Challenges Faced in Translation
Literary translation is one of the most important elements of literature . It is very hard to do for some reasons. This difficulty comes from the differences between target and source languages. Especially cultural details, wordplays, idioms and puns are really hard to translate. So, essential components of literary works such as puns, literary devices, cultural details and linguistic style can thus complicate the translation of literary works.
All along the history , there were hundreds of different languages. These languages even categorized as language families. Languages that has the same family can have the same cultural details but fort he different families, it can be hard. Translation of these different languages into each other require a lot of cultural information from both the target and the source language. Only a qualified , informed translator can match up the different cultural details to each other and translate the words in perfectly fitted.
On the other hand there are bunch of literary devices which are being used by literary authors. The translation of words of a literary device is hardest one. For example, in William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet," the character Polonius famously says: "Brevity is the soul of wit" This phrase is refers that being brief is a sign of intelligence and sophistication. This is an example of irony which is a literary device. So, the translator should be able to understand of the context of the literary work and irony which is created by Shakespeare. The translator should use a proverb from the target language that has the same meaning, impact. In Turkish, for example, it can be translated as "sözün kısası makbüldür". There are also some important devices which can be seen in a literary work very often like puns and allusions. This kind of literary devices are aiming to create the “vibe” of the literary work. This “vibe” is the real essence which is being given by the author. So they have very important roles on the literary works. Their translation is also hard because finding the same meaning of that special wordplay in the target language requires a big word reservoir.
The style used in the source language is also very important in terms of translate it into target language. It is directly related to a bunch of things like the period of time which author lives , the place which author lives, the people in his life , and sometimes the life of the author. At least I believe in this way but this creates a paradox that with this way of thinking there was no translation in the history, there is no translation today and there can’t be any in the future.
To sum up it is very clear that translation is not for everyone who graduate from our field, it is not an easy work that can be done by any speaker of the source and target languages and it is almost rewriting the same literary work sometimes. There is a bunch of requirements to translate literary works like having a qualified general culture, having enough background for both of the target and source language and of course having a literal literary background.
