All Nonfiction
- Bullying
- Books
- Academic
- Author Interviews
- Celebrity interviews
- College Articles
- College Essays
- Educator of the Year
- Heroes
- Interviews
- Memoir
- Personal Experience
- Sports
- Travel & Culture
All Opinions
- Bullying
- Current Events / Politics
- Discrimination
- Drugs / Alcohol / Smoking
- Entertainment / Celebrities
- Environment
- Love / Relationships
- Movies / Music / TV
- Pop Culture / Trends
- School / College
- Social Issues / Civics
- Spirituality / Religion
- Sports / Hobbies
All Hot Topics
- Bullying
- Community Service
- Environment
- Health
- Letters to the Editor
- Pride & Prejudice
- What Matters
- Back
Summer Guide
- Program Links
- Program Reviews
- Back
College Guide
- College Links
- College Reviews
- College Essays
- College Articles
- Back
Translation, or appropriation?
The ultimate goal of translation is to make readers think that they’re reading the original piece, right? Wrong.
Translating is one of human’s most powerful tools for overcoming differences. It bridges the barrier of language, but its implications lie far beyond simply converting words and characters. The meaning it carries encompasses the nuances and subtleties of entire cultures, worlds, and people. Thus, it can be problematic if we ignore the fundamental reason why translation matters in the first place: to overcome differences, all the while preserving them.
Translation is ethical just as it is technical. This is especially evident when traits particular to one group are replaced by terms more comfortable to the reader. Scholars even argue that it can be considered an act of xenophobic origin when traces of a particular culture is being overly erased through translation for the sake of familiarizing the text to readers.
Translation brings people out of our reach, alive and breathing, in front of us—and we, as readers, have the responsibility to at least look them in the eye, to create a conscious effort to recognize them as who they truly are: different.
Similar Articles
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
This article has 0 comments.
As a bilingual, I always try to consume the same piece of media in two languages when I can, just to spot the interesting nuances peeking out of the translated one. I wrote this after too many instances of finding them to be not just interesting, but problematic.