Translating Travel Writing

A friend of mine is an academic who has done research on translation writing. Last week as she was speaking about this she mentioned travel writing. My ears pricked and my eyes lit up. I had thought that translation literally just meant translating work from one language to another. But, no. It has a range of meanings which I would like to explore in my own writing in the future, and is definitely something to think about when travel writing. 

Firstly, translating writing can mean changing the idioms and slang from the writers culture into phrases the reader will understand. For example, a European audience may not know what the term 'kick the bucket' means, so the translator would have to put this in words the readers can understand. This is not only the case between languages, but also between countries and cultures. For example, although Americans also speak English this phrase is not commonly used in America and therefor the readers may not understand it. I think this could be an issue in travel writing as the readers would want to be able to get a sense of the culture and place being written about, as well as the culture of the writer. Lots of this could be lost through the translation. 

Secondly, I found out that translating writing is a process that the travel writer actually undergoes themselves, which I find very interesting. As a travel writer writes about a different country and culture to their readers, they must translate that culture into words the readers will understand. As soon as a travel writer from a different culture writes about another country they are automatically translating what they see into their own words. I think this is great as it shows how much diversity there is in the world-- imagine just how many different reactions and interpretations could be written about one place from different cultural perspectives!

Travel writing is an area I would like to look at getting into, and it sure is a great excuse to go and see the world... and translate what I see into words for everyone back home! 

Image:  http://www.travelgearforwomen.com/travel-writing-2/