MODULE 3 – TRANSLATION

Literary creation begins with language, and therefore we, as authors, tend to feel more involved and expressive in our mother tongue, or in the language we use in everyday life. For this reason, we depend on translation to communicate our work to those who do not know the language in which we write. Those of us who live and work across different languages often experience this dichotomy as urgent—as a vital need to share with the environment in which we move every day. We also face many difficulties in the process: finding a good translator, lack of funding, insecurities about pronunciation, discrepancies in sound, and finding the networks and platforms necessary for dissemination.

In this module, we will explore alternative forms of translation that may facilitate communication and help us search for a kind of borderless language. We will focus primarily on practical work, exercises, and proposals that allow us to develop our own approaches, applicable to the languages we move between, integrating, whenever possible, what we have practiced in previous modules.

SOME THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

According to André Lefevere, translation involves much more than the simple transfer from one language to another. It incorporates ideology, critical criteria, and the morphology and construction of discourse. The worldview expressed by one language is not always entirely compatible with that of another. Translation, therefore, represents both the effort and the intention to disseminate works within a different environment from the one that produced them, becoming a privileged form of cultural expansion and exchange on a global scale. The analysis of translations can also help illuminate non-linguistic aspects of a particular historical moment and the intercultural relationships between the communities that carry the languages involved.

The great texts of literary and philosophical history have been translated many times, and in many cases continue to receive new versions. From this perspective, we must begin with the understanding that the version we seek to create will always be only one among many possibilities.

Paul Ricoeur describes two opposing currents in the history of translation: the optimists, who believe that everything can be translated, and the skeptics, who see translation as an unreliable activity. Another duality he presents is that between the linguistic paradigm, which concerns words and meanings, and the ontological paradigm, which focuses on the passage of a text from one human being to another. This latter perspective is of particular interest to our analysis.

Octavio Paz, who was not only a theorist but also a great experimenter in the translation of poetry, expressed sympathy for the identification between speaking and thinking that underlies automatic writing, and suggested that synonyms are themselves translations within a single language. In other words, the original text is already, from the outset, one possible version and contains a first transfiguration of subjective experience. Translation, properly speaking, should therefore be understood as interpretation.

According to Paz, translating poetry is far more difficult than translating prose—something we have all experienced, perhaps even as an impossibility. He describes the relationship between original and translated text as a form of “communion,” in which mystical and emotional experience carry substantial weight. One may also mention the influence that Paz attributed to French and German Romantic translations in the emergence of Modernism in Latin America.

Historically, speaking multiple languages has been interpreted, in religious terms, as either a demonic or divine quality, depending on the circumstances. There has always been agreement, however, that it is an ability that confers power. Indeed, history offers many examples of translation errors that resulted in reinterpretations of authors, eventually transcending the original and establishing themselves as philosophical doctrines or political positions that altered the course of history. Without attributing intentionality to the translator, one might ask whether such outcomes should truly be considered mistakes, or rather discoveries.

Paz also argues that, just as reading a text involves a second transformation of the original idea-sensation as it is incorporated into one’s own experience, the creation of a translated poem produces a resurrection of that experience and its consequent transmutation.

Bibliography

Eco, Umberto (2004). Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. London: Phoenix.

García Ávila, Celene & Solís Carrillo, Luis Juan (2014). “Octavio Paz, traducción y relaciones literarias,” La Colmena, 83.

Lefevere, André (1992). Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context. New York: Modern Language Association of America.

Paz, Octavio (2000). “André Breton o la búsqueda del comienzo,” in Corriente Alterna. Mexico, pp. 52–64.

Ricoeur, Paul (2006). On Translation. Abingdon: Routledge.

THE TRANSLATED INDIVIDUAL

Exile constitutes a rupture in identity as a unified whole, and almost all migrants experience, in one way or another, the fragmentation, dispersion, or camouflage of their sense of self. What happens in social or professional life also occurs within the writerly self. The search for, understanding of, and acceptance of this foreign writer-self is part of the work ahead of us.

Here we propose several possible uses of translation that can be applied to languages we do not know deeply, whether as exercises in learning, or as methods for creative development. These suggestions are intended less for traditional translated poetry and more for the oral or visual presentation of a poem, and for self-knowledge through the reformulation of language and artistic practice.

1. Partial Translation

Can a poem in its original language be sufficient for an audience that does not understand its meaning? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Even those who understand the words may interpret them or receive stimuli quite different from what we, as authors, intended when writing or designing the poem. Trusting in that communicative freedom—or in interpretive chaos—can itself be a valid and effective creative strategy.

At the same time, we may seek intermediate paths, offering thematic or sonic threads that guide the listener toward a space where encounter becomes possible. The proposal here is to translate selected lines, a leitmotif, or even individual words that serve as gateways into the universe of the poem.

There are numerous ways to implement this approach: inserting translated fragments within the original text, replacing or repeating certain passages; involving another actor or performer who interprets them in parallel, before, after, or randomly; incorporating them into recordings, images, or introductory remarks.

Exercise: Experiment with some—or all—of these possibilities in one of your own poems, creating and recreating multilingual interventions.

From there, allow your imagination to guide you until you discover a format in which the text feels at home.

2. The Use of English

For many of us, English functions as a communicative bridge between languages and cultures. Sometimes we become so accustomed to using it that we forget it is not our authentic mode of expression, and often not that of our audience either. Excessive reliance on English, especially in poetry and abstraction, may lead to exchanges that feel flat, cold, or limited.

What matters most in using English is its signifying value. Many creators and audiences recognize words and expressions even without mastering the language. English vocabulary has become commonplace in everyday speech around the world, and this familiarity provides a useful starting point.

Exercise: Repeat some of the exercises from the previous section, using English specifically as a tool. Keep in mind the following suggestions:

• Choose short phrases or isolated words that are easy to pronounce and understand.
• Prioritize words that share roots with other languages.
• Consider the cultural meanings that certain English expressions acquire in different linguistic contexts.

From there, you may create your own guidelines—or abandon them altogether—integrating English and other languages into the body of the text.

3. Translation Through Sound

If we begin with the idea that a translated poem becomes a new poem, we may take the risk of recreating it entirely. As we explored in Module 2, the words we choose do not consist solely of their meanings. Finding words that sound similar across languages is not always possible.

However, we can discover words whose sounds resonate with the originals—words that, despite carrying different meanings, reproduce the seed, sensation, or atmosphere of what we wish to communicate. This process may lead to the creation of a completely new poem, or one that is fragmented and perhaps incomprehensible in a conventional sense. The proposal is to use this method as a point of departure, a playful beginning for producing a text that somehow represents the original without claiming fidelity to it.

Exercise: Read the original poem aloud and identify the words where the voice naturally emphasizes or rests. Replace those words with others—in one or several languages—that sound similar, whether through phonetics, rhythm, stress patterns, or subjective association.

From there, improvise and play with language in search of a sonic experience that can serve as the work’s organizing axis.

4. Technological Tools

It is important to engage critically with the new technologies being developed through artificial intelligence. It is difficult to reach definitive conclusions about technologies that, despite being promoted as transformative revolutions, remain in an early stage of development.

Machine translation can provide orientation when beginning the process of moving a text from one language to another—but not from one individual to another. In technological translation there is no subject, and there is no reading. AI systems can decode, but they do not read in the sense of voluntary, subjective engagement. In this way, one of the transformations to which Paz refers is removed from the process.

At present, AI also lacks the subtlety and interpretive diversity of literary translation. The great texts of literary history have accepted multiple translations, and many continue to generate new ones. We must therefore assume that any version we create will always be only one among many possibilities.

At the same time, technology may serve as a creative tool and a means of developing one’s own discourse and identity. Its precise role within literature remains undefined, which allows us to participate actively in shaping that future.