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How to Go about Translation Work? Ethnomusicology Translations as a Model
In this third installment in our series on the importance of translation for global musicology, Gavin S. K. Lee sought out scholars involved with Ethnomusicology Translations (ET) and asked them about the origins of the project, the challenges encountered, and the solutions devised. The first part of this article is based on the information gathered through communication with the former executive director of the Society of Ethnomusicology, Stephen Stuempfle, on the history of the society’s translation initiatives, and part two contains views expressed by the former general editor of ET, Richard K. Wolf, during an interview conducted in July 2023.
Foundation
ET is now an online publication comprising articles translated to English from other languages, which takes the form of a monograph series. In theory, monographs can contain any number of articles, though ET usually publishes one to two articles per year (in a monograph). The monographic aspiration of ET was initially realized in the form of the print publication A Latin American Music Reader,1 a volume containing seventeen translated articles from Latin American writers across the past century, covering all musical genres, including the Western art music of the Spanish viceroyalties and other European colonies in Central and South America. The historical breadth of the scholarship is intended to counter a presentist reception of recent ethnomusicological scholarship on Latin America that North American readers may be more familiar with, which may reinforce the erroneous impression of musical cultures “without history.”
The Latin American Music Reader remains the only major collection of articles to appear in print or online under the aegis of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM). It was Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco who, during her tenure as SEM’s first vice president (for publications) from 2007 to 2009, developed the unrealized plan for a series of monographs that the society would publish in collaboration with a university press. Each monograph would have included a collection of articles in a particular language, translated into English. Following the Latin American Music Reader, SEM transitioned into the online open-access format of ET, published on the Indiana University Libraries’ IUScholarWorks platform, with the first issue appearing in 2016. Wolf was the inaugural general editor. Castelo-Branco, Stephen Blum, and Tong Soon Lee were the first advisory editors; all three had been involved in the planned print monograph series.
There is currently no funding source for translation work in many musicology societies, and thus advice was sought from SEM’s former executive director, Stephen Stuempfle. He frequently mentioned ET in SEM’s fundraising appeals to members; payments to translators are made from SEM general operating funds. Perhaps other societies might try a fundraising campaign to support translation projects.
Editorial Practices
Ethnomusicology Translations is necessary because there are limits to the number of languages any given scholar is fluent in. “Nobody can read all of the languages in which there are publications about music,” Wolf emphasized. The intention of ET is to envoice scholars who belong to a particular tradition, perform in that tradition, or who are closer to it in other ways. ET allows readers to encounter different ways of thinking and writing that may depart from North American models; this is true not just for writings in languages other than English, but even within English usage in different countries such as India or South Africa. ET plays a small part toward increasing the diversity of thought and writings in ethnomusicological research, much of which is published in English.
At ET, the process of producing a translated article begins with soliciting nominations for articles to be translated. Often, articles are nominated by young scholars or graduate students working on a project which involves translation anyway. Publishing their work with ET brings their translation up to a certain standard and enables them to share their work. The person nominating an article provides a rationale for their choice, explaining why a broader readership should have access to this research. The general editor then brings this to the advisory editors (who may themselves nominate articles sometimes) for review. No consideration is given to whether the original language is European or non-European, though as a principle, ET seeks to avoid the same source language of articles previously translated. Permission is obtained from the original authors (rather than the original publishers) to translate their articles.
The translation work flow was originally designed to involve a translator as well as a manuscript editor, who sends the translation out for peer review and does line editing. The manuscript editor also writes an introduction contextualizing the article within its own research circle to explain its significance, preventing misunderstandings that may occur if the article were received through North American lenses and assumptions. In that workflow scenario, only the translator is paid an honorarium calculated at five cents per word (ten cents if they are not SEM members); there is a large element of service in the important work of translation.
Often times, however, there is insufficient personnel, and the translator also writes the introduction to the article. The general editor may be responsible for line editing, or even serve as peer reviewer, if they have the required language skills.
Two major challenges, and ways to overcome them, include:
1. Nomination of article: It is often difficult to obtain nominations for articles to be translated, even from senior scholars. While nominations of one’s own article is allowed, it is often the case that this is a recent publication for which the author is seeking a broader readership. In cases such as these, the general editor engages the nominator in a conversation about the entire oeuvre of publications in a specific language and seeks to identify highly cited articles that may be better choices for translation; this process sometimes results in another article by a different author being selected for translation.
2. Inexperienced translators: A first-time translator is often overly focused on literally expressing the written contents of the original article, without paying equal attention to the readability of the English version, resulting in incomprehensibility due to non-idiomatic syntax and phrasing, multiple embedded clauses, and so on. The original articles may be highly technical and lengthy, and the original text may itself be confusing. ET seldom rejects a translation, but there was one instance in which the general editor felt that the problems could not be addressed, and the translation was not published. Wolf advises that in translation, “clarity and readability” of the English text is essential. Trying to capture the voice or tone of the original text, which may be successful with literature, is often futile for academic writing. Wolf recommends that the translator should keep in mind a “naïve” reader and think about how to write in such a way as to keep them reading.
Through developing solutions for the challenges of translation, ET serves as a valuable guide for other translation projects, illuminating the feasibility of this critical work. With ET as a pioneer within the field of ethnomusicology, a similar translation project within the field of musicology would significantly expand the reach and impact of non-European scholarly work, fostering greater inclusivity and diversity in academic discourse.
