The Translation Brief as a Tool of Communication among the Participants of the Translation Process

Abstract

The present research focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of the translation brief viewed as a tool of communication among the participants of the translation process. A review of literature on the subject, which includes theoretical papers and normative documents regulating the sphere of translation and interpreting services, demonstrates a number of differences in understanding of the terms translation process and translation brief. In translation theory, translation process refers to either individual intellectual operations of a translator in making translation decisions or to stages of translation performance. The concept of the translation brief, developed within the functionalist theory of translation, is currently interpreted by functionalist scholars as a set of instructions which help translators to produce a target text in full compliance with clients’ needs and expectations. Therefore, a translation brief should provide a translator with the information about the target text addressees, the prospective time and place of text reception, the medium over which the text will be transmitted, and, sometimes, the intended purpose of the translation. In this country, the problem of the translation brief is mostly studied in the context of technical translation and is termed as the requirement description or technical specifications. According to normative documents regulating the sphere of translation services, clarification of the requirement description or technical specifications is seen as an integral component of organizing any translation services or translation projects. The practical aspect of this research is connected with the study of the status and the content of the translation brief as it now stands and functions in the translation industry. The analysis of information presented on websites of large translation agencies about the organization of the translation process as well as of available samples of technical specifications has shown that the content of a translator’s instructions may include very diverse material, from extended sections on translation norms taken from translation theory to references to the rules of translation specified in corresponding national quality standards. The results of our case study show that the basic components of technical specifications typically include the source text, terms of payment, and the deadline, while a translator’s instructions are normally associated with specific style guides provided by the client.