How to Translate: English Translation Guide in European Union

How to Translate

English Translation Guide in European Union

Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing

Copyright 2018 Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing, https://www.telework.ro/en/publishing/

ISBN: 978-606-033-029-5, DOI: 10.58679/MM91853

Source: MultiMedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 text license

The section Annexes represents an independent adaptation of four European Commission guides, freely available via the EU Bookshop as PDF and via MultiMedia as EPUB, MOBI (Kindle) and PDF. © European Union.

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Translation

Translation (in its main meaning of interlingual translation) is the fact of getting a text written in a language (source language) in a text written in another language (target language). It connects at least two languages and cultures, and sometimes two times.

Translation represents always an original text (or original text, or source). It involves a degree of equivalence, although the concept of strict equivalence between languages is now exceeded in translation. The concept of translation has long been based on dichotomies such as loyalty versus freedom, fidelity à la lettre versus fidelity in the spirit, source-oriented translation versus target-oriented translation etc.

So far, the translation remained an essentially human activity. However, attempts have been made to automate and computerize the translation (machine translation) or to use computers as a medium of human translation (computer-assisted translation).

The translation takes into account a number of constraints (context, grammar, etc.) to make it understandable for people with no knowledge of the source language and that do not have the same culture and the same baggage of knowledge. Translating involves controlling the source language, but also the target language, which is usually the mother tongue. A good translator has more than language skills: it has something of the writer, analyst or journalist, etc.. To translate the scientific and technical literature, it is sometimes needed to have also strong technical skills and master the technical jargon in both languages.

Assessment of the amount of translated texts

There are no comprehensive statistics, mainly because of a large number of translations made in the gray literature or disseminated via the Internet without going through the traditional networks.

Worldwide, the most translated document would be, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with 406 translations, although the Bible is deemed translated into more than 2,000 languages and the prayer Our Father in 1698 languages.

Translation and interpretation

These two concepts differ, the translator translates the ideas expressed in writing from one language to another, and the interpreter translates the ideas expressed orally, or through the use of body parts (sign language) of a language to another.

The interpretation can be considered a subfield of translation in terms of processes implemented (translation studies), but in practice these activities require very different skills, and also a report to different time.

Translation documents

Translate suppose to master at least two languages, but also to have access to the text to be translated (or its copy), during the time required for its translation, and possibly face an original (possibly annotated) rather than copy or translation already done in another language.

Or, the works have long been long time ago copied and recopied by hand. Sometimes they are rare or unique.

Libraries and archives places (municipal, royal, religious, industrial, etc.) contain rare books and heritage collections, teaching and / or research and public reading book collections. They have a priori been important places for translators. Today, it is not always possible to take out or touch a book or photograph or microfilm. Libraries have been long time places where students, teachers, researchers and other professionals came and still come to translate elements of books or old books. For the philosopher Robert Damien, beyond a place of juxtaposition of authors and languages, texts and knowledge, the translation is – as a library, a place of connections.

Translation theories

In terms of contemporary theories of translation, it is generally found that there are six mainstreams:

Practical / communicative approach

Interpretive mainstream: theory of the meaning of TISS, based primarily on the practice of conference interpreting. In their book Interpreting for translation, D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer consider that you need to translate the meaning and not the language. This is simply a carrier of the message. The language can be a barrier to understanding. This is why you should always avoid transcoding and proceed to deverbalisation in any translation process.

Approaches of literary theories

It considers that the translation is not a linguistic operation but rather a literary operation (Edmond Cary). In other words, to translate poetry, it must be a poet (Ezra Pound, Walter Benjamin, Henri Meschonnic, Antoine Berman).

The concept of energy in language: Words are, somehow, a crystallization of the historical experience of a culture, which gives them strength and it is this energy that must be translated.

Sociolinguistic mainstream

It is the social mold that determines what is translatable or not, what is acceptable or not (selection, filtering, censorship …). The translator is the product of a society and is translated according to its own socio-cultural background (School of Tel Aviv: Annie Brisset, Even Zohar, Gideon Toury).

The concepts of dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence in Nida and Taber: The most important for any translational act is to ensure that the effect left on the reader by the translation is identical or similar to that left by the text source. To do this, we must adapt, acclimatize and get equivalences (Jean Claude Margot, Translating without betraying).

Approaches based on linguistic theories

Structuralism, linguistics, pragmatics, language text. It is a mainstream that consider the word, phrase and sentence as translation units. (Georges Mounin, Vinay and Darbelnet, J.I Austin).

Approaches based on philosophical and hermeneutic concepts

The leader of this movement is George Steiner. The real translator must be able to put themselves in the shoes of a writer to capture and understand the intention (the mean) of the author of the original text. He sees the translation process as a movement in four steps: Trust (trust / belief), aggression, incorporation and restitution.

Semiotic approaches

Semiotics is the study of signs and systems of meaning. For Peirce: The process of meaning (or semiosis) is the result of cooperation of three parts: a sign, an object, and its interpretant. As well. a semiotic point of view, any translation is considered as a form of interpretation that focuses on texts with different encyclopedic content and a particular sociocultural context.

The translation process

The translation process can be divided into three successive phases:

Understanding: assimilation of the meaning conveyed by the text, the meaning of a writer, etc.;

Deverbalisation: forgetting words and conservation of meaning: the process by which the subject becomes aware of the meaning of a message losing consciousness of the words and phrases that gave content;

Reexpression: reformulation of the meaning in target language; back to words.

Types of translations

Within the labor market, there are two types of translation: the translation of technical texts and literary translation. Most professional translators translate technical texts. Literary translators are attached to a publisher or self-employed entrepreneurs.

Technical translation

Technical translation is for documents such as manuals, instruction sheets, internal memoranda, minutes, financial reports, and other documents for a limited audience (who is directly affected by the document) and whose useful life is often limited.

For example, a user guide for a particular model of refrigerator is useful only to the owner of the refrigerator, and will remain useful as this model of refrigerator exists. Similarly, the software documentation is generally concerned to a particular software, with applications for a specific class of users.

Translating technical texts often requires specialized knowledge in a particular area. Examples of technical texts:

Technical documents (computer, electronic, mechanical, etc.).

Scientific texts (astronomy, medicine, geology, etc.).

Financial or administrative texts. Administrative translation is particularly developed after the Second World War.

Technical translation is a type of translation often anonymous, in which the name of the translator may not be associated with the translated document, as some companies do not mention the authors of manuals of products. However, in the case of the translation of books with informative content, the translator will be mentioned in section of primary responsibility of the bibliographic item in the book.

Usually, technical translation is more accessible and brings a higher salary than literary translation. Literary translation is done before anything with love of language and of the original text, or desire to know all the intricacies of a wonderful text written in a foreign language.

Schools of thought

According to the school of thought of target-oriented translation, it is necessary to focus on the accuracy of the remarks at the expense of style, when necessary. To get the message, the translation will sometimes replace the cultural elements of the original text by similar examples, but better known to readers of the target culture. The most important thing is the meaning of the message that tries to convey the author. The translator must first get this message so idiomatic and natural for the reader in the target language, while remaining faithful to the language, the registry and the tone used by the author of the text in the source language.

According to the school of thought of source-oriented translation, the translator's responsibility is to remain strictly true to form of the original text. The translator must therefore reproduce all the stylistic elements of the original, using the same tone, leave intact all cultural elements and even (far) compel the target language into the shape dictated by the source text. The source-oriented translator will in the first place not to betray the vehicle used by the author, and then will try to return the good sense of the message.

Difficulties associated with specialized domains

Most freelance translators, telling that they are specialized in just about everything, contradict the term of specialization. It is obvious that their behavior is looking for maximum translation work.

It should still not denigrate human capacity to properly learn about over the translations, sources of explanations and other terminological dictionaries, not to mention that the websites of companies dealing with the subjects involved are numerous.

So it may be useful to pay attention to a translator with 20 specializations on his resume.

However, to achieve useful pragmatic translations, it is necessary to master the jargon of the field and know how to use the right terms. A translation that does not reflect current usage and the development of specialized language does not interest her readers in the same way, as we do more articles not written as in 1750.

Some fields (such as computing) evolve at breakneck speed to the point where the jargon of the target language cannot get rich fast enough to follow the evolution of language of origin (e.g. English). In this situation, the translator may face the lack of target language equivalent (hence the need to create a neologism). Several neologisms have roughly equivalent to a choice between a relatively general and well-known term, and more accurate, but less used. term.

The translation software (which has two distinct phases, internationalization and regionalization) is a process that differs from the simple text translation to varying degrees.

The problem of double translation

A well-known difficulty for translators, but there is little awareness outside of them, is the fact that the text to be translated is often already a translation, not necessarily true, and it must, to the extent possible, to try passing it back to the original.

The classic example is the gospels, including the oldest known manuscripts written in ancient Greek, but with sentences probably held in Aramaic. As the original potential in this language seem to be lost, if they ever existed, it results scholars quarrels.

Today, the phenomenon is amplified and comes in various forms.

First, the use of a bridge language. If we have to translate into modern Greek a text written in Estonian, it may be difficult to find a translator familiar with both the two languages and the subject in question. There will be a translation, usually in English, which will be the starting point for the translator. The vagueness of this language can create problems.

English being considered an international language, understood everywhere, we will often use instinctively, thinking thus to make things easier. The reality is far: besides the fact that only 38 % of Europeans have a more or less good mastery of English and only 2.5% of Japanese, for example, the use of their mother tongue is proven much more efficient and cost effective than the use of a third language such as English. For example, if the head of a Spanish company wants to write to a French company, the easiest way would be he cast his broad in its language, and a secretary would format the text and re-read it before sending it, having thus expressed his thoughts as much as possible. The recipient would give the letter to a Spanish to French translator and receive in return the closest version of the original. In practice, the Spanish official deems more polite to ask a bilingual secretary supposed to write in the language of her Majesty, and therefore the secretary write in English may be imperfect. It is possible that the corresponding , not understanding the gibberish that sends him, to still be forced to go to a translator, and this will make even more difficult to translate that if he had directly in front of him the Spanish text.

A similar state of mind plays when an international company has a German text and an English translation and will need a French translation. It almost automatically uses a translator for the English version, which is likely to ask far more problems than the original, which is almost never thinks to join.

Thoughts about translation

For a smart, sensible translation , you should forget not the knowledge acquired at school or university, but the corrective standards. Some people want a translation with the touch of the source version, while another people feel that in a successful version we should not be able to guess the original language. We have to realize that both people have right and wrong, and that their only fault is to present requirement as an absolute truth.

Teachers agree at least on this principle: "If a sentence is ambiguous, the translation must also be", no doubt they want the student to take the opportunity to show his virtuosity.

There is another critical, less easy to argue, based on an Italian phrase with particularly strong wording: "Traduttore, traditore. This critique argues that any translation will betray the author‘s language, spirit, style … because of the choices on all sides. What to sacrifice, clarity or brevity, if the formula in the text is brief and effective, but impossible to translate into so few words with the exact meaning? One could understand this criticism that it encourages us to read in the text." It seems obvious that it is impossible to follow this advice into practice.

The translator Pierre Leyris (which among other things reflects the work of Herman Melville) responds to this criticism by saying, "To translate is to have the honesty to stick to an allusive imperfection".

European standard for translation services

The quality standard EN 15038:2006 is a specific European standard for translation services to establish and define the requirements for the provision of translation quality. It specifies the requirements for translation services providers in human and technical resources, quality management and project management, contract framework and service procedures.

The UNE-EN 15038:2006 was approved by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) on April 13, 2006 and officially published in the month of May 2006. Standards bodies of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland.

Beautiful infidels

Beautiful infidels are translations that, to please and conform to the taste and decorum of the time, are versions 'revised and corrected' by conscious translators (too, no doubt) of their language and their judgment superiority . (Paul Horguelin)

In the seventeenth century for ex., the French language imposed in Europe, and beautiful infidels appear. These are translations that try to recover the Greek/Latin authors up to date, changing to get a good translation. This process has been strongly criticized for translation differs from the original. For example, it does not reflect the bad words, one avoids the scenes of drinking-orgy-sodomy, not shock the reader. The name beautiful infidels also comes from a critical, comparing one of these translations with a woman who was beautiful but unfaithful.

The leader of this free translation is Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606-1664). He translated, among other, Cicero, Tacitus, Julius Caesar. He was followed by others, dubbed the perrotins. Him, he believed in his faithful translations. At the beginning of these translations, there is always a long introduction of several pages to justify the changes. These translators 'modernize' the texts, transposition of translation to the public.

In response to this free translation, many other translators offer accurate translations, and returns to the original meaning of the translation.

Self-translation

Literary self-translation is a special form of translation in which the translator is also the author of the original text.

As in the case of non-authorial translation, the term self-translation can refer to the process of translating his own lyrics in another language or the result of this operation.

The practice of self-translation has attracted critical attention especially from the beginning of this century as a result of intensive investigation in the field of non authorial translation in the twentieth century.

Literary self-translation has been recognized as a special branch of translation studies at least since the publication of the first edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies in 1998.

Types of self-translation

Auto-translation can occur through a regular activity of the author or through an activity quite sporadic, which may be derived from a variety of causes. The latter is represented, for example, by James Joyce, which auto-translated into Italian two passages of his "Work in Progress (then titled Finnegans Wake"). Other cases in question are self-translation of Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Auto-translation can occur through a trial in which the mother tongue or an acquired language is the source language, so that the target language changes accordingly. The latter is represented by some Belgian poets of the period between the two world wars (e.g. Avermaete Roger and Camille Melloy), which auto-translated their texts in Flemish shortly after finding the original in the French language acquired but perfectly dominated.

Auto-translation can occur some time after the original has been completed or during the process of creation, so that the two versions are developed almost simultaneously and influence each other. These two types are sometimes called consecutive auto-translation and concurrent auto-translation.

Auto-translation may also involve more than a target language, no matter whether native or acquired. Such is the case of writers like Fausto Cercignani, Alejandro Saravia and Luigi Donato Ventura.

Factors that promote self-translation

The elitist nature of specific language can promote self-translation of that language in a local language, for example from Latin to a vernacular language during the Middle Ages and early modern times.

The cultural dominance of a specific language in a multilingual society can promote self-translation of a minority language in the dominant language.

Cultural domination of the national language can promote self-translation of a local dialect.

Cultural domination of a specific language in the international context can