Language Purity

Linguists and translators in Europe are perplexed at the news that Slovakia is implementing a controversial new Language Act which will change the attitude of the authorities to the freedom of language use in this small Central European country which has a population of just over 5 million. Such legislation may not mean a great deal in Slovakia’s comparatively ethnically homogeneous neighbours such as Austria, the Czech Republic or Poland but for a country with large Hungarian and Roma minorities this ‘Act of Language Purity’ could be the start of what many believe to be Slovakia’s turn towards language ‘fascism’.

The new Language Act will come into force on the 1st August 2009 and stipulates that all official names in foreign languages will have to be translated into Slovakian or the institutions and companies responsible for these foreign affectations will face fines of approximately €5,000. The fines can be meted out to public offices, companies, advertising agencies, police officers and court judges alike. All are equal in the eyes of the (language) law. The Slovakian Ministry of Culture has already laid out the official procedure for meting out fines which will use a ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ policy. Two official warnings will precede the ‘language’ fine.

However, observers outside of Slovakia and the sizeable Hungarian minority within Slovakia (almost 10% of the population) has labelled this linguistic legislation an act of language imperialism and an attempt to assimilate the Hungarian population into the Slovakian one. The Roma population stands at almost 2% with other linguistic minorities amounting to approximately 3% which means that 15% of the population of Slovakia will be adversely affected by this new legislation, not including of course various other institutions and companies that use other languages in their work.

Questions are being asked about the real reasons behind this move to ‘purify’ the linguistic landscape of Slovakia. Is it indeed cultural and linguistic? A need to nurture the Slovakian language and free it from the all-encompassing grasp of English (”I’m loving it” ; “Connecting People” ; “Just Do It”) or is it a political move that panders to conservatism and language imperialism? Either way, the future of translation in Slovakia and Slovakian translation will most certainly be influenced by this move.

Poll Results

One of our previous posts, The Science of Translation, contained a poll asking readers to decide what translation is: a craft, science or art. After over a month of polling, the results are as follows:
Craft 50%
Art 29%
Science 21%

The high figure for science may come as a surprise to some.

In another post, Translation – in a Word, we looked at various definitions of translation with readers being asked to look at two sets of definitions. After two months of polling, readers said (in the first set of words) that translation is:
to render 47%
to interpret 27%
to understand 17%
to recapitulate 9%

In the second set of words, translation is:
to transfer 42%
to transpose 29%
to transform 18%
to translocate 11%

Is this what translation professionals actually believe? Does this in fact reflect reality?

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The Science of Translation?

Translation theorists and practitioners have forever been convinced that translation is either an art or science, or even a craft. Ask three different translators to define translation and, in all probability, you will get three difference answers. The title of Eugene Nida’s seminal work succinctly sums up this problem. The title of his 1964 opus is of course Towards a Science of Translating. In it Nida begins, “The polyglot empire of ancient Babylon, with its hard-working core of multilingual scribes sending out official communications on cuneiform tablets to the far corners of the realm, is a far cry from the electronic equipment used today in simultaneous interpretation at the United Nations in New York”. (1964: 1 Towards a Science of Translating; E.J.Brill: Leiden). But is it really so different?

Perhaps from a procedural point of view, the details have changes, but a procedure and system would have most certainly been in place in Babylon as it is in the UN in New York. The organisational structures, the science behind the procedure would have been in place. The title of Nida’s work is symptomatic of the problems plaguing translation and translators. His work is entitled Towards a Science of Translating, not A Science of Translating, nor even A Science of Translation. Eugene Nida implies that one of our aims is to try to move towards attaining the status of a science. However, his title also implies that our aim is to attain the status of science with regard to the process of translation, translating, not within translation itself. The distinction is an important one.

Whereas Nida feels the need to impress on us the importance of having specific procedures within the framework of the translation process, other translation scholars believe translation to be an art. Literary translators often believe translation to be as creative an activity as the initial act of creation, the act of writing. Translation for them is equated more with a gift for creativity. Others still believe translation to be a craft, where the skills needed to be able to translate a learned over the years and honed with experience. Science, art, craft. Which one of these three does our community believe to be closer to the truth? The poll below may help us consider this problem and see the ideas of fellow translators.

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Translation – in a Word

Part of the reason why there is so much debate over whether translation is an art, science or craft stems from the fact that there is no real accurate definition of the concept. What is translation? Can it be accurately defined? There are articles, theses and books which attempt to explain the concept of translation but they all effectively blur the picture as they enumerate a whole host of processes that are said to be a part of translation but fail to get to the core of what translation is.

As an exercise in mental dexterity in an effort to limit one’s mental manoeuvrability and force one to choose a constrained (and therefore necessarily concise) definition of translation, two four-word lists are given below. The exercise hinges on the fact that the reader is forced to choose ONE word from the first list and ONE word from the second list and then to compare his/her choices. This should give the reader an idea what he/she understands by the term ‘translation’. What is more, comparing one’s results with other people tells us whether there is general agreement to what translation is or whether it is a more personal activity.

List One

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Second List

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The exercise makes no claims to be the best method of defining translation, however, it does allow us to re-evaluate our own understanding of the concept and perhaps the general view of translation. What does the exercise give? As with every definition, it seeks to explore the core of what lies behind a given concept. With each of the lists, we are forced to rank the definitions and make a decision concerning what is most important to us in translation. By working with two lists, we are led to examine the relationship between our two choices and are then led to consider taking one more step, to fill the gap, in a process of what might be called mental triangulation. Does our definition of translation lie with one of these two choices or is a third word necessary?

Mistakes of Biblical Proportions

The impact of Bible translation cannot and should not be underestimated. In fact, most western translation (and literary) traditions stem from work undertaken in Bible translation in the Middle Ages. The whole craft of modern translation, translation studies and translation theory can rightly be traced back to the scholarly practice of Biblical translators. In essence, Bible translation is the foundation upon which modern translation practice rests.

However, what happens when we discover that the foundation upon which modern European translation theory and practice rests is full of contradictions, inaccuracies and translation errors? We shall avoid religious arguments and points of dogma here and rather focus on the fact that a great many scholars have pinpointed errors in the translation of the Bible. If this is the case, does it have an impact on modern approaches to translation?

Modern versions of the New Testament use two source texts, the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus written in Greek, from which to produce their translations. As mentioned above, matters of dogma will not be discussed here so we will accept that these fourth century texts are the authentic versions of the New Testament. In this case, our debate begins with the translation of these two codexes into Latin and other language thereafter.

Two examples, from the English King James Bible, show certain translational ‘problems’. For example, Genesis 1:2 is translated: “And the earth was without form” (but should more accurately be:) “And the earth became without form”. Surely, this sheds new light on the Christian creation myth. Also, John 1:31 reads: “baptising with water” whereas a more accurate rendition of this would be “baptising in water”. If this is the case then the mythological and physical aspects of baptism should be re-thought.

These are only two examples of a host of errors relating to translation from the two codexes, however, what is interesting is the fact that there are many more inaccuracies and errors to be found after this point. Every successive translation produced more mistakes. The process of producing an ‘authentic’ version of the Bible took centuries. Have the mistakes made by copyists and deliberate alterations made by translators left an imprint on society? On religion? On how translators are viewed today?

Can Translation Be Taught?

This is a question that has troubled translator trainers and translation students for a number of years. Is it at all possible to learn the skills needed to become a professional translator or are we born with a ‘gift’ for translation? Those attempting to answer this question fall neatly (and obviously) into two groups:

1. No, translation is an inborn gift.
2. Yes, translation skills can be learnt and taught.

This leaves translation scholars in an uncomfortable predicament because if there is no consensus as to whether translation is inborn or acquired then how on earth can we teach the subject. Someone who believes translation requires an element of innate knowledge on the part of the student will approach the teaching experience wholly differently from someone who believes that all the skills required for translation can be acquired.

For scholars who believe translation is an innate gift, the future may appear bleak and the teaching of translation futile. Hope for the betterment of translation studies rests on the polishing of gems that need to be found. In other words, the scholar’s role is to discover and then polish rough diamonds. Discoveries may well be accompanied by a feeling of euphoria but the polishing part is more mundane and frustrating.

For those who believe that translation can be taught and learnt, the future is more optimistic as it does not depend on the constant search (and hope) for new talent but rather the skills of the teacher – anything can be taught. The more skilled the trainer, the greater hope there is of these abilities being passed onto the translation apprentice. However, the process can be long and also fraught with frustration.

Both students and teachers of translation have met people from both these groups. It would be easy to simplify the attitudes of each group and state that the former group is marked by a form of exclusive elitism whereas the latter group are more open, tolerant and perhaps more flexible in their approach to translation. Yes, this is a simplification, but is it not true?

Mills & Boon – Translation Kings

The news that Mills & Boon have decided to translate their slushy romantic novels into Polish raises some interesting questions about the nature of translation and the world of translated literature. As most translators know, the most translated book in the world is of course the Holy Bible. Statistics (from UNESCO’s Index Translationum) suggest that the most translated authors include (the works of) Walt Disney, Agatha Christie, William Shakespeare and Vladimir Lenin to name a few.

Polish is 14th on the list of most translated languages and 8th on the list of languages most translated into – an interesting discrepancy. The lists are given below. The 20 most translated languages (according to UNESCO’s Index Translationum):

Original Language
1    English
2    French
3    German
4    Russian
5    Italian
6    Spanish
7    Swedish
8    Latin
9    Danish
10    Dutch
11    Czech
12    Ancient Greek
13    Japanese
14    Polish
15    Hungarian
16    Arabic
17    Norwegian
18    Portuguese
19    Hebrew
20    Chinese

The 20 languages most often translated into (according to UNESCO’s Index Translationum):

Translated Language
1    German
2    Spanish
3    French
4    Japanese
5    English
6    Dutch
7    Portuguese
8    Polish
9    Russian
10    Danish
11    Italian
12    Czech
13    Hungarian
14    Finnish
15    Norwegian
16    Swedish
17    Modern Greek
18    Bulgarian
19    Korean
20    Slovak

To return to the issue of Mills & Boon translating their novels into Polish, it is interesting taking this in its context. The Harlequin publishing house has a strong foothold in the Polish market which would make it difficult for Mills & Boon to make an impact. However, the reason why Mills & Boon have deciced to translate into Polish is due to the fact that they have noticed a great interest in their novels amongst Polish immigrants in Britain, not amongst Polish people in Poland.

These new Mills & Boon books will be published to begin with in Great Britain, rather than in Poland. Strangely enough, a new (translation) market niche has been created which effectively means that Polish language literature has two separate markets – the market in Poland and the market outside Poland. This in turn could effect the Polish being used in each market: the Polish used by Poles in England already differs somehat from the Polish used in Poland. Might this discrepancy in the two Polishes be increased by the publication of Polish books in England?

Virgin Translators

What is good advice for ‘fresh’ translators? What should those new to the field be aware of before they dive into the rough waters of professional translation? There is much more to becoming a translator then simply knowing something about translation. The linguistic professional, as we have seen in previous posts, needs to be au fait with a host of different fields.

Firstly, the virgin translator should be well-grounded in the working practices of translation procedures. How does one approach the text? Are standards like the ISO 9002 actually of any help? Do ‘good’ translators use certain fixed procedures not shared by ‘poorer’ translators?

Secondly, the virgin translator should have a working knowledge of the most important theories in/of translation. Why? Without some kind of grasp of the theoretical workings of translation, the virgin translator can have no hope of understanding and dealing with texts which are difficult to translate due to their multiple-layered complexity with regards to equivalence.

Thirdly, the virgin translator should be acquainted with the main tools used in the modern translation world. Using dictionaries effectively is simply not enough nowadays. Time constraints in the business of translation has meant that knowledge of multi-media dictionaries, translation memories and other computational tools is crucial to both effective and efficient translation.

Finally, the virgin translator needs to have a certain level of business nous in order to cope with life as a freelancer or at least understand the workings of corporate existence if he/she begins life in a corporation. Over the years, the worlds of translation and business have come together so much so that we can safely say that more efficient translators ususally have a high level of business acumen.

Good News for Translators

A fascinating article published in Reader’s Digest seems to suggest that translators and interpreters will not be hit by the recession. Here is the whole text reproduced in full (please pay attention to point 7):

9 Recession-Proof Careers
Despite the economic downturn, these careers are still growing.
By Cathie Gandel and Hilary Sterne
Additional reporting by Neena Samuel and Kathryn M. Tyranski
From Reader’s Digest

1. Education
Math and science teachers will be in demand as the U.S. struggles to compete with other countries in engineering, technology, and medicine. A growing immigrant population means more English-as-a-second-language classes will be needed.

• Postsecondary teachers – Median salary: $56,120 Education: bachelor’s degree and often a master’s or doctorate
• Teacher assistants – Median salary: $21,580 Education: some post-secondary education or vocational training
• Educational, vocational, and school counselors – Median salary: $49,450 Education: secondary education, associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s

2. Energy
Some of the jobs in this field are the result of projects started a year or more ago. But the real boost will come from the new administration’s commitment to a more efficient national energy system. “Growth of energy consumption around the world will keep this sector strong,” says Laurence Shatkin, coauthor of 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs.

• Power plant operators – Median salary: $56,640 Education: vocational training and several years of on-the-job training
• Insulation workers – Median salary: $31,280 Education: secondary education and vocational training
• Electrical power-line installers and repairers – Median salary: $52,570 Education: vocational training and several years of on-the-job training

3. Environment
Green is getting the green light in a nationwide push to make homes and office buildings more energy-efficient and to develop alternative energy sources (solar, wind, nuclear) as well as fuel cell technology. “Anything involved with wind power, either the design or related products, will be big,” says Laurence Stybel.

• Environmental scientists – Median salary: $58,380 Education: master’s
• Environmental engineers – Median salary: $72,350 Education: bachelor’s
• Hydrologists – Median salary: $68,140 Education: master’s

4. Financial Services
Rising from the ashes of a very bad year, financial services have a bright future. Corporate America’s wretched excesses mean more government regulation. Workers who are retiring will need advice on how to make their money last. Small businesses may outsource accounting services. As we get to the middle of the recession, there will be a wave of mergers and acquisitions, Stybel predicts. “People with experience in managing the process-corporate attorneys, investment bankers, and accountants-will be in demand.”

• Financial advisers – Median salary: $67,660 Education: bachelor’s
• Accountants and auditors – Median salary: $57,060 Education: bachelor’s
• Sales agents (securities and commodities) – Median salary: $68,430Education: bachelor’s

5. Government
More than half a million federal employees will retire by 2016, leaving open positions at agencies from the CIA to AmeriCorps to NASA. There will also be opportunities at the state and local levels. “In addition to police work and homeland security, government inspects and regulates many industries,” says Shatkin. “Workers can sometimes capitalize on their experience in an industry by moving into a regulatory job.”

• Government property inspectors – Median salary: $48,400 Education: vocational training, associate’s or bachelor’s
• Immigration and customs inspectors – Median salary: $59,930 Education: bachelor’s
• Urban and regional planners – Median salary: $57,970Education: master’s

6. Health Care
Health care pops up at the top of just about every list of hot careers. All of us are getting older and living longer, sometimes with chronic health conditions. What’s more, health insurance practices may undergo a radical revision during the Obama administration, which has announced plans to address three central issues: coverage, cost, and quality of care. “Health care is a growing industry,” says Bettina Seidman, “and not just for health care professionals. There will also be jobs for secretaries, accountants, and administrators.”

• Registered nurses – Median salary: $60,010Education: associate’s or bachelor’s
• Dental assistants – Median salary: $31,550Education: secondary education, plus a few months to one year of on-the-job training
• Medical records and health information technicians – Median salary: $29,290 Education: associate’s

7. International Business
Corporations, consulting firms, nonprofits, and even governments are going after global markets. People with international expertise, foreign-language skills, or a willingness to move abroad will be in demand. “The global economy is only going to grow,” says John Challenger. “U.S. involvement will expand, short and long term.”

• Interpreters and translators – Median salary: $37,490 Education: bachelor’s
• International management analysts – Median salary: $71,150 Education: bachelor’s or master’s
• Market research analysts – Median salary: $60,300 Education: bachelor’s or master’s

8. Law Enforcement
International terrorism makes daily headlines, and fear of financial insecurity is matched only by concern for our physical safety. “Crime doesn’t go down in a recession,” says Shatkin. “It may even increase.”

• Probation officers – Median salary: $44,510 Education: bachelor’s
• Court reporters – Median salary: $45,330 Education: postsecondary vocational training
• Paralegals – Median salary: $44,990Education: associate’s degree in paralegal studies

9. Technology
New uses of technology in services and products like electronic health records mean that this sector will continue to be strong. “We have just begun to use the Internet as an entertainment medium in publishing, music, and film,” says Peter Weddle.

• Computer systems analysts – Median salary: $73,090 Education: bachelor’s
• Network systems and data communications analysts – Median salary: $64,600 Education: bachelor’s
• Computer, ATM, and office machine repairers – Median salary: $37,100 Education: high school or vocational training

And We’ll Always Be Looking For…

“Think of basic human needs, the things we can’t do without,” says Shatkin. They provide what he calls “little islands” of employment in this economy. For example, he says, we will always need sewage and water treatment. Challenger says the food industry is a core area: “People have to eat, and the global population is increasing.”

In a down economy, people don’t buy new cars—they repair their old ones. People turn to their clergy for comfort. Funeral directors will always have jobs. And since pets are very much a part of the family, veterinarians and veterinary technicians will continue to be in demand.

From Reader’s Digest - March 2009