Lost in Translation again
I’m sure there’s some long-dead guy who’s ruminated on this before, but it’s striking me now how we constantly re-evaluate and interpret past experiences based on later ones. I’m thinking right now of “Lost in Translation”, which if you’ve been reading since September, you’ll know is my favorite movie of all time.
A lot about me has changed since I’ve started studying linguistics in earnest. I’ve mostly stopped getting irritated over speech errors; I see them as interesting, since I’m getting to see the language changing right in front of me. I’ve become even more fascinated by accents, and a lot better at identifying and imitating them. I’ve gained a limited ability, in case I can’t identify an accent, to use a foreign speaker’s grammatical mistakes to figure out what their native language is. I’ve stopped seeing languages other than English as “foreign” — really, when you think about the amount of variation there could be in language, there is not a whole lot. I’ve finally crossed the line from “fluent” in French to “truly bilingual”, ever since I starting analyzing French instead of just using it (I remember exactly the moment when I crossed the line: without even thinking about it, I spat out a sentence that a native speaker judged as “a nice turn of phrase” — I’ve been waiting for that moment for over 10 years). I’ve gotten better at Japanese without even taking any Japanese classes. Most importantly, I’ve seen just how important, powerful, and central to human life language is, which I feel is a distinct advantage in a world where very few people even think consciously about language at all.
Those last two points are what have allowed me to build another layer of personal meaning on top of Lost in Translation, after I watched it again — not even all of it, really, mainly the commercial-filming scene. After learning more about how the Japanese language is and how Japanese people use it, several things happened to my appreciation of that scene. First, I started to sympathize with the incompetent interpreter — Japanese really is something approaching impossible to translate into English. I also actually understand the Japanese dialogue, so it’s approaching possible for me to take a shot at translating it, but I still wouldn’t want to have to. For example, the director starts out speaking formally, then after Bob screws up the first time, he starts speaking as if he’s scolding a little boy. How do you express that in English? The scene also reminds me of what a language barrier looks like to a non-linguist.
So my study of linguistics has changed the way I enjoy that scene of Lost in Translation. I’m sure there are other ways I can be caused to see it differently. Part of the reason it’s such a great movie is that it’s a very rich canvas for these kinds of reinterpretations.
I was trying to make a philosophical point in this post, which maybe isn’t the best thing to try when I’m not necessarily sober. It really doesn’t matter; nobody reads this anyway.
Man, when I reread this post, all I can think is, “Wow, whoever wrote this is a total twat”. Oh well.
A lot about me has changed since I’ve started studying linguistics in earnest. I’ve mostly stopped getting irritated over speech errors; I see them as interesting, since I’m getting to see the language changing right in front of me. I’ve become even more fascinated by accents, and a lot better at identifying and imitating them. I’ve gained a limited ability, in case I can’t identify an accent, to use a foreign speaker’s grammatical mistakes to figure out what their native language is. I’ve stopped seeing languages other than English as “foreign” — really, when you think about the amount of variation there could be in language, there is not a whole lot. I’ve finally crossed the line from “fluent” in French to “truly bilingual”, ever since I starting analyzing French instead of just using it (I remember exactly the moment when I crossed the line: without even thinking about it, I spat out a sentence that a native speaker judged as “a nice turn of phrase” — I’ve been waiting for that moment for over 10 years). I’ve gotten better at Japanese without even taking any Japanese classes. Most importantly, I’ve seen just how important, powerful, and central to human life language is, which I feel is a distinct advantage in a world where very few people even think consciously about language at all.
Those last two points are what have allowed me to build another layer of personal meaning on top of Lost in Translation, after I watched it again — not even all of it, really, mainly the commercial-filming scene. After learning more about how the Japanese language is and how Japanese people use it, several things happened to my appreciation of that scene. First, I started to sympathize with the incompetent interpreter — Japanese really is something approaching impossible to translate into English. I also actually understand the Japanese dialogue, so it’s approaching possible for me to take a shot at translating it, but I still wouldn’t want to have to. For example, the director starts out speaking formally, then after Bob screws up the first time, he starts speaking as if he’s scolding a little boy. How do you express that in English? The scene also reminds me of what a language barrier looks like to a non-linguist.
So my study of linguistics has changed the way I enjoy that scene of Lost in Translation. I’m sure there are other ways I can be caused to see it differently. Part of the reason it’s such a great movie is that it’s a very rich canvas for these kinds of reinterpretations.
I was trying to make a philosophical point in this post, which maybe isn’t the best thing to try when I’m not necessarily sober. It really doesn’t matter; nobody reads this anyway.
Man, when I reread this post, all I can think is, “Wow, whoever wrote this is a total twat”. Oh well.
posted by Think Different @ 1:35 AM
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