Schleiermacher
In his writing, Schleiermacher describes two different methods of translating a text. The first he describes as bring the reader towards the author, and the second as bringing the writer towards the reader bringing the reader towards the author refers to the method of translating it more literally and leaving in things that are not in the language that it is being translated to such as cultural references. The second method is to translate the text so that the translation changes the meaning so that it is more easily understandable to the reader it is being translated to. I think that both work, but have different times to be used. For example, if the writing was an academic piece that needs to communicate facts, I would prefer to read it through the second method because I would want to get to the point. But, if it was something such as a fictional story, leaving out cultural references would get rid of the authenticity and charm of the original writing that the author intended to create.
Deutscher
I found Deutscher's reading to be very insightful as it opened my eyes to a wide variety of nuances amongst different languages and how it can affect the meaning of what is being communicated. The first example given was how English typically has a gender neutral version of many words, while languages like Spanish force you to specify which gender the subject is. While I wouldn't think this has a huge effect on communicating thoughts, it does make me wonder how those who go by unconventional pronouns and gender identities feel about these distinct categorizations of a subject. Another interesting thing pointed out by Deutscher was how certain languages use cardinal direction to refer to space vs. words such as "left" or "right." To me, this would be a massive pain, but Deutscher explains how the people who use this language have an extremely acute sense of direction and don't have to think twice about it, which I found very interesting.
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