 Translation as a Profession

to plan the translation time into the work schedule and always forgotten to
budget for it anyway, makes last minute changes to the source document (such
changes being usually referred to as ‘improvements’), changes his mind half way
through the translation, forgets to give the translator the vital documentation or
information needed to carry out the job properly and in time, never has time to
talk to the translator or approve the translation, considers translation, at best, as a
necessary evil and begrudges having to pay the translator’s bill or fee. . . to mention
just a few of the grievances!
Whatever the reasons for such obviously serious misunderstanding, there is a
good case for making sure that everyone has a better understanding of the nature,
challenges and complexity of the whole process of translating.

. The aims of translation

Translators may be called upon to translate just about anything. Any text, message,
fragment of a message or code element may need to be translated. A compre-
hensive list of materials that are commonly translated would include software
programs, video games, software on-line help systems, insurance contracts, extra-
dition proceedings, film sub-titles, songs, film dialogues, all kinds of soundtracks,
drug dosage instructions, obituaries, mail catalogues, mobile phone instructions,
marketing certificate applications, sales contracts, health certificates, user manu-
als (millions of them), parts lists, commercial statistics, registry office certificates,
educational qualifications and certificates, confidential diplomatic memos, adver-
tising leaflets, adverts, magazine and newspaper articles, alarm system documenta-
tion, customer complaints, the faxed minutes of a meeting before the next session
starts, poems, novels, short stories, biographies, bills of lading and customs forms,
post card titles, medical files, extradition requests, technical memos, annual re-
ports, letters to the shareholders, DNA analysis reports, machine user instructions,
patents, and many more.
Nor is language-based material the only type of material that comes up
for translation: graphic images, alphanumerical data, videographic material or
pictograms, computer code or other types of code, sound, noise, signs, colours
and signals, may also have to be “translated” into other codes or languages. The
translator may for instance have to inform the client that a colour which is a
symbol of happiness and optimism in European cultures is a symbol of death in
certain Far-Eastern cultures, and that it may be worth changing the graphic chart
for the documentation accordingly. The list of materials that the translator may be
called on to “translate” is endless.
 Chapter 1. An overview 

. The nature of translation1

Translation aims at allowing effective communication – and trade – to take place

by overcoming potentially insurmountable obstacles of a linguistic, symbolic, or
physical nature: the language barrier, ignorance of a code system (pictograms) or
physical impairments such as blindness or deafness (which is where sign language
interpreting comes in because, contrary to popular belief, sign languages differ
from one country to the next and have to be ‘translated’). Translation is vital for
the dissemination of goods, products, services, concepts, ideas, values, etc.
Whether the source document is an on-line software help system or the
electrical wiring diagram used by a technician working in cramped conditions
under a bark-stripping machine or a die-press, the end-product that the translator
delivers, i.e. the translation, must meet a number of requirements, both in the
message conveyed and the way it is conveyed. It must comply with:
a) the client’s aims and objectives: the translation must be effective in allowing
the work provider or client to achieve his aims of increasing sales, winning
over readers, entertaining readers, facilitating use of machines, improving his
corporate image, or having some criminal extradited, etc.

and/or
b) the user’s needs or requirements, or even specifications, if such is the case.
The translation must also be effective in allowing its users to obtain whatever
they are supposed to be getting through it. As a case in point, a translated
instructions manual or user guide should at least enable the user to perform
whatever operations have to be performed and to do this efficiently and safely.
This means cuts and additions may have to be made: an unwieldy 500 page
maintenance manual would not, for instance, be much use to a maintenance
engineer working in cramped conditions.

plus, at all times,

c) the usage, standards and conventions applicable: the grammar, spelling, ter-
minology, phraseology, style, modes of reasoning, value systems, etc. must be
those of the community concerned – be it the community of all people speak-
ing a given language or the group of people working on a particular project in
a particular corporation or organisation.

The ‘products’ or ‘concepts’ being transferred across cultures must be acceptable

or made acceptable within the context of the target culture and grasped by those

. The following analysis does not necessarily apply to literary translation.

 Translation as a Profession

they are supposed to reach and influence. Transfer is therefore cultural in nature
first – which means appropriate adaptations of contents, organisation, and mode
of thinking may have to be made by the translator. The latter must therefore
understand exactly what message has to be carried over to whom before organising
the content of his own message and expressing it in the appropriate code (that code
being most generally, but not exclusively, a language-based code).
The visible substitution of linguistic or non-linguistic signs and codes comes
second to the deeper and less visible substitution of thought processes, discourse
structure, presentation techniques and rationales, modes of analysis of objects or
concepts or interpretation and subliminal suggestion – which means the translator
must have a perfect knowledge of the thought processes, mental habits or mores
of the target group or community.
Thus, the translator is a key actor in the process of importing or exporting
ideas, concepts, rationales, thought processes, discourse structures, pre-conceived
ideas, machines, services, myths and so on. He is also a vital go-between in oper-
ations and actions involving international co-operation (customer information,
extradition procedures, sales, purchases, exchanges, travel, etc.). He is in fact
an extremely powerful and critical agent facilitating and even at times enabling
economic, strategic, cultural, technical, literary, legal, scientific and ideological
exchanges throughout the world.

. The quality constraints

The effectiveness of the communication process is the ultimate test of quality

in a translation, not the ways and means used to express the message. A quality
translation should be all of the following:
a) Accurate: the contents of the translation must be true to the facts and to
the interpretation of those facts within the limits of the domain or specialist
field concerned. Ideally, the translation should not contain the slightest technical,
factual or semantic error. In fact, zero-defect quality is very seldom achieved,
mostly because there are approximations, omissions, ambiguities, and even errors
in the original. But it remains every serious translator’s ideal, and accuracy, at least,
must be the rule.
b) Meaningful: the message must be meaningful in the target language and culture
even though concepts or their interpretations may vary from one culture to
another. This has a number of implications:
– concepts or connotations that become meaningless in the target culture have
to be deleted;
 Chapter 1. An overview 

– concepts or connotations may no longer be perceptible in the target culture,

simply because they were implicit in the source material and the implicit
meaning fails to surface in the other culture or language;
– concepts or connotations may require additional clarification in the target
culture;
– concepts or connotations may take on a different meaning, become nonsen-
sical or even offensive in the target culture – as in the well-known examples
of products whose names carry obscene, vulgar or ridiculous connotations in
the target culture.

c) Accessible: Any person using the translation must be able to clearly understand
the information and the message conveyed. For the translator, this may mean
having to adapt both the contents and the register of language to the end-user’s
level of technical competence. Just like any other medium of communication, the
translation must be readable, coherent, logical and (preferably) well written.
d) Effective AND ergonomic: the translation must be effective both in terms
of communicating a message and of making sure that the message fulfils its
initial purpose (and nothing but that purpose). It must in fact fulfil both its
initial purpose and any subsequent purpose(s) that its end-users or beneficiaries
might consider.
e) Compliant with any applicable constraint in terms of:
– target communities’ linguistic and cultural standards and usages
– rules and regulations: the objects, devices or processes referred to in the
translation may for instance be subject to specific national laws or regulations,
which the translator must take into account,
– official standards concerning terminology or technicalities,
– physical limitations: the number of characters may be limited, for instance.
– functional constraints: a translated Web site must, for instance, remain acces-
sible, all the links must be active and the site must be easy to navigate.

f) Compatible with the defence of the client’s or work provider’s interests since the
translator is, to all intents and purposes, the client’s service provider cum agent
cum adviser or partner. Working in the interest of the client means, as already
stated, making sure the translation achieves the desired effect (helping to convince,
assist, explain, enable use, inform, prompt purchase, assuage, seduce, etc.), while
avoiding any undesirable effects (causing anger or irritation on the part of the
buyer confronted with incomprehensible user instructions, causing mirth where
emotion would be expected, etc.).
To achieve an acceptable and effective translation, the translator must take into
account:
 Translation as a Profession

a) the cultural context within which the message will be received and inter-
preted – the culture being national, corporate or local,
b) the end-users’ value systems – failing which the translation will be rejected
outright,
c) the most effective way of arguing points, presenting information, organising
contents according to the aim to be achieved – failing which the translation
will not fulfil its purpose,
d) commonly accepted rhetorical and stylistic conventions in the target culture –
failing which, the message will be seen as ‘alien’. This may pervade the whole
message or be visible in certain aspects, as for instance, when the translation
fails to comply with a specific company style guide,
e) language stereotypes (i.e. standard terminology and phraseology) – failing
which, the translation will be felt to have been written by an ‘outsider’ (because
the use of the appropriate terms and phrases is seen as the hallmark of
technical competence and a sign that the writer or speaker belongs to the
narrow circle of ‘specialists’ in a given field).

More important still, the translator must produce an efficient and cost-effective
translation. The decisions involved may seem to have little to do with ‘translation’
in the traditional sense. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness may, for instance mean
omitting a section of the source document, summarising thirty pages in ten lines
or so, adding a section to provide information that is not present in the original
document but is known by the translator to be vital for the end-user in the target
culture, providing a five-page translation for a two-page source document or vice-
versa, translating only such items of information as are relevant to the end-user’s
needs or re-organising a whole set of documents, etc. All this, of course, requires
professional competence of the highest order.

. The stakes

In purely economic terms, professional translation is a by no means negligible

segment of the service sector. Taken as a whole, the translation industry is a multi-
billion euro business: it is commonly estimated that the commercial translation
sector (including human translation, localisation, and machine translation) gen-
erated an overall turnover in 2005 of between 9,000 and USD 15,000 million, with
annual growth forecasts in the area of 5 to 10% depending on geographical areas,
business sectors, and types of translations.2

. For more information: www.euatc.org/boucau.doc