Susan Edna Bassnett (1945), translation theorist and comparative literature scholar. Among her best-known books are 'Translation Studies' (1980) and 'Comparative Literature' (1993).
MORE THAN WORDS
By Susan Bassnett
My young children are learning Italian and it is turning out to be a truly joyful experience for both of them. They have grown up with the language swirling around them and can understand quite well, but until now they have never taken a formal course that would teach them more deeply about basic grammar as well as try to have more fun. I myself had my doubts about conversation as the only method, having learned a language that way, only to forget almost everything afterwards, because I had no structural framework on which to base my knowledge. However, putting aside my prejudices for a moment, what really captured their imagination in this course was the work they had done with hand gestures.
We often forget that learning a language requires much more than words, although we can talk vaguely about 'body language'. Different cultures have different physical ways of expressing themselves, from the way they greet each other to the closeness with which they stand or sit next to each other. The ease with which Indian men extend their hands to each other on the street is surprising to Europeans when they first see it, as is the way in which, in South India in particular, certain people can use their neck muscles to move their heads gently from side to side, something I have never been a master at. Shaking hands is a gesture of courtesy in some contexts, but it is an invasion of another's personal space in others. The Japanese system of bowing is inscrutable to foreigners, and we always get it wrong the first time we decide to bow in greeting when we are in Japan. There is absolutely no universal system of greeting, just as there is no universal system of saying yes or no – in some cases yes is implied by a nod of approval, in other cases sometimes by a shake of the head, a gesture that means no everywhere in Western Europe and America. The translator who encounters the phrase in a novel 'he nodded assent' must alternate the gesture, or he will risk confusing the reader when translating into a language where the system of negation requires a nod.
There are a ton of books in airports offering advice on cross-cultural behavior, warning about what you should and shouldn’t do when traveling if you want to make a good impression. Some of them are helpful, like not bringing flowers wrapped in paper to your host in Germany, or not showing off chrysanthemums in southern Europe, where such flowers are associated with cemeteries, but I’m amazed at how wrong some of these guides to instant cross-cultural success can sometimes be. People who rely on them can actually servilely create problems where none exist. Not long ago I was hosting a dinner at my university and sent out a half-page guide on how to greet a visiting dignitary, which culminated in a stern warning not to shake her hand, as she would refuse that form of greeting. So I was serious and kept my hands at my sides until I realized she was extending her hand and smiling at everyone, so we extended ours and chatted all evening. I never understood why I had made all those warnings.
A few years ago, Olympic Airlines launched an awareness campaign that sought to highlight the 'O' in Olympic. The magazines featured a full-page ad featuring four photographs of business travelers, three men and one woman in various forms of national dress, all raising their right hands and forming an O with their index finger and thumb. One of my students brought this to my attention in class, incredulous that a gesture that is considered rude in some countries could be used by an international company in such a seemingly innocent way. The ad was removed after a short time, perhaps because someone else had also pointed out the blunder to the airline.
Traveling through Ireland some 30 years ago with my Irish-American husband, I had to explain to him why people who had waved happily to us started showing us their fists when he returned the V-sign from behind the wheel. At first he was inclined to think it was a British license plate, but when I explained that making the V for Victory sign can be extremely derogatory if you raise your fingers the wrong way, he calmed down and then simply waved.
In Italian class they had been taught a bunch of hand gestures, including wringing your hands, raising two fingers to ward off the evil eye, and open hands with your arms folded across your chest, accompanied by the question ‘Huh?’ which can mean a variety of things, but mostly that you are not taking what has just been said seriously. My daughter was so good at it that her classmates asked her how she knew all these, and she replied that they were the gestures she had grown up with, her mother’s gestures.
However, all of these gestures have come to me unconsciously. I am not aware of the gestures I make; they are just part of my life and my history. Not long after my children's language class, they showed me a video of me at my doctoral examination in Finland a few years ago, waving my arms around like a windmill. In fact, not only was I waving my arms, but I was also holding my hands together like Uriah Heepish, and, to make my point, I would extend my arms and fold my hands to my chest in a kind of hugging gesture. It was magically terrifying to watch and wonder how many students over the years I must have ruined their day with what they must have thought was bizarre gestural behavior, which was completely unconscious on my part. How they would have received this in Finland, where gesticulation is kept to a minimum, I will never know, given that my hosts were extremely polite in their Nordic way of expressing themselves.
I find it adorable to learn sign language at the same time as you're learning a foreign language. If we're ever going to learn the meaning of extra-verbals, then this seems like a good way to start.
Words are always spoken in a context, and the way they are spoken, accompanied by specific gestures, adds layers of meaning to a communicative exchange. Understanding how other cultures operate is a vital part of translation and interpretation, so being able to read the sign language that accompanies (or replaces) the words is as important as being able to translate the words themselves. For the literary translator, it is essential to be able to capture the meaning of the gesture described in a novel, or shown in a theatrical scene, as well as to find substitute gestures that might make sense to their audience if this proves possible, or to provide clarification if an equivalent substitute cannot be found.
Surprisingly, gestures not only vary across cultures, they also vary over time. Early 19th-century novelists such as Mrs Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë, who wrote with great sensitivity about people's daily habits as they observed them, record a variety of gestures that might not have the same meaning today. One frequently repeated gesture is the tapping of the fingers on the table, whether waiting for the next course to be served or waiting to get the attention of a shop assistant. This may have been acceptable behavior in polite English society in the 1830s, but if someone were to tap their fingers on the table in my house while waiting for my pudding to be served, I fear they may no longer be invited. Such a palpable gesture of impatience might be seen as bad manners today, whereas yesterday it might have been simply irreproachable.
Learning to read different sign languages is a vital step in learning to understand, both verbally and physically, other cultures. Teaching language learners about the way native speakers of the language they are studying move and interact is just as important as teaching them basic vocabulary and sentence structures. We may still be using Japanese inflection incorrectly, but at least we can learn something about the codification of inflection and, hopefully, learn not to offend the people we are trying to communicate with by making what they consider an offensive gesture. Well, well done to my children's teachers - I wish other language teachers were as brilliant.
/First published in ITI Bulletin January–February 2008.
/Taken from Susan Bassnett, 'Reflections on Translation', Multilingual Matters, 2011
/Translation Gazeta Express
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