Posted by Vivian Lin

Reflecting on something David mentioned in class a few weeks ago, I’ve noticed the incorporation of non-English language into the novels (“books,” if novel isn’t an appropriate term for some of them), and the effect this has on the work and the reader.

The Japanese romanji (use of Latin alphabet to write out the Japanese language) in Ozeki’s My Year of Meats was almost always followed by an English translation. While this English-echo of Japanese made practical sense for a novel intended to reach American audiences, it was not a very realistic portrayal of character-character interactions. Joichi knew that Jane speaks Japanese fluently—he would not have needed to repeat himself in English. In contrast, I noticed that there was a great deal more confusion in Hagedorn’s Dogeaters due to the use of unconventionally-spelled Spanish and Tagalog (and possibly other dialects). I often found myself wishing there were a glossary or mini language dictionary built into the back of the book. What inside joke or snide remark was I missing out on? Now, with Cha’s Dictee, there are entire passages of French, sometimes followed by a translation, sometimes not.

I personally know some Spanish, very little romanized Japanese, virtually no French, and no Tagalog or any other Philippine dialects. The occasional use of non-English language probably is not as important as form and other aspects of writing style when it comes to understanding the literature. However, there is something very stabilizing and comforting when you feel that you can read all of the text, recognize every word, and perhaps proceed with a literary analysis of some sort. The converse is that feeling of alienation and confusion when the text is not comprehensible to you. If the language is one you do not know, there is limited potential for analyzing the literal content of that passage.

In the bigger picture, I wonder how accessible these works are to an average reader. Surely the audience cannot be expected to be fluent in every language that appears. Beyond language, there are likely to be subtle cultural details that go unnoticed. Again, the audience most likely will not be well-versed in proper behavior or convention of these varied cultures. [By the way, I asked my roommate, who is 4th or 5th generation Japanese and has studied Japanese for language, about bathing and back scrubbing as noted in Yamamoto’s “Seventeen Syllables.” She said it would not be unusual for a father to scrub the back of his young daughter in the bath. The father’s refusal to do so might be seen as an implied “grow up” type of a message. This is just one possible unsupported and un-researched interpretation of that passing scene between Rosie and her father, of course.] How much do we lose by not understanding the language?

Someone also brought up in discussion that even when the dialogue in Dogeaters was presented in English, we did not know whether the characters were speaking English, Tagalog, or another language unless the author told us so. Perhaps, then, we take for granted that we can understand what the characters say and do in the novel—we only know what happens because the author has generously provided us with a direct translation. The story transmits itself through multiple filters of language and culture, since dictionary definitions and basic descriptions do not always carry an explanation of cultural significance or connotation.

If there is no translation, as seems to be the case in quite a bit of Dictee, what do we do? I will admit that when I can’t understand the language that is being used, I tend to skim over that section. If the author provides a translation, I read that and feel better about the text, regardless of whether the translation does or does not make sense in the context of the scene (as in My Year of Meats). On a superficial level, if the language is unfamiliar, then some of the literal meaning may be lost. If the culture is unfamiliar, again, the reader may be missing out. However, the consequences of this feeling of unfamiliarity, the resulting sense of distance and that potential for misunderstanding, may be more important than trying to translate the text word for word. The fact that I sit back and say “I don’t know what that means on the most basic of levels” speaks to the Asian American experience for many people: a foreign language and a foreign culture, where everyone seems to understand except you. It is, effectively, inclusion and exclusion on the author’s part.