Monday, March 4, 2013

Lost in Translation

Language is something we all take for granted, something we learn when we are young, and growing up and experiencing life we understand all the intricacies, and challenges and changes of our own language. Once one tries to learn a new language one realizes how difficult it is to try and learn a new language, and that there is a difference from learning a language and learning how people actually communicate and talk to one another in that language. Such as learning how one might say how are you, in Portuguese, a direct translation of that would be "Como Vai Voce?" But if you walk in the streets in Brazil, no one says that, they say, "tudo bom?" or "Tudo bem?" Learning a language involves so much more than direct translation and applying your own language to a new culture.

In Typee Tommo experiences many difficulties in learning and trying to understand the natives. There are many times when he doesn't understand what is going on, or he has trouble understanding what the natives are telling him. How when he first arrives with the tribe he is hand fed by the natives and not allowed to do thing on his own because of his leg. He also is not sure when they first meet, whether they are typee or haapar, and in the end he just ends up spurting out "Typee" and the natives respond to it so believes that is the right answer.

The whole book as well, the narrative, and the way the book flows seem to also indicate a loss of communication. The genre of the book keeps switching, adventure and captivity some of the time, an autobiography some of the time, and at times an anthropological study. Whatever Melville is trying to communicate to the readers seems to be hard to understand, and since we were not there and don't know his language at times it seems that we can not understand what he is trying to say.

This book can also be very frustrating, just like learning a new language. There is one point when Tommo is talking about how he is so frustrated with the definition of the word "Taboo" and how it has many meanings, "The Typee language is one very difficult to be acquired. . . the same word is employed; its various meanings all have a certain connection, which only makes the matter more puzzling" (224). Of course this is true of many languages, his own included, but the foreign nature of this new language and the frustration of communicating draw these intricacies of language forward. It was not until he looked at an unfamiliar language that he was able to see how different and difficult language could be.

maybe we are supposed to take from this that Melville is speaking a new language, a new genre and this book is so frustrating to read at times and understand because we are not familiar with it and his way of speaking. 

1 comment:

  1. Anna, this post is really good. I find myself particularly drawn to this paragraph:

    "The whole book as well, the narrative, and the way the book flows seem to also indicate a loss of communication. The genre of the book keeps switching, adventure and captivity some of the time, an autobiography some of the time, and at times an anthropological study. Whatever Melville is trying to communicate to the readers seems to be hard to understand, and since we were not there and don't know his language at times it seems that we can not understand what he is trying to say."

    I think the book is SO MUCH about this, about communicating an awareness of loss or failure in commmunication between different groups of people. and of course, the ultimate regret and sadness that comes with an awareness of that gap. Your comments this unit have been really smart in class, and it's great to read how you are thinking these issues through in your writing.

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