Saturday, October 10, 2020

10/13 Reading Comments- Sarah Watanabe

     These readings hit on many of the points we have seen in other writings by translators such as deconstructing a text before reconstructing it in a new language as well as the tradeoff between good writing and staying faithful to the original text. One point I found particularly interesting and new was how Riggs discussed the involvement of the editor in translation much more than other translators have. I had imagined editors being a second set of eyes and as the name suggests, someone who edits. Though Riggs describes editors in this way, she also described them almost as if they were a partner who a translator passes their baton (the writing) over to after a couple of drafts. One sentence in which she wrote, "Editors do, on the other hand, enjoy a convenient distance from the text," stuck out to me. It made me wonder how much editors know about Japanese language and culture and if they don't have an extensive background as Riggs suggests, if this could create issues. Though I understand the merits of having someone more distant from the original looking at the drafts of a translation, I also wonder how much is lost in the process of an editor cutting parts out because it would not be understood quite as well by the new audience. 

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