If
I'm honest, I had never read Walter Benjamin’s The Task of the Translator before coming to the UEA. Whilst I was
an undergraduate student in Japan, I read several of Walter Benjamin’s essays
such as The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction and Critique
of Violence. During my undergraduate
degree, I studied literature and creative writing, and, I think it would have
been natural for a student of this subject to read a philosophical essay on
translation such as The Task of the
Translator; however, I didn’t. I don't know why.
After graduating from the university, I worked at an advertising firm as
a copywriter. Also, I spent time translating the adverts and brochures of
global companies from English to Japanese. I did this without translation
theory but tried to keep the target text faithful to the source text, following
requests from our clients, the guidelines of translation which the clients gave
us and the advice given by my supervisors. The rules I followed could be ‘skopos’ for my translating, the ‘skopos’ depended on who the clients
were. Although my background was literature, I enjoyed my responsibility for
translating business material at the office. However, it was also true that I
felt translating was a more or less rigid activity like those which machines
do.
As a student of the MA in literary translation, I have been studying
translation studies since September. For my course work, I read The Task of the translator, and I came
across ‘pure language’, as termed by Benjamin. He said that the task of
translator is ‘to release in his own language that pure language under the
spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his
re-creation of that work.’ Apart from his intention to describe what a
translator should do, this quote inspired me to address one question – how a
translator exists ontologically and phenomenologically. After reading the
essay, I sometimes think about what exactly happens when ‘pure language’ is
generated. I have to consider how the text will be modified (by the mind?) at
the point where the texts come and go, as though they were water going through
a filter. When I translate text from English into Japanese or from Japanese
into English, I try to listen to the internal voice of my mind at the same time
that I try to listen to an external voice – the voice of the source text.
Presumably, a translator is one who can face the birth of a new text.
To be honest, I don't have the confidence to have completely construed
the meaning of what Benjamin wanted to say. I may misunderstand Benjamin’s
‘pure language’; however, I can stay optimistic, because as one Japanese writer
said, ‘understanding is but the sum of misunderstandings,’. I have got new insights into translation
which break through the thoughts which I used to have and I find myself
enjoying translation more and more.
Hiromitsu
Koiso translates from Japanese into English, and from English into Japanese. He
is currently studying towards the MA in Literary Translation. His literary interests
include world literature, exophony and translation as a creative form of text
making. Contact: hirokoikoi@gmail.com
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