<Articles>Learning as Translation in Our Own Lives: Interpreting Lost in Translation

Abstract

I want to explore the meaning of ‘learning as translation’ by interpreting the film Lost in Translation, drawing on Stanley Cavell's idea. Especially in this article, I pay attention to the feeling of lostness appearing in the protagonist of the movie, Charlotte. She is in Tokyo for the first time, accompanying her photographer-husband who is there for work. At first glance, her wandering mind and confusion seem to be a response to linguistic and cultural differences. A closer look reveals, however, problems in her sense of identity, with her lack of career, and with family, rather than just in her exposure to this unfamiliar Japanese culture. She is confused about her relationship with her husband and about what she has done after college. In particular, when it comes to Charlotte's previous learning experiences, if we pay close attention to the college she attended, her major, and her career problems, we can rethink the meaning of learning in life. In this paper, I am going to divide charlotte's learning experiences into two types: one is learning as initiation into a course of study (and, that is, into a particular curricular content), and the other is learning as translation of the meaning in the course of one's own life. After examining these two possibilities of learning, I suggest that the learning that matters most involves a transformation of the self through translation, appropriate to the particular context of one's life.