Sophia Chun Week 7 Reading Response
I realized I didn’t copy my first paragraph when I submitted my work! Here is my reading response for the week:
I wonder at defining “ignorance” when people speak of languages—the problem is how can you say a person does or doesn’t know a language? Is there a quantitative, universal understanding of fluency? And then there’s attaching a language to a culture, and that symbiotic relationship. There’s lots of different negotiations and hurdles that come with understanding a culture, especially as someone not “native” to that culture and even as someone who is “native” to the cutlure. I think the most important thing a person can do when translating from a language they aren’t traditionally fluent in, is for them to understand and live with the culture, and be aware of their own position in relation to the other culture. But there’s so much that’s historically problematic in one culture studying another, re-writing the other’s cultures texts and making conclusions about their values and manners based on an outsider’s perspective.