Similarity and Difference in Translation

Similarity(ies) without sameness. Diversity(ies) without absolute difference. Similarity with remainder. I find my movement into translation (broadly conceived) as something like this - My gut leads me to expect similarity, but as I wade in, my senses tell me there are differences because the feedback I perceive doesn't "add up" in the way I expect. The discontinuities and difference I discover push me to search for more complicated vectors of similarity. I trust that the vectors of continuity are there somehow. Am I looking for algorithms? Translation might be testing out algorithms of similarity. But I always find there are "remainders." I have the urge to "colonize" the remainders to force them into my "algorithms of similarity", but I have the counter urge to fight this colonizing tendency in others and myself. I believe I am looking for harmonious relationships negotiating similarity and difference without demanding the remainders be dealt with according to the algorithms I am using to try and connect myself to you.

I am working on a metaphor for translation based on audio (or visual or other physical) frequencies. In this model, translation would be looking for harmonic resonance or convergence. Then it would not be so much a matter of dealing with "remainders" on one side or the other (which are real and messy), but rather we would be looking for whether the differences required by/inspired by translation either resonated with the original communication or produced a jarring dissonance. And then of course we will begin to discuss whether dissonance in translation is not only to be expected, but necessary somehow (at least for some genres/audiences/purposes). Still I would like to explore the metaphor.