12/2 Ryu

 I found it fascinating to dive into the intricacies of translating Japanese into English, particularly the challenges posed by wordplay, sound effects, and cultural nuances. The chapter highlighted how Japanese puns, often considered sophisticated humor, don’t always resonate the same way in English. For example, the phrase 犬小屋は犬が寝るところだからケンネルというんだよ is clever in Japanese because of the linguistic play between kennel and doghouse. However, this humor is difficult to replicate in English, requiring the translator to either create a new pun or convey the humor differently. This shows how translation isn’t just about accuracy but also about capturing the essence and intent of the original text.

Another point that struck me was the discussion on mimetics, those expressive Japanese words that mimic sounds or actions, like ぽろぽろ for something gently falling. These are challenging to translate because English often lacks direct equivalents. Translators must find creative ways to express the same feeling, whether through descriptive phrases, strong verbs, or inventing new expressions. It made me realize how much cultural and linguistic richness can be packed into just a few syllables and how vital a translator’s creativity is in bringing that to life for a new audience. This process feels less like a mechanical task and more like crafting an entirely new piece of art.

12/2 Reflection - Ellerie Ross

 The article about the psychology of language was very interesting to me as a linguistics major. I had heard in the past about the this theory and about how language shapes the way that you think about the world. I think this is true even with second languages to a certain extent even, when the speaker is in an environment where they are consistently expected to speak in their second language. For me, the issue that I run into the most when speaking Japanese has always been the degrees of politeness that are a large part of the language. For native speakers, they have an almost instinctual understanding of who they are speaking to, how that person stands in relation to their own position, and what social standing their conversation partner holds. For someone learning Japanese, they don't have this instant knowledge of all those things, which makes it difficult for learners to understand when polite speech is necessary, and to what degree. 

This concept is especially important while translating, because the author expects the reader to have the instinctual knowledge associated with the original language while reading. For example, for the Guugu Yimithirr language mentioned in the article, the author might expect the reader to have a knowledge of where the cardinal directions are and where the characters stand in a cardinal plane. This can be confusing for readers who don't have this kind of knowledge. That leads to the question of what a translator should do in that position. This brings into the equation the concepts outlined in the other article written by Schleiermacher. Should they translate directly, leaving the cardinal directions in order to show the original thoughts of the author, or should they change them into egocentric directions instead? In most cases, people would change the directions into egocentric directions because that would be easier to understand for non-native speakers. But in the case of a conversation using the Japanese keigo style, is it better to keep it or discard it? I feel like the conversation gets more difficult here. 

In both cases, with cardinal directions and polite speech, they exist in languages like English. The problem is that they are not used in the same way as Guugu Yimithirr or Japanese. In the first case, it's easy to change the author's words to be more clear, but in the second case, there would be more discussion about whether or not to keep the polite language. I think this brings up an interesting topic of where the line is for a concept to be too complicated or confusing to translate, and keeping the spirit of the original text.

12/2 Comments - Samantha Makishima

 The readings this week are very interesting when read in tandem with each other. Schleiermacher talks about moving the reader toward the author as opposed to moving the author toward the reader as the two routes available during translation. This makes sense in the context of the Deustcher piece as different languages are "obliged" to use different wording to communicate the same idea. For example, the tendency to use になる/to become in Japanese that is not necessary when translating that information into English. I feel as though when discussing which approach might be the most appropriate its important for the translator to understand the context of the text, as in who would be the target audience for the translated text be? I feel that in the context of a literary piece sometimes bringing the translation closer to the readers is more natural and more reasonable, considering the target audience would likely not be expecting anything other than 'natural' English for example. But if we were to change the context to something like the translation of a manga or light novel intended for the sort of Western "otaku" then I think that retaining the Japanese honorifics and the like much more reasonable, as the audience would likely already be expecting it to some extent.

I feel that Deustcher's article highlights what makes learning other languages difficult, because languages have different habits and often the habits of the native language end up translating awkwardly to the habits of the non-native language. It also explains why the spatial markers like あ、そ、こ are so difficult for non-native speakers to naturally use correctly, not because we don't understand the concept themselves but because certain distinctions between their use verse the use of spatial markers in our native language do not like up. Something I was reflecting on recently was the impact of particles on connotation and emphasis in Japanese, which I feel that as a learner of the language I was not totally cognisant of and therefore didn't pay much attention to beyond what I felt was necessary, when in fact the particles do carry a lot of nuance.

Schleiermacher and Deutscher Readings- Carly

Both the Schleiermacher and Deutscher readings made me reflect on the complexity of truly understanding another language and how it influences translation. Showing understanding in a language is not just about finding a one-to-one match for words or phrases, but being able to bring out the cultural nuances that are behind the words. Schleiermacher mentioned the idea of, "Bringing the Author to the Reader vs. Bringing the Reader to the Author." I feel like either approach requires the translator to understand the context of the original text to be able to adapt it into another language. For example, a translator could choose to include a word like "Senpai" in their translation to show hierarchy, which would be fine. On the other hand, a translator who chooses to "Bring the Author to the Reader," would still have to have an understanding of this Japanese expression of social standing. Then, they would also have to know how to make it apparent to the reader without including this word that only people familiar with Japanese culture would understand. It made me think about whether you choose one method over the other, you must still have a strong understanding of not only just the language, but also the cultural nuances that influence the language you are doing a translation of. 

The Deutscher reading expanded upon this when explaining the concept of "Masculine" vs "Feminine" words in languages like Spanish and French. A French speaker might describe a fork (la fourchette) as slender/elegant, while a Spanish speaker sees it as sturdy (el tenedor). Translating between these languages involves more than just finding the right words, but it would also involve translating the perspectives of the speakers of those languages. 

Another part of the Deutscher reading that I found interesting was whether the features that are in your native language determines what you will be able to understand in another. Although we know that this is not exactly true, it still made me wonder if language learners will ever be able to come close to the innate sense that native speakers have. Is it something that you are able to have intuition for over time, or will it always be a little off.   

12/2 reading - Rachel

 Although the Schleiermacher's article was challenging to read, the concept of moving the reader towards the translator or moving the author towards the translator is interesting. It's something that we often discuss in class of whether to keep the tone of the original text consistent with the translated work or to reapply the cultural context into the translated language's culture. Though he is comparing German and Latin, it is definitely applicable, if not even more challenging when translating between English and Japanese since the grammar structure, culture, history, etc. are completely different. It is often a struggle of which approach to take, but through our translation exercises and discussions in class, I personally am often gravitating towards adapting the context towards the culture and language of the target audience. For example, for my final project, there are a lot of Japanese-specific lingo and cultural references. Although I considered keeping it and simply translating it with more description, I found that substituting it with an English or American alternative works better in maintaining the humor and liveliness to the text. I think this is what Schleiermacher means when he says it is important for the translator to not only understand the language but also the history and culture behind the words they are translating. However, I do understand the author's concern for the second approach's risk of the original nuances getting lost in translation. 

In Deutscher's article, I liked how he described how people's mother tongue habitually obliges us to think about certain factors rather than allowing us to think. Learning French as my third language, having gender as the core of sentence and grammatical structures was something very new to me as an English and Japanese speaker. Similar to how Mark Twain described the gender system of German, I too thought that it was absurd that every object is seen as a man or a woman. As someone that isn't fluent in a language with a gender system, I thought the example of the German v. Spanish attitudes towards certain objects that have reversed genders was funny. Also,  I didn't know the existence of Guugu Yimithirr-style languages that use cardinal directions. I can't imagine using cardinal directions to describe space, especially since I'm so directionally challenged to the point where even Google Maps is challenging for me.

12/2 Reading - Sora

 Schleiermacher’s article was hard to understand, however I personally found the whole concepts of Moving the Author Toward the Reader, and Moving the Reader Toward the Author very interesting. I feel like these concepts were often talked about during class, on whether the translator should adapt the text to make it more culturally understandable to the readers, or preserve the original culture. And I also felt like this text emphasized on the topic of the translator understanding the language, history, and culture that they are translating like many of the other texts we read did.

In Deutscher’s text, I partially agree with his idea that the language we speak affects the way we think. I feel like this is similar to the theory that people who are multilingual have different personalities depending on the language they are speaking, or thinking in. I also found the paragraphs talking about gendered languages interesting, such as when they asked French and Spanish speakers to give a voice to a fork, and gave different voices based on which gender it is in those different languages. Making sense of how some people may view the world slightly differently depending on the language they speak.

12/2 reading comments (olivia)

The Schleirmacher reading was slightly challenging to read and I'm not sure if I understood all of it, but it seems like he focuses a lot on some ideas we have been facing in this class, such as finding the balance between preservation of the original and readability in the target language and translating cultural differences and nuances. He makes a good point highlighting that it is important to consider how much the reader might know about the culture of a country when translating to ensure that deeper nuances are properly conveyed. His thoughts about language being influenced by history were interesting to me. I haven't really thought about translators having to translate scientific works, but I can imagine how difficult it would be. I agree with his point that "just as language is a historical entity, so too is it impossible to appreciate it rightly without an appreciation of its history". I think this shows how translators have to be well rounded, knowing the language, history, culture, and the topic that they are translating. 

In the article by Deutscher, it was kind of strange that Whorf thought the language that you speak dictates the thoughts we can have or the concepts we can understand. I agree with Deutscher that this isn't true, but it is cool when you learn a really good way to describe a specific concept or feeling in a language that you're learning, so I would believe the languages we know restrict us in how accurately we can portray something in words. It is interesting to think about how certain languages reveal more than others, like how French or German would reveal the gender of a person, and in some languages like Japanese or Korean, you would be able to tell the difference in status between people having a conversation. It was also interesting to read about the experiments about seeing how genders on objects shape how people who speak certain languages feel about those objects.