Translation Assignments Research Articles

Sobre la traducción de documentos médico legales (de español a inglés): práctica profesional y explotación didáctica en el aula de traducción especializada

En este artículo se pretende realizar una caracterización de las dificultades que acompañan a la traducción profesional de documentos médico-legales...

Työelämää simuloivat kurssit ja työelämäyhteistyö yliopistojen käännösalan koulutuksissa

This article is based on papers presented at the seminar for the teachers’ and researchers’ section of the Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters in August 2015. The theme of the seminar was courses currently offered within Finnish translator training that involve simulated or authentic aspects of professional business translation or are based on cooperation with the translation industry. After an overview of recent forms of cooperation at the five Finnish universities offering translator training, the article presents examples of courses with relevance for working as professional translators, interpreters, or other multilingual communications professionals. The examples include multilingual translation workshops involving project management, authentic or simulated translation assignments and a student-operated translation and interpreting co-operative. The article shows, firstly, that Finnish translator training offers a wide range of activities where the students not only have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the demands and current practices of the industry but also to view them with a critical eye. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, the training institutions are motivated to develop translator and interpreter training further and to share experiences and good practices.

Traducción de títulos científicos altamente especializados: hacia un estado de la cuestión

El propósito de este trabajo que se realiza en el marco del proyecto de investigación "Aspectos de la textualización de los saberes científicos" (PGI 24/I205), es reflexionar sobre la traducción de títulos científicos altamente especializados. Los dos ejes sobre los que se centrarán nuestras reflexiones son: 1) la toma de decisión de si se deben traducir o no los títulos científicos altamente especializados en función del "encargo de la traducción" y de la lengua a la que se debe traducir, y 2) la precisión y corrección como condiciones claves para garantizar el cumplimiento de las funciones de los títulos en la lengua de partida y en la lengua de llegada. Estas reflexiones contribuirán a determinar cuál es el estado de la cuestión en el tema que nos ocupa, y así construir las bases de la investigación básica y aplicada que ayudarán a traducir este tipo de títulos.

Training translators for accreditation in Finland

This article discusses the training of translators in relation to their accreditation to produce legally valid translations. A particular case study is taken – the system currently used in Finland. This grants the translator the right to use the title of ‘authorised translator’ and it is supervised by the Authorised Translators’ Examination Board, operating in conjunction with the Finnish National Board of Education. Accreditation is based on either an examination consisting of translation assignments and a test on professional practices, or a higher university degree in translation studies that includes specific courses in authorised translation. The right is granted for one working language pair at a time; in the latter case, for the language pair included in the degree. Finnish universities decide independently on the education given within their curricula. This article discusses both the pros and cons of this kind of system, reflects on the experiences the authors have collected as university lecturers in courses on authorised translation and assessing the students’ translations, and gives examples of implementing the courses. It focuses on the challenges of evaluating the students’ competence within the field of authorised translation and on the authors’ responsibility as teachers in educating qualified translators.

Re-codified Standards from the Perspective of Language Experts: Credentials, Practice and Attitudes amongst Translators and Interpreters of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Languages

Abstract This article examines aspects of linguistic behaviour, attitudes and professional practices amongst a group of 47 “expert users” who are translators or interpreters for one, two or three of the following languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. The official terms for these languages in the respective successor states of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and elsewhere reflect not only historic but also popular designations. Incumbent on translators and interpreters are the professional regulatory norms that require practitioners to follow these designations. An overview of the re-codification of the three languages is provided, followed by a discussion of models that account for how speakers and text-producers negotiate verbal and written interactions with speakers or text of different language varieties. Data are elicited on the following: informants’ reported behaviour in professional and non-professional situations; unanticipated differences in the language for which an assignment was accepted and its actual form; attitudes on assignments with unofficial or unclear language designations; others’ assumptions of informants’ native speaker competency and ethnicity; and attitudes towards the distinctness of the three languages. Accommodation to clients’ language varieties is reported by half of all informants, and those with multiple accreditations report converging to others’ language varieties more so than those with accreditation in one language only. Metalinguistic talk, with or without accommodation, is also a common practice in the initial stages of interpreted interactions or the negotiation of translation assignments. The reported behaviour and practices of translators and interpreters are likely to be indicative of “lay speakers’” and marketplace requirements, and therefore reflective of actual language use amongst users of these three languages when interacting with one another.

Legal Translator as a Communicator

Legal Translation in Context. Professional Issues and Prospects, edited by Anabel Borja Albi from Jaume I University (Spain) and Fernando Prieto Ramos from the University of Geneva, both practising sworn translators, offers an insightful overview of professional practices in the public and private sectors. As such, the book falls within the emerging track of research in Translation Studies, namely— workplace studies, and is a valuable contribution to the field. The book is a fruit of a two-year international project run at the University of Geneva’s Faculty of Translation and Interpreting. Although, due to the growing autonomy of the field of Legal Translation Studies and intense research activity, there are increasingly more publications on legal translation, this book stands out because it approaches legal translation from the perspective of translators and their employers (and/or commissioners of translation assignments) rather than from the usual perspective of the product of their work—a source or target text. Moreover, given the growing interest in legal translators’ work under the EU directive on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings (2010/64/EU), this collection of papers could not be better timed with its overview of qualifications, on-the-job training and quality assurance procedures in various institutional and noninstitutional settings. The book comprises an introduction on the state of affairs in legal translation and 14 papers organized into three parts: (1) Legal translation in the private sector, (2) Legal translation for national public institutions, and (3) Legal translation at international organizations. A few papers are co-authored to enable a comparative overview of practices.

English

In many traditional types of translator training, there is a strong focus on individual work undertaken by trainee translators, while pair work and group work is used less extensively. Such a focus may, to some extent, reflect the contemporary Western perception of translation as a solitary activity, with a single translator working individually, isolated from the rest of the world. This perception, however, is oversimplified since translation often involves some type of collaboration, such as the translator collaborating with an editor, a copyeditor, the client or a disciplinary expert. In addition, some of the emerging trends in translation in the digital age are collaborative in their nature (e.g. crowdsourcing). It seems therefore that collaboration is an aspect of translation that needs to be addressed more carefully in translator training. The present paper reports on a study focusing on collaboration in a translation course. The goal of the study was to examine the types of collaboration that trainee translators use when they are presented with a collaborative assignment. In the study, trainee translators were asked to complete two collaborative translation assignments using a wiki, which enables monitoring the degree of participation for each wiki participant. The first assignment encouraged free collaboration in an attempt to mirror informal collaboration that trainee translators resort to occasionally: trainee translators were asked to collaborate in any way they wished. The second assignment was focused on structured collaboration: trainee translators were given detailed guidelines on the types of collaboration expected of them, and on the extent of the contribution they were expected to make. The findings show that the second assignment resulted in more intensive teamwork and promoted more diverse types of collaboration than the first assignment. This suggests that carefully structured collaboration should be given additional attention within the context of translator training.

Student Preferences for Use of Online Collaboration Programs for Completion of Translation Projects

Problem statement: Students attending the University of Alcalá come from different locations throughout central Spain. This circumstance can have an impact on their collaboration on group projects. Purpose of study: This paper examines a group of students’ preferences for use of online collaboration programs when working on group translation assignments. It discusses our experience and the students’ reasons for selecting programs. As part of a team project, the students were asked to use a wiki on www.wikispaces.com in the first semester, but they were given the option to use an online collaboration program of their choice in the second semester. They completed a questionnaire about their preferences afterwards. Findings: The majority of the students opted to use www.docs.google.com as opposed to Wiki Spaces. Students might benefit from more training in using wikis but instructors should consider some of the benefits of Google highlighted by the students.

The language-(in)dependence of writing skills: translation as a tool in writing process research and writing instruction

In einer Pilotstudie mit sechs fortgeschrittenen Anglistikstudierenden, deren Muttersprache Deutsch ist, wurde untersucht, in welcher Hinsicht sich deren Ausdrucksfähigkeit in ihrer L2 Englisch von derjenigen in ihrer L1 Deutsch unterscheidet. Darüber hinaus wurde erhoben, auf welche Komponenten der Textproduktionskompetenz sich Übersetzungsübungen förderlich auswirken. Die Versuchspersonen waren aufgefordert, eine deutsche Version eines von ihnen verfassten englischsprachigen Textes zu erstellen. Als Datenerhebungsmethoden kamen lautes Denken und Tastatur-Logging zum Einsatz. Die Analyse konzentriert sich auf Fehler auf der textlinguistischen Ebene im Gegensatz zu formalen, lexikalischen und Grammatikfehlern. In ihren muttersprachlichen Versionen gelang es den Versuchspersonen, Implizitheitsfehler und Sinnfehler zu vermeiden; es waren jedoch keine Verbesserungen in anderen Bereichen, wie der Textkohärenz und der funktionalen Satzperspektive, festzustellen. Obwohl einige der in den deutschsprachigen Versionen aufgetretenen Fehler eindeutig interferenzbedingt sind, zeigte sich, dass das Übersetzen für die Entwicklung von Textproduktionskompetenz bestimmte Vorteile besitzt, die es zu einer nützlichen Methode in der Schreibdidaktik machen.

Translation of hybrid legal documents in Spain within the context of intercultural communication and civil-law versus common-law systems

The main objective of this article is to analyse the drafting and translation of private legal documents in Spain (mainly from Spanish to English) in order to determine their legal effectiveness and to identify specific traces of hybridism. The hybrid conditions allow us to understand a target text (TT) which shows hybrid characteristics. The source text (ST) being hybrid, the translation assignment or practice determines an additional hybridization in the TT. As hybrids, such documents interest us in several aspects: the law that regulates the document, the cultural elements, the style, the language, and the translation practice. The focus of this article is on private legal documents, and the main case study is a will that has been drafted in two valid versions, since this may show a higher degree of hybridization. We observe how the TT becomes even more hybrid, mainly due to functional reasons as the common-law addressee enters the scene, how a hybrid text may be achieved, and how hybridism is not only harmless but desirable.

Specyfikacja jako instrument kontekstualizacji aktu tłumaczeniowego – między teorią a praktyką dydaktyki przekładu

The aim of the article is to discuss the concept of translation brief from the perspective of translation pedagogy and investigate how theoretical premises are reflected in the Polish translator training practice. Theoretically speaking, the notion of Auftrag (‘commission’) has been widely used and propagated by the functionally oriented Skopostheorie. Translation pedagogy stresses the significance of translation brief. For instance, Nord emphasizes that it should form an integral part of each translation assignment (2006). Developing the ability to decode and interpret the translation brief, often given implicitly, belongs to important aspects of translator training. The translation brief provides information that guides both translator’s decisions when it comes to translation and teachers’ or evaluators’ decisions in terms of assessment. From the practical perspective, to gain a view of the Polish translator training practice, selected translation textbooks were analyzed and a questionnaire survey was conducted. The analyzed textbooks partially reflect the significance which translation pedagogy assigns to the translation brief which, to some extent, is accounted for by different textbook concepts and designs. The most explicit translation briefs are part of exercises in E. Skibińska’s textbook for Polish-French translation (Inaczej mówiąc...).The results of the survey conducted among students – graduates of BA language studies with translation component – demonstrate that the respondents are familiar with the notion of the translation brief, however the majority of the respondents (83%) received translation brief sometimes with their translation assignments while 17% – never. The respondents also generally do not link the notion of translation error with a transgression of the brief. The survey had a pilot character and included a small sample of respondents, yet it seems to indicate that the notion of translation brief does not play a prominent role in the translation classroom in the Polish setting.

Specyfikacja jako instrument kontekstualizacji aktu tłumaczeniowego – między teorią a praktyką dydaktyki przekładu

The aim of the article is to discuss the concept of translation brief from the perspective of translation pedagogy and investigate how theoretical premises are reflected in the Polish translator training practice. Theoretically speaking, the notion of Auftrag (‘commission’) has been widely used and propagated by the functionally oriented Skopostheorie. Translation pedagogy stresses the significance of translation brief. For instance, Nord emphasizes that it should form an integral part of each translation assignment (2006). Developing the ability to decode and interpret the translation brief, often given implicitly, belongs to important aspects of translator training. The translation brief provides information that guides both translator’s decisions when it comes to translation and teachers’ or evaluators’ decisions in terms of assessment. From the practical perspective, to gain a view of the Polish translator training practice, selected translation textbooks were analyzed and a questionnaire survey was conducted. The analyzed textbooks partially reflect the significance which translation pedagogy assigns to the translation brief which, to some extent, is accounted for by different textbook concepts and designs. The most explicit translation briefs are part of exercises in E. Skibinska’s textbook for Polish-French translation (Inaczej mowiąc...). The results of the survey conducted among students – graduates of BA language studies with translation component – demonstrate that the respondents are familiar with the notion of the translation brief, however the majority of the respondents (83%) received translation brief sometimes with their translation assignments while 17% – never. The respondents also generally do not link the notion of translation error with a transgression of the brief. The survey had a pilot character and included a small sample of respondents, yet it seems to indicate that the notion of translation brief does not play a prominent role in the translation classroom in the Polish setting.

Die Sprach(un)abhängigkeit von Textproduktionskompetenz: Translation als Werkzeug der Schreibprozessforschung und Schreibdidaktik

Abstract In order to explore in which respects the ability of advanced universitystudents of English to express themselves in their L2 (English) differs fromtheir ability to do so in their L1 (German) and for which aspects of writingthe implementation of translation exercises is useful as a tool to improvewriting skills, a pilot study was conducted in which 6 students with L1German had to produce a German version of a text they had composed intheir L2 English. The methods of data collection used were think-aloud andkeystroke logging. In the analysis, special emphasis was placed on textlevelerrors as opposed to formal, lexical and grammatical errors. In theirL1 versions, students were consistently able to avoid errors of implicitnessand sense but displayed no improvements in other areas such as text coherenceand functional sentence perspective. Although some of the errors couldbe attributed to the special requirements of the translation assignment,translation was also found to possess certain advantages that make it auseful tool in writing didactics.

Load-managed problem formats

Does the “expert blind spot”, our “unconscious competence”, lead us to undermine the effectiveness of our translation assignments? This study characterizes the translation task as schema-based, and thus prone to cognitive overload for the learner. Accordingly, schema acquisition tasks featuring reduced-goal specificity and goal-free problems for training the novice are reviewed. The argument is put forward that we need 1) to use more scaffolding to reduce cognitive load, 2) to vary task architecture for learning (including the use of planning pre-tasks), and 3) to provide diagnostic help for the student translator to attain context-independence for ‘high road transfer’. Formats for expertise modeling are considered—reverse tasks, completion examples, and other whole-task models—as instructional designs for load-managed translation tasks that improve problemsolving, schema acquisition, process-orientation, and metacognitive monitoring.

Google Translate Service: Transfer of Meaning, Distortion or Simply a New Creation? An Investigation into the Translation Process & Problems at Google

Internet users have the choice between several machine translation services that can automatically translate a given text or website in another language. Google Translate is one of the most popular services of this kind. It allows web users to translate text or websites into 51 languages. The present research aims at exploring the nature of the translation process provided by Google Translate Service with an eye on the demerits of the mechanisms used by Google as well as the possibility of refining the system used so as make a better use of it on the part of the average Internet user who is by no means a professional translator and, hence, may tend to take Google translation for granted even where it could be totally catastrophic. The scope of the research is confined to Translation from Arabic into English and vice versa. The data used in this study is based on short translation assignments that were presented by Zarqa University students in the Department of English & Translation in their Research Writing Course during the Summer Semester 2010 under the supervision of the research.

Suggestions on multisource assessment through editing translation assignments in translation classes

Suggestions on multisource assessment through editing translation assignments in translation classes

Problemy przekładu polsko-angielskiego testamentów i dokumentów prawa spadkowego. Studium przypadku

This paper deals with the analysis of language and translation mistakes and errors in the translation of Polish testaments into English. This article presents a selection of examples from the translation assignments of students of the postgraduate School of Translation, Interpreting and Foreign Languages at Adam Mickiewicz University. The author presents incorrect translations into English and explains why they are not proper in the translative situation. The examples are illustrated with the author’s suggestions of correct equivalents. There is also a short description of the spotted types of language and translation errors and mistakes. The identified problems result from the translation method applied (which is not always properly chosen), syntactic and grammatical differences between Polish and English, as well as culturally-conditioned differences in Polish and English legal realities.

TRANSLATOR TRAINING AND MODERN MARKET DEMANDS

The development of new information and communication technology influences an everchanging professional reality that requires almost constant updating. Market demands must necessarily find their way into teaching practices, which can respond to the expectations created. The present day reality of the translation market, from a Spanish perspective, reveals deficiencies in translator training. It is not only in Spain that translation teachers will have to re-think existing translator training programmes in terms of present-day market demands to professionals. The present article presents a hands-on course involving concrete translation assignments in a simulated ‘real-life’ set-up, designed to familiarise students with their future working conditions. We call it the ‘Professional Approach for Translator Training’ and it is already implemented at the University of Granada. We hope that others elsewhere can use our ideas, although the specific aims of this programme are geared towards Spanish syllabi, especially since other universities plan to introduce new technology or have already done so (e.g. the University of Leeds, UK). The authors are members of the Aula.int team and are teachers of translation at the University of Granada, Spain.

Evaluation of Translation Assignments at the Beginner’s Level: A Pedagogical View

Evaluation of Translation Assignments at the Beginner’s Level: A Pedagogical View

Practice Orientation in the Teaching of LSP Translation

The issue of translator training has become one of FIT’s principal concerns, as it touches fundamental aspects of the future of the field of translation generally, and of LSP translation in particular. Quality assurance in connection with translation studies is not something that is built up over night. I have long been concerned with the problem of how to integrate into the students’ workload texts which not just reflect but rather challenge the different kinds of requirements demanded by their future employers. The POSI project — PraxisOrientierte Studieninhalte für die Ausbildung von Übersetzern und Dolmetschern – is approaching the same problem from a different angle, namely by focusing on the market’s need for qualified translators, and defining qualified as including not just the actual translating abilities, but indeed abilities to manage the entire translation process with all its extra-textual aspects. Theoretically I lean on Christiane Nord and the functionalist model of translation in my didactic approach to translator training. The article is two sided: a)it is a report on a three-year research project involving the introduction of real external translation assignments into the curriculum of LSP translation studies, and b) it is a didactic reflection on this kind of practical orientation, on what we are able to achieve, how and why it is so vital to enlarge the scope of teaching translation in this direction.