Hearing Voices - Alex

I really like the metaphor of "the voice" in the text, both as the voice of the original author and the voices of fellow translators and editors working on the project together. Copeland mentions this "voice" first in her translation of Uno Chiyo's The Power of Voice, which taught her to focus less on the "literal meaning" and more on voice and emotional tone. This is in part due to Uno's style of seeming simple writing with deep unspoken meaning. I would agree that a major part of translating is trying to dig at what the author really wants to say, and thinking about or even reenacting the author's voice is a good way to ensure that the meaning behind the plaintext is thought of and conveyed.

When I translate, sometimes I try to imagine the author's voice in and read the text out loud in my head. This helps me find the rhythm of the text as well as identify emotions / atmospheres that are being conveyed or created, therefore making my translation also reflecting the author's voice. This is also especially helpful in Japanese because Japanese sentences tend to be much longer and use less punctuation than English, therefore reading it "out loud" can also help me pinpoint where to stop -- where a complete thought ends and another begins -- so that I can better and more accurately grasp the logic of the Japanese sentence and translate it in a way that complies with English grammar rules. I really enjoy this imaginary discussion between mine and the author's voice in my head, and while it does sometimes stump me trying to find a suitable word or phrase for the original text, it ensures that what I translate is (to the best of my ability) a representation of both the text and the author.