguity, or assonance. All languages are different." I thought this was spot-on. Reading this interview led me on to some of Daniel Hahn's other musings on translation, including a column he wrote for Asymptote about whether any text is "untranslatable." What are your views on this?
SHELLY:
I tend to think that there is nothing untranslatable, mainly because I subscribe to the perspective on translation that Daniel Hahn has shared in the article you mention – translation is never a one for one equivalent of this word in one language for that word in another language. Each word is shaped by its context, and context changes when the language system being used changes. In fact, we need not move from language to language for this to be true. The connotation of a word in the British English context may not be precisely the same as the connotations of that same word in American English, or any other English elsewhere in the world. Even more to the point, a word will mean something different to each listener and speaker of that word, because we all bring to the communication process a whole set of experiences and assumptions that are unique to the individual. But we make this work in the course of our everyday communication, despite the lack of precision that necessarily characterises our interactions. We don’t fret about the differences, unless something goes wrong, and then we simply seek to clarify when there are misunderstandings. Otherwise, we tend to go about with the assumption that there is a reasonable overlap between your understanding of a word and mine, and in doing so, we manage to communicate (to varying levels of effectiveness, of course).
I see translation as just another level of this same reality. I don’t tend to think of translation as primarily a linguistic exercise, but more an exercise in cross cultural communication. That helps me frame the question differently – it’s less about finding words that match up perfectly, and more about finding ways to express the experiences and observations we have in common with other humans as we move through our world. We are trying to align pictures, events, experiences, and our responses to them, rather than simply aligning words in two different languages. While it is true that moving from one language to another adds another obstacle to that process, it is still ultimately about moving across cultures, not just languages. This is in some ways more challenging, of course, but it also helps if we can free ourselves from a slavish obedience to dictionary definitions. We don’t use language that way – trying to line up memorised dictionary definitions with what we say – when we are communicating with someone who speaks the same mother tongue as we do, so why would we let dictionary definitions be the main determinant of what is or isn’t equivalent when translating? It’s about usage and associations, not just formal definitions. A dictionary definition can be helpful, of course, but an overly rigid emphasis on such definitions can lead to a misuse of language, if we are not careful. Instead, we must aim to communicate in the new language with the same freedom and fluidity that the original text does in its language. It is with good reason that we use the word “fluent" to describe the levels of proficiency in a language. Its connection to fluidity and the free-flowing nature of the language is apt.
SUSIE:
That makes a lot of sense, particularly what you say about translation being more about usage and associations than formal definitions. I think this is one of the most misunderstood aspects of translation. You and I have spoken on many occasions about our frustrations in this regard – yours as a translator, and mine as an editor of literary translations; being asked to justify or explain why we have chosen a particular word when there's another that is a more direct or literal translation. The idea of a faithful translation being word-for-word is deeply entrenched, and it can often be difficult to make people understand that it's less a linguistic exercise and more a case of cross cultural communication. In my experience of working with translators, it comes with maturity and experience. As a young translator just starting out, it can feel like a big risk to deviate from producing a very direct translation.
SHELLY:
I think this problem is also more noticeable when the translator is more focused on the “translation” than the “literary” in literary translation. Literary translation should be approached in a way that is like the creation of any other literary text, with the focus being on how best to express the picture and idea (along with all its nuances) in the written word. The difference is that when translating, we are seeking to express a picture and idea that is already set by the original text, so we have less room to change our minds in the middle of writing – we can’t just say, “this character [or word or phrase or image or relationship or connotation] isn’t working; I’ll take her [or him or they or it] a different direction.” Instead, we have to consider why it isn’t working and find a way to make it work. And the other difference is that we have to keep in mind the nuances of two different language systems and cultures.
This is why questions like the one I discussed in a recent article feel so odd to me when discussing translation. Questioning why this word is used to translate that word in one instant but not in a later instant is treating translation like an algebra problem, putting each language on one side of the equal sign and trying to ensure that when x appears on one side, it’s canceled out with an equivalent word on the other side. But language doesn’t work that way – especially not literary language.
SUSIE:
When you first told me about the incident you speak about in that article, my reaction was almost visceral! Questions like that come from a place of fundamental misunderstanding. The equivalent for me as an editor, I suppose, is when people assume that the job simply involves correcting typos. That's an element of it, of course, but it's by no means the heart and soul of the work.
SHELLY:
Definitely! Editing involves so much more than that. I look forward to talking more about it next month. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here. It’s been fun!
SUSIE:
Thanks for another great discussion! I look forward to chatting again soon.
Born in the northwest of England in 1981, Susie Gordon is a Liverpool-based editor and writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Living in China between 2008 and 2016, she wrote and edited for many of Shanghai’s English language magazines, as well as for international publications such as Virgin Media, Condé Nast, Executive Travel, and the BBC. As a literary editor she has worked on the English translation of S. P. Tao’s memoir, as well as Fan Wen’s ‘Land of Mercy’ for Rinchen Books.
In 2016 she co-founded Literary Shanghai – a publishing and events company specialising in Chinese literature in translation as well as original work in English. She is currently the commissioning editor of Literary Shanghai’s international journal Alluvium.
Her short fiction has appeared in the Singaporean journals Eunoia Review and Junoesq, and in HAL Publishing’s two anthologies Party Like It’s 1984 (2010) and Middle Kingdom Underground (2011). Her non-fiction essay Empty From the Outside was published in Unsavory Elements (Earnshaw Books, 2013), sparking considerable press interest in China and beyond. In 2016 her short story Claire was selected for publication in Epigram Books’ Best Singaporean Short Stories: Volume 3.
Her first poetry collection, Peckham Blue, was published in London by Penned in the Margins in 2006, and her second collection, Harbouring, came out in 2015 under Math Paper Press in Singapore. Her poetry has appeared in the May Anthologies 10th Anniversary edition (2003), Unshod Quills (2011), and United Verses (2014), and her 2005 poem On Raymond’s Bike has been translated into Hungarian by the poet Kőrizs Imre.
Susie holds a BA in English (2003) from St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, and an MRes in Chinese Studies from the University of Liverpool (2016 – 2017), where she is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, researching the persistent appeal of the “China exotic” in contemporary English fiction.
Her upcoming course with Tender Leaves, entitled Editing Literary Translations, includes 6 video modules (audio and written transcripts available), a suggested reading list, and 1-month paid access to all content at A Polite Lie.
You can find more courses on Literary Translation here.