The selected text is a part of the short story “Bokko-Chan” a Japanese short story written by Shinichi Hoshi which was translated into English and published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in June 1963. He was a Japanese novelist and science fiction writer best known for his "short-short" science fiction stories.
Featuring a more satirical style than other writers in his genre, Hoshi often points out flaws in society through his short stories. His writings are known for delivering incredible twists at the end of his short stories.
Source Text:
As the boy left, the master called out for other customers that were left in the bar. “From now, I will be treating you all, so drink as much as you want!” He was going to treat them with alcohol taken out from the plastic pipe, that too because no new customers would come that late.
“Yay!”
“That’s so good!”
“Cheers!”
The customers as well as bartenders raised their glasses to do cheers. Even the master raised his glass a bit from behind the counter. That night, the bar had its lights on till late night. The radio continued to play music. Even if no one returned home, the voices of people stopped to be heard.
Soon, even the radio stopped playing music and said “Good night!”. Bokko-Chan whispered, “Good night!”, and kept waiting for the next person who would talk to her, with an expressionless face.
Translation in Spanish:
Cuando el chico se fue, el dueño llamó a otros clientes que se habían quedado en el bar. "A partir de ahora, os invito a todos, ¡así que bebed tanto lo que queráis" Iba a darles ese alcohol sacado del tubo de plástico, y eso también porque ningún cliente nuevo llegaría tan tarde.
"¡Yey!"
"¡Qué bueno!"
"¡Salud!"
Los clientes, así como también los camareros brindaron. Incluso el dueño brindó un poco por detrás del mostrador de bar. Esa noche, el bar tenía sus luces encendidas hasta altas horas de la noche. La radio continuó reproduciendo música. Aunque nadie regresó a casa, las voces de las personas dejaron de ser escuchadas.
Pronto, incluso la música en la radio detuvo y el locutor de radio dijo "¡Buenas noches!". Bokko-Chan susurró: "¡Buenas noches!" y se quedó esperando a la siguiente persona que hablaría con ella, con un rostro inexpresivo.
Analysis:
The story, as written originally in Japanese, is bound to have many Japanese cultural references. Furthermore, written in 1963, there were elements and cultural customs references that were pertinent to that era as opposed to today’s world. Thus, before even starting to translate, I read some other stories written by Shinichi Hoshi (English translated versions) and tried to understand his writing style in general.
The pure literal translation was off the table, because, it is a short story and most of the time when one does its literal translation, the translator may lose the essence of the story as a whole and thus making it uninteresting and unnatural. Despite this, there were a few sentences which, if translated literally, made total sense.
During translating any text of any language, the translator must go through the process of reading and studying about the culture of the source language as well as the target language as well. Domestication, which is basically adaptive translation is considered good as it makes the text easy to understand for the reader as he can relate to the text easily.
In the source text there are various sentences that sound vague or sometimes ambiguous in the target language, but sound perfect in Japanese, therefore a word or phrase was added to make the meaning clear for the reader. For example, the sentence, Soon, even the radio stopped playing music and said “Good night! Here, in the Japanese version, the radio said “Good night” might have been clearly understood, but while translating into English or Spanish I had to add “el locutor de radio dijo…” to sound more natural and clearer. Also, for certain phrases in English, there is a verb, thus there is no need to translate literally as it would sound weird and mechanical. For example, the phrase “to raise as glass” is simply “brindar” in Spanish which means to toast which sounds more natural.
Thus, while translating this story, I had to understand a bit about Japanese customs and keep in mind the target language readers and the language culture.
But every method has its pros and cons. The method of domestication translation has also its share of advantages and disadvantages. The target text readers can easily understand the target text as it sounds natural. But it can also happen that the target text readers cannot interpret the text because the interpretation has been done by the translator. Furthermore, the target text readers do not get knowledge of the source language.
Thus, while translating any literary text, the translator must keep in mind the strategies to be implemented, the culture of both the languages, as well as the background of the author. But personally, I think in order to get good results, the translator can combine his strategies which will depend on the text and the languages. Furthermore, to sound more natural and dynamic, there should be a proper blend of translation strategies which should maintain the essence of the text and the message given should be properly communicated, but should be at the same time easy to comprehend and which will help the reader to relate to the story.
