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Reversing Concepts
Defective Part of a Whole
Commentary in Translation
Vague,
Meaningless Language
Stilted, Flowery Language
Reversing Concepts
 How does a translator get Sun Tzu's advice backward? There are
two ways. First, by using modern dictionaries that don't take into account
semantic drift, which we discuss as one of
the challenges in translating Sun Tzu. Second, and much more commonly, the
translator takes what Sun Tzu wrote and decides that Sun Tzu meant it to apply
to enemy forces rather than your own.
This happens frequently. It happens because Chinese is a conceptual language
that doesn't spell out the subject of a sentence. Sun Tzu expected his readers to
understand the context, having spent many years studying his scientific system.
In some translations of Sun Tzu, every chapter has at least one
major reversal. For example, Chapter 3 of The Art of War begins with a litany extolling the virtues of unity. If you look at the original Chinese, the meaning is clear.
"A nation that is united (one) is best. A nation that is broken is
second-rate." This is pretty close to a character-by-character translation.
Sun Tzu then says the same thing about an army, its
divisions, and so on.
How could a translator mix this up? By deciding that Sun
Tzu was talking about the enemy forces instead of your own!
In one translation, this section comes out:
"Preserving the enemy's state capital is best, destroying
it is second best. Preserving their army is best, destroying it is second
best..." (Note: The original Chinese has nothing about "preserving" in it.
It was added by the translator for "clarity.")
What? How did the translator decide that this section was about
the enemy? Because the next section of the text talks about the goal of getting the
enemy to surrender rather than beating him in a battle. The translator
decided that this following section provided the context for the beginning of
the chapter.
If the translator had spent some time studying Sun Tzu, he would
have known that unity is an overarching theme of Sun Tzu, and that he defines unity,
not size, as the source of competitive strength. We get others to
surrender without a fight by showing them a united front. Parts of this theme are introduced in
Chapter 1, but much of it is explained
in Chapter 3. If you get the first stanza wrong, you will never
understand what Sun Tzu is talking about in this chapter. Worse, you create
contradictions that cannot be resolved.
If destroying an enemy's forces is second best, why does Sun Tzu
devote a whole chapter to the use of fire in burning camps and armies? Sun
Tzu wasn't against destroying opposing forces. He was against getting into
costly battles with them. Unity—keeping your forces together—is one way
you eliminate the need for those battles. Sun Tzu is
like mathematics. If you get the basic premises wrong, everything falls
apart. If this were
the only place where translators were confused about when statements apply to the
enemy, it wouldn't be that bad, but the reality is that this kind of thing
happens in every translation—all the time. There are examples in almost
every chapter. No wonder people think Sun Tzu is
confusing. |
