There are certain advantages to having English as a second language (aside from the ever present point that no one has English as their first language). One of them is that you have access to a whole realm of non-English thoughts and traditions, and can escape into it from the goings-on of the international realm. When the going gets rough, the locals go local.
And, of course, you have a brutally efficient means of encryption at the ready at all times. Just don't bother to translate, och ditt budskap blir obegripligt utan att du behöver anstränga dig alls. Very handy, very convenient.
One counter-intuitive advantage of belonging to a non-English language area is that books are translated into your language. To be sure, given sufficient fluency, it doesn't matter one way or the other whether a certain text is translated or not. It's still the same text, after all. Except for one subtle difference: the introductions.
It takes time and effort to translate a text, even if you are only mechanically flipping the words from one language to another. It takes even more time and effort to translate a text in such a way that context, intent, nuance, references and allusions find their way across. Most of that extra effort takes the form of someone who knows the subject matter being paid for their labor, meaning that the decision to translate something is both a matter of wanting the text to be translated, and being able to justify the expense of doing it.
Now, Swedish is not a huge language on the world stage, as you might imagine. Even more so since most swedes know English anyway, and can just as easily pick up the original version for the same reading experience. The market of monolingual swedes is not large enough to support just-because translations. Which actualizes the justification of expense mentioned above: why do the work if it's all the same?
The Swedish answer has been to establish a long tradition of writing introductions to translated works. Long and comprehensive introductions, which touch upon most of the things a reader might or ought to know before heading into the text proper. When reading a translated work, you do not only get the work in and of itself - you also get yourself a proper grounding as to what kind of work lies before you. You are, for all intents and purposes, introduced. More so than those who read the original, untranslated work.
This is what marketing people call a selling point.
It is also something that those of you who are monolingual will never find out unless someone tells you about it. So, thus. See a need, fill a need. -
Showing posts with label lokalspeek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lokalspeek. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Friday, February 6, 2015
Disjointed paratextualities
As you might have noticed, I'm sometimes translating old encrypted posts from the past. By 'encrypted' I mean Swedish, and by 'old' I mean anything from posted years ago to something posted last week.
You can find all the translated posts here.
As you will soon notice, should you click this finely crafted hyperlink, there's really no rhyme or reason to which posts gets translated. The selection process, to the best of my knowledge, is something approaching pure randomness. (Should you see a pattern, PLEASE TELL ME.)
Most of the time, it goes something like this: I remember something exists, look it up and set out to translate it. A short, sharp shock of reshaping languaging, as it were.
One translation in particular turned out to be more interesting while under translation than afterwards. This one.
Go ahead. Read it. This is text - it will patiently wait for you to complete your intertextual adventures.
A first point of interest is that it's a response to a particular discourse at a particular time. This being that unemployed Swedes are being subjected to ever greater demands from unemployment agencies to search ever more jobs, seemingly without any regard to as to they can actually get these or not. They are encouraged to show initiative, which the post harps on: don't settle for less than the very top!
The situation has gotten so out of hand that employers routinely get job applications in the hundreds, which has led some to not post new job offerings with the employment agency. Instead of DDoSing these people, why not go for someone who might actually get the message?
(The introduction, beginning with "it's summer", is also a result of the time of writing: the original was posted on June 24, the translation on December 6. It jars somewhat, but there you have it.)
A second point is that the language in and of itself acts as a marker for this particularity. I think you won't be surprised to learn that Swedish doesn't have the largest language area in the world. It is in fact so small that things can be referred to in general terms, without context or understanding being lost. Saying 'the government' or 'the head of government' connotes the government and prime minister of Sweden, by virtue of these being the default connotations. Unless stated otherwise, there's only one government it could refer to. Without context, context is given.
(You could argue that those speaking Swedish in Finland might object to this. The same goes for them, however, mutatis mutandis: 'the government' is the government of Finland, and there's seldom any confusion on this point. Even less so with regards to their president, who is very much not the prime minister.)
It goes without saying that this does not work in English, especially considering that I (the author function) am not in a loci where context is given. 'Government' could connote any number of governments, and without context it is unclear as to which or where. Is it the US, the UK, somewhere in the Commonwealth, somewhere else? It's un(der)defined, up to the reader to define for themselves. It has to be for the text to work - an imperative to apply for the position as head of the Swedish government is nonsensical.
Moreover, the titular "head of government" is a translation into abstraction. In Swedish, you can get away with saying "sök jobbet som statsminister". That's four words instead of eight, the context being that there is only one primal ministerial position. Other countries and other contexts don't have this certainty, though, and moreover, they might not even have prime ministers - they might have kings, presidents, chairmen, viceroys or whatever. A translation that wants to make sense must take this into account, and universalize this particularity. Find a category above any particular category.
A third point is that many of the intertextual jibs and gabs that are apparent in the original aren't in the translation. This again goes with the language: if you live in the area, you've absorbed the local debate through a process of osmosis, willy-nilly. If you don't, you haven't, and the text stands alone. Rich web of cultural narratives and literary references nonwithstanding.
A fourth point is that I imagine this text working far better in the UK than in the US. This might be my personal bias, having heard the horror stories of the DWP and their jobcentres. This goes back on things being "the" thing, with the UK being small enough to have a department for work and pensions. The US, being bigger, has not just one, but fifty plus. The parallels between Swedish and British horror stories ought to resonate. The US situation - I wouldn't even hazard a guess.
There's something about having a singular slightly dysfunctional government entity nondoing its designated thing. It's reassuringly European.
These are the things I think about when translating things. Things that do not make it into the translations, or into any text. So I thought - hey, why not translate some of these excess thoughts into something useful?
Paratext for the paratext god.
You can find all the translated posts here.
As you will soon notice, should you click this finely crafted hyperlink, there's really no rhyme or reason to which posts gets translated. The selection process, to the best of my knowledge, is something approaching pure randomness. (Should you see a pattern, PLEASE TELL ME.)
Most of the time, it goes something like this: I remember something exists, look it up and set out to translate it. A short, sharp shock of reshaping languaging, as it were.
One translation in particular turned out to be more interesting while under translation than afterwards. This one.
Go ahead. Read it. This is text - it will patiently wait for you to complete your intertextual adventures.
A first point of interest is that it's a response to a particular discourse at a particular time. This being that unemployed Swedes are being subjected to ever greater demands from unemployment agencies to search ever more jobs, seemingly without any regard to as to they can actually get these or not. They are encouraged to show initiative, which the post harps on: don't settle for less than the very top!
The situation has gotten so out of hand that employers routinely get job applications in the hundreds, which has led some to not post new job offerings with the employment agency. Instead of DDoSing these people, why not go for someone who might actually get the message?
(The introduction, beginning with "it's summer", is also a result of the time of writing: the original was posted on June 24, the translation on December 6. It jars somewhat, but there you have it.)
A second point is that the language in and of itself acts as a marker for this particularity. I think you won't be surprised to learn that Swedish doesn't have the largest language area in the world. It is in fact so small that things can be referred to in general terms, without context or understanding being lost. Saying 'the government' or 'the head of government' connotes the government and prime minister of Sweden, by virtue of these being the default connotations. Unless stated otherwise, there's only one government it could refer to. Without context, context is given.
(You could argue that those speaking Swedish in Finland might object to this. The same goes for them, however, mutatis mutandis: 'the government' is the government of Finland, and there's seldom any confusion on this point. Even less so with regards to their president, who is very much not the prime minister.)
It goes without saying that this does not work in English, especially considering that I (the author function) am not in a loci where context is given. 'Government' could connote any number of governments, and without context it is unclear as to which or where. Is it the US, the UK, somewhere in the Commonwealth, somewhere else? It's un(der)defined, up to the reader to define for themselves. It has to be for the text to work - an imperative to apply for the position as head of the Swedish government is nonsensical.
Moreover, the titular "head of government" is a translation into abstraction. In Swedish, you can get away with saying "sök jobbet som statsminister". That's four words instead of eight, the context being that there is only one primal ministerial position. Other countries and other contexts don't have this certainty, though, and moreover, they might not even have prime ministers - they might have kings, presidents, chairmen, viceroys or whatever. A translation that wants to make sense must take this into account, and universalize this particularity. Find a category above any particular category.
A third point is that many of the intertextual jibs and gabs that are apparent in the original aren't in the translation. This again goes with the language: if you live in the area, you've absorbed the local debate through a process of osmosis, willy-nilly. If you don't, you haven't, and the text stands alone. Rich web of cultural narratives and literary references nonwithstanding.
A fourth point is that I imagine this text working far better in the UK than in the US. This might be my personal bias, having heard the horror stories of the DWP and their jobcentres. This goes back on things being "the" thing, with the UK being small enough to have a department for work and pensions. The US, being bigger, has not just one, but fifty plus. The parallels between Swedish and British horror stories ought to resonate. The US situation - I wouldn't even hazard a guess.
There's something about having a singular slightly dysfunctional government entity nondoing its designated thing. It's reassuringly European.
These are the things I think about when translating things. Things that do not make it into the translations, or into any text. So I thought - hey, why not translate some of these excess thoughts into something useful?
Paratext for the paratext god.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Unsubtle subtleties
A culture clash happened.
Such things happen all the time, mind, but by saying that a particular one happened, I give myself permission to talk about a particular one. Because general things always take place in the particular.
So. Culture clash. Swedes are, by comparative standards, brutally informal when it comes to the use of titles. When referring to someone, the word 'you' or their name is usually both sufficient and appropriate. The one exception being - as always - the king and members of the royal family. Everyone else, except when put on trial or mocked in some way, will have to settle for a you or a name.
But, as it happens, a professor from Canada was teaching at a local university. The students, not used to formalities yet still wanting to go the extra distance to make the professor feel at home, acted on the general principle that a title was more formal than no title.
They called her "miss".
As you might imagine, this did not go as well as their intentions would suggest. There is a non-subtle difference between 'miss' and 'professor' in the English language, after all, and such things matter.
If you know about them.
Fortunately, for everyone involved, the professor understood what the students were trying to do, and took it as an opportunity to reflect upon the cultural differences between here and there. And, to be sure, those students will never again not know the difference between miss, Mrs, doctor, professor and a simple 'you'.
Long live the professor. But may the king live forever.
Such things happen all the time, mind, but by saying that a particular one happened, I give myself permission to talk about a particular one. Because general things always take place in the particular.
So. Culture clash. Swedes are, by comparative standards, brutally informal when it comes to the use of titles. When referring to someone, the word 'you' or their name is usually both sufficient and appropriate. The one exception being - as always - the king and members of the royal family. Everyone else, except when put on trial or mocked in some way, will have to settle for a you or a name.
But, as it happens, a professor from Canada was teaching at a local university. The students, not used to formalities yet still wanting to go the extra distance to make the professor feel at home, acted on the general principle that a title was more formal than no title.
They called her "miss".
As you might imagine, this did not go as well as their intentions would suggest. There is a non-subtle difference between 'miss' and 'professor' in the English language, after all, and such things matter.
If you know about them.
Fortunately, for everyone involved, the professor understood what the students were trying to do, and took it as an opportunity to reflect upon the cultural differences between here and there. And, to be sure, those students will never again not know the difference between miss, Mrs, doctor, professor and a simple 'you'.
Long live the professor. But may the king live forever.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
How do you translate authority?
You may or mat not have thought about it, but I have a category named "translations". As you might imagine, it contains things of a translated nature, written by the very translator that writes these very words.
I sure wrote a lot of things back in the days. As in, thousands of them.
Translating these things poses a quite interesting set of challenges. Not least among these are those relating to genre and context - how do you go about translating things that are part political pamphlets, part engaging in a very particular community of discourse, and part exploratory writings whose only motivation were the author's pleasure in spending time with a particular thought?
Needless to say, there are certain things lost in translations.
Another difficulty lies in the intertextual dimension. One text talks to, relies on and presumes familiarity with another, which in turn does the very same things to an other, and so on in a great chain of textual being. Which, in practical terms, means that you can't really just translate the one text and be done with it - you have to dig back in time to the one text that stands (or can be made to stand) on its own contextual feat (or feet), and then move forward from there. Until you reach the point where enough inter- has been suffixed to the text you initially wanted to translate.
There is an aspect of archeology and genealogy at work here.
Yet another difficulty lies in the notion of fidelity. Time has passed between the writing and the translating, after all. New things have been learned, new experiences had, and new patterns of writing adopted. The translator is (hopefully) always wiser than the author, and all those mistakes that were made at the time of writing are visible with the predictive clarity of hindsight. And there is the ever present temptation to learn from the past, correct the mistakes and improve upon the present.
As the author, I do profess to claim some authority of/on the text at hand. Changes were made. Fidelity be damned.
All this applies. And that without the added complexity of having to take into account the triple hermeneutics of translating something that is not of one's own writing.
The question is, indeed - how do you translate authority?
I sure wrote a lot of things back in the days. As in, thousands of them.
Translating these things poses a quite interesting set of challenges. Not least among these are those relating to genre and context - how do you go about translating things that are part political pamphlets, part engaging in a very particular community of discourse, and part exploratory writings whose only motivation were the author's pleasure in spending time with a particular thought?
Needless to say, there are certain things lost in translations.
Another difficulty lies in the intertextual dimension. One text talks to, relies on and presumes familiarity with another, which in turn does the very same things to an other, and so on in a great chain of textual being. Which, in practical terms, means that you can't really just translate the one text and be done with it - you have to dig back in time to the one text that stands (or can be made to stand) on its own contextual feat (or feet), and then move forward from there. Until you reach the point where enough inter- has been suffixed to the text you initially wanted to translate.
There is an aspect of archeology and genealogy at work here.
Yet another difficulty lies in the notion of fidelity. Time has passed between the writing and the translating, after all. New things have been learned, new experiences had, and new patterns of writing adopted. The translator is (hopefully) always wiser than the author, and all those mistakes that were made at the time of writing are visible with the predictive clarity of hindsight. And there is the ever present temptation to learn from the past, correct the mistakes and improve upon the present.
As the author, I do profess to claim some authority of/on the text at hand. Changes were made. Fidelity be damned.
All this applies. And that without the added complexity of having to take into account the triple hermeneutics of translating something that is not of one's own writing.
The question is, indeed - how do you translate authority?
Monday, July 30, 2012
Finding your own language
I just had the strangest linguistical sensation.
You see, my country has a very relaxed way of looking at the whole language thing. Where other countries go for the whole translating things before they are deemed suitable for public viewing, we just take the path of lesser resistance and let it be whatever language it happened to be when it was made.
Which means that movies are shown in English, French, Urdu or [language] on television or cinemas, and helpful subtitles are provided just in case.
Now, given that Sweden is a part of western Europe, most of the imported movies are in English (or, rather, American English). Which means that most kids are exposed to a flood of the English language just by existing in a television culture, and it happens that they learn the language before they learn to read those helpful subtitles.
Which also means that the translating of books will turn into a strange endeavor pretty soon. If the author writes in English, most will just read it in English rather than wait the months or years it takes to publish a translation. Which in turn might put pressure on the publishers to translate faster (i. e. sloppier), which in yet another turn just makes people think that translations are sloppy -
Anywho, sidenote aside. The point here is that exposure to the English language is a very natural part of everyday life.
But. The main, dominating and official language of the land is still Swedish, and that is the language everyone for the most part sticks to. (Even I, judging from how much more attention my Swedish blog is getting from me.) Yet the prevalence of the English language means that words, phrases and idioms are slowly migrating from the one to the other, and it is not uncommon to find that the languages merges in various ways. Such as someone knowing the English word for something, and not quite remembering the Swedish one. Or, in more technical or academic situations, that there just is no Swedish word for something.
You see how the question of language becomes rather complicated here. On the one hand, you get quite along by just knowing Swedish - it is, after all, the mother tongue. On the other hand, the ever increasing intermingling of Swedish and English means that you lose an ever increasing part of the subtext by not knowing English. One example of this is imported idioms that makes sense if you have heard them used in English before, but really doesn't work in a purely Swedish setting.
This, of course, has a whole range of interesting consequences. One of them is that local variations in the use of English occur, that by way of cultural context does not translate well into purely English settings. These variations may seem ever so natural to us locals, but are in fact just that - local.
My strange linguistical sensation, then, was that I for a moment found myself wondering if a particular thing was either a feature of the English language in a broader sense, or a more local variation. And in this moment of uncertainty, I started to wonder if I really understood these languages that I use every day. Of if I only had a very local, very new remix that seems to emerge bit by bit every day.
I'm not sure I'm going to be finished with this thought (or sensation) any time soon.
You see, my country has a very relaxed way of looking at the whole language thing. Where other countries go for the whole translating things before they are deemed suitable for public viewing, we just take the path of lesser resistance and let it be whatever language it happened to be when it was made.
Which means that movies are shown in English, French, Urdu or [language] on television or cinemas, and helpful subtitles are provided just in case.
Now, given that Sweden is a part of western Europe, most of the imported movies are in English (or, rather, American English). Which means that most kids are exposed to a flood of the English language just by existing in a television culture, and it happens that they learn the language before they learn to read those helpful subtitles.
Which also means that the translating of books will turn into a strange endeavor pretty soon. If the author writes in English, most will just read it in English rather than wait the months or years it takes to publish a translation. Which in turn might put pressure on the publishers to translate faster (i. e. sloppier), which in yet another turn just makes people think that translations are sloppy -
Anywho, sidenote aside. The point here is that exposure to the English language is a very natural part of everyday life.
But. The main, dominating and official language of the land is still Swedish, and that is the language everyone for the most part sticks to. (Even I, judging from how much more attention my Swedish blog is getting from me.) Yet the prevalence of the English language means that words, phrases and idioms are slowly migrating from the one to the other, and it is not uncommon to find that the languages merges in various ways. Such as someone knowing the English word for something, and not quite remembering the Swedish one. Or, in more technical or academic situations, that there just is no Swedish word for something.
You see how the question of language becomes rather complicated here. On the one hand, you get quite along by just knowing Swedish - it is, after all, the mother tongue. On the other hand, the ever increasing intermingling of Swedish and English means that you lose an ever increasing part of the subtext by not knowing English. One example of this is imported idioms that makes sense if you have heard them used in English before, but really doesn't work in a purely Swedish setting.
This, of course, has a whole range of interesting consequences. One of them is that local variations in the use of English occur, that by way of cultural context does not translate well into purely English settings. These variations may seem ever so natural to us locals, but are in fact just that - local.
My strange linguistical sensation, then, was that I for a moment found myself wondering if a particular thing was either a feature of the English language in a broader sense, or a more local variation. And in this moment of uncertainty, I started to wonder if I really understood these languages that I use every day. Of if I only had a very local, very new remix that seems to emerge bit by bit every day.
I'm not sure I'm going to be finished with this thought (or sensation) any time soon.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Lokalspeek
I've been asked about the significance of the word "lokalspeek". As you may have noticed, I use it instead of a more specific word whenever I speak of the mysterious language I claim to have written in before.
It could be, as some have suggested, an elaborate plot to avoid mentioning that most of my oeuvre is written in Swedish. But that would be rather pointless now, so that can't be it.
Rather, I'm trying to get a grip on a concept. A thingy. A phenomenon. And, more so, a shared one at that - something that isn't very particular to Swedish or any other specific language, yet still applies to many of the writers of the world who don't have English as their first language.
Lokalspeek is a language that, from the Anglophone point of view, is obscure, somewhat hard to determine with any degree of accuracy, and utterly incomprehensible. It makes all kinds of sense for the speaker, but for the rest of the world it's just a seemingly random combination of letters. Something the locals in faraway places speak because they don't speak English, and gotta speak something.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm a lokalspeaker myself, it would be a rather imperialistic concept.
Funny how that works.
Yet, it is present in every new post I write. Especially since I've gotten into the habit of being able to link back to my two thousand previously published posts and say - yep, covered it, don't have to do it again.
It is also quite humbling. Back to basics. Square one. Prove yourself, newcomer. Be who you think you are, in practice rather than theory.
Now, this cannot be a unique experience. People have migrated from a local setting to a more international one before, and I imagine that the experience is rather similar regardless of what particular lokalspeek you happen to migrate from. And thus, the need (or usefulness) of a word for it.
Thus, the significance for me lies more in practice than in theory at this stage. But I suspect that I will have plenty of reason to return to the more theoretical aspects of it, once I kick myself into shape by constant practice. -
It could be, as some have suggested, an elaborate plot to avoid mentioning that most of my oeuvre is written in Swedish. But that would be rather pointless now, so that can't be it.
Rather, I'm trying to get a grip on a concept. A thingy. A phenomenon. And, more so, a shared one at that - something that isn't very particular to Swedish or any other specific language, yet still applies to many of the writers of the world who don't have English as their first language.
Lokalspeek is a language that, from the Anglophone point of view, is obscure, somewhat hard to determine with any degree of accuracy, and utterly incomprehensible. It makes all kinds of sense for the speaker, but for the rest of the world it's just a seemingly random combination of letters. Something the locals in faraway places speak because they don't speak English, and gotta speak something.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm a lokalspeaker myself, it would be a rather imperialistic concept.
Funny how that works.
Yet, it is present in every new post I write. Especially since I've gotten into the habit of being able to link back to my two thousand previously published posts and say - yep, covered it, don't have to do it again.
It is also quite humbling. Back to basics. Square one. Prove yourself, newcomer. Be who you think you are, in practice rather than theory.
Now, this cannot be a unique experience. People have migrated from a local setting to a more international one before, and I imagine that the experience is rather similar regardless of what particular lokalspeek you happen to migrate from. And thus, the need (or usefulness) of a word for it.
Thus, the significance for me lies more in practice than in theory at this stage. But I suspect that I will have plenty of reason to return to the more theoretical aspects of it, once I kick myself into shape by constant practice. -
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