Music translated?

Music is abstract. Music is emotional. Music is divine. Music is a lot of things. But is it translatable?

Concerts are an uncomparable experience. They can touch us deeply. Or make us jump with joy. Carry us away. Or just let us enter a completely different world. The world looks different when you are listening to music. Colours become brighter. Rain becomes romantic. Trees become living creatures. Now imagine you do not live in the world of the hearing. And there is no sound at all. Interpreters for the deaf community until now were only making a sign for „Music is being played“, which not even partly delivers the content music has. The hearing world is only recently becoming aware of the huge gap the lack of music causes in the world of experiences of people with hearing loss.

There is a group of sign language interpreters who are working on translations of music for the deaf community. The deaf community comprises a very diverse group of people who have a wide range of residual hearing frequencies from 125 hz up to 8,000 hz. Thus, some can only hear very low tones like base, others can hear high notes like in singing. For the rhythm, hard of hearing people can feel the beats in the vibration of the floor. That’s how deaf dancing groups manage to be unbelievably synchronized with the music they are dancing to.

But how to reproduce the whole musical experience for the deaf community? The first and probably most important question is: what does music consist of? What provokes these strong emotions we have, when we hear it?

First of all, the rhythm of the music moves us. We can feel it with our body and it defines the mood of a musical piece. As stated earlier, if there are strong beats, the hard of hearing people will be able to feel the rhythm. But sometimes, the rhythm lies in the melody played by, let’s say, violins. In that case it’s necessary for the interpreter to „feel“ the music and not only indicate the „form“ of the melody in his gestures, for example with wave-like movements, but also indicate the length of the tones. If a singer holds a tone for half a minute with a crescendo (becoming louder) and a sudden break, the intensity of the moment will not be delivered in simply making one short movement for a long tone. With his whole body posture and tension in the movements, the interpreter must replicate the character of the tone.

Another aspect, if we are dealing with a song, is the text. The text is represented with sign language. Songs often include puns, which can be represented with a combination of more than one sign in one movement.

The height of tone is also one of the aspects of music that can provoke goosebumps. This is an aspect that can be presented well with facial expressions. With guitar sounds, for example, we tend to contract facial muscles when miming high notes. Heavy, low tones, are rather symbolized with blown-up cheeks.

The challenge for the interpreter when „translating“ music for the world of the people with hearing loss, is to „act out“ music, to feel it with the whole body and mind and reflect its impact. Also, ideas are expressed completely differently in sign language than in our spoken/written languages. For example the phrase „Hungry like a wolf“ expressed in sign language would not have the meaning intended in the song. For a music interpreter for the deaf community it is, thus, crucial to prepare the translation of the words in advance of a concert.

One of the most popular interpreters for the deaf community is Amber Galloway Gallego, who has interpreted concerts for popular names like Kendrick Lamar and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Interpreters like her drew a lot of attention to interpretation for the deaf community and made it a popular issue. Nevertheless, there are interpreters that are deaf themselves and believe that there are disadvantages of the „popularization“ of the issue as well. Increasingly, hearing interpreters are hired for music translation. In the eyes of Shawn Vriezen, who suffers from severe hearing loss himself, the bridge built between the hearing world and the deaf community can never be as strong if the bridge builder is from the other side.

Whether hearing or deaf, it is – as with so many other things – the presence of the interpreter that enables or disables the delivery of a musical experience from the world of tones to the world of silence. If he does not involve his whole being in the process, if he misses out on details like intensity and length of a tone (e.g. legato, smooth and connected, and staccato, short tones) or the change of rhythm and character in the music, the gates of the enchanting world of music will remain closed for the non-hearing individual.

The Dangers of Translation

Translating is often seen as an intuitive profession – you simply know two languages well, so what’s the big deal about transferring one to the other? It’s a very big deal. Not only on a linguistic, but on a personal and interpersonal level as well.

“You are studying English? But why, you already know the language, don’t you?” This was one of the most frequent comments on my studies of English language and literature. It seems to be a common thought that studying a language is merely the acquisition of its vocabulary and grammar and then the act of speaking and writing it. Well, it’s not. There is such a variety of concepts, contexts, backgrounds to be considered in order to really understand a language and its structure. It’s not only linguistic forms, it’s the whole mindset and the way we structure our thinking that build the language.

According to that, translation is, or should be, a complex process including a lot of consideration and background knowledge. There are many who call themselves translators just because they know two languages. They completed the B2-level of a language course at a language school and take on the “easy texts”. Truth is, there are no easy texts. Even the easiest text requires a certain level of understanding of the context, of the idioms and metaphors in the target language and the mindset of the audience. Otherwise, we get the advice to “please not die here” in a launderette. Or we admire the “cream milk with coconut humans” on the menu of a restaurant.

Except of the underestimation of the required background knowledge for translation, the responsibility involved in a translation job is often underestimated. Of course, there is a gradation in the weight of responsibility – a mistake in a menu will probably not hurt anyone (except they have an allergy and didn’t recognize the ingredient). A mistake in legal translation on the other hand, can have far-reaching consequences. A candidate for a job position in a foreign country who had his title translated in the wrong way, for example, might be turned down just because of that “little mistake”. One wrongly placed word can change the implications of a contract. Not to mention wrongly copied numbers in official documents, that might double a selling amount, raise the age of an applicant or reduce grade averages.

One deterrent example of the consequences of a wrong translation is the case of Dolet, a translator in the 16th century. He added only three words in his translation of Plato’s words that were not present in the original text – “rien du tout”, what meant that after death there was “absolutely nothing”. This questioned the immortality of the soul and he was executed for heresy (Stolze 2011). Of course, this is something that could not happen today, but still, the translator can loose a huge amount of money and his reputation, if a mistake in the translation has serious consequences for the client and, at least it should be like that, it will burden his conscience.

Today, interpreters frequently tend to behave like a third conversational partner instead of simply bringing across the messages. It has been pointed out by researchers that in official hearings, where absolute accuracy is of crucial importance, translators happen to leave out words that they don’t deem important or slightly change the tone of the message. Similarly, conversations in the field of social service can be influenced and messages can be distorted by a translator that follows a principle of liberty in his translation. 

In the business world, a flawed translation might lead to the miscommunication between a company and its clients, through which customers cannot be converted to loyal customers. In this case, the company makes losses. A famous example is the Parker Pen advert, which was supposed to mean “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. The translation said “You will not get pregnant while losing ink in your pocket”. Not exactly a catchy and attractive slogan.

The reason why untrained translators are so successful, lies partly in the attitude of the clients. They, as well as the translators, are not aware of the consequences a bad translation might have on their business. And, even before that, they are not aware that a person knowing both languages might not be able to translate a text correctly, including all connotations and implications, tone and meaning.

Another aspect of the required depth and sensitiveness in translation are interpersonal relationships. Whether translating a book or an article, the contact with and understanding of the personality of the author plays a crucial role in the translation process. It is important to be aware of an author’s or a speakers personal mindset as well in order to grasp all tiny nuances of the delivered messages. If the communication between author and translator becomes very intense, it can even happen that bonds are created that carry far beyond the translation process. A translator from Equatorial Guinea, for example, became the close confidante to his author, when the author himself was in danger (Soutar 2014).

Considering all the pitfalls and consequences translation bears, it seems to be a pretty serious issue. After all, language is not just “language”. Fundamental knowledge is necessary in order to avoid getting “lost in translation”.

References:

Soutar, J. (2014). Translating the dangers faced by an author under threat. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/27/translating-dangers-author-under-threat

Stolze, R. (2011). Übersetzungstheorien. Tübingen: Narr Verlag.

Translating Identity?

The main purpose of language, the one that is obvious constantly, on every single day of our lives, is communication. With different nations, with different people – well, and some would probably add the communication with themselves (sometimes quite an underestimated branch). While we, as translators, do our best to enable communication among cultures and to decipher produced texts and speeches for the ones who do not know the source language, how much of "identity" are we translating? Or maybe not even translating, but taking away, adding and changing?

Language can unite people and it can divide people. This is the case not only due to different vocabularies and ways of expressing our thoughts, but it can also be the purposeful and conscious emphasis of one’s identity or distinctiveness from others through language.

According to Joanna Thornborrow there are four kinds of identity:

• Master identities (stable and unchanging: gender, ethnicity, age, …)
• Interactional identities (roles taken on in communicational contexts with specific other people)
• Personal identities (characteristic ways of behaviour: hotheaded, honest, forthright,…)
• Relational identities (kind of relationship enacted with a particular conversational partner or in a specific situation)

If we now take a closer look, all of these identities produce a different use of language, as well as we can knowingly choose a use of language that is incongruent with our identity in order to hide our true self.

Imagine a middle-aged average citizen from central Europe. He is shy and not very sociable. His parents taught him to speak in a noble manner, never curse and always speak politely and in a calm, firm tone. In a new surrounding, he decides to start his life all over again. And he begins to use a language full of the newest expressions, swearwords, and to speak his mind – no matter what the sound of that might be. And – just to be a bit more exotic, he adds an African accent. He might still wear his woolen pullover with a red-nosed reindeer, but probably you would rather think his clothes to be a disguise than his language. So, if you are translating – be it a text or a spoken word – where is the dictionary that gives you a sense of that identity, of the true image you should be delivering? Usually we have our routine vocabularies, words and phrases we use with our own identity in our own life. As a translator there are situations, in which we need to have a certain degree of the ability to put ourselves in the position of someone else – be it a function, a character in a play, or a real person. For interpreters that might sometimes even come close to acting – using a language and ways of behavior we usually do not, and maybe even cannot, identify with.

What can a translator mess up if he or she does not possess the necessary sensitivity for the nuances of human behavior and, thus, language? Certainly, the character in a book or film can become a completely different person – maybe even loose its purpose – if the language use is changed. If Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" would speak standard language, or make only slightly less mistakes in grammar and pronunciation, the whole story would loose its purpose and wit. Mr. Higgins would not even have to be in it. The identity of characters, thus, is a huge aspect of language use and its translation. 

The correct delivery of the identity of a speaker mirrored in his/her language use is an important factor in business meetings as well. A business man speaking in a highly elevated language emphasizing his elevated position cannot be taken as serious when his speech is translated with simple and uni-dimensional expressions. That is, his intended image of an appreciated intellectual will not be as clear if the translation misses out aspects of identity. An uneducated person at a court trial, on the other hand, might get a different treatment and the case might be considered differently than if an elevated, or at least very correct and precise language would be used.

After all, the question is whether a translator should have his own translating identity or whether he should be translating identity. Should translators pick one type of language use he always goes for, or should he be able to change his/her own language use in dependency of the identity of the speaker/character? 

Translators need to be flexible speakers. Whichever language use they are translating, they need to assume part of the identity in question and to stick to it throughout their translation. Doing a bit of research on the different types of language use is very valuable. Sometimes it might even cost quite an effort to withhold one’s own identity during the translation process. 

But in the end this is one of the fascinating aspects of translating. In no other professional field you get the chance to dip into so many different areas of life, circumstances people find themselves in and ways of interaction than you do when observing others to translate their language – their identity.

Why and how

As I am increasingly diving into translation and its challenges and pleasures, I felt the urge to note down my thoughts on the issues I come across almost every day. The immense variety of fields and registers, the artistic aspects in literary translation, the responsibility involved in some translation jobs...all that seems like a boundless room for considerations, new findings, playing around with thoughts and discussions. I don´t like to beat about the bush, so I will leave it at that for now. Cheers to translators and all the ones interested in translation and language :)

Robots, translation and metaphor

We are living in times of constant change and mechanization of every possible area of life. Books are replaced by Kindles, organs by 3D-prints, vacuum cleaners by robots and cashiers by automatic cash desks. Do translators need to worry?

Recently, I had a conversation with a professor dealing with Artificial Intelligence that I cannot get off my mind. It was certainly a queer encounter – a young Jane-Austen admirer adoring letters and old books that make you sneeze of dust when you approach them and an elderly professor adoring Artificial Intelligence and everything it provides humanity with. What began as a superficial pro- and con-discussion, quickly evolved into a consideration of the aspects of language that make it truly human and that might be irreplaceable by any machine.

Machines have a seemingly unlimited capacity to learn new words, phrases and even whole contexts. In the near future, there will be robots teaching classes, nursing seniors and conducting consultations. But will there be robots completely replacing translators? I bet not. I bet not, because I want to believe in a human language that is resistant to technological progress. Facebook, Twitter and chat rooms actually lead to an approximation of our everyday language to a language that might be used by machines without larger barriers. Nevertheless, even though we are breaking down language to a minimum through these ways of communicating, we are still using aspects of language that, I believe, a machine can never be able to recognize. 

There is at least one prominent stylistic device that might be truly resistant to mechanization: metaphor. A metaphor is the transfer of characteristics of one area of reality to another. When we use metaphors like "He rolled the dice" (in the sense of "take a chance"), we are giving away a lot of additional information about our mental structure, about our culture and our attitude. This metaphor would not be used in a culture where gambling is forbidden, it could be meant ironically and in some contexts it might as well be a literal statement. Well, one could say that one day machines will have such a huge pool of contexts, cultural information and nuances of meaning at hand that they will pick the right meanings for common metaphorical expressions and idioms. One thing that might still remain impossible for machines to grasp are creative metaphors. Imagine a conversation between a robot and a human:

"My dog really has a hard time deciding whether to destroy the pillow or the ball."

"H-e w-i-l-l m-a-k-e u-p h-i-s m-i-n-d."

"Well, on the one paw he really hates that pillow and the flowers on it. On the other paw, the ball should be stopped from rolling away from him."

"---"

A robot cannot recognize the transfer of the phrase "on the one hand…on the other hand" to the animal world and will not be able to make any sense of what he heard. A human being would probably answer with another humorous comment, or at least understand what was said. And there is another aspect that would be lost through robot communication – humor. How should a machine understand irony and comments that are not literal and how should a machine even produce something like that? And further, what would a life without humor and unpredictable conversations be?

Humor, irony, metaphor – all these non-literal uses of language are tools for expressing human emotions and attitudes. A robot can be programmed to sort and recognize these, but he can never truly understand and reenact them. In order to translate texts and utterances, every nuance and facet of the background of the message must be understood and felt. Even human translators are good translators only if they have a sense of style and fine-grained differences and if they are acquainted with the culture of the speaker/writer. 

Culture-specific concepts are, even among human interlocutors, a very sensitive issue. Some are universal – happiness is in all cultures seen as an upwards movement. When it comes to the center of emotion in our body, things look different. In the Iranian culture, the liver is the seat of emotion – we don’t "fall in love" and feel this in our heart, rather we "fall liver onto someone". A machine would, thus, need to be able to 1. recognize the culture the interlocutor comes from and 2. know all cultural concepts manifested in the language.

Besides that, there are plays and literary pieces to be translated, including names and sceneries that need to be adapted to the target culture. A machine cannot have the sensitivity for finding the adequate equivalents to these expressions in a target language. 

All in all, it seems impossible to replace human translators. If they do not implant a real brain in a robot and a heart (or a liver) for the reception of emotional waves, it will never be possible for machines to fully replace a human language specialist. It seems as if some aspects of humanity will just stay human.