Is Translation an Art?
According to one definition, an art is an activity requiring skill that is learned through experience and instinct rather than by memorising facts. Examples include ‘the culinary arts’, ‘martial arts’ and the ‘art’ of sculpture, writing, discourse, etc. These activities involve expertise and know-how that are acquired and honed over time.
Just like writers and poets, translators pay careful attention to their choice of words when composing their text. Their aim is to faithfully transcribe the original intention of the author, while making sure that their work is an exact reproduction of the text with all its nuances and ensuring it remains adapted to its audience.
Like a sculptor, the translator takes their raw material and works on it to bring out what’s hidden inside. As Michelangelo once said, “every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculpture to discover it”. In the same way, the translator captures the meaning of their source text and reveals it to the eyes of their readers.
Like all the arts, translation evolves over time and has been transformed by the development of new techniques and technologies. In craftsmanship, where cabinetmakers once cut and carved wood by hand, there are now electric and numerically controlled tools to do part of the work for them. For their part, translators have been using CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools for several decades already, which are now joined by those of machine translation. By adapting to these changes, the profession has demonstrated is strength and resilience in the face of new challenges.
Admittedly, translation is not much like the sort of art you think of you see Michelangelo’s David, but without the spark of human genius – which characterises all the arts and which we could call creativity or inspiration – the true meaning of a text, with all its subtleties that cannot be translated literally, would remain inaccessible to foreign readers. This same human genius enabled the great artists and craftspeople of the past to make the masterpieces for which they are now famous.
In short, while a translation is not quite a dazzling as a great piece of handiwork, it owes all its complexity and beauty to the translator’s know-how and expertise. So yes, we believe that translation is an art!
