2.3.

2 Finding out who the audience is

Knowing who is going to read your translation means you can write specifically
for them and give them the type of text they need.

The notion of audience is one with which most of us are very familiar. Look in
any book on translation and you will see numerous references to the target
audience, reader, intended audience, and various other synonyms. But despite
the ubiquity of the audience, it is still a surprisingly abstract and fuzzy concept,
which is difficult to define in any concrete way.

This is not unique to translation. Technical writers, too, struggle with figuring
out who their audience will be. In many cases, it is simply not possible to create
a detailed profile of our audience so we have to resort to other methods in
order to gain some understanding of what they need, want and expect.
Rosenberg (2005:9) acknowledges both the need to identify your audience as
well as the difficulty in doing this. He proposes two simple questions which,
when properly followed through and analyzed, can provide a wealth of
information to help us:

What does my audience already know about this technology?

What is the native language of my audience?

While both questions are aimed primarily at technical writers, they are highly
applicable to translation scenarios. By understanding what the audience knows
about a particular technology we can decide whether or not we need to provide
additional explanations and foreground particular facts or whether we can omit
certain facts; this also tells us whether we need to avoid specialized terms and
acronyms or whether we can use them comfortably.

The second question is motivated by the fact that, in English at least, a

sizeable proportion of the audience of a technical text do not speak English as
their first language and texts need to cater for their particular circumstances
and abilities. From a translation point of view, it seems quite unnecessary to
ask this question because translators know into which languages they
translate. It seems about as useful as reminding yourself of your own name.
But if we take this question and examine it in a more profound way, it can pay
dividends. The idea of language does not just refer to the words people use to
refer to things and the rules they use to string them together.

Instead, language combines various factors such as culture, customs, norms,

conventions and countless other factors that make up a language community. If
we make the question even more specific and say which specific variety of
language the audience speaks, this question might make more sense, i.e. US
English, Swiss German or Canadian French. Incidentally, this is quite similar to
what people in the localization industry call a locale.

Language or locale?

Simply referring to Arabic or Spanish or Russian is fine for people who are
not concerned with communicating across cultures. But for those of us who
are, we need to be much more specific because the same language can be
used in different countries by people with different cultures, and to group
them together would not only be politically and culturally insensitive, but
also inaccurate. For this reason, it is helpful to think in terms of locales
rather than simply in terms of target languages.

The best way of understanding a locale is in the context of multilingual

computing where it represents a combination of language and the country
and the culture where it is used. A locale can be defined as a set of
attributes which are specific to a particular language and geographical
region. These attributes include such settings as the display language,
number formats, date/time formats, time zone, daylight saving time,
currency formats and keyboard layout. Examples of locales include English
(U.S.) or Arabic (Morocco).

Instead of users having to manually change these settings themselves,

locales are used to store all of the relevant information so that the
computer can implement the changes automatically and the software will
work properly. It ensures, for example, that a word processor uses the
correct dictionaries for spellcheckers, that the correct currencies are
displayed in an accounting program and that the paper sizes are correct
when you print something.

In the context of translation, a locale equates to the various linguistic,

cultural, social, political and historical factors that make the target
audience what it is.

As useful as these questions are, they are still rather vague and prone to
arbitrary results depending on who asks them. It would be better if we were
able to have a more detailed way of understanding audiences.

2.3.2.1 ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

While we may never know exactly who will be reading our texts, we may be
able to deduce who our audience is from the context or from the text type.
Sometimes the best you can hope for is to come up with a prototypical, generic
outline of who the audience is. While not ideal, it is better than nothing and it
will still help you to translate effectively. In his discussion of audiences,
Rosenberg (2005:920) proposes a number of categories which we can usefully
turn into questions to help us gain a clearer picture of our audience.

What is the general education level?

This will help us understand the general levels of literacy among the audience.
For less literate audiences, a text which is written in overly complex language
will be less effective and possibly even counterproductive. Conversely, pitching
the language level too low may, in some circumstances, frustrate more literate
audiences.

What experience and expertise does the audience have?

What is the background of the audience in terms of their work experience, level
of expertise and job seniority? How familiar are readers with the subject matter
and the work area in which the information is needed? This information will
determine how much detail we can present in the text and how we present it.

How wide and diverse is the audience?

Is there one audience or multiple audiences? Although it is a bad idea to try to

cater for too many audiences within a single document, certain types of texts
are produced for multiple readerships. These readerships will need to be
categorized into primary and secondary audiences so that the appropriate level
of attention can be paid to the needs, expectations and experiences of specific
groups. This may require us to clearly label sections or structure information so
that they are separated for the different audiences.

What is the native language?

Even if all of our readers speak English, for example, there may be significant
variation in their ability to speak it. This may be because it is not their first
language, or even their second or third language. Readers may have only a
very limited knowledge of a language as used in a specific subject area. In such
cases, it may be necessary to limit the range of vocabulary used in texts and
define new or specialized terms and abbreviations when they are first used in
the text. Other strategies which can be of benefit to non-native speakers of a
language (although generally useful to everyone) include using the active voice
and avoiding long sentences because it makes sentences clearer, more direct
and less complicated.

Similarly, there are numerous regional varieties of languages such as English,

Arabic (see Wilmsen & Youssef 2009), Spanish and Portuguese, which means
not all terminology will be standardized and not all cultural references will be
commonly intelligible. There may even be preferences with regard to
grammatical structures or forms of address.
In the case of product names (see Translating brand names on page 64) and
medicines it may be necessary to swap them for generic names or replace
them with country-specific equivalents. Some examples might include
paracetamol which is sometimes referred to as acetaminophen while the drug
clopidogrel (used to prevent blood clots) is marketed in different countries
under its generic name clopidogrel and also under the trade names Plavix,
Ceruvin and Clopilet. An asthmatic who uses albuterol inhalers may have
difficulty in knowing what Proventil is if they are more familiar with Ventolin
inhalers. Even fast-acting cyanoacrylate glue is referred to as either Super
Glue, Krazy Glue or The Original Super Glue depending on the market in which
it is sold. Clearly, knowing the variety of a particular language and the intended
country can have significant implications for the text and the people who will
read it.

Practical Exercise 9: Different country, different name

Identify three products from around your home. They can be anything from
foods to cleaning products, drinks, medicines or whatever you can find. Find
out if they are sold in any other countries. If so, what are they called? If not,
what are the nearest comparable products available in that market?

What is the native culture?

As we saw earlier, culture is something which can transcend nationality and

physical geography and may consist purely of a group of people with a shared
interest in some particular area, for example, computer games, electronics,
steam engines or even crime. The nature of the cultural norms, expectations
and dynamics within the target audience culture affects texts in a variety of
ways, such as the use of slang and jargon, forms of address and cultural
references based on the assumption of shared knowledge. The native culture of
the readers will also determine practical issues such as date and time
conventions, currencies and even references to laws, institutions and
government departments.

But this category opens up a much richer avenue of analysis to help translators
understand the text and its audience and to identify appropriate translation
strategies. In her book, International Technical Communication, Nancy Hoft
presents a series of approaches for identifying international variables
(1995:62ff), which she says will help us to identify firstly, what the essential
components of technical documentation are and secondly, to decide which
aspects of a text need to be changed in order for the text to be effective in
another culture.

But before we look at these factors which are drawn from the work of Hall
(1976), Hofstede (1991), Victor (1992) and Trompenaars (1993), a word or two
of warning is in order at this point. When discussing cultures it is important to
remember that we cannot equate one culture with one language or vice versa.
There may be numerous parallel cultures located within a particular language
group and they may be quite different from each other. It is for this reason that
in the following paragraphs we will not refer to nationalities or languages the
way Hoft does, only to groups who tend to exhibit particular characteristics or
preferences.

Similarly, the approaches proposed by Hoft are very useful but they are
generalizations, rules of thumb to help broadly categorize audiences. It is
important to remember this and not to resort to indiscriminate stereotyping of
cultures, nationalities and audiences, because there are no hard and fast rules
and there will always be exceptions and anomalies. However, when used with
the right level of caution and flexibility the following points can provide us with
a better insight into how our audiences tend to work.

In addition to identifying any differences and similarities between the source

and target audience in terms of educational systems, literacy levels, learning
style, political, religious and social climate, we can also compare our source
and target audiences in terms of their approaches to context, authority and
uncertainty.