Translating Identity?

The main purpose of language, the one that is obvious constantly, on every single day of our lives, is communication. With different nations, with different people – well, and some would probably add the communication with themselves (sometimes quite an underestimated branch). While we as translators do our best to enable communication among cultures and to decipher produced texts and speeches for the ones who do not know the source language, how much of „identity“ are we translating? Or maybe not even translating, but taking away, adding and changing?

Language can unite people and it can divide people. This is the case not only due to different vocabularies and ways of expressing our thoughts, but it can also be the purposeful and conscious emphasis of one’s identity or distinctiveness from others through language.

According to Joanna Thornborrow there are four kinds of identity:

• Master identities (stable and unchanging: gender, ethnicity, age, …)
• Interactional identities (roles taken on in communicational contexts with specific other people)
• Personal identities (characteristic ways of behaviour: hotheaded, honest, forthright,…)
• Relational identities (kind of relationship enacted with a particular conversational partner or in a specific situation)

If we take a closer look, all of these identities produce a different use of language, as well as we can knowingly choose a use of language incongruent with our identity in order to hide our true self.

Imagine a middle-aged average citizen from central Europe. He is shy and not very sociable. His parents taught him to speak in a noble manner, never curse and always speak politely and in a calm, firm tone. In a new surrounding, he decides to start his life all over again. And he starts to use a language full of the newest expressions, swearwords, and to speak his mind – no matter what the sound of that might be. And – just to be a bit more exotic, he adds an African accent. He might still wear his woolen pullover with a red-nosed reindeer, but probably you would rather think his clothes to be a disguise than his language. So, if you are translating – be it a text or a spoken word – where is the dictionary that gives you a sense of that identity, of the true image you should be delivering? Usually we have our routine vocabularies, words and phrases we use with our own identity in our own life. As a translator there are cases, when we need to have the ability to put ourselves in the position of someone else – be it a function, a character in a play, or a real person. For interpreters that might sometimes even come close to acting – using a language and ways of behavior we usually do not, and maybe even cannot, identify with.

What can a translator support or mess up if he or she does not possess the necessary sensitivity for the nuances of human behaviour and, thus, language? Certainly, the character in a book or film can become a completely different person – maybe even loose its purpose – if the language use is changed. If Eliza Doolittle in „My Fair Lady“ would speak standard language, or make only slightly less mistakes in grammar and pronunciation, the whole story would loose its purpose and wit. Mr. Higgins would not even have to be in it. The identity of characters, thus, is a huge aspect of language use and its translation. 

The correct delivery of the identity of a speaker mirrored in his/her language use is an important factor in business meetings as well. A business man speaking using very elevated language emphasizing his elevated position cannot be taken as serious when his speech is translated with simple and unidimensional expressions. That is, his intended image of an appreciated intellectual will not be as clear when the translation misses out aspects of identity. An uneducated person at a court trial, on the other hand, might get a different treatment and the case might be considered differently than if an elevated, or at least very correct and precise language would be used.

After all, the question is whether a translator should have his own translating identity or whether he should be translating identity. Should translators pick one type of language use he always goes for, or should he be able to change his/her own language use in dependency of the identity of the speaker/charakter? 

Translators need to be flexible speakers. Whichever language use they are translating, they need to assume part of the identity in question and to stick to it throughout their translation. Doing a bit of research on the different types of language use in advance wouldn´t hurt. Sometimes it might cost quite an effort to withhold one’s own identity during the translation process.

In the end, this is one of the fascinating aspects of translating. In no other professional field you get the chance to dip into so many different areas of life, circumstances people find themselves in, ways of interaction than you do when observing others in order to translate their language – their identity.

Language Identity

 My next post doesn´t exactly describe a happy moment, it is more about the way I felt about moving to a new country without knowing the language:

And then I realized what language can mean.

It can weave into your identity, modify or model your way of thinking, support your thoughts.

It becomes a part of you, which can be lost like any part of a puzzle.

The homeland of my mother always meant a lot to me. Through her influence I was guided through childhood and youth with the background of Slavic mentality. Sometimes almost in a clash with my father´s principles—rooted in Germanic culture. I remember my attempts to learn Serbian before moving to Novi Sad, and I remember them as not very successful. The rhythm and melody of the Serbian language are completely different to any other European language I had learned until then. The fact that in my earliest childhood, my mother used to talk to me in Serbian, didn´t make it easier. The phrases and words acquired back then subconsciously, had been sorted out by my brain as soon as I started to go to kindergarten, where everyone used my native language, German. Being responded to exclusively in German, my mother gave up her attempts of raising me bilingually, and my ´´Serbian puzzle´´ fell apart.

I decided to put my learning on hold until my move to Novi Sad, the city of my heart. I remember the day I arrived as if it were yesterday, everything was exciting and new and the few ``negative´´ aspects I simply idealized. Unfinished streets seemed just adventurous. Ruined houses added to a certain Mediterranean charm. It was a sunny day—the air already hot at the beginning of April. I remember street signs and advertisements written in Cyrillic passing in front of my eyes. Of course, I couldn´t decipher them, but they seemed beautiful to me, artistic, somehow resembling hieroglyphs.

After my arrival, I was surrounded by that language of my earliest days and I loved it. The rolled `r´ makes it temperamental. Luckily, I didn´t have to replace `r´ with `l´, the not all that discrete trick of German speakers who can´t roll the `r´, for example in Italian opera arias; sounds odd. After a few weeks in the secure environment of friends and family, who all knew English, I had to admit that engaging my musically educated ear would not be enough to acquire a language. A Summer School for Serbian helped me to master the basics of the language in the safe environment of other foreigners. But that was just the basics, my real trial was reality afterwards. I found myself able to lead a minor conversation, but unable to really express my thoughts, not to mention my inability to make humorous comments of any kind. Also, it was almost impossible for me to follow a fast conversation with noise in the background, which is really hard to avoid when going out with friends. At least by then I could read the Cyrillic advertisements on my way home and add some lines on my own. In my head of course, I wouldn´t want to become a foreign criminal.

I guess my temporary despair and helplessness in expressing my thoughts was my share of cultural shock. A pretty mild one, I must admit. But it led me to fully understand the ``one language, one self´´ paradigm, the linguist Michael Erard mentions. According to him, speaker, citizen and self are governed by the same linguistic norms. I felt pretty relieved, when I realized that there is even a scientific explanation for my feeling uncomfortable—the linguistic norms of my self and the citizens around me couldn´t have been more different. But, step by step, I recognized words I had read in the speech of others (a euphoric feeling every time, even if the word in question was only a tiny connection word), I could make up word plays which I had loved so much in my mother tongue (well, that was a whole Ode to Joy playing in my head, with all parts of the orchestra) and I almost didn´t have to lipread anymore in noisy surroundings (and a decent amount of lipreading is pretty common in today´s noisy society anyway). With the acquisition of vocabulary through everyday situations, I started to take on the Serbian way of communicating as well. I began to think in Serbian and to replace the long and complicated German sentence structures with short, straightforward Serbian ones. Herein language mirrors the culture and interaction of the citizens of a country perfectly. I noticed that Germans wrap up their thoughts, they tie a rope of endless multi-clause sentences around them. Serbs, on the contrary, communicate their thoughts directly and straightforwardly in short, clear sentences. And in this way they act as well. There is little hiding, or beating around the bush. Thoughts are communicated. Mostly immediately. Negative and positive. After a while, through the language, I learned the culture. Through the culture I learned the behaviour. And finally, through the behaviour I partly formed a new identity. Partly, of course, I am still what I am. But I am that in a Serbian way.

A few days ago I was at a German barbecue. I felt unbelievably insecure talking in German, my sentences resembled Serbian sentence structure. Somehow I felt as if I was walking on ice with every new thought I wanted to communicate. It has been a few years since I moved to Serbia, but it is nevertheless startling how fast you lose parts of the puzzle, even in your native language. But after all, change probably is the only constant in our lives. And it is just impossible for the brain to keep all the information after every change.

So, I was at this barbecue. Talking on ice. And my conversational partner asked me: ``So, how long have you been studying German for?´´ That was it. I had become completely immersed in, and adopted, Serbian identity.