![[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.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-06 12:07 am (UTC)There's so much Chinese media that's never been translated, and so few people who are both willing to spend the (extensive!) time and effort to translate those things and competent enough not just in both languages, but also in the art of translation itself. I would love to, and would be willing to spend the time to make English subtitles for a lot of old TV shows that nobody else seems to care about translating, but I've only been studying Chinese for a few years, and would be bound to make mistakes. So I've spent some time wondering about all this, and whether it's better for translations to exist even if they're imperfect, and how much that depends on the kind of media being translated. (I mean, I've watched some movies with utterly appalling English subtitles, and was still glad to be able to have some kind of access to them, even if only a very dubious sort of access. But I would never be able to read a novel that was translated like that.)
Ideally I feel like a work should only be translated if it's going to be translated well -- at least reasonably well! -- for all the reasons you give, especially #5. It seems very disrespectful to translate something in a way that reduces its value or even changes or misrepresents the original author's intent. But then with so much new media constantly being created now, it's also unfortunate that many things will never be translated at all if held to this standard. And of course to some extent the whole discussion is simply moot, since if people have access to MTL, they're going to use it.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-08 08:53 pm (UTC)Having subtitled/translated various forms of media, I do think quality of translation carries somewhat less weight in e.g. dramas compared to novels, because a lot of the load-bearing work in the former is done by the non-literary visual elements, the performances, etc, while with novels, the only thing you CAN work with are the words on the page themselves. So on that basis (unsolicited advice alert, feel free to skip!) I'd think it's worthwhile for you to give subtitling a go, especially if you've got someone to beta/edit. Translating is definitely one of those things one gets better at with practice. And selfishly, if it's old-school HK wuxia dramas you plan on subtitling, PLEASE DO THAT so I can finally force my non-Cantonese-fluent friends to watch them, I mean, promote them to my friends!
The last part of your comment is depressing but very true I think. If people have access to MTL, they'll use it. And again I think that's something that disincentivises people from engaging in translation work even if they have the skills to do it.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-18 01:53 pm (UTC)Hah, yeah, totally understandable. XD Honestly I try to just ignore most of Wei Xiaobao's interactions with his wives, even though I realize that's like... 80% of his character arc. (It's not even that I mind his being terrible. I just hate that the girls all end up being fine with that for some reason!)
I appreciate the encouragement re: subtitling! I'd love for more oldschool wuxia series to get subbed, though I have to say that's a genre where I'd be particularly worried about trying to translate some of the archaic language, poetry, allusions, and so on. But I might be able to find someone who's interested in helping, or at least editing, so at any rate I'll keep it in mind as something to work toward. :)
(I'm really surprised more of the old wuxia dramas didn't get official English translations, especially some of the Jin Yong adaptations. And even the ones that have English subs on the DVDs never seem to get posted online with the subs included. Like, I have DVD copies of all three of the 1980s Condor Heroes series with official English subs, but TVB never includes English subs with their online copies, even though there are always people in the comments asking for them.)