| Abstrakt: |
This paper investigates both what can be 'lost' in language and in its translation to English, and what can be 'found' through a deep qualitative, semiotic analysis of the discursive patterns reflected in a number of interviews conducted in Hebrew with native Israeli interviewees by a semi-fluent American immigrant interviewer. Israeli Hebrew has a very complex pronoun system inflected for number, person, and gender. Masculine forms are considered to be unmarked and are used both generically and gender specifically, while feminine forms are marked and are only gender specific. The interviewees' uses of pronouns when talking with the female interviewer has several socio-psychological implications which can be 'lost' in verbatim English translation. In this paper, we will discuss the ways in which they can be 'found' through a more careful and language-attentive translation. This paper will explore the difficulties in-but nonetheless the necessity of-translation of diverse pronoun systems and other semantic terms that exist in the original language but not in the translated one. Finally, we will investigate a number of specific communicative strategies used by the interviewee; namely, 1) English words; 2) repetition; 3) the phrases, "you know," and "let's say"; 4) both the masculine and feminine forms of the secondperson pronoun ("you"); and 5) the questions, "Do you understand?" and "Did you understand?". We have found that, when closely examined, the non-random distribution of these uses of language, both in form and content, allows us to 'find' myriad analytical insights about power dynamics and interview co-construction that would have been 'lost' without careful translation. This paper also discusses the necessity for a great deal of reflexivity in cross-language research such as this, and the need for the 'outsider' researcher to keep a constant and watchful eye on his or her strengths and limitations when involved in a process of attempting to understand the 'insider' perspective, and then to translate it into another language-both linguistically and academically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
