Translation Practitioners Research Articles

How Should Translators Be Protected in the Workplace? Developing a Translator Rights Model Inventory

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in studying translators in the workplace, but the rights of translators are an uncharted area. The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it studies translators’ perceptions of translator rights in the workplace. Second, it develops a translator rights model inventory that compiles practitioners’ viewpoints for studying and measuring translator rights. This paper presents findings from a questionnaire survey that collected both quantitative and qualitative data from 155 translation practitioners in Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). The findings suggest that the translators attach the greatest importance to rights related to working conditions, followed by rights related to economic and social position, and finally those related to copyright issues. It was found that the translators are quite dissatisfied with the rights they have in the workplace, because what they wish to enjoy is much less than what they expect. In addition, a translator’s social variables, such as age, level of education, major field of study, and years of translation experience, are not related to the number of rights the person enjoys in the workplace. What was found to be related is sex and region in which the translator lives.

Situated cognition and the ethnographic study of translation processes: Translation scholars as outsiders, consultants and passionate participants

Whereas traditional methods of translation process research aim predominantly at fulfilling the requirements for controlled scientific experiments, shifts towards embodiment and situatedness at a conceptual level require methodological innovations for the analysis of cognitive processes as embedded in their relevant environments. In this article, we concentrate on one of the main challenges in the ethnographic study of translation processes in the translation workplace: the relationship between the researchers and the participants. Drawing on data from a multiple case study, we investigate the perceived role of the researchers and the mutual expectations of both the observers and the observed. In doing so, we examine the attitudes of translators and translation project managers towards researchers in a series of different work settings. Our results indicate that the enquirer posture imposed on the researchers by some participants corresponds with the formers’ planned methodological and epistemological approaches, as do their expected trade-offs. Others, in turn, differ substantially from the researchers in their expectations. Based on our own experience and subsequent reflections, we argue that fostering connections between translation scholars and practitioners may contribute to overcoming some of the methodological challenges of ethnographic research in Translation Studies.

Translation studies and Bible translation: Interview on BT List Live

A live webinar on translation studies and its implications for Bible translation was held on 20 August 2020. The goal was to answer the question: What insights can Bible translation practitioners glean from the field of translation studies? It is argued that the contribution of translation studies to Bible translation cannot be ignored; instead, translation studies is indispensable for Bible translation, especially in the planning, the establishment and the execution of a Bible translation project. After the introduction, the webinar focused on the nature of translation studies followed by the dissemination of translation knowledge for Bible translation. The conclusion listed the shifts that need to take place in Bible translation on the basis of its engagement with translation studies.

Translation constraints of eastern loans in russian film subtitles in French

The active development of intercultural communication in the cinematic arts sets new challenges for translation theorists and practitioners. The article presents concepts that are widely used in film translation, provides a classification of audiovisual translation types, and for the first time establishes a distinction between such concepts of translation studies as: “langue relais” (translator language), ”langue pont” (transition language),”langue véhiculaire” (Transporter language) and “langue interface” (interface language). Using the example of subtitles for the film “Turkish gambit”, the authors identified ways to translate them from Russian to French and conducted a detailed statistical analysis of the frequency of using methods of translating subtitles. According to the results of experimental data, borrowing was the leading technique in translating subtitles of Boris Akunin’s script “Turkish gambit”, which necessitated a comparative study of borrowings of Eastern languages, their assimilation in Russian and French, and translation features. The use of etymological, component and morphological analysis methods allowed us to identify the specifics of translation of orientalisms in Russian and French.

К проблеме представления процессуальных аспектов письменного перевода

Procedural aspects of translation as technological actions of a translator have still not received adequate attention from the translation theorists and practitioners, since there is not a common scheme for the translation stages or their content. This article attempts to convert the said stages into basic, universal translation skills and present them in the form of a dynamic frame of translation technology.

Specialised technical translation: Global Village requirements and regional opportunities

Specialised translation is going through major changes as demand is growing for high quality translation that is terminologically accurate and performed at the level of native speakers. At the same time, economic globalisation creates a complex mix of various types of cultures within professional communication, which also exerts influence on the translation process. The increasingly diverse market requirements change the competency profile of specialised translators, but the actual needs may be seen differently by different market actors. This paper looks at the current requirements and challenges in the area of specialised language services, with a particular focus on the technical fields. It discusses translator competencies as seen by translation practitioners and theorists, clients and end users, as well as translation companies. Comparisons are made on the basis of surveys of the target groups and an analysis of the websites of translation agencies. Drawing on the findings of the study, the authors make recommendations on how translator training should be adapted to incorporate the requirements of the global market.

Regarding Symbolic Capital: Poetry Translators from Modern Greek into English


 The research object of this study is the symbolic capital of poetry translators and how it shapes and is being shaped by the current practices and self-descriptions of translators of Modern Greek poetry into English. A number of case studies indicate that people who translate poetry come from a variety of backgrounds, including those of a poet and an academic, which often do not include any formal translation training (Hofstadter 1997; Waldinger 2003; Bullock 2011; Isaxanli 2014). It also appears to be common that translators of poetry have a number of complementary roles, with that of ‘poetry translator’ not always central. The study draws on data consisting of Modern Greek into English poetry translators’ responses to a survey, of paratexts created by Modern Greek into English translators and of ten interviews. Cultural and educational capitals are examined in their institutionalized, objectified and embodied form as bearers of symbolic capital. Three overlapping categories are explored: the translators’ connection to poetry and the source culture, translator education and translator self-description. The translators’ “extratextual visibility” (Koskinen 2000 as cited in Chesterman 2018: 446) is also analyzed as it forms part of the translators’ embodied cultural and symbolic capital. This empirical exploration offers insights into the variety of attitudes and approaches to poetry translation; the emerging patterns map out profiles of a group of contemporary poetry translators, investigate the realities of the craft and re-position poetry translation practitioners with respect to other translation professionals.

Brief analysis on the promotion of traditional Chinese medicine translation from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine English translators

English translation competence for TCM, a specialized industry, was analyzed from the perspective of representative translators. The background information of some representative translators who had made great contribution to TCM translation were reviewed and concluded, based on which their common excellent translation quality and professional quality was summarized and then some enlightenment and suggestions on the promotion of TCM translation were given for future TCM translation practitioners. Key words: Education, traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacy; English translators; Translation competence

LEGAL TRANSLATION – A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ENDEAVOUR

Legal translation is a highly skilled task. It has even been described as the “ultimate linguistic challenge” (Harvey 2002: 177). However, law firms or corporations that procure translations from self- employed translation practitioners often find the intricacies of the task difficult to perceive. Following extensive fieldwork examining how legal translation is commissioned and performed in ‘outstitutional’ contexts, I have developed a multidimensional model which illustrates the legal translator’s textual agency, aimed at conveying the complexities of translation performance to clients and other stakeholders. It may also serve to train fledgling legal translators, and to heighten practising translators’ awareness of their overall task. The impetus for the model sprang primarily from findings of serious information asymmetry and goal divergence in the market, and evidence that actors involved do not grasp (a) the need for legal translators to be fully briefed, or (b) the layers of skills involved.

Translating literary dialect: Victorian English in Peninsular Spanish

ABSTRACTPurposeThis paper briefly attempts to examine the actual problems translators face when rendering regional varieties, as well as the potential mechanisms they can resort to so as to ensure success in the target text.MethodsBy using some examples in Victorian literature (more specifically to the work of Thomas Hardy) and two Spanish translations of one of his most popular novels.ResultsStandarization seems to be the norm when these dialectal features transcend geographical and sociological boundaries, although some compensatory strategies can be observed. Still, these do not manage to convey the identities of the characters and the freshness of their language.ConclusionThe use of dialect in translated literature deserves the attention of literary scholars and translation practitioners, given its linguistic and sociological significance and the complexities of this intricate task.

Ethico-aesthetics and the machinic repetition of literature in translation

Abstract This article examines how translation practitioners might begin to develop a praxis that is based on an ontological polyvocality; one which allows for difficulty – even misconstrual and semantic breakdown – so that translations do not become mechanical reproductions, subsumed by systems of power, rather than machinic repetitions that allow for deterritorializations along lines of flight. Because, despite the fact that translations are regarded as relatively autonomous creations, they still conform; they are still produced in the socius which, in modern societies, aids the functioning of capitalism. The question arises: if translations – which are unavoidably a kind of literary repetition – are produced and constructed within capitalist societies, does this mean that they inevitably become mechanical reproductions rather than machinic repetitions? To answer this question, translation is investigated within the ethico-aesthetic framework developed by Félix Guattari and selected translations of passages in the oeuvre of the South African author Ingrid Winterbach are referenced.

Building Scientist Capacity in Knowledge Translation: Development of the Knowledge Translation Planning Template

The last fifteen years have seen a fundamental shift in the importance of knowledge translation in health research and clinical care. Health research funders have incorporated knowledge translation into their missions, strategic directions, and funding opportunities, encouraging knowledge translation and implementation science and requiring knowledge translation practice from researchers working across the health research pillars – basic, clinical, health services, and population health. Healthcare and research organizations have changed their landscape as well, hiring knowledge translation practitioners to bridge research and practice for a range of knowledge users. Universities are shifting criteria for academic promotion to incorporate knowledge translation. Growing attention to knowledge translation in research, practice, and scholarship has created a need for researchers and practitioners to develop knowledge translation skills and competencies related to their research, scholarship, and organizational activities. The Knowledge Translation Planning Template was developed to support knowledge translation planning for scientists in health and other sectors. This article provides an overview of the rationale for its development, introduces the tool components, and describes preliminary indicators of impact.

Towards a Nomadic Ethics in Translation Praxis

In this article I examine how translation practitioners might begin to develop a praxis that is informed by a nomadic ethics which is not reliant on a normative or regularizing ethics/morality, but rather constitutes an orientation founded on heterogeneity and the repudiation of universality. In order for such a praxis to be effectuated, I argue that translations have to take into consideration the historicity of master narratives so that meaning becomes disentangled from the semantics and grounded in a materialist philosophy. Because translation does not occur in a vacuum; it is influenced by myriad material flows, some apparent and some not which, in turn, are linked to certain forms of knowledge and power. To support my argument, I refer to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and apply it to the use of a number of stylistic and linguistic devices in the oeuvre of Ingrid Winterbach.

Developing and exploiting linguistic resources in research and in the didactics of Specialised Translation

<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-GB">This paper outlines the main state-of-the-art linguistic resources that can be developed and used in the research and in the didactics of Specialised Translation. In addition, it points to the still largely unexplored potential from the combination of Corpus Linguistics, Descriptive Translation Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics into a single scientific and research agenda, to the benefit of both translation practitioners and trainee translators.<strong></strong></span></p><p class="Abstract"> </p>

¿Qué traducen los traductores económicos del alemán-español y español-alemán? Estudio basado en encuestas

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a survey relating to economic and business translation from German into Spanish and vice versa, the objective of which is to build a specialised corpus in German. This research was conducted within the framework of the COMENEGO Project (Spanish acronym for Multilingual Corpus of Business and Economics). The purpose of the project is to create a stable electronic corpus for translation practitioners from Spanish into various languages and vice versa. The pilot corpus includes Spanish, French and English components. As with the English corpus, the results of a survey on the practice of translation in the field of business and economics are a valuable source of information for compiling the German corpus. Moreover, not only may the results enable us to circumscribe the corpus design, they could also aid translator trainers in the preparation of specialised courses.

English-Chinese translation of financial terminology in Mainland China and Hong Kong

The main purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the English-Chinese translated financial terms of Mainland China and Hong Kong in light of the necessary criteria for special communication terminology, and explore the feasibility of standardisation. Some distinctive linguistic properties and translation methods of the two regions’ Chinese financial terminology will be illustrated based on data from an industry glossary and major bank annual reports. The present situation is that Mainland China and Hong Kong display both similarities and differences in their Chinese translation of financial terms. With the increasing contact since the 1997 handover, the two regions appear to have been influencing each other, especially in that Mainland China has been adopting Hong Kong’s Chinese translations. In view of the fact that some translation scholars and practitioners advocate the standardisation of Chinese financial terminology in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the sake of better economic development, this paper outlines the main properties of the two regions’ terminologies and evaluates how such standardisation might possibly proceed. Limited research has been done with regard to the translation of Chinese financial terminology and this exploratory study will fill that gap and attract similar studies in the translation and terminology fields.

Lost in Collocation: When Arabic Collocation Dictionaries Lack Collocations

Arabic has always been in bad need of collocation dictionaries. However, the only two recent English/Arabic & Arabic/English dictionaries that emerged, Dar El-Ilm’s Dictionary of Collocations (DEDC) and Al-Hafiz Arabic Collocations Dictionary (AACD) suffer from serious problems. Although DEDC has a wide range of items covered, it suffers from the serious problem of disregarding the Arabic legacy of collocational equivalents while translating the English terms. English collocation structures, therefore, are translated into free Arabic word combinations. AACD, on the other hand, has the perceived problem of the deficiency in the range of items covered for each entry, ignoring that Arabic, a lexically rich language, can provide a remarkable range of collocational material on different word entries. The two dictionaries would be of greater help for language learners and translation practitioners if those problems were addressed. This paper focuses on those particular weaknesses putting forward alternative suggestions about how to tackle the deficiencies.

The use of corpora as translation resources: A study based on a survey of Spanish professional translators

The aim of this paper is to describe the use that professional translators make of corpora as translation resources. First, we briefly review the literature on translation practitioners’ use of corpora in the contexts of both translation training and professional translation. Then we present our survey-based study, analyse the uptake of corpora among Spanish translators and describe the use of this kind of translation resource. The results show that even if corpora are not as frequently used as other kinds of resources, such as dictionaries, there are professional translators who do use corpora, in a variety of ways, in their work. Additionally, non-users do not seem entirely sceptical about corpora. Against that backdrop, translator trainers are invited to continue to report on how corpora can be used as translation resources.

COMENEGO (Corpus Multilingüe de Economía y Negocios): A Metadiscursive Analysis Approach

This paper describes a stage in the COMENEGO project, which is creating comparable corpora of Business texts in order to distribute them among translation practitioners so that they can use this resource when translating economic, business or financial texts. This stage consists of discursive analysis of a pilot specialised corpus initially compiled in French and Spanish. Its textual resources are classified in different categories which need to be confirmed so that they can be useful when including them into the virtual platform which will allow users exploit the corpus and filter their searches according to their specific needs. The aim of this paper is to propose a discursive analysis approach based on the concept of ‘metadiscourse’ (Hyland, 2005).

Comparative Studies on Introductory Words of Conditional Clauses in Hong Kong Ordinances

On the basis of studying Chapter 32 Company Ordinances of Hong Kong bilingual ordinances,we employ the descriptive method to investigate the translation of conditional clauses introduced by if,where,in(the) case of,when and the event of,with a view to exploring different translations of these five introductory words of conditional clauses in legal texts.In addition,through a large number of data analysis,we compare and distinguish the usage and translations of if and where which are dominantly used in Company Ordinances,so as to help legal writers or legal translation practitioners to differentiate these two important introductory words.