Delilah Donk’s Reviews > Experiences in translation > Status Update

Look for the functional meaning of the text, the meaning the original author programmed. This includes rhythm and poetic devices that I’m totally oblivious of. I have homework!

A translator's duty is to the deep meaning of a text. Any surface-level appearances may be changed in order to translate that deeper meaning. But where is the deeper meaning? It depends. Was a sentence written to convey, say, the psychology of a character, or a stylistic gesture meaningful only to the particular culture (and therefore free game for the translator to replace with something more suited to the target)

For instance: if the wording of a sentence is used to convey an archaic (rather than modern) sense, it may be necessary to translate it into something foreign to the original, in order to abide by the domestic culture of the target language. Eco cites that Latin in Russia does not convey the religiosity of catholicism - it's too foreign - so to maintain that sense, used ecclesiastic Slavonic (ahistorical, but useful)

Translate what matters. A paragraph may be literally altered to a great degree while retaining its substance. In fact, if a translation does not take into account the source's cultural context and append, instead, a meaningful cultural parallel of the target language, then there is the danger of crafting a meaningless mess: a translation borne out of the superficial act of changing the words; pure pretense.