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.