more notes on machine translation
Who should control the texts you read and how?
Let us begin again, remembering Francois Jullien .. … in what language, at the world’s scale, is the dialogue between cultures to take place? If it cannot occur in the language of either perspective without provoking the other’s alienation, the answer is, for once, simple: dialogue can occur only in the languages of both the one and the other: in other words, between the two languages, in the interspace opened by translation. Because there is no third-party or mediating language (globalized English, or Globish, certainly does not fit the bill), translation is the logical language for dialogue. Or, to borrow a well- known phrase (though I am transferring it from Europe to the world), translation ought to be the world’s language. The world to come ought to be the inter-lingual world: not the world of a dominant language, whatever it might be, but that of translation as it activates the resources_of various languages with respect to one_ another. Languages both discovering one another and getting back down to work, that something might pass between them.
Some questions which seems unanswerable still, still without trying to answer them they derive from the above quote. Does my use of machine translation mean that the use is representational? Does translation break open the dialogues between cultures ? Does machine translation break the philosophical understanding of translation? What are you using the technologies of machine translation for? But in what language, at the world’s scale, is the dialogue between cultures to take place? Does literature in the age of technical progress absolutise the political disruptive function of literature, or translation?
“(If) literature, since its gradual detachment from its metaphysical origins, has always been characterized by the decisive critical role it has assumed politically it would, now, today, be measured by the degree to which it disrupts political practice.” (Heissenbuttel)
This is where I began, philosophically grounded in the problematic produced by Francois Jullien in his refusal of Cultural Identity. Combined with the political understanding raised by Helmet Heissenbuttel, and the simple desire to read more of his work. I have never wanted to learn to speak or read German, I have time and the ability but literally no desire. Rather it occurred to me that I could use the technologies of machine translation, extract them from the society of the spectacle, and use them against the predominant political practice. It had to be, would be these texts, because I was interested in translating texts using these spectacular machines, that only about fifty people in the world would be interested in reading in English, in other words translating them into English is a political practice. It is the particular act of translation of thought that interests me in this estrangement of language practice and translation in this form and practice . It will not remain so as it enables us to not be dependent on fashion. i am currently translating works of Helmet Heisenbuttel. As I said I began with a relatively known set of texts Textbuch 1–6, comparing the output from the machine translation technologies to Micheal Hamburgers 1970s translations, as a means of proving the quality of the experiment. Whilst there were differences across the different machine translators, eventually I found a German based machine translator that produced predictable output and which generally followed the tenses of the text. The evidence s clear the machine translation experiment had been successful. Then i began translating Heissenbuttels Uber Benjamin, which I am currently final reviewing and correcting, improving where there are errors and adjusting where necessary. Those errors which appeal to me I have left. I think the machine translator translates with the same intensity that Heissenbuttel must have tran slated and written.
A forgone conclusion you might say in these days of AI that we have deskilled and broken cultural identity… The machine translation technology has freed us from having to learn to speak and read in multiple languages. We know longer have to be dependent on human translators learning a new cultural identity. We are not dependent on the skills of human professionals, at whatever skill level they can translate at. The situation has changed, we can certainly learn to speak and read the important everyday things, order coffee, talk with shop assistants, without having to learn to read German High Modernist prose, which after all is better done in English, an experiment, it is after all an experimental prose. In this case by one of the most modern of postwar German writers.
How is it using this technology of machine translation against the corporate values of the society of the spectacle. There are no images, just translated words. According to Benjamin, this means: “The technical reproducibility of the work of art emancipates it for the first time in world history from its parasitic existence in ritual … Its foundation on ritual is replaced by its foundation on a different practice: namely, its foundation on politics”. So here we are back with the references at the beginning of this note, where translation is always a political practice. Whether its literary political practice, juridicial contracts, translation of scientific papers… we are back with Francios Jullien … in what language, at the world’s scale, is the dialogue between cultures to take place? If it cannot occur in the language of either perspective without provoking the other’s alienation, the answer is, for once, simple: dialogue can occur only in the languages of both the one and the other: in other words, between the two languages, in the interspace opened by translation. Because there is no third-party or mediating language (globalized English, or Globish, certainly does not fit the bill), translation is the logical language for dialogue. Or, to borrow a well- known phrase (though I am transferring it from Europe to the world), translation ought to be the world’s language. The world to come ought to be the inter-lingual world: not the world of a dominant language, whatever it might be, but that of translation as it activates the resources_of various languages with respect to one_ another. Languages both discovering one another and getting back down to work, that something might pass between them….
