The American Dream

My family (Tatiana, Anton, Alex, Katya)

The American Dream. Three words that have a great influence over my life. I come from a family of Russian immigrants (my mom and dad) who came here to pursue their own American Dream. They came all the way from Russia because of their incredible talents in figure skating. A Russian coach recruited them to the United States to come and skate for the beloved Disney On Ice Figure Skating Company. They were both pair skaters and they got to travel all around the world. When picking a place to eventually settle down, they chose America. Why? It is according to their opinion that at the time I came into the world (1997), the government in Russia wasn't exactly in the best shape. After all, it was still trying to rid itself of complete Communism from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991. Staying in America would provide them with the best chance of raising me where there was peace and that had a stable government with the Clinton Administration. It was a hard decision for them, but looking back now, they tell me it was the right one. I can tell it's hard for them sometimes, because they haven't had a chance to visit their parents (my grandparents) and siblings (my aunts and uncles) in what would now be about 15 years. It is a good thing that Skype is around! This is the closest thing my family has to speaking and seeing our extended family overseas.

In my eyes, I would describe the American Dream as something special. It is a chance for me to go out into America and become something worthy. For me, the dream is to be the first person in my family (here in the States) to attend college. It puts a lot of pressure on me to do well in school so that I can get the scholarship money to afford the college that I want to attend. Especially since I come from hard-working parents who can't afford to send me off to college due to financial reasons. The American Dream I have for myself is to make my way out on my own and with hard work (like my parents who had nothing when they came here), go to college and get a job to pay off funds. Then, of course, I would like to go into a career that will bring me joy so that I can start helping out my parents when they get older in age and give back to them what they so generously provided for me to be able to pursue my goals.

When I think of wealth, I see it as any substantial assets that an individual has gained over their entire lifetime due to hard work or success. It seems to me that Americans' attitudes towards wealth is that America is a prosperous nation to achieve it. They tend to neglect the fact that not everyone in America is rich or can get rich quickly. Wealth is often inherited, and it is actually a very hard thing to achieve on your own. Education is one factor that may play a role, investments in the stock market, or owning a business may be other factors. Most of America's wealthy reside in the Upper class which only makes up about 2-3% of our social class. Americans think it is easy to get wealthy because America is a nation of promise and prosperity. Some Americans think they can achieve wealth with the aid of God. When it comes to poverty however, Americans tend to ignore the underlying issues that cause poverty. Our class system is where the problems arise; those in the working class aren't treated as fairly despite their difficult lives.

My opinion toward wealth is that only those born into rich families who are involved in politics or own large corporate companies can be considered wealthy. It has nothing to do with the American Dream. However, in certain circumstances wealth can result from the start of a dream if it gains enough attention over time. For example, look at the successes of John D. Rockefeller who became a major influence to Americans' belief in the American Dream. As far as my opinion on poverty, I think that not enough is being done to attract attention to its causes. Poverty results from people who can't find proper schooling, have to drop out from school, don't have a job, or have experienced a traumatic event in their life. It is important for our government to work on finding solutions to help immigrant families like mine find equal opportunities to be able to put their children into college and encourage them to pursue careers and not end up working blue-collar jobs for the rest of their lives.

Translations, Translations? Translations!

Translations

Original: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

- diction (connotation/denotation)
Based on my knowledge, I would say that the diction is in the German language.
- syntax
With that being said, the syntax is closely related to German diction being translated to the English language where, compared to the other translations, there are different ways of phrasing this sentence.
- imagery/details
Since I do not speak German, I can't comment much on the details but I can say that I can pick out what looks like a name (Gregor Samsa) upon first look at this sentence.
- structure
The structure of this sentence is basic and it includes a comma and a period.
- any other stylist/figurative elements
I noticed that some words are capitalized in the sentence and one letter a has two dots above it.
#1:As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

- diction (connotation/denotation)
The diction seems a bit rushed to me when I read this translation. It is as if this translation is giving a quick summary of the main character's transformation. Thus, I get a more negative connotation from some of the words that were in this translation.
- syntax
Based on the rushed phrasing of the sentence, the words "uneasy", "transformed", and "gigantic" give off a scary feeling. However, because the structure is so bland here, it doesn't entirely come off that way when I read it.
- imagery/details
The main character is awoken from a bad dream and finds that he has been transformed into a large insect. These are the main details of this sentence.
- structure
The structure is little to none here. If I were to edit this sentence, I would put a comma after "dreams" to make it sound more grammatically correct. Other than that, I noticed that the absence of punctuation made the sentence have no effect on the reader.
- any other stylist/figurative elements
There were not many stylistic/figurative elements in this sentence. One could say that the author's tone here is mono-tone and boring.
#2:Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.
- diction (connotation/denotation)
Compared to the last translation, some of the words stayed the same while others changed. The diction here gets straight to the point in telling the reader what happened to the character. The author uses the word "giant" and "bug" instead of "gigantic" and "insect". To me, "bug" seems less intimidating than "insect". The same goes for "gigantic" to "big". Thus, the diction is more positive than the first translation.
- syntax
The author got rid of the word "as" and changed "awoke" to "woke". The sentence flows a lot better than the first one, because the author phrased it differently ("to find"), "changed". This makes the sentence easier to read and understand.
- imagery/details
When I think of "giant", I think of something larger than life but less in size than "gigantic". Also, I mentioned "bug" is less intimidating than "insect" because I think that insects are scarier in their evolution than bugs are. I tend to thing that bugs are less persistent and more lazy than insects, which are quicker and can be found anywhere.
- structure
The structure of this translation also has no punctuation besides the period but it sounds more grammatically correct than the first translation. Frankly, I think that this sentence doesn't need any punctuation. It establishes the noun first, then the verb, then ends with a noun.
- any other stylist/figurative elements
I noticed how the author put "one morning" in the middle of the sentence, rather than the beginning. I found this a bit strange, because I would put it in the beginning of the sentence. This sentence adds a "y" to the end of Gregor's name, compared to the other translations.
#3:When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.
- diction (connotation/denotation)
Compared to the past translations, this sentence adds some words and changes others. For example, "uneasy" became "troubled" and to me, this has a more negative connotation to it. "Uneasy" is more of unsure or peculiar whereas "troubled" is like dangerous or tough, maybe difficult.
- syntax
The phrase "he had been" makes it seem as if Gregor was forced to transform into a bug by someone or something. Also, the description of the bug is now "enormous" which makes you think big and scary. I also think the word "When" is important because it initiates a transition to hook the reader into what happened to the main character.
- imagery/details
Troubled dreams make me think that the character had a nightmare, and it is similar to translation #1 for stating he was transformed "in his bed". Its as if the bed is the central object of interest to where this transformation occurs.
- structure
There is a transition word in the beginning, "one morning" is in the middle of the sentence as opposed to the beginning, and there is no other punctuation such as interjections found.
- any other stylist/figurative elements
I noticed that the sentence was written in the 3rd-person POV.
#4:One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

https://irldefender.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/vermin.jpg

- diction (connotation/denotation)
Here, the sentence is a lot more negative than the rest. The diction creates negative connotations by saying the dreams were "agitated" and that the transformation was into a "monstrous vermin".
- syntax
The syntax holds off until the end to showing the worst possible effect that the circumstance had on Gregor.
- imagery/details
Calling the "bug" a "monstrous vermin" makes me think that he was transformed into something resembling a rat because rats are known as vermin infestations and they have monstrous looking red eyes and can be very large.
- structure
This sentence, apart from the original, was the only one that had commas in it and started off like a story from the beginning. It also sounds grammatically correct to me and flows really well. The significance of all the commas was leading up to the revealing of Gregor turning into a vermin.
- any other stylist/figurative elements
The author's use of stating the cause and then the effect makes me think that Gregor Samsa was transformed into a monstrous, scary, creature due to the influence of the agitated dreams that he had.

How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? 
Is one more effective than another? Why? What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts? How do different translations effect the tone of the sentence? 

In my opinion, each of these elements can either shift the meaning very little or significantly. For example, those sentences that had very little punctuation, often didn't have as much of an effect on say translation #4 which did have punctuation and established a large effect on the reader and affected the meaning of the setting/atmosphere. I also thought that word choice/syntax played a large role in the phrasing and meaning of the translations. When you change from "bug" to "insect" it is very different than when you say it is a "vermin". Also, when each translation talked about the dreams, "uneasy" had the least affect on the meaning than did "troubled" or "agitated".

I don't know if the structure of the translations were important in this analysis, but I noticed as the translations went from #1 to #4, the meaning of the cause (dreams) and the effect (bug/vermin) increased in severity or negativity. Also, in the last two translations, the sentences flowed more than the first two. The imagery/details had more of an affect on meaning with the word choice that the author used to convey his message. Each sentence had a unique style to it that I was able to pick out something important in each translation I read, regardless of how little punctuation there was.

In conclusion, this exercise comments on the difficulty of reading translated texts because it always comes with bias. You as the reader, may think that one translation is totally wrong whereas the author thought that it should have been a vermin instead of an insect. Some authors are more boring, others a lot more exciting. It shouldn't be something the people judge each other on because every person is influenced by different cultural ideas that in turn, influence the way they write. There is also the fact that no single translator in the world is perfect. This is because every single language in the world has a certain dialect which may be spoken by different regions of the country and thus, skews a translation. As a result, different translations effect the tone of the sentence by making it having either no emotion or a whole lot. You have to take into account, the language it is being translated from because there are some languages which, when spoken, are spoken with lots of emotion but may not look like it on paper.