![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
douqiBack when I was still dipping my toes in the c-novel/c-ent translation scene, I was ambivalent about MTL, primarily on the basis of 'it's bad but at least it gives people access'. Having spent a couple of years in the scene, I am delighted to announce that my views have matured and that I am now firmly on the side of Just Say No to MTL, for the following reasons.
1. It inculcates very, very bad reading and writing habits. It trains people to accept incoherent word salad in place of clear, polished, competent prose. It drags people's standards and taste for prose writing (which, let's face it, is already hovering between the sixteenth and seventeenth levels of Chinese Hell) straight into a Stygian black hole. If no one knows what good work is, then good work will simply not be produced (or at least, be produced only by accident). This leads to the phenomenon known as Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
2. It devalues the craft of translation in itself. It teaches people (erroneously) that translation is a largely mechanical process rather than a series of considered artistic choices made with the aim of achieving a particular literary effect. This perception of translation as a mechanical, art-free exercise finds its way into popular thought, further negatively affecting both audiences' AND translators' perception of translation, leading once again to the phenomenon known as Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
3. It devalues the craft of translation economically. Publishing firms that would previously have felt compelled to put at least SOME investment and thought into commissioning competent translations have now realised that certain audiences will happily fork over obscene sums of money for barely-comprehensible word salad renderings of the works they claim to love. There is therefore no incentive at all — indeed, an actual DISincentive — for these publishers to invest in translations that meet an actual baseline of competency. This too, gives rise to the phenomenon of (surprise!) Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
4. The sense of access which MTL creates is largely illusory. You cannot be sure that the MTL is even conveying the basic MEANING of the work accurately, much less tone, style, implications and connotations, literary quotations and references, or anything approaching nuance.
5. It disrespects the work of the original creator. If you claim to love the work of a creator so much, why is it that you're happy reading an incomprehensible word salad rendering of it spat out by a machine, instead of demanding competent translations that realise the full promise of the work and present the work in its full glory?
What frustrates me is that I don't know what to DO about this. I already do as much fan translation as is permitted by me having (1) a life (2) a demanding day job and (3) a fallible human body. I'm also happy to edit and beta the work of other translators who share the same views about the value of translation as an art. Other than that I'm finding it difficult to figure out how to create conditions under which people will learn to demand and value reasonably competent translations and under which fan translators will feel supported in engaging in such work. It may be that there IS no real way of doing this under current economic, political and socio-cultural conditions, and that all I can is to provide a small counter-example of what reasonably competent fan translations might look like. In which case, all I can do is sigh, turn to the latest page of the novel I'm translating, and figure out how best to convey meaning and tone and style and nuance with my all too human brain. You carry on doing the work, because it's the only thing TO do in these circumstances.
1. It inculcates very, very bad reading and writing habits. It trains people to accept incoherent word salad in place of clear, polished, competent prose. It drags people's standards and taste for prose writing (which, let's face it, is already hovering between the sixteenth and seventeenth levels of Chinese Hell) straight into a Stygian black hole. If no one knows what good work is, then good work will simply not be produced (or at least, be produced only by accident). This leads to the phenomenon known as Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
2. It devalues the craft of translation in itself. It teaches people (erroneously) that translation is a largely mechanical process rather than a series of considered artistic choices made with the aim of achieving a particular literary effect. This perception of translation as a mechanical, art-free exercise finds its way into popular thought, further negatively affecting both audiences' AND translators' perception of translation, leading once again to the phenomenon known as Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
3. It devalues the craft of translation economically. Publishing firms that would previously have felt compelled to put at least SOME investment and thought into commissioning competent translations have now realised that certain audiences will happily fork over obscene sums of money for barely-comprehensible word salad renderings of the works they claim to love. There is therefore no incentive at all — indeed, an actual DISincentive — for these publishers to invest in translations that meet an actual baseline of competency. This too, gives rise to the phenomenon of (surprise!) Shit Translations Beget Even More Shit Translations.
4. The sense of access which MTL creates is largely illusory. You cannot be sure that the MTL is even conveying the basic MEANING of the work accurately, much less tone, style, implications and connotations, literary quotations and references, or anything approaching nuance.
5. It disrespects the work of the original creator. If you claim to love the work of a creator so much, why is it that you're happy reading an incomprehensible word salad rendering of it spat out by a machine, instead of demanding competent translations that realise the full promise of the work and present the work in its full glory?
What frustrates me is that I don't know what to DO about this. I already do as much fan translation as is permitted by me having (1) a life (2) a demanding day job and (3) a fallible human body. I'm also happy to edit and beta the work of other translators who share the same views about the value of translation as an art. Other than that I'm finding it difficult to figure out how to create conditions under which people will learn to demand and value reasonably competent translations and under which fan translators will feel supported in engaging in such work. It may be that there IS no real way of doing this under current economic, political and socio-cultural conditions, and that all I can is to provide a small counter-example of what reasonably competent fan translations might look like. In which case, all I can do is sigh, turn to the latest page of the novel I'm translating, and figure out how best to convey meaning and tone and style and nuance with my all too human brain. You carry on doing the work, because it's the only thing TO do in these circumstances.
