LANDING 2022 Event 1 | Panel: How can translation shift cultural discourses?
Duong Manh Hung, Htoo Lwin Myo, Vanessa Moll, Ian Tee
By Louise Crocker
Key points:
Translation aids the preservation of local history and enhances access to international culture.
Translation is a collaborative art, where practitioners bring together their individual methods, linguistic experience and cultural knowledge.
Translators take a collective approach when it comes to making a living.
Purpose, audience and clarity are crucial considerations for translation.
The translation community is rich in expertise and resources.
For the first event of the LANDING 2022 conference, three Southeast Asia-based practitioners shared their experiences of translating cultural texts and narrative songs. The panel featured Dương Mạnh Hùng, an independent translator, writer and curator, Htoo Lwin Myo, a writer and translator, and Vanessa Moll, a lecturer at Khon Kaen University. The discussion was moderated by Ian Tee, Associate Editor at Art & Market.
Here are the takeaways from the panel:
Translation aids the preservation of local history and enhances access to international literature. Hùng described how art and literature from South Vietnam was erased or rewritten after the country’s reunification in 1975. Through translation, Hùng unearths South Vietnam’s artists and art critics working before 1975 which, in turn, reintroduces intellectual thinking of the time and includes the voices of Vietnamese writers into the global art discourse.
Vanessa highlighted that translation must carefully navigate Thailand’s taboos, from politics to religion. She has translated Morlam, a genre of rhythmic narrative from Isan culture, which the country has historically oppressed. Vanessa explained that Morlam is sung rather than written; Isan people are the textbooks and translation becomes a means of cultural commemoration.
Speaking about his motivation to be a translator, Htoo recounted the limited availability of western texts in Burmese and his realisation that learning English would be essential if he wished to read more. He aims to make more Western literature and theoretical ideas available in Burmese, thus creating for others what he did not have when he was young.
Translation is a collaborative art, where practitioners bring together their individual methods, linguistic experience and cultural knowledge. Hùng, a native Vietnamese speaker, described working with his mentor Claudine Ang, who grew up in Singapore. They had a mutual agreement that a translation should sound seamless and natural to the ear. They would read Hùng’s translations aloud to one another, which helped assess the natural flow of the text.
Vanessa worked together with Pikul Phuchomsri on translating Morlam into English. She described how they would transliterate the song into Thai script first, as there is no written Isan language, then, every line required a discussion on how they would convey it in English. Vanessa noted that the translation is still a work in progress, with further collaboration needed with a Morlam singer to achieve flow and rhythm.
Translators take a collective approach when it comes to making a living. All speakers agreed on a collective approach when it came to making a living as translators. Hùng spoke about the benefits of working in different capacities – both independently and with institutions. Htoo noted that Myanmar-based translators work on publication projects with NGOs, although these opportunities are waning due to the political situation. He has worked with art galleries and on projects that have come about through acquaintances. Vanessa earns an income through her university, translating academic papers. She hopes to source funding for gender-related translations through a new centre for gender studies that her faculty has opened.
Purpose, audience and clarity are crucial considerations for translation. Vanessa highlighted the importance of considering the original piece’s purpose. She used Disney as an example, as many of its English songs have been translated into Thai. Here, she says, audience enjoyment is the main concern, and therefore the songs are not strictly translated word for word. She notes the need to ascertain the impetus for the translation. Is it to teach, make history or record history? This will shape how the translation is formed.
For Hùng, he prioritised the intended audience of the original text, rather than the audience today. Taking as an example Thái Tuấn’s ‘Phê bình Nghệ thuật’ (‘Art Critique’ in English), Hùng describes how Tuấn was speaking to an intellectual, semi-public audience in pre-1975 Vietnam. Tuấn’s wording was academic, artistic, but also very open to public engagement, so this is what Hùng emulated in the translation.
When translating literature on contemporary art into Burmese, Htoo noted the difficulty for writers who wish to use non-Buddhist terminologies to find concise, secularised words. In this case, Htoo transliterates an English word and combines it with a Burmese word to convey the meaning of the original word to its fullest extent. When he compiled ‘A Glossary of Post-Colonial Studies’ in Burmese, he used a short-hand word for each term, but would also include a detailed explanation in brackets to explain the concept, etymology and an example of how the word is used for clarity.
The translation community is rich in expertise and resources. Vanessa mentioned Peera Songkunnatham, a writer and translator from the Isan region, whose Morlam translations have been published in ‘Asymptote’. She also highlighted the ‘Isaan Record’, which translates articles from Thai to English, including a translation of a Morlam sung by an elderly woman at a rally. Vanesssa, together with her colleague Pikul, worked on the latest issue of ‘Khon Kaen Youth Magazine’, which focussed on the theme of women’s rights and invited Thai, Isan and English writers to respond creatively on the topic.
Hùng recommended ‘Art Repulik Vietnam’, a bi-lingual English/Vietnamese publication on Vietnam’s contemporary arts. He also recognised his colleagues, including Lê Thuận Uyê, and others in the art sector in Vietnam and beyond, such as curators, arts directors and artists, who are doing important translation work for the arts.
Watch the full recording of LANDING 2022 Event 1 here:
You can also listen to the conversation as a podcast recording:
