The things we say

You know that one word that makes you and your sister giggle, but no one else? That phrase that hints to that inside joke that makes you and your friends laugh out loud, while everyone looks confused? In Making Meanings, Creating Family, Cynthia Gordon explores theories of intertextuality and framing to understand the dynamics of the creation of a familect or marriage language, meaning the intimate lexicon that develops within a small group of closely connected people, be it a family, a couple, or a group of friends.

The things we say to each other are representative of the way in which we are all involved in the slow but relentless evolution of language, even if it is within the confines of our own existence and our communication with loved ones. Interestingly, this intimate relationship between individuals and a shared lexicon, reveals not so much what it is said, but rather what is left unsaid, the missing explanation, the no-need-to-say-more.

The unsaid is by far the most arduous thing to translate; in fact, I would tend to believe it is impossible. Or rather: yes, we can explain the inside joke, or we can tell you what funny memory is evoked when you say that word, but the explanation in and of itself defeats the purpose, robs the word of its efficacy, of the encoded meaning that reinforces a bond of mutual understanding. This effort to operate an intralingual translation (and an interlingual translation) is what makes translation in general a kind of “treason” where the accuracy of meaning is polluted by its explanation. And yet, as translators, we have no choice but to simplify, disclose, and try to deliver the majority (but never the fullness) of the intended subtleties of meaning across.