PG #18 – Every act of communication is an act of translation

This issue is about translation in the most literal sense, from one language to another. But even monolingual communication is an act of translation – an attempt to convert what the writer (speaker, painter, musician...) has seen and felt into something the audience can understand.

A metaphor is a way of describing something a person hasn't experienced by relating it to something they have. Metaphors “carry a cargo of meaning across the oceans that divide us” (Jay Griffiths).

We might both use the word ‘dog’ to describe the four-legged stick-fetching tail-wagging animal, but if you grew up surrounded by affectionate borzoi and I was mauled by a Jack Russell when I was 4, the word is going to carry a very different message for each of us.

The skills of the interpreter – picking up on subtext, awareness of cultural differences, empathy, perspective-taking, and so on – are just as valuable when people are speaking the same language, or when translating verbal into visual, data into insights. Interpreters must deeply understand the people situated at both the from and the to.

We admire anyone who takes the time to really think about the context and background of the person they’re communicating with, and chooses words, phrases and images that will be meaningful to them.