Linda Jaivin On Translation: Quarterly Essay 52

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Whether we're aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world lost in translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture. As a traveller, a mistranslation might land you a bowl of who-knows-what when you think you asked for noodles, but mistranslations in international politics can be a few steps from serious trouble.

Linda Jaivin has been engaged with translation for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry, fiction and more, and has interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he explained his own interpretation of socialism to some Beijing rockers.

This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, about culture, difference and communication and about looking at international relations through the prism – and occasionally prison – of culture. Jaivin pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori.

Along the way she offers delightful insights into the work of the translator, and a perceptive assessment of different worldviews and the degree to which they can be bridged.