Interpretation and writing

[textualdeviance]

I know I have several folks on my flist who are either professional interpreters of some variety or other, or who otherwise study the relationships of languages to each other, so I'm bending your ears for a moment, if I may!

So, discussions of race in SF/F writing have come around to discussions of writing dialogue.

There's something about how much "foreign" dialogue is portrayed that really bugs me: Characters speaking in accented English when they're supposed to be speaking their own native language among themselves.

For instance, it's ridiculously common in movies about WWII to have scenes of Nazi officers standing around discussing strategy. And almost all of these films have those characters speaking German-accented English.

To me, this makes no sense. They should either be speaking German, with English subtitles, or they should be speaking non-accented English. If they're not talking TO me and acknowledging me as an audience member (as they shouldn't be, if they aren't breaking the fourth wall), then they shouldn't be speaking my language with an accent. I either need a written translation, or I need a Babelfish in my ear.

To me, an author writing characters speaking a foreign language is acting as an interpreter, and I've never seen professional interpreters deliberately use an accent for a translation (except for whatever accent they themselves may naturally have.) It would, IMHO, be patronizing to do so, and it would also be counter-productive, because it would make the translation difficult to understand.

Now, when you're writing characters who speak different native languages all communicating in a common tongue then sure, an accent would make sense. But I just can't see it making sense when you're supposed to be a fly on the wall, listening in to a conversation among people speaking a different language.

Anyone have any feedback on this?

Comments

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Well, the problem with this in movies (and obviously it's different with written media) is when they're supposed to speak to each other in their own language and then speak to others in English. It would be strange for them to just not have an accent, especially if it was important that the character not be entirely fluent in English. It would be similarly weird for them to speak to each other in perfect English and then revert to "Vere are de Nuclear Wessels?" when speaking to English-speaking characters. Subtitles are the only answer. But, as indicated above, subtitles don't really work on paper. I'm not sure there is a perfect solution. Besides which, sometimes the written accent gives the character a unique voice and adds to the ambience. And sometimes it obscures the dialogue and infuriates readers (I'm looking at you JOSEPH from Wuthering Heights!), too. But what the hell do I know?