I largely agree with the main points of Roman Jakobson’s essay “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” Because so many Americans speak only English, there are a lot of prevailing myths regarding foreign languages. One is that learning a foreign language is impossible for anyone who is not a genius—considering that bilingualism and beyond are the norm in much of the world (this class included), I need not explain the absurdity of such an idea. Another is that an accurate translation is “impossible,” that certain words are simply impossible to translate into English. While certain things are difficult or impossible to translate, the basic meanings of words are not among them. Though literal translations can often be a bit awkward, they nonetheless succeed in translating concepts from one language to another. This is the basic argument of Jakobson’s paper, in the service of which he provides several examples.
A key phrase Jakobson uses is “Equivalence in difference” (p. 233). While translation results in two different products, that does not mean that their meanings are not equivalent. The simplest example given is the expression “traduttore, traditore.” This can be rendered into English as “The translator is a traitor,” which, though it loses its succinctness, conveys the same meaning. By thus expanding words or phrases, it is possible to translate them without losing any of their literal meaning. This phrase also shows the limits of translation, however, which Jakobson himself acknowledges at the very end of his paper: sonic elements of languages are usually impossible to translate while simultaneously maintaining the literal meaning. In English, only the alliteration of traduttore, traditore is maintained in translation. The fact that the two words sound almost exactly the same in Italian—which is what makes it such a catchy phrase in the first place—is therefore completely lost in English. We saw this in class when we were translating poetry. It is simply not possible to translate Dante into English while maintaining his style, structure, word choice, literal meaning, and plot. Accordingly, the translations we looked at all sacrificed the majority of those things in order to preserve the others. The poem Mattina by Ungaretti is another example of this. As the poem is entirely about sound rather than literal meaning, it is difficult to translate, even if translating its literal meaning is simple.
In America, it is common to assume that certain ideas or words are simply “untranslatable.” This is untrue. Literal meaning is always possible to translate, even if the result is a bit clunky. Sometimes, however, the main value of the source text is not from its literal meaning, but from other qualities, such as sound or structure. In this case, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to make a satisfactory translation. Nonetheless, it is still possible to translate literal meaning, meaning that, fundamentally, ideas and concepts are always translatable between languages.