| "Rules: Logic and Applications" 2nd Workshop, Dec, 2019 |
| Aesthetic Morphisms |
| Jocelyn Ireson-Paine |
| www.jocelyns-cartoons.uk/rules2019/ |
| "Rules: Logic and Applications" 2nd Workshop, Dec, 2019 |
| Aesthetic Morphisms |
| Jocelyn Ireson-Paine |
| www.jocelyns-cartoons.uk/rules2019/ |
| Slides as PDF | Artistic Techniques Database Demo | Artistic Techniques Database Video | Contact |
|
If the job of a translation is to produce the same
effect as the original, how does this apply
to language? Frédo Durand
formulates scene-to-picture translation like this:
❝Informally,
if we
note V(S) the vision operator for a
stimulus S, we want
V(Spicture)≈V(Sscene)
which means
Spicture≈V-1V(Sscene).
❞
Let's examine the Modern Greek translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Ο Χάρι Πότερ και η φιλοσοφική λίθος , and ask whether R(SGreek)≈R(SEnglish), where R is the textual analogue to V. That is, the "reading" operator. I'll show that there's a poor equivalance.
I look mainly at the proper names, because these have a lot of meaning beyond the objects they denote. The translator, Máia Roútsou, has merely transliterated them. They keep the same denotations, i.e. refer to the same objects (Harry's friend Ron, his enemy Malfoy, and so on), because that's how the text specifies them. But they lose connotations derived from their sound, spelling, linguistic makeup, and cultural significance:
Ron (Harry's friend at school) ⇒ Ρον.
Cultural association: working-class.
Trustworthy, reliable, not imaginative.
Draco Malfoy (Harry's enemy at school) ⇒
Ντράκο Μαλφόι.
Cultural association: aristocratic. "Malfoy"
looks Norman French, perhaps a family who came over
with William the Conqueror in 1066. The "y"
reinforces this, as in "posh" names such as
Smythe, Bryan, Martyn.
Linguistic association: Mal ⇒ bad, Draco ⇒ dragon.
Sound association: Draco ⇒ Dracula.
Slytherin (Draco Malfoy's school house) ⇒
Σλίθεριν.
Cultural association: aristocratic, because of the "y".
Linguistic association: slither in, i.e. what a snake does.
Sound association: "sl-" ⇒ sly, slimy, slug, slick, slither.
Voldemort (the villain) ⇒
Βόλντεμορτ.
Linguistic association: mort ⇒ death.
Platform 9¾ (where Harry's
train to school leaves from) ⇒
πλατφόρμα 9
και 3/4.
Cultural association: (1) a big London railway station
with many platforms; (2) schoolchildren
departing, not to see their parents again
for many weeks. A well-known trope in English
children's literature.
Diagon Alley (an old London street
where Harry buys school equipment) ⇒ Η
Διαγώνιος
Αλέα.
Cultural association: ancient street with
tiny old shops run by craftsmen. These will
be elderly and irritable but very good at their jobs.
Linguistic association: diagonally.
"Locomotor Mortis" (the Leg-Locker Spell) ⇒
"Λοκομότορ
Μόρτις".
Cultural association: Latin as an
ancient, difficult, and respected language,
used in religion, ceremony, and scholarship.
So to a Greek, I suspect these names have virtually no connotation.
That could be partly remedied by translating their components. For example, according to Arika Okrent in a MentalFloss article "8 Languages With Different Names for the Hogwarts Houses", Slytherin has been translated to Serpentard in French, and to Smygard in Norwegian, a play on "smyge": to sneak, creep, or slink.
But in other cases, tweaking the words isn't enough, because the cultural associations are different. Greece has fewer and smaller railway stations than we do, so Platform 9¾ can't have the same resonance. Similarly, do Latin phrases play the same role to a Greek as they do to an English person?
This now starts connecting with analogical reasoning. In translation, the translated words get attached to different concepts accidentally, by virtue of their reader's different culture. In analogy-making, the person making the analogy attaches them to different concepts deliberately, in order to approximate an idea that the reader can't understand in its original form.
