About translation with love
The scientists tried to describe the translation from scientific point of view, but they were not very successful in it, as people work with translation under emotional impact. Moreover, very often translation resists a lot and does not give an opportunity to translate. Why does it happen? The answer may seem too banal or philosophical – there is a text of the original and it is impossible that the second text is also so brilliant and magnificent (if we are talking about translation of literature). In case of such an approach our compatriots would never have seen the works by Stendhal, Umberto Eco, Homer and others well known authors. The phenomena of translation of good quality is hidden in the fact that the professional translator can find the powers to overcome the banal perception of world by people around, giving them such a translation that the reader treats it as the original.
At the same time the phenomenon, when “text does not want to be translated”, seems to be not so phantasmatic, as soon as you start working with translation with purpose to make a quality translation. From the very beginning the source text is full of untranslatable parts. Here and there you want to add something new. Why? To make a reader understand the text, and the text itself in such a case will be given in understandable and true to life way. From this point of view the translation of poetry and works, where the spirit is educated, is pretty difficult task.
Moreover, to discuss the translation not being a translator – it is pretty difficult too. The discussion about translation – that is the discussion about works, about life, about fortune and about character of works; about the influence of these works on our life; it is the discussion about communication, transmission of meaning and traditions; it is the discussion about evaluation of heritage and about understanding of foreign cultures achievements; about native and mother tongue and about foreign language; it is the discussion about being in the language environment of humanity; it is the conversation about translation and interpreting; it is the conversation about fraud and truth, betrayal and faithfulness; translation – it is first of all the discussion about mimesis, doubts, importance of these and those phenomena; it is the discussion about life of senses and life of letters; to talk about the translation and to work with the translation – it is to be in the world, where the very word "translation" burns with clearness and inspires with hyphenation.
It is quite possible that there is more scientific, more objective, methodological, unemotional and precise description of such a notion as “translation”, but I being a translator prefer to adhere to the abovementioned philosophical definition. If we are talking about the scientific interpretation of the translation, here we will put ourselves to rigid frames, and if we talk about philosophical definition – there are no such borders. Two approaches, scientific and philosophical, are the antagonists of modern translation theory and everyone chooses for himself the one that is more reasonable and confirmed. As for me, I will adhere to opinion, that the translators role in the culture is very important, as due to the translations the whole culture movements and trends appeared in different countries, the conflict situations appeared and were settled, the agreements were signed, the negotiations were hold.