Lost "nuance" in translation
[ reserch question ]
What is lost on globalization?
[ description ]
It goes without saying, globalization is abusolutely important to our societies.
But, in fact, it brings not only benefits but also bad effects.
The concept of globalization is to put all societies over the world into one global system. In this case, we need one common laguage and translation.
In my opinion, translating one language into another language is the same as looking for a word which has the similar meaning between the two languages. That's why, in times, it happens a delicate nuance is lost in translation.
I think this lost nuance is the difference between languages and there is uniqueness in it.
[ inspiration ]
- a movie "lost in translation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Translation_(film)
- the concept of globalization
- the story of "the tower of Babel"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
[ how to forward the project ]
This project is to look for lost nuance when translating Japanese into English and design objects with the inspiration from the nuance.
I'm planning to focus on Japanese "comparison".
Basically comparison is unique and takes a role to make sentences more interesting and poetic. On the other hand, it tends to be lost in translation because of the uniqueness.
I pick up one example of Japanese comparison.
年を重ねる ( toshi wo kasaneru )
This comparison means to age in English.
But the nuance is different. Because "toshi" means year and "kasaneru" means to layer. So the correct nuance is to layer years. Basically year is not an object to layer.
I guess ancient people got the image from year rings and made this comparison. I admire this imagination ancient people made.
So at first I'm going to pick up Japanese unique comparisons ,whose nuance is lost, and serch for the roots of them. After taht, I'll crystallize images the comparisons have through designing objects.
I'd like to re-discover unique and original viewpoints Japanese have through picking up lost nuance in translation.
[ mind map ]
[ reserch question ]
What is lost on globalization?
[ description ]
It goes without saying, globalization is abusolutely important to our societies.
But, in fact, it brings not only benefits but also bad effects.
The concept of globalization is to put all societies over the world into one global system. In this case, we need one common laguage and translation.
In my opinion, translating one language into another language is the same as looking for a word which has the similar meaning between the two languages. That's why, in times, it happens a delicate nuance is lost in translation.
I think this lost nuance is the difference between languages and there is uniqueness in it.
[ inspiration ]
- a movie "lost in translation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Translation_(film)
- the concept of globalization
- the story of "the tower of Babel"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
[ how to forward the project ]
This project is to look for lost nuance when translating Japanese into English and design objects with the inspiration from the nuance.
I'm planning to focus on Japanese "comparison".
Basically comparison is unique and takes a role to make sentences more interesting and poetic. On the other hand, it tends to be lost in translation because of the uniqueness.
I pick up one example of Japanese comparison.
年を重ねる ( toshi wo kasaneru )
This comparison means to age in English.
But the nuance is different. Because "toshi" means year and "kasaneru" means to layer. So the correct nuance is to layer years. Basically year is not an object to layer.
I guess ancient people got the image from year rings and made this comparison. I admire this imagination ancient people made.
So at first I'm going to pick up Japanese unique comparisons ,whose nuance is lost, and serch for the roots of them. After taht, I'll crystallize images the comparisons have through designing objects.
I'd like to re-discover unique and original viewpoints Japanese have through picking up lost nuance in translation.
[ mind map ]
