Translation: So What’s the Big Deal?

During a recent discussion about the role artificial intelligence can play in delivering translations, the topic of the differences between translations of different genres of work arose. I view translation as more than just the mechanical exchange of words between languages, which feeds into my skepticism about relying on AI for this work. As I said in one of my more successful papers in a linguistics course, translation is like taking one image and producing it in different forms of media. In other words, what you end up with is the same but different.

The concept of forms being “language dependent” came up and seemed to provoke a competition between writers of different genres. I said that poetry is the most language dependent form, which a writer of non-fiction appeared to find provocative. What I meant by that is that poetry is the form most embedded in the language it is written in: importance of meaning, yes, but also the sound and rhythm of the words. For non-fiction, the sound and rhythm of the words does not have the same urgency. While non-fiction is looking more toward the techniques of good fiction writing—which includes meaning along with sound and rhythm, I doubt that the importance of those two latter elements will ever play the same role as they do in poetry.

I’d invite everyone to test the quality of the translations of poetry—the good ones are true works of art. My favorite poem was written in Russian by Boris Pasternak. I have never found a translation I’d consider even adequate—though the meaning of the words comes through. But not the music—and the art. And the joy.