10/9/2007 4:02:00 PM Translation difficulties highlighted at NAU lecture series
Bambi Schieffelin lectured on The difficulty of translating ideas about language across time and text at Northern Arizona University (NAU) last week. Schieffelin, a professor of anthropology at New York University, is a nationally recognized authority on cultural ideas about language (Photo by Pat Carr).
By Pat Carr Special to the Observer
FLAGSTAFF-The difficulty of translating ideas about language across time and text was the topic of a lecture by Professor Bambi Schieffelin at Northern Arizona University (NAU) last week. Schieffelin, a professor of anthropology at New York University, is a nationally recognized authority on cultural ideas about language.
Schieffelin read a paper depicting the results of her research with the Bosavi, who live in Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific. She described to an audience of 60 anthropology students and members of the wider NAU community the difficulties missionaries encountered when translating such words as sheep, deserts and blasphemy as those experiences were not part of the local tropical rain forest community.
According to Schieffelin it is much more difficult to translate ways of quoting other people, or representing their thoughts (if a community believes that is even possible) because these ways tend to differ quite a lot from language to language.
"One language's ways of representing speech and thought also convey a lot of cultural information, including beliefs about knowledge and what it is to be a person. Those beliefs also vary a lot across cultures," Schieffelin said.
"Translating practices are complicated by both culture and linguistic conventions," Schieffelin added. "It is difficult to say the 'same' thing in a different language."
Jim Wilce, a professor with the department of anthropology at NAU said that translation problems across cultures can occur with any book or text.
"Given the rise of globalization today," Schieffelin said, "it is important that translation ideologies and practices receive close study if we are to be effective. Makeshift ways of translating can have radical cultural implications for all the parties involved," Schieffelin added.
The lecture was part of a series underwritten by the Salus Mundi Foundation and sponsored by the Department of Linguistic Anthropology at NAU.
Additional information on future linguistic anthropology lectures may be obtained by contacting Wilce at Jim.Wilce@nau.edu.
