In case you haven't noticed, a 116-year-old event began in my home country last Friday. And unlike comedian Stewart Lee, because I don't stand to make any money from it in any way, I believe I'm allowed to name the event. Obviously I'm talking about the London 2012 Olympic Games. It kicked off with an incredible opening ceremony – a social event where a group of us eventually managed to spot a mutual friend strutting her stuff with the 7500 other volunteers on the night. As a result of this creative spectacle, the armchair cynic in me has been unexpectedly silenced. Ever since, I've come to largely overlook the widely reported empty stadia, security concerns and ticket chaos; and focus instead on a different truth: the simple fact that an army of athletes and others have gone to superhuman lengths to stage this festival of sport for our viewing pleasure.
Regrettably, certain UK media outlets and politicians apparently believe the opening ceremony was left-wing propaganda – which is utterly ludicrous. Following their logic, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the event had been created to rival Riefenstahl. Of course, these critics stop short of saying what cultural or historical aspects they would have preferred: perhaps a reminder of one newspaper's apparent support for Oswald Mosley and his fellow fascists in 1930s Europe; or how prior to 1833, the British Empire had been built on the back of slavery? The commentators' intended party-political point is non-existent. The opening ceremony was simply one man's vision to reflect the positive aspects of a nation's history and to recognise the diverse factors and events that constitute its current multicultural identity. Deny that and you denigrate the vital contribution of the country's population.
However, the wider issue, carrying on from my previous post about swearing, concerns a gradual shift towards people publicly saying what was previously unspeakable. It doesn't seem to matter whether you're a politician, polemicist or prominent sports star; people seem suddenly prepared to abuse the Internet to peddle bigotry to the masses. Perhaps the ability to post messages instantly from a mobile phone encourages people to broadcast the kind of ugly opinions they would previously have shared with their friends or kept to themselves. What is clear is that sometimes, as my favourite Depeche Mode lyric goes, "words are very unnecessary; they can only do harm".
Monday 30 July 2012
Thursday 19 July 2012
The naked truth about swearing
In the UK, it is not a criminal offence to be naked in public. An offence is
only committed when an onlooker lodges an official complaint if they themselves
are shocked and offended. The complaint can only be pursued if it can be proven
that the person stripped off with the intention of offending others.
Following recent high-profile events involving public figures, I would argue
that the UK has a similarly relativist attitude towards swearing.
Swearing is readily – though not exclusively – invoked to express anger, negative emotions or outrage. Psychologist Steven Pinker expertly outlines the physiology of swearing and identifies the various reasons why we do it, though I'm more interested in the social perceptions of swearing. For example, if we believe that swearing is more prevalent now than in some nebulous era in the past, we might conclude that people today are angry about everything all the time.
Allow me to take the Swiss German usage of the word Hure (whore) as an example. This word appears to have been universally accepted as an intensifier, such that if gut means good, hure gut means very good. The intensifier is used with both positive and negative adjectives. As youth language remains the breeding ground of linguistic creativity, at some point in the past, young people must have recontextualised this word as an intensifier, and it has since been adopted to a greater or lesser extent by other sections of the population. This situation will prevail until such time as the signifier becomes too clichéd, loses its power in this new context and is replaced by a new word fulfilling the same function.
I sense a shift in public attitudes towards weaker notions of acceptability and appropriateness in this area, accelerated by social media and online activities. Firstly, without the bygone cultural and linguistic bottleneck of a few TV channels and a radio, we now encounter a much larger amount of unfiltered material likely to offend. Secondly, the Internet allows us to date and retrieve everything. We can be repeatedly offended regardless of whether we heard the utterance in context at the time or not. To construct a lazy, apocalyptic picture of profanity, I could display links here to Kenneth Tynan's famous utterance in 1963, the Sex Pistols' contrived outbursts in 1976 or Elton John's breakfast-show blunder on BBC Radio 2 on 28 January 2011. If we ignore the circumstances and the communicative intentions of individual instances of swearing, we are condemned to make emotive yet unfounded accusations with reference to the inferior speech styles of 'other', more lexically challenged people.
In reality, language – including swear words and youth language – displays our inexhaustible capacity to recontextualise existing words and invent new ones to accurately reflect concepts. But with such a relative concept as swearing, in public as well as private life, caution is advised. Unless we know that our intentions will not be misinterpreted, we should be acutely aware that the instantaneous yet permanent nature of modern media means that the boundaries between private and public are blurred. Similarly, what used to be 'tomorrow's chip paper' is now a web link passed between millions of strangers indefinitely. There is also no such thing as the watershed anymore. So if you're in public life and you're seen as a role-model in any way – you'll mind your language at all times. Little brother is watching!
Swearing is readily – though not exclusively – invoked to express anger, negative emotions or outrage. Psychologist Steven Pinker expertly outlines the physiology of swearing and identifies the various reasons why we do it, though I'm more interested in the social perceptions of swearing. For example, if we believe that swearing is more prevalent now than in some nebulous era in the past, we might conclude that people today are angry about everything all the time.
Allow me to take the Swiss German usage of the word Hure (whore) as an example. This word appears to have been universally accepted as an intensifier, such that if gut means good, hure gut means very good. The intensifier is used with both positive and negative adjectives. As youth language remains the breeding ground of linguistic creativity, at some point in the past, young people must have recontextualised this word as an intensifier, and it has since been adopted to a greater or lesser extent by other sections of the population. This situation will prevail until such time as the signifier becomes too clichéd, loses its power in this new context and is replaced by a new word fulfilling the same function.
I sense a shift in public attitudes towards weaker notions of acceptability and appropriateness in this area, accelerated by social media and online activities. Firstly, without the bygone cultural and linguistic bottleneck of a few TV channels and a radio, we now encounter a much larger amount of unfiltered material likely to offend. Secondly, the Internet allows us to date and retrieve everything. We can be repeatedly offended regardless of whether we heard the utterance in context at the time or not. To construct a lazy, apocalyptic picture of profanity, I could display links here to Kenneth Tynan's famous utterance in 1963, the Sex Pistols' contrived outbursts in 1976 or Elton John's breakfast-show blunder on BBC Radio 2 on 28 January 2011. If we ignore the circumstances and the communicative intentions of individual instances of swearing, we are condemned to make emotive yet unfounded accusations with reference to the inferior speech styles of 'other', more lexically challenged people.
In reality, language – including swear words and youth language – displays our inexhaustible capacity to recontextualise existing words and invent new ones to accurately reflect concepts. But with such a relative concept as swearing, in public as well as private life, caution is advised. Unless we know that our intentions will not be misinterpreted, we should be acutely aware that the instantaneous yet permanent nature of modern media means that the boundaries between private and public are blurred. Similarly, what used to be 'tomorrow's chip paper' is now a web link passed between millions of strangers indefinitely. There is also no such thing as the watershed anymore. So if you're in public life and you're seen as a role-model in any way – you'll mind your language at all times. Little brother is watching!
Friday 13 July 2012
Say what you see
One of the first songs I learnt to play by ear on the piano was Stevie Wonder's 1984 hit I Just Called To Say I Love You. I'd always admired his lyrics to describe things that he himself cannot see. On closer inspection it could be argued that with the exception of references to the sun and the moon, everything mentioned in the song can actually be perceived without the gift of sight. This got me thinking about the relationship between language and perception – and its implications for translation. But first here's some theory.
It was the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) who first theorised about the signifier (the word used to denote a given object or concept) and the signified (the actual object or concept itself). It's easy to believe that the relationship between the two is arbitrary and universally intelligible – it is not. After all, if you and I both imagine a table, in the absence of any other specific details, only coincidence would cause us to imagine the exact same object. This is surely because we will each draw on the totality of our respective life experiences to imagine the object. And since we both experience the world differently; so our representation of it will also be different.
This difference in perception and representation (combined with the different levels of specificity discussed in an earlier post on this blog) can give translators major headaches. Up to now we have looked at two variables: the signifier and the signified. Translators have three: the signifier in the source language, its equivalent signifier in the target language and a signified which most accurately represents both signifiers. I've recently begun to think of this as the linguistic equivalent of the fire triangle – such that if any one of these components is unsatisfactory, effective translation is difficult.
I have been translating descriptions for a new clothing range. However, the fact that the items are new means that often no photos exist of the clothes being described. Secondly, no definitive terms exist in the client files or online yet – so the translator only has one side of the 'triangle' to work with. Google Images 'helps' by proposing thousands of signifieds when you only need one! Even with other descriptive elements, if Farbe is the German word for colour, and we encounter the words Farbgebung and Farbbrillanz; without photos or further details it is not always clear how many colours are involved. So either colour or colours could be correct.
I've also been wondering about the precise time in English when a body warmer became a gilet. And if German speakers could tell me why they decided to call the humble English tank top a pullunder, I'd be very grateful. I'd also love to know how someone actually puts this garment on. With a pullover it's clear. But a pullunder? The mind boggles!
It was the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) who first theorised about the signifier (the word used to denote a given object or concept) and the signified (the actual object or concept itself). It's easy to believe that the relationship between the two is arbitrary and universally intelligible – it is not. After all, if you and I both imagine a table, in the absence of any other specific details, only coincidence would cause us to imagine the exact same object. This is surely because we will each draw on the totality of our respective life experiences to imagine the object. And since we both experience the world differently; so our representation of it will also be different.
This difference in perception and representation (combined with the different levels of specificity discussed in an earlier post on this blog) can give translators major headaches. Up to now we have looked at two variables: the signifier and the signified. Translators have three: the signifier in the source language, its equivalent signifier in the target language and a signified which most accurately represents both signifiers. I've recently begun to think of this as the linguistic equivalent of the fire triangle – such that if any one of these components is unsatisfactory, effective translation is difficult.
I have been translating descriptions for a new clothing range. However, the fact that the items are new means that often no photos exist of the clothes being described. Secondly, no definitive terms exist in the client files or online yet – so the translator only has one side of the 'triangle' to work with. Google Images 'helps' by proposing thousands of signifieds when you only need one! Even with other descriptive elements, if Farbe is the German word for colour, and we encounter the words Farbgebung and Farbbrillanz; without photos or further details it is not always clear how many colours are involved. So either colour or colours could be correct.
I've also been wondering about the precise time in English when a body warmer became a gilet. And if German speakers could tell me why they decided to call the humble English tank top a pullunder, I'd be very grateful. I'd also love to know how someone actually puts this garment on. With a pullover it's clear. But a pullunder? The mind boggles!
Thursday 5 July 2012
Fifty shades of grave, damaging abuse
As my translation and teaching duties hit their annual lull for the summer, I've recently had some time on my hands. So like a moth to a flame, I thought I'd read the book the world is talking about – Fifty Shades of Grey by British author E L James (Erika Leonard probably doesn't sound quite as exotic). The book was picked up by a small American publisher, which surely explains the infuriating and frequent cartoon-style exclamations of "Holy crap!" "Crapola!" and "Oh my!", among others. We also note that our protagonist, Christian Grey, has all-American "gray eyes". Can you see the difference in US/UK spelling? That's like, so clever, isn't it? But what about the story?
Well, there isn't one, really. Aside from all the predilections and sexual practices depicted, the author maintains that her book is essentially a love story between a beautiful, super-rich, male CEO and a naive university graduate (inequality from the outset). For me, the love story tag is a gross misrepresentation. There is no real love whatsoever in the book's 514 pages. It's simply a document of the total dominance of a young woman by a controlling, powerful man. She thinks she can make him love her like she believes she loves him. He's having none of it. But he showers her with gifts as a means of manufacturing her consent. In the real world, this practice is called grooming. But hey, she gets a new car, laptop, new clothes, helicopter rides, upgrades to first class on flights to visit her mother, the chance to fly a glider ... What more could a girl ask for? Er, love, understanding, self-determination, respect. That would be a start!
For me, the book's sexual content is not nearly as disturbing as the fact that it has now sold more than 20 million copies around the world. Are the book's readers so desperate to read about fictional bedroom antics that this brand of dominance, abuse and misogyny is a price worth paying? The author is right to be surprised by the book's overwhelming success – it's the biggest load of plot-deprived, overhyped garbage I've read since The Da Vinci Code.
Well, there isn't one, really. Aside from all the predilections and sexual practices depicted, the author maintains that her book is essentially a love story between a beautiful, super-rich, male CEO and a naive university graduate (inequality from the outset). For me, the love story tag is a gross misrepresentation. There is no real love whatsoever in the book's 514 pages. It's simply a document of the total dominance of a young woman by a controlling, powerful man. She thinks she can make him love her like she believes she loves him. He's having none of it. But he showers her with gifts as a means of manufacturing her consent. In the real world, this practice is called grooming. But hey, she gets a new car, laptop, new clothes, helicopter rides, upgrades to first class on flights to visit her mother, the chance to fly a glider ... What more could a girl ask for? Er, love, understanding, self-determination, respect. That would be a start!
For me, the book's sexual content is not nearly as disturbing as the fact that it has now sold more than 20 million copies around the world. Are the book's readers so desperate to read about fictional bedroom antics that this brand of dominance, abuse and misogyny is a price worth paying? The author is right to be surprised by the book's overwhelming success – it's the biggest load of plot-deprived, overhyped garbage I've read since The Da Vinci Code.
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