Lecture: Friday’s lecture with Jeremy Tiang was delightful as he is is quite an amusing speaker. Similarly to Allen, he emphasised the importance of the cultural context, with respect to time, of the work being translated. I felt like he really opened up the role of a translator being a communicator over time and languages when he mentioned culture specific humour and how it can be difficult to transfer that in another language. It goes to show that a deep understanding of a translated work lies in understanding the cultural context of the source text.
Readings: Something that really stood out to me while reading this week’s passages is how Tracy said that in order to translate the essence of Yi Lei’s poems, she had to stray from the vocabulary and the form of the original. This made me think about how translating a piece of literature extends more than being a word for word translation but rather adding or subtracting words in order to project the essence of the original piece with accuracy, which makes it so complex. On the lines of what Jeremy Tiang said last week, the act of putting the cultural context of the source into another language is at the crux of what makes an effective translator.
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