La historia oficial, o ¿Traducción es Traición?
I had hoped to get a closer look at the text and context of the President's speech by tonight, but I've been side-tracked.
The Democrats actually broadcast a second rebuttal to the State of the Union address, delivered in Spanish by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Nobody told me about this--indeed, the mainstream media did not seem to comment on it at all. I had to find out about it through a passing reference on the Washington Post's Virginia politics blog, the Richmond Report. In an entry inviting comments on Tim Kaine's performance, one reader noted that CNN had also covered the Spanish rebuttal.
I was able to find the text and an mp3 of Villaraigosa's response. Those of you who do not read Spanish would be forgiven if you scroll right down, ignoring the Spanish-language text of the speech as published and delivered, and read the official translation helpfully provided in the Democrats' press release.
There's only one problem: the official translation is ever so slightly different in meaning from the Spanish-language text.
Many of the differences are trivial, and merely the result of an apparently sincere attempt to render the Spanish into good idiomatic English. However, in several places, there are words and phrases added to the Official Translation that do not appear anywhere in the Spanish-language text that Villaraigosa delivered on the air and in the recording.
[N.B.: For all the following examples I will be giving my own translations of the Spanish text, and comparing these with the official translation provided in the Democrats' press release. While I am fluent in Spanish--enough to consider myself English/Spanish bilingual--I invite textual comment and criticism from fluent and native speakers of the language. My translations will appear as plain roman text, below; the Spanish text will appear in italics, and the wording of the official translation will appear in monospaced type]
As Villaraigosa introduces himself, he marvels at the opportunity and freedom afforded to him as the son of an immigrant family. He notes that this opportunity had given him the chance to become "the mayor of the second-biggest city in the United States"(el alcalde de la segunda ciudad más grande de Estados Unidos). The official translation, however, has the mayor strike a prouder, more suitably patriotic tone as "mayor of the second largest city of the greatest nation in the world. "
Later, Villaraigosa calls attention to the plight of the uninsured in the U.S.: "Today, 46 million people in the United States, including 39 percent of Latinos, have no access to health insurance even though they work 40 hours or more a week."(Hoy, 56 millones de personas en Estados Unidos, incluyendo un 39 por ciento de Latinos, no tienen acceso a seguro medico aunque trabajen cuarenta horas o más por semana). In the Spanish-language version, these statistics stand alone and are presumed to speak for themselves. In the official translation, however, there are some additional rhetorical flourishes (additions here denoted in boldface):"Today, 46 million Americans and 39 percent of Latinos, many of whom work full-time at the hardest jobs, don't have access to health insurance. We can't be a healthy nation if we dont' face this challenge once and for all.".
There are other small insertions in the text, apparently to make the official English version flow more smoothly. In closing, for instance, the official version inserts "We are all in this together," which, though a noble thought (recalling the late Coretta Scott King), does not appear in the Spanish version delivered.
None of these stylistic additions is particularly offensive; the chief sin here, if there be one at all, is of repeating too many tired American political clichés. If anything, they confirm my suspicion that the English version had to be suitably "spin-friendly"--that is, that the language of the official translation had be more or less in line with the party's established English-language buzzwords. The party's ideological jargon is vitally important-- a point to which I will return later.
More intriguing, perhaps, are the subtle changes in meaning achieved by the way in which Democratic translators have rendered certain key phrases in the Spanish text.
Taking the Bush administration to task on its economic record, Villaraigosa notes that "4 million people have lost their place in the middle class, and now form a part of the poor class." (4 millones de personas han perdido su lugar en la clase media y ahora forman parte de la clase pobre). Grave news. But the official translation renders the sentence notes that "...4 million people have fallen from the working class into the ranks of the poor." Which is it? Most commentators, reading this passage, will note that it is generally accepted that the middle and working classes are distinct from each other; why is the Spanish version so dire, and not the official translation?
On the war in Iraq, the official translation tells us that the Administration should "...present a clear and credible plan to complete the job and bring them home." The original Spanish--...un plan claro y creíble para terminar el trabajo y que regresen a casa.--is a little stilted, but the literal grammatical sense is somewhat less forceful than the official translation has it: "...a clear and credible plan to finish the job so that they can return home." A minor change, but the official translation seems slightly more confrontational (the "bring them home" phrase is a tried-and-true anti-war slogan) than the Spanish text.
Other quirks of the grammar serve to differentiate the versions in general impact. Villaraigosa throughout uses a rather clumsy convention of referring to "the Democrats" in the third person, then using first-person plural ("we") verbs. Because the subject or agent of a Spanish verb is encoded in its conjugation, "We, the Democrats" becomes the speech's steady refrain. "We, the Democrats want to end the Culture of Corruption...We, the Democrats want universal health insurance...We, the Democrats want..." Since this sense is not explicit in English, the Spanish text, in its own strange way, directly associates the platform Villaraigosa elaborates (universal health care, education, immigration reform, a new foreign policy) with the people who intend to put it into action ("We, the Democrats"). This is a far more explicit link than the official translation's (or, indeed, the official, English-language Democratic Rebuttal delivered by Gov. Kaine) rather weak and indistinct "Democrats." formulation.
These are very small differences. But in my mind, the sum of all these differences makes Villaraigosa's Spanish rebuttal and its official translation two different texts, with two different audiences.
The speech Villaraigosa delivered is a very simple enumeration of the Democratic agenda in the coming year and for the coming election. Rhetorically, it is uncomplicated to the point of being simplistic. Villaraigosa has in the past admitted that he is not as comfortable in Spanish as he is in English, and it showed in his delivery: his sense of rhetorical timing was less than perfect, and his tone was flat. Perhaps the plainness of his text had to do with his lack of confidence in his ability to speak the language, but it has a second virtue: its very simplicity would make it understandable to a segment of the voting population which may not have previously followed any of the political issues of the day. Seen in this light, Villaraigosa's speech is an honest, if not particularly dazzling, attempt to reach out to a new community of voters. But why is the official translation so different? As I said above, I suspect the official translation is meant to be red meat to the Democratic rank and file, who will read and repeat its texts. Party-approved words and phrases absent from the original text have been added to make it into a suitable document for consumption by an Anglo activist audience. While the Spanish text reaches out for the Latino center--a center, by the way, which the Republicans have been courting aggressively all throughout G.W. Bush's political life--the official translation attempts to whip up the Anglo base.
My question to the Democrats is--why did there have to be a difference at all? Villaraigosa's Spanish text is a suitable statement of the Democratic party platform, and should have stood on its own merits, without significant spin-doctoring through "translation." The additions and stylistic changes are mostly harmless, but I find them irritating, and an insult to the intelligence of anyone who is able to read both the Spanish and the officially-translated English versions. Moreover, this kind of "translation" speaks ill of a party seeking to bring integrity back into government--why should I trust a party that reports, to Latinos, a dramatic collapse from the middle class into poverty, but climbs back down when addressing its Anglo base, saying the slide is from the working class into poverty?
I guess the most troubling thing is that, while I'm pleased to see the Democrats embracing and not stigmatizing the Latino immigrant electorate, this incident has left me with the sneaking suspicion that the Democrats see the Latinos as just another ethnic group to be mobilized for votes. By allowing such a free "translation" to circulate for the benefit of their Anglo cadres, the Democratic leadership has shown that the mobilization of the Latino vote is really not something they are undertaking for the benefit of their Latino voters, but rather an achievement that they can trumpet to their Anglo base.
The Democrats actually broadcast a second rebuttal to the State of the Union address, delivered in Spanish by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Nobody told me about this--indeed, the mainstream media did not seem to comment on it at all. I had to find out about it through a passing reference on the Washington Post's Virginia politics blog, the Richmond Report. In an entry inviting comments on Tim Kaine's performance, one reader noted that CNN had also covered the Spanish rebuttal.
I was able to find the text and an mp3 of Villaraigosa's response. Those of you who do not read Spanish would be forgiven if you scroll right down, ignoring the Spanish-language text of the speech as published and delivered, and read the official translation helpfully provided in the Democrats' press release.
There's only one problem: the official translation is ever so slightly different in meaning from the Spanish-language text.
Many of the differences are trivial, and merely the result of an apparently sincere attempt to render the Spanish into good idiomatic English. However, in several places, there are words and phrases added to the Official Translation that do not appear anywhere in the Spanish-language text that Villaraigosa delivered on the air and in the recording.
[N.B.: For all the following examples I will be giving my own translations of the Spanish text, and comparing these with the official translation provided in the Democrats' press release. While I am fluent in Spanish--enough to consider myself English/Spanish bilingual--I invite textual comment and criticism from fluent and native speakers of the language. My translations will appear as plain roman text, below; the Spanish text will appear in italics, and the wording of the official translation will appear in monospaced type]
As Villaraigosa introduces himself, he marvels at the opportunity and freedom afforded to him as the son of an immigrant family. He notes that this opportunity had given him the chance to become "the mayor of the second-biggest city in the United States"(el alcalde de la segunda ciudad más grande de Estados Unidos). The official translation, however, has the mayor strike a prouder, more suitably patriotic tone as "mayor of the second largest city of the greatest nation in the world. "
Later, Villaraigosa calls attention to the plight of the uninsured in the U.S.: "Today, 46 million people in the United States, including 39 percent of Latinos, have no access to health insurance even though they work 40 hours or more a week."(Hoy, 56 millones de personas en Estados Unidos, incluyendo un 39 por ciento de Latinos, no tienen acceso a seguro medico aunque trabajen cuarenta horas o más por semana). In the Spanish-language version, these statistics stand alone and are presumed to speak for themselves. In the official translation, however, there are some additional rhetorical flourishes (additions here denoted in boldface):"Today, 46 million Americans and 39 percent of Latinos, many of whom work full-time at the hardest jobs, don't have access to health insurance. We can't be a healthy nation if we dont' face this challenge once and for all.".
There are other small insertions in the text, apparently to make the official English version flow more smoothly. In closing, for instance, the official version inserts "We are all in this together," which, though a noble thought (recalling the late Coretta Scott King), does not appear in the Spanish version delivered.
None of these stylistic additions is particularly offensive; the chief sin here, if there be one at all, is of repeating too many tired American political clichés. If anything, they confirm my suspicion that the English version had to be suitably "spin-friendly"--that is, that the language of the official translation had be more or less in line with the party's established English-language buzzwords. The party's ideological jargon is vitally important-- a point to which I will return later.
More intriguing, perhaps, are the subtle changes in meaning achieved by the way in which Democratic translators have rendered certain key phrases in the Spanish text.
Taking the Bush administration to task on its economic record, Villaraigosa notes that "4 million people have lost their place in the middle class, and now form a part of the poor class." (4 millones de personas han perdido su lugar en la clase media y ahora forman parte de la clase pobre). Grave news. But the official translation renders the sentence notes that "...4 million people have fallen from the working class into the ranks of the poor." Which is it? Most commentators, reading this passage, will note that it is generally accepted that the middle and working classes are distinct from each other; why is the Spanish version so dire, and not the official translation?
On the war in Iraq, the official translation tells us that the Administration should "...present a clear and credible plan to complete the job and bring them home." The original Spanish--...un plan claro y creíble para terminar el trabajo y que regresen a casa.--is a little stilted, but the literal grammatical sense is somewhat less forceful than the official translation has it: "...a clear and credible plan to finish the job so that they can return home." A minor change, but the official translation seems slightly more confrontational (the "bring them home" phrase is a tried-and-true anti-war slogan) than the Spanish text.
Other quirks of the grammar serve to differentiate the versions in general impact. Villaraigosa throughout uses a rather clumsy convention of referring to "the Democrats" in the third person, then using first-person plural ("we") verbs. Because the subject or agent of a Spanish verb is encoded in its conjugation, "We, the Democrats" becomes the speech's steady refrain. "We, the Democrats want to end the Culture of Corruption...We, the Democrats want universal health insurance...We, the Democrats want..." Since this sense is not explicit in English, the Spanish text, in its own strange way, directly associates the platform Villaraigosa elaborates (universal health care, education, immigration reform, a new foreign policy) with the people who intend to put it into action ("We, the Democrats"). This is a far more explicit link than the official translation's (or, indeed, the official, English-language Democratic Rebuttal delivered by Gov. Kaine) rather weak and indistinct "Democrats." formulation.
These are very small differences. But in my mind, the sum of all these differences makes Villaraigosa's Spanish rebuttal and its official translation two different texts, with two different audiences.
The speech Villaraigosa delivered is a very simple enumeration of the Democratic agenda in the coming year and for the coming election. Rhetorically, it is uncomplicated to the point of being simplistic. Villaraigosa has in the past admitted that he is not as comfortable in Spanish as he is in English, and it showed in his delivery: his sense of rhetorical timing was less than perfect, and his tone was flat. Perhaps the plainness of his text had to do with his lack of confidence in his ability to speak the language, but it has a second virtue: its very simplicity would make it understandable to a segment of the voting population which may not have previously followed any of the political issues of the day. Seen in this light, Villaraigosa's speech is an honest, if not particularly dazzling, attempt to reach out to a new community of voters. But why is the official translation so different? As I said above, I suspect the official translation is meant to be red meat to the Democratic rank and file, who will read and repeat its texts. Party-approved words and phrases absent from the original text have been added to make it into a suitable document for consumption by an Anglo activist audience. While the Spanish text reaches out for the Latino center--a center, by the way, which the Republicans have been courting aggressively all throughout G.W. Bush's political life--the official translation attempts to whip up the Anglo base.
My question to the Democrats is--why did there have to be a difference at all? Villaraigosa's Spanish text is a suitable statement of the Democratic party platform, and should have stood on its own merits, without significant spin-doctoring through "translation." The additions and stylistic changes are mostly harmless, but I find them irritating, and an insult to the intelligence of anyone who is able to read both the Spanish and the officially-translated English versions. Moreover, this kind of "translation" speaks ill of a party seeking to bring integrity back into government--why should I trust a party that reports, to Latinos, a dramatic collapse from the middle class into poverty, but climbs back down when addressing its Anglo base, saying the slide is from the working class into poverty?
I guess the most troubling thing is that, while I'm pleased to see the Democrats embracing and not stigmatizing the Latino immigrant electorate, this incident has left me with the sneaking suspicion that the Democrats see the Latinos as just another ethnic group to be mobilized for votes. By allowing such a free "translation" to circulate for the benefit of their Anglo cadres, the Democratic leadership has shown that the mobilization of the Latino vote is really not something they are undertaking for the benefit of their Latino voters, but rather an achievement that they can trumpet to their Anglo base.