What Are The Negative Effects Of Translation In Literature?

702 Words2 Pages

If there is one thing in this world can be defined as the most magnificent process of revealing a culture throughout history, it must be literature. But how can people show this great achievement to another culture if they cannot communicate with each other? Translation helped with this idea, according to Apple dictionary, translation is “the process of translating words or texts from one language into another”. The value of literature had been successfully shared thanks to translation. So, what are the impacts of translation in literature? The answer must have to deal with the following sub points, that is to provide literature works a broader platform, to let people from different cultures to analyze and study the work from different angles, …show more content…

Before looking at the negative effects of translation, it is necessary to compare and contrast whether the audience, and the purpose of the text was affected or not. The intended audience of the “Night thoughts” were actually Li Bai himself, or the moon. And the purpose was to express his feeling of homesick. Both the audience and the purpose in the three versions were the same, which means they are not affected. But translation did affect Li’s style. “Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head” (Giles) and “I lifted up my head and look at the full moon, the dazzling moon” (Ayscough and Lowell) were both different than the original text orientation, the sentence structure was affected by the translation. This is only one example, but again it tells that translation in literature did have negative impact that is modifying the author’s style.
Overall, the impacts of translation in literature was spectacular, and indeed, it contributed to provide literature work a broader platform, and enabled it to be studied and analyzed from different angles by different scholars from different countries; but still, it affected the author’s style and artistic

Open Document