CHARTEREDINSTITUTEOFLINGUISTS 52/4 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2013

The Linguist

Inside asylum
The challenging and sometimes
distressing role of interpreting
for Kurdish asylum-seekers

Net gains
From improving web searches
to redefining the languages
professions: a three-article Focus

Chinua Achebe
Translating Things Fall Apart, in
tribute to the acclaimed novelist
Joint CIOL/ITI event with Judy Jenner
No Pain, No Gain - Active Marketing to
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York: Saturday 28 September 2013, 2-5pm
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Working with direct clients instead of translation agencies is traditionally more lucrative, allows
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Innovative thinking
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the workshops will provide you with a real life experience and
count towards your accredited CPD development.

CPD Workshops:
Simultaneous Booth Training Refresher
An Introduction to Business Interpreting Training
Public Speaking for Interpreters
An Introduction to Consecutive Interpreting Training

For more details, costs and to book your

place please contact worldwisebusiness@uclan.ac.uk
 CONTENTS

The Linguist
20-25 Translators’ web
The Linguist CHANGE IS A-COMING . . . 20
The Linguist, formerly The

© MONKEYBUSINESSIMAGES | DREAMSTIME.COM
Incorporated Linguist, is the Are professional boundaries starting to blur?
official journal of the Chartered
Institute of Linguists.
COPING WITH WEB
BLINDNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Editor Miranda Moore: linguist.editor@gmail.com
Sales Sarah Heaps: +44 (0) 20 7940 3100;
Top tips for improving online searches
sarah.heaps@iol.org.uk

Editorial Board
ON BETTER TERMS . . . . . . . 24
Ms J Fraser MA DipTrans IoLET FCIL FHEA FITI Access the EU’s terminology database
Ms A M Graham BA DipTrans IoLET AMIOEE
Ms S Heaps BA (ex officio)
Mr D Luddy BA News & editorial
Dr G A Makin MA PhD DPSI MCIL
Mr T Merz BA Reviews
Mr K Moffitt BSc DipTrans IoLET MCIL MITI
Ms M Moore BA (ex officio)
‘ARBITRARY’ DEAL FOR
Prof J Munday BA MEd PhD PGCE DipTrans IoLET MCIL AFGHAN INTERPRETERS . . . 5 BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Mr K Paver MA (Oxon) PgDip MCIL MITI
Mr A Peacock BA (ex officio)
Ms K Stokes MA (Oxon) DipTrans IoLET MITI FCIL INSIDE PARLIAMENT . . . . . . 6
CL (Translator) (Chair)
Update from the All-Party Parliamentary Group Opinion & comment
The Chartered Institute of Linguists, Saxon House,
LETTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
48 Southwark Street, London SE1 1UN; www.iol.org.uk
+44 (0)20 7940 3100; info@iol.org.uk Features
Royal Patron HRH Prince Michael of Kent GCVO
FIRST STEPS . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
President Dr N Bowen BSc MA PhD Dip TEFL RSA HonFCIL TRADE SECRETS . . . . . . . . . . 7
Inside stock images provider Dreamstime
Vice-Presidents
Prof T J Connell MA BPhil DLitt PGCE FCIL
18
Mrs A Corsellis OBE BA HonFCIL
Baroness J Coussins MA HonFCIL NEGOTIATING ASYLUM . . . . 8
Prof D Crystal OBE PhD FCSLT HonFCIL FRSA Interpreting for Kurdish asylum-seekers
Mr R Hardie MA FCA HonFCIL
Dr J M Mitchell CBE MA DrPhil FCIL

Members of Council
THINGS FALL APART . . . . . . 10
Mr T Bell MA MPhil FCIL (Hon Treasurer) Translating Chinua Achebe’s seminal book
Mrs J Cambridge MA FCIL
Mr M Cunningham BA MCIL
Mr J Farmer MA MCIL LET’S GET PHYSICAL:
Prof H Fulford BA MA PhD FCIL MBCS FHEA
Dr M-M Gervais-le Garff MA Doct 3e Cycle FCIL LEGAL INTERPRETING . . . . 12
Ms D Langton MA DipTrans IoLET MCIL New series focusing on working conditions
Ms M J Lee MA DPSI MCIL
Dr G A Makin MA PhD DPSI MCIL
Mr K Moffitt BSc DipTrans IoLET MCIL MITI (Chair)
WORKING TOGETHER . . . . 14
Ms K Netto BA MSc DipTrans IoLET MCIL
Mrs C Pocock DipTrans IoLET FCIL (Vice-Chair)
Mrs J A Ridgway BA FCIL MCMI
How collaborative tasks can help learners Institute matters
Ms K Stokes MA (Oxon) DipTrans IoLET MITI FCIL
CL (Translator) BETTER FOR BUSINESS . . . 16 DIVISIONS & SOCIETIES . . . 32
Mr P Shipman BSc (Hons) MScCEng MIMechE MCIL
Five-point plan to working across cultures Details of forthcoming events for your diary

Senior Institute personnel

Mr A Peacock BA (Director of Membership & LOCAL HEROES . . . . . . . . . . 18 ENSURING QUALITY . . . . . . 33
Acting Chief Executive)
A mission to provide children’s books overseas Meet the CIOL’s Joint Examinations Manager
IoL Educational Trust
The examinations are provided under the auspices of
the IoL Educational Trust. Senior officers: LEARNING TO ADAPT . . . . 26 WHO’S ON COUNCIL? . . . . 34
Prof T J Connell MA BPhil DLitt PGCE FCIL (Chair) How ‘tradapting’ Shakespeare helps students With Karen Stokes and James Farmer
Ms A Carlisle MA (Director of Examinations)
FRONT COVER © ORIONNA | DREAMSTIME.COM
Printed by Hastings Printing Company, St Leonards-on-Sea.
Published six times a year and distributed free of charge to all The editor reserves the right to edit all material submitted. Views expressed in The Linguist
members. Annual subscription £41 post free. Overseas
subscription £54 (airmail Europe), £58 (airmail rest of world). are not necessarily the official views of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. All rights of
reproduction, translation and adaptation reserved for all countries.
The Linguist is online at http://thelinguist.uberflip.com The Chartered Institute of Linguists, The Linguist, and officers accept no responsibility
and via www.iol.org.uk
ISSN 0268-5965 collectively or individually for the service of agencies or persons advertised or announced in the
pages of this journal. The good faith with which we publish offers no implied/implicit guarantee.

Vol/52 No/4 2013 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER The Linguist 3

 NEWS & EDITORIAL
CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S EDITOR’S
NOTES
I am pleased to report that the Institute has
located suitable new premises in central London
and will be moving very soon. The office is in EC1
and is well served by public transport, being less
than five minutes’ walk from Farringdon mainline
and Tube stations. We will occupy the fourth floor
of the building in an open-plan area, and will
benefit from a brand new hosted desktop IT
system. We will, of course, email members once the moving date is fixed, and
post all the information on our website. Communications will be down for a
day or so while we move, but please bear with us.
Our new Director of Examinations, Ann Carlisle, has been with us for more
than four months now, and has hit the ground running! Ann says: ‘It’s been a
hectic but exciting time with a lot to learn. Everyone has been extremely
supportive and I already feel very much part of the CIOL “family”. It’s a
challenging time for IoLET examinations, as economic conditions remain
tough while language policies and government decisions bring about
‘Economic conditions remain tough while
language policies bring about considerable
change. But this also gives us an opportunity’
considerable change. But this also gives us an opportunity to look again at
what we do, how we can do it better and what interest there is in new areas of
examination. And all soon from newer and smarter premises in Farringdon,
where the whole team will be working more closely together. It’s a challenge
which I relish, and I look forward to keeping you updated.’ To find out more
about the work of the IoLET’s DipTrans team, see page 33.
My colleague Jack Sellen, Professional Development and Membership
Services Officer, continues to work on expanding the programme of CPD
workshops offered by the Institute. Coming up in the autumn/winter sessions
is a new series on literary translation that will cover children’s literature, comics,
crime fiction, science fiction and fantasy. Other new workshops are in
development for 2014 – please check the CPD section of the website and
keep an eye out for e-bulletins advertising these.
Finally, I would like to alert you to Members’ Day 2013, which will be taking
place on Saturday 5 October at the newly refurbished Royal College of General
Practitioners, Euston Square, London NW1. Further details are on our website.
Please save the date!
Alan Peacock
4 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
LETTER
In 2010, I attended
a Foreign and
Commonwealth
Office event
promoting an
increase in British
representation in
Europe, and there
was an unexpected emphasis on language skills
as unessential. Reporting on a recent Association
of Graduate Recruiters survey, which found that
61 percent of UK recruiters struggle to find
‘global graduates’, The Independent stressed
that ‘“global” in this sense does not mean
“multi-lingual”’. This apparent trend may explain
why there is a ‘worrying lack of understanding’
about the current language deficit among UK
exporters, with only 16 percent viewing it as an
issue, according to the Institute of Directors.
It is true that being ‘global’ in outlook involves
more than learning a language alone – and even
linguists can make mistakes. For tips on how to
avoid cultural misunderstandings when working
internationally, see page 16.
Reading Chinua Achebe’s Thing Fall Apart,
aged 19, was an important step in my own
intercultural journey, leading me to West Africa
and, indirectly, to my role as an Assistant Editor
for The Linguist. I am pleased to be able to
honour the ‘father of Nigerian literature’, who
died in March, with a look at the challenges of
translating his seminal work (p.10).
In this issue, we launch a series looking at the
physical environment for interpreters working in
various fields, with a look at conditions for legal
interpreters (p.12). For those working with Kurdish
asylum-seekers, the challenges are manifold,
involving a mutlidialectal language, as well as
the often distressing nature of the work (p.8).
Our Focus on internet resources will be of
particular interest to translators, but with articles
on how to search the web more effectively and
on the ways technology is impacting on the
future of the professions, there should be
something of interest for all readers (pp. 20-25).
Miranda Moore
www.iol.org.uk

The latest from the languages world
© SCARAMAX | DREAMSTIME.COM
‘Arbitrary’ deal for Afghan
interpreters described as ‘cruel’
Interpreters for the British forces in
Afghanistan will be allowed to resettle in the
UK, if they meet certain criteria. This follows a
lengthy campaign by the Avaaz group in
support of around 1,200 Afghan interpreters,
many of whom face the threat of being killed
in their home country.
Although the £60 million package will
enable around 600 interpreters and their
families to settle in Britain, it was condemned
as ‘inadequate’, ‘arbitrary’ and ‘cruel’, with
Avaaz estimating that hundreds of interpreters
would remain at great risk in Afghanistan.
To qualify, interpreters must have been
working for the British on 19 December 2012
for more than a year, which excludes around
half. Announcing the package in June, which
he described as ‘generous’, the Defence
Rewarding literary translation
Six publishers have received awards for books
in translation from English PEN. Arc, Peirene,
Haus Publications, And Other Stories,
Portobello Books and Harvill Secker were
awarded grants to promote published books
and finance the translation of planned titles.
Grants were made available to enable a
further 16 books, in languages as diverse as
Vol/52 No/4 2013
Secretary, Philip Hammond, said up to 3,000
Afghans could settle in the country as a result.
Some of those who are not eligible are
already threatening legal action, with
their lawyer, Rosa Curling, commenting:
‘The Taliban do not determine who to target
by their commencement or redundancy
dates. Under this scheme, Afghan locally
employed staff still get a much worse deal
than their Iraqi counterparts, simply because
of their nationality.’ After the Iraq War,
Iraqi interpreters were offered either a
one-off payment or indefinite leave to
remain in the UK.
Local interpreters who remain in
Afghanistan will be offered a choice of five
years’ training with a ‘living stipend’ or a
severance payment of 18 months’ pay.
Farsi, Tamil, Occitan, Hebrew and Spanish,
to be published in English, including the
Portuguese Hotel Brasil by Frei Beto and the
French Théorème Vivant by Cedric Villani.
• Philip Boehm was announced as the
winner of the 2013 Oxford-Weidenfeld
Translation Prize, on 6 June, for his translation
of The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
NEWS & EDITORIAL
What the
papers say…
Five years ago, [archaeologist David] Stuart
started up Maya Decipherment, a blog for
scholars and amateurs to post new
inscriptions, refine translations and debate
the subtleties of Mayan language, all in an
effort to fill out the history of the civilisation.
The work will take years, but with the help of
the internet, the pace is quicker than it has
ever been.
‘How the Internet is Fast Unravelling
Mysteries of the Mayan Script’, 28/5/13
An interpreter was not sent to translate for a
murder suspect – because the company said
it was ‘not worthwhile as they will not make
enough money’. Judge Julian Flaux blasted
the decision not to send a mandarin
translator for Anxiang Du, 53, which forced
him to adjourn the case for two months.
Du had been due to answer four charges
of murder at Nottingham Crown Court today.
‘Judge Hits Out at Firm after it Refused
to Send Interpreter to Translate for
Murder Suspect Accused of Killing Family-
of-Four’, 10/5/13
Nearly 9 per cent of marriages in the UK
include a foreign-born spouse. In many of
those relationships, the partners have
different native languages… Different
cultures have different degrees of direct or
indirect communication strategies. They also
have varying ideas of what is considered
appropriate or taboo. Your partner might
make a comment that sounds crude or hurtful,
when in fact that wasn’t the intention. In these
situations, ask for clarification before getting
upset. Sometimes the problem was really just
a poor choice of words.
Learning for Love: Romance through the
language barrier, 5/6/13
The Linguist 5
 NEWS & EDITORIAL
English courses
for jobseekers?
The British
Government’s
Spending Review,
in June, made
language lessons a
requirement for
people claiming
Jobseeker’s
Allowance whose
© 1000WORDS | DREAMSTIME.COM
level of English is
impeding their
ability to find work.
Couched in
language that was
criticised for
suggesting that some immigrants refuse to
learn English, the Chancellor’s benefits
changes were reported more widely as
‘tough new rules’.
However, George Osborne failed to
indicate whether ESOL (English for
speakers of other languages) provision
would be increased. Designed for long-
term migrants to the UK, ESOL courses
have been oversubscribed since
government cuts in 2011 that are believed
to have cut provision by up to 50 percent in
some areas. Job-seekers struggling to learn
English will now look to Mr Osborne to
improve access.
New book to
inspire learning
A new guide to language-related careers
has been launched with the aim of
encouraging young people to continue
their studies. Produced by the British
Academy, with the European Commission,
Talk the Talk helps university students
and school pupils to find out about the
exciting opportunities language skills can
bring. It contains inspiring words from
celebrities and politicians, including Arsène
Wenger, sailor Ellen MacArthur and CIOL
Vice-President Baroness Jean Coussins.
To view or download Talk the Talk, visit
www.britac.ac.uk/policy/Talk_the_Talk.cfm.
6 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
Inside Parliament
Melissa Cudmore on recent All-
Party Parliamentary Group activities
The last two meetings of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Modern
Languages have focused on the opportunities
and challenges of the curriculum changes on
the teaching of languages. At the meeting
on 13 March, Carmen Wotton, of the
Department for Education (DfE), explained
that the Secretary of State was very keen on
languages and had stated that ‘not speaking
languages can breed insularity’. She
presented a detailed summary of the changes
to be introduced as part of the National
Curriculum Review. A key challenge was the
need to upskill teachers at Key Stage 2 (KS2).
The issues discussed included the transition
between KS2 and KS3; the need to ensure an
adequate supply of teachers and questions
around how the government will invest in
this; and support for community languages.
These concerns were raised again at the
meeting on 15 May. Elizabeth Truss,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Education
and Childcare, outlined the value of
languages not only for the individual but also
for the UK economy, stressing that the UK
needs to have an outward-facing curriculum,
and to learn from best practice in other
countries, in order to be competitive.
Languages are taught in 97 percent of
primary schools to some extent and, in the
Minister’s opinion, language learning should
be introduced even earlier.
Ms Truss highlighted the need to have a
unified approach, with fluency developed at
primary level to be built on at secondary
level. Thus, there is a need for greater
collaboration between secondary schools
and feeder primary schools. She also noted
that GCSE entries had risen to 74 percent
following the introduction of the EBacc.
Carolyn Robson, Executive Headteacher
at Rushey Mead School in Leicester,
presented at both meetings. She described
Rushey Mead (pictured) as a large,
multicultural school with languages at its
core. From a Headteacher’s perspective,
time and finance are the biggest
challenges to languages education.
She highlighted the need for alliances of
primary schools to support teachers, and
the need to strengthen the teaching of
languages at KS3 and to share best practice
at that level. Her summary included a
suggestion that the European framework
could be a useful tool in assessment and in
mapping transition.
Issues raised in the discussion that followed
included what age children should start to
learn languages, the importance of school
visits overseas, and the need to build on
children’s knowledge of their own languages.
To apply to attend the October meeting,
please contact Melissa Cudmore at
Melissa.Cudmore@britishcouncil.org.
www.iol.org.uk

© SNICOL24/FLORIN1961/BOGDAN/PAPUGA2006 |DREAMSTIME.COM
Trade secrets
International stock images provider,
Dreamstime, reveals its languages strategy
How does Dreamstime HQ in
Brentwood, USA, communicate
with the Business Development
office in Bucharest?
The language we use for communication is
English. There are remote editors and other
members of the team spread all around the
world – Italy, Germany, Turkey, Estonia,
Portugal, the UK, Australia, Bulgaria, Poland,
Serbia, Germany, Russia – so we need a
common language. Within the Bucharest
office, we speak Romanian, but all written
communication is in English. Fluency in
English is one of our main requirements.
How are activities coordinated?
We work as if we were all in the same office.
Tasks are coordinated within each department.
Editors are spread all over the world; they
communicate all the time and make sure
every team member is updated daily.
The website is available in 12
languages. How was it translated?
We used automated software in the first
stage. Several software solutions were tested
and we selected the one that gave the best
Vol/52 No/4 2013
results. We then employed proofreaders to
make the necessary adjustments.
What practical considerations are
involved in maintaining a
multilingual website?
Updates are performed on a daily basis. The
automated systems are not 100 percent
accurate so there is a permanent team of
translators employed to check and update the
translations all the time. We usually update
the site information using automated systems
and ask the translators to check; sometimes
we ask them to make translations directly.
When you are working with human
translators, you depend on their schedule and
availability. We try to update immediately any
modification, but sometimes there may be a
small delay for some languages. We have
developed some unique tools to help our
translators update translations in real-time.
The image information is translated
exclusively by the automated system. It is
impossible to have human translators correct
this, as we add 15,000 new stock images
every day. To date, we are the only agency
that translates everything.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
DREAMSTIME IMAGES
(Clockwise from far left) Oktoberfest in
Munich; Mărțișor; Christmas in Tokyo;
and a Dreamstime logo puzzle piece
We have had difficulties due to the word
order or word length. English is very flexible
and there are plenty of short words we can use
for buttons, for instance. This does not always
apply to other languages, so we have to look
for the best solutions and make various tests.
Is there a need for in-house skills
in all 12 languages?
We offer support mainly in English. Some of
the Support team members are fluent in other
languages, so we can answer emails in French
and Spanish. Most of our staff answer emails:
editors answer emails related to review,
graphic designers respond to printing and
design issues, Support answers emails related
to licenses, the Development Department
handles site issues.
At least one staff member speaks each of
the 12 languages and we ask them to translate
messages from time to time. But 90 percent of
the emails we receive are in English. We also
have the option of sending clients to one of
our local partners. Our content is distributed
locally via our global partner network and they
are able to assist clients in their own language.
Where are your main markets?
The US, UK, Canada and Australia if we are to
refer to English-speaking countries. Germany,
the Netherlands, Brazil, Spain, Italy and France
are also important markets, but the client
database covers all countries in the world.
How are international marketing
campaigns coordinated?
We organise campaigns through various
channels, covering all potential areas and
online advertising models, search engine
optimisation and social media. We do this on
an international scale or at country level,
directly or through distribution/word-of-mouth.
We work with local partners as required.
Some campaigns are country specific
and very much targeted (eg, Mărțișor and
Oktoberfest). Others are generic and even
‘imported’ (eg, Christmas in Asian countries).
When we run campaigns, we pay attention
to local holiday dates (for instance, Mother’s
Day in Romania is in March whereas in the
US it is in May).
The Linguist 7
 FEATURES
Negotiating asylum
Sabir Hasan Birot looks at the challenges of
interpreting for Kurdish asylum-seekers in the UK
A Kurdish interpreter faces many challenges;
if they are working with asylum-seekers, they
are confronted with many more. One of the
first issues is likely to be that Kurdish is a
multidialectal language. Kurmanji, Soranî,
Bahdīnī and Zazaki are the four major
dialects. What makes Kurdish even more
difficult than many other multidialectal
languages is that Kurdistan was long ago
divided between four countries: Turkey, Iran,
Iraq and Syria. Thus, the dialects spoken in
Turkey have been influenced by Turkish,
those spoken in Iran by Persian, and those
spoken in Iraq and Syria by Arabic, including
a large number of borrowed words.
I come from Iraqi Kurdistan and speak
Soranî, so I found it very difficult when I was
asked to interpret the Kurmanji dialect
spoken by Kurds from Turkey. In such a
situation, the quality of the interpreting not
only depends on the interpreter’s knowledge
of the second language (English, in my
case), but also on their knowledge of the
first language.
I read a news report in The Copenhagen
Post recently, entitled ‘Poor Interpreters put
Asylum Seekers at Risk’. It told the story of an
Afghan who had an Iranian interpreter for his
first interview with the Immigration Office.
The asylum-seeker and the interpreter spoke
very different dialects of Persian. For his next
They think interpreters
should be able to
answer questions on
everything from asylum
cases to legal matters
8 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
interview, the Refugee Appeals Board used
an interpreter who was trained in both
Persian dialects and revealed mistakes made
by the Iranian interpreter, who had used
several words that had a very different
meaning in the Afghan dialect.
When the man’s asylum case failed, his
lawyer, Helge Nørrlung, said poor
interpreting ‘could have been the reason
why he appeared untrustworthy’. This
incident involves dialects of Persian, but is
an indication of the types of difficulties
faced by all interpreters working with
multidialectal languages.
For me, the solution was simply not to
take jobs in the Kurmanji dialect. This meant
I had fewer jobs, but as I could not guarantee
that I could do the jobs effectively – and
therefore that the work would meet clients’
expectations – I thought it better to register
only in the dialects I am fluent in, at least
until I improve my competence and
confidence in Kurmanji.
Varied settings
Working with asylum-seekers involves GAPS IN UNDERSTANDING
various settings. A business interpreter’s Kurdish asylum-seekers at the Refugee
domain is likely to be the world of business Council in London (right); and (left) a
and a conference interpreter’s domain is Kurdish refugee from Turkey. Interpreter
likely to be politics and international relations. Sabir Birot has had particular difficulties
When working with asylum-seekers, with the Kurmanji dialect from Turkey
interpreters can find themselves interpreting
for the UK Border Agency, the Home Office, As a useful strategy, when I am given my
the police, solicitors, courts, the NHS and first assignment in a government institution
the Job Centre. or hospital department, I search for relevant
Each setting can be further subdivided. information online – for example by checking
Working for the NHS, for instance, can the NHS website for details about the
involve different departments in a hospital, department. This has been really useful in
including accident and emergency, giving me an overview of the nature of the
physiotherapy and maternity. Working in all service offered to clients or patients
or some of these settings and sub-settings attending that institution or department.
requires an interpreter to have adequate Thanks to the internet, it is now easy to
knowledge of various specialised terms. access information about the services
www.iol.org.uk

provided by almost all institutions and
government bodies.
Cultural factors
Interpreters frequently deal with situations in
which cultural differences can be an
impediment. When such differences are
tackled effectively by the interpreter, they
shouldn’t affect the two parties involved –
be they interviewer and interviewee, doctor
and patient, or solicitor and client. The
situation will become a problem for clients
only when the interpreter fails to notice the
cultural discrepancies, or is unable to deal
with them effectively.
Kurdish culture is distant from English
culture in many aspects, including social and
religious values; views of life, marriage and
morality; and an understanding of what is
considered respectful and polite. Whenever I
feel that something is not going well because
of cultural differences, I try to intervene by
explaining the cultural factors that might be
responsible for a misunderstanding.
Another issue is the sense of strong social
relations among members of the Kurdish
community. Most Kurdish asylum-seekers
expect every help from a Kurdish interpreter.
They believe that interpreters have a lot of
experience in the areas they work in and
should be able to answer questions regarding
© SADıK GÜLEÇ | DREAMSTIME.COM
everything from legal matters to asylum cases.
Such questions are none of the
interpreter’s business, nor are they part of
their professional duties. Interpreters in such
situations find themselves between two
devils: the professional Code of Conduct
(which states that they should not to engage
in conversation especially in cases of a legal
nature); and the social rules that require
them to be cooperative to members of their
ethnic background.
A successful interpreter will find a third way
that enables them to deal with such a
Most have a story of
suffering and sorrow.
As an interpreter, it is
hard to detach yourself
from such situations
Vol/52 No/4 2013
situation. Being an interpreter means dealing
with people. We can be nice to clients,
respect their questions (however difficult they
may seem), and be courageous enough to
say ‘I don’t know’ in reply. Guiding clients to
those who can better help them is another
safe strategy – for example, by advising them
to ask their solicitors these questions because
they are experts in legal matters, or by
suggesting they consult their social workers,
because the question concerns them.
Educational background
Asylum-seekers come from various
educational backgrounds. While some are well
educated and may be writers, politicians or
social activists, many have not had the chance
to study to higher levels of education. This can
affect their communication skills. Some state in
their asylum cases that they are uneducated or
illiterate. The challenge is intense, especially
when working in a formal setting, such as
with solicitors, whose language is marked by
an abundant use of formal, standardised
expressions and legal terminology.
Working in such a setting with an
uneducated client not only involves rendering
speech from one language into another but
also from a high register into a simplified
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
version. This involves two duties: interpreting
between two languages and between two
levels of the same language. However, once
an interpreter has some experience, it can
become routine to adjust from a high register
to the level that the client appears to
understand. It is worth checking with clients
whether they do understand, because there
is no point in interpreting for someone who
has little idea of what is being said.
Emotional aspects
Most people who resort to seeking asylum in
another country have fled some kind of
persecution, mistreatment or injustice, which
can be for political, social or other reasons.
Most have a story of suffering and sorrow. As
an interpreter, it is hard to detach yourself
from such emotional situations.
A good coping strategy is to look at the
job as an experience from which you can
learn a lesson, and not as an experience you
have to live with. Ultimately, we should be
pleased that, while there are people on the
planet who cause suffering to others, as
interpreters we have a humanitarian career,
helping to establish communication and
understanding between people from
different countries and backgrounds.
WWW.REFUGEECOUNCIL.ORG.UK
REFUGEE COUNCIL |
The Linguist 9
 FEATURES
Things fall apart
Following the death of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe,
Alfred Cudjoe looks at the challenges of translating
the hybrid language in his most celebrated book
O
ne of the tasks that Africans south
of the Sahara set for themselves
after independence was to restore
the continent’s image abroad. Thus, many
African scholars in the late 1950s and early
1960s embarked on an agenda to reverse
some of the misconceptions and stereotypes
of Africans in novels produced mostly by
European writers.
Most chose to use the language of their
former colonial masters, but decided to use
that language in a way that would allow them
to express their African experience and to rid
the language of its hegemonic control. The
translation of the literature they produced,
therefore, requires translation strategies that
preserve the writer’s agenda. To do otherwise
would be to betray the African writer’s cause.
Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel Things Fall
Apart (1958) is the tragic story of Okonkwo,
who spends most of his time fighting not
only invading colonial forces, but also some
of his own people. The subject matter is
related to the colonial process, and the novel
has been heralded as the best piece of
modern Sub-Saharan literature in English.
Through Things Fall Apart, Achebe shows his
understanding of the traditional community,
painting a detailed picture of the people’s
political, economic and religious institutions
and values.
To tell his African story in the form of a
novel, Achebe adopted a distinctive style
through the creation of a modulated version
of English, referred to as an African variety.1
This involves the incorporation of traditional
proverbs, adages and sayings through
10 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
calquing, interpolation of the vernacular
(similar to code-mixing), animal stories and
irony, using the standard variety of English
associated with West African intellectuals.
These linguistic and cultural features give
African characteristics to the novel. So how
have they been handled in the French
translation of the novel?
Translator Michel Ligny, a Frenchman,
begins with a handicap, since he is a
non-African and may struggle to deal with
the socio-cultural themes of the novel.
Although it has been written in a European
language, the culture whose language
informs the book is ‘an/other language’.2
However, Ligny has demonstrated great
professional skill in handling issues pertaining
to West African culture in his translation. His
integrity in translating African proverbs is
exhibited in the translation of the title as Le
Monde s’Effondre (lit. ‘the world collapses’).
This title whets the reader’s appetite, since
they will be eager to know which world is
disintegrating, how and why.
It is also to Ligny’s credit that he is able to
use his creativity, when necessary, to make
the target text as meaningful as the source
The translation
requires strategies
that preserve the
writer’s agenda
text. African proverbs with African thought
patterns are difficult to express in European
languages, but Ligny has been able to
replicate in French what Achebe has written
in English.
Take the proverb, ‘When the moon is
shining the cripple becomes hungry for a
walk’. Here, Ligny departs slightly from a
literal translation by rendering the second
part as, ‘l’envie d’aller se promener démange
les infirmes’ (‘the cripples are itching to go for
a walk’). It is a choice that makes the French
sound as idiomatic as the source language.
Innovative use of language to replicate the
original postcolonial text is a way of ensuring
that the French, like the English, is able to
accommodate African proverbs and sayings.
Alien environment
On the other hand, Ligny is, in many ways,
alien to the West African environment. He is,
therefore, not expected to have the same
knowledge of West African socio-cultural and
linguistic realities as Achebe, and this makes
the task of translating the novel rather
challenging. Ligny does not appear to have
carried out the necessary research to make
up for this handicap, and this does not help
to ensure a faithful representation of the
African experience. As a result, he has not
been able to provide the appropriate
solutions to some of the socio-cultural
problems he faced, leading to a number of
instances of miscommunication, which have
been discussed by translation theorists.3
In the following passage, the use of the
word crainte for ‘fear’ throughout does not
www.iol.org.uk

distinguish the two meanings suggested in
the original (emphasis added):
But his whole life was dominated by fear,
the fear of failure and of weakness. It was
deeper and more intimate than the fear of
evil and capricious gods and of magic, the
fear of the forest and the forces of nature,
malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s
fear was greater than these. (p.9)
Mais sa vie entière était dominée par la
crainte, la crainte c’était quelque chose de plus
profond et de plus intime que la crainte du mal
et des dieux capricieux et de la magie, la
crainte de la forêt et des forces de la nature,
malveillants, aux dents et aux serres rougies.
La crainte d’Okonkwo était plus grande que
celles-ci. (pp.21-22)
As can be observed from the passage,
‘fear’, as used by the author, suggests two
different meanings: one in the face of
danger (peur) and the other when it is
reverential in front of God (crainte). To make
this distinction clearer, I propose the
following translation:
Mais sa vie entière était dominée par la
peur, la peur de l’échec et de la faiblesse.
C’était quelque chose de plus intime que la
peur du mal et la crainte des dieux capricieux
et de la magie, la peur de la forêt et des
forces de la nature, malveillants, aux dents et
Vol/52 No/4 2013
aux serres rougies. La peur d’Okonkwo était
plus grande que celle-ci.
Thus, as the passage shows, the word
‘fear’ translated into French is either peur or
crainte, depending on the context.
The inability to find the right contextual
meaning for a word or expression could also
be due to lack of knowledge of certain social
and environmental conditions. For example,
depending on context, the word ‘bite’ may
be associated with a dog or an insect, ie a
mosquito. In French, however, the verbs
mordre and piquer are used respectively in
these contexts. This is why the translation of
‘… a mosquito had bitten him as he slept’
(p.53) as ‘un moustique l’avait mordu
pendant son sommeil’ (p.83) doesn’t work.
The names of some food items and the
expressions associated with them are unique
to West Africa. Thus, a translator who is not
conversant with the indigenous environment
is bound to have some difficulties in
translating phrases used in this context. This
explains why Ligny is unable to find the French
equivalent for ‘a big meal of pounded yam
and bitter-leaf-soup’ (p.99). His translation
‘un grand repas d’ignames écrasés et de
soupe de légumes (p.170) is not appropriate
in the Francophone West African context.
Écrasé suggests ‘crushed’ rather than
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
LITERARY GREAT
Known as the ‘grandfather of
Nigerian literature’, Chinua
Achebe speaks at a PEN
American Center event
© 2008 BEOWULF SHEEHAN/PEN AMERICAN CENTER
pounded in a mortar, as is the practice in West
Africa. Instead, it should be translated as
ignames pilés. There are other instances in
which the translation misrepresents West
African traditional and socio-cultural practices.
While Ligny shows great skill in the handling
of Ibo proverbs and other culture-specific
expressions in Things Fall Apart, his lack of
in-depth knowledge of West African culture
and customary practices means that he is
unable to interpret them adequately. He also
fails to carry out some research to make up for
his cultural limitations. This supports the view
that many European writers write about an
Africa in the European imagination, showing
no real interest in reality and authenticity.
Notes
1 Bandia, P F, 1996, ‘Code-switching and Code-
Mixing in African Creative Writing: Some insights
for translation studies’ in TTR: Traduction,
Terminologie, Rédaction, 9(1), 139-153
2 Ashcroft, B, Griffiths, G and Tiffin, H, 1989,
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and practice in
postcolonial literatures, Routledge, London
3 Mbangwana, P, 1990, ‘Cross Cultural
Communication and Miscommunication through
Connotation Usage in Translation: The case of
two African classics in translation’ in Journal of
Multilingual Development, 11(4), 319-335
The Linguist 11
 FEATURES
LEGAL INTERPRETING
Let’s get physical
In the first of a series looking at the physical conditions
for interpreters, Trinidad Clares Flores looks at the
challenges for linguists working in a legal setting
The physical environment of a legal interpreter
can range from a large courtroom to a tiny
interview room at a police station, a prison
visiting room, a solicitor’s office, or even a
corridor. This can pose all sorts of challenges,
as the interpreter has got no allocated space.1
At police stations and courts there is
generally a lot of waiting around. However, as
legal interpreters do not have a booth or any
other designated space, such as the barristers’
robing room in courts or solicitors’ waiting
room in police stations, we usually have to
wait where members of the public wait. This
means not having a quiet area where you can
check glossaries or read relevant materials, or
where you can relax without worrying that the
defendant or witness might approach you.
There is also an issue of personal safety here.
In some police stations, officers are happy
for you to wait in the ‘appropriate adults’ room
or even to use the solicitors’ waiting room,
which also means you have access to a
telephone (mobile phones don’t always have
good coverage). In other police stations, you
might end up sitting in a room full of seized
cannabis, as was the case for one colleague.
In court, the interpreter has to be next to
the defendant as they will be working either
You might be working
with defendants
charged with serious
offences or who behave
in extreme ways
12 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
© RUSSDUPARCQ | DREAMSTIME.COM
in chuchotage (whispered) mode or in short
consecutive mode. This means standing
when the defendant has to stand (for
example, when giving evidence) and sitting
when the defendant does. As you are
whispering in the person’s ear, it also means
having your body twisted for long periods of
time (sometimes whole days), which can
become quite uncomfortable.
In the consultation or interview rooms at
police stations, the chairs are usually screwed
to the floor, which means that the interpreter
is forced to sit either next to the suspect/
witness or next to the police officer,
something that has always made me
uncomfortable because it makes it harder to
maintain the appearance of neutrality.
Sometimes, the only way to avoid this is
to stand in the middle of the room, which
may not be appreciated by some bossy
solicitors or untrained officers. Generally,
officers are happy for you to decide where to
sit and will make allowances for the fact that
you may not want to sit next to either them
or the suspect.
When defendants are having their charges
read to them or are being released,
interpreters usually have to stand in the
busiest part of a police station, close to the
custody suite, where suspects are being
taken in and out of the cells.
Safety first
As a legal interpreter, you might be working
with defendants charged with very serious
offences, or with people who find themselves
in extreme circumstances and therefore
behave in extreme ways. A suspect who has
self-harmed in the cell and is suspicious of
the police, for example, might display quite
aggressive behaviour.
You may find yourself leaving the police
station at the same time as a suspect you have
just been interpreting for. This can be quite
unnerving but, in my experience, police
officers are generally cautious and will let you
out via a separate door, or even walk you to
your car if it is an unsafe area or late at night.
Experienced interpreters will avoid the
problem by asking if they can wait for a few
minutes, or perhaps by pretending to receive
a phone call as they are about to leave.
Unfortunately, most legal professionals are
not aware of the importance of making sure
that interpreters are not left alone with
clients. This poses some risks to safety but it
can also pose a risk to the quality of
interpreting, as the client may provide a lot of
personal information. A situation when the
interpretation is contaminated because the
client has shared information about his/her
personal situation with the interpreter has
been described as the ‘red sock effect’.2
I believe that, as interpreters, we should try
to educate the client so they understand
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© ISTOCKPHOTO
these risks. I recently gave a talk to staff at
Gwent Police who work with translators and
interpreters, and they were very receptive to
the information.
Dealing with noise
Noise is not a usually a problem in the more
‘intimate’ environment of the police station,
where interpreters have to work in front of
three (or possibly four) people at most,
except when waiting by the custody suite. In
court, however, it is the most important
problem that interpreters face. From lawyers
coming in and out of the courtroom, shuffling
papers from their bundles, to guards tapping
their feet or dangling their keys next to you,
sometimes hearing what is being said is a
real struggle.
To add to this, there is the difficulty of
barristers addressing themselves to the judge
or jury with their back to the interpreter, which
makes it even harder to hear. In some criminal
courts, interpreters stand behind glass panels
that enclose the dock, with a tiny gap through
which sound can travel. Even worse, you
might be told by an usher to ‘keep it down’
when the judge is summing up.
In Wales, where I am based, there is a
better set-up in the courts than in other parts
of the UK. This is because Welsh speakers
have the right to speak Welsh in court, and
as not all the players in court (judge, lawyers,
jury) speak Welsh, interpreting services are
provided. As more than one person might
require interpreting services, a system of
headsets and a microphone is available for
simultaneous interpreting during the trial.
This means that interpreters of other
languages have access to these headsets,
greatly improving our ability to hear. Some
Vol/52 No/4 2013
Chairs are screwed to
the floor, so the
interpreter is forced to
sit next to either the
suspect or the officer
legal interpreters buy their own sound
amplifying system to help them hear when
they are behind the glass panels.
A video-link system is occasionally used to
allow interpreting to take place without the
defendant being present in court. In some
courtrooms the system is excellent, with a
large screen on which the interpreter can see
the defendant clearly, and a feed for the
defendant that enables her/him to view all
the players in court. In others, the screen may
be very small, the sound may not be clear
and there may be a delay.
Working conditions
Legal interpreters have to work on their own
for long periods of time. Interestingly, Welsh
language interpreters work in pairs because
they are only required to interpret in one
direction, making their working conditions
closer to those of conference interpreters.
They also have the right to access any
documents relating to the trial in advance so
they can prepare thoroughly – although this
isn’t always respected in practice.
Foreign language interpreters usually work
on their own and interpret in both directions,
although this may vary in exceptional
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
SOUND PROBLEMS
When lawyers address the jury, they
often have their back to the interpreter
(left); noise is less of a problem at
police stations ( far left), where security
and impartiality can be greater issues
circumstances – for example if more than one
defendant requires interpreting or if the trial
is due to be particularly lengthy. Breaks don’t
come as frequently as would be desirable.
In many cases, the interpreter is forced to
ask for a break when s/he is unable to
continue without a significant reduction in
quality, or when mundane things, such as
eating or a comfort break, are necessary. In
my experience, legal professionals are willing
to oblige you and try to look after you, even
if that means driving you to find something
to eat at 2am.
When I started writing this article, I wanted
to draw some comparisons between the
legal and conference interpreting settings,
but I have realised that there is such a wide
gap that it is better not to. Nevertheless, it
should be possible for the provision in UK
courts to be closer to the situation you find in
some international courts, and it should
certainly be possible to achieve the working
conditions that Welsh language interpreters
enjoy. Otherwise, in my next life, I want to
come back as a Welsh language interpreter.
The series continues in the next issue with a
look at medical interpreting.
Notes
1 Except in very high profile cases, such as the
trial of the train bombings in Madrid, where a
conference interpreting set-up was used.
See Martin, A and Ortega Herráez, J M, 2011,
‘Interpreting in the Dock’ in The Linguist, 50,4
2 Cambridge, J, 2005, ‘The Public Service
Interpreter’s Face: Rising to the challenge of
expressing powerful emotions for others’ in
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, La Laguna,
Universidad de La Laguna, 51, 141-157
The Linguist 13
 FEATURES
Working together
Neomy Storch shows how collaborative writing
tasks can be an effective strategy for language learners
I
have used collaborative writing in my
language classes for a number of years
and have also conducted and supervised
studies investigating the factors affecting the
success of such tasks in a range of language
learning contexts. The question I am often
asked is how such tasks can be implemented
in order to maximise success, and how
teachers can overcome the initial reluctance
of learners to engage in such activities.
Collaborative writing is the co-authoring of
a text by two or more writers. Although the
term is often used interchangeably with
cooperative writing, the two activities are
very different. In cooperative writing,
participants can divide the task between
them and feel responsible only for their
sub-task (eg, writing one section or being
responsible just for the editing), but in
collaborative writing, the writers are involved
and share the decision-making in all stages of
the text creation: in planning, composing and
revising the entire text.
14 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
For language learners, collaborative writing
has a number of benefits. Unlike solitary
writing, where the learner has to grapple with
decisions about language and structure on
their own, when writing collaboratively they
have a larger pool of knowledge to draw on
– the knowledge of their peers. When writing
together, they can exchange ideas about
what to include in the text, how to organise
their ideas, and how best to express their
ideas, including choice of words and
grammatical accuracy.
Furthermore, when students write alone,
the feedback they receive from the teacher is
given after the writing has been completed
and often after some time delay. When writing
collaboratively, students provide each other
with feedback immediately, during the writing
process. That feedback can be both positive
(reassuring) and negative (correcting errors).
Research has shown that in the majority of
instances, language learners provide each
other with grammatically correct information.
ENGAGING
Neomy’s students collaborate on writing
tasks in the classroom (left and right)
Collaborative writing provides students with
opportunities not only to write but also to
speak in the other language. When speaking
about their writing, they practise using their
language for a range of functions that are
usually the purview of language teachers.
These include asking for clarification, providing
explanations and inviting contributions.
Learners also use the other language to
negotiate different perspectives in order to
reach agreement about their joint text.
Thus the activities provide learners with key
ingredients for language learning: exposure
to language, opportunities for extended and
authentic speaking and writing practice, and
the chance to receive immediate feedback
about language use. We now have a number
of studies that compare the texts produced
by learners writing alone with texts produced
collaboratively. These show, quite convincingly,
that collaboratively produced texts are of
better quality and are more accurate than
texts produced by learners writing alone.1
How to introduce tasks
It is important to note that collaborative
writing tasks may not be suitable for all
language learners. Tasks are most suitable
for learners of intermediate or advanced
level, as low proficiency learners may not
have sufficient language skills to engage in
the tasks.
Simply assigning learners to work in pairs
does not necessarily mean that they will
collaborate. When I first introduced
collaborative writing tasks in my ESL (English
as a second language) classes and observed
learners’ behaviour, I noticed that they
www.iol.org.uk

formed different types of relationships.
Although the majority collaborated, others
formed dominant/passive or dominant/
dominant relationships.
In a dominant/passive pair, the dominant
learner took control of the task and completed
it as if writing alone. The passive learner
contributed very little. Such relationships are
not conducive to language learning. The
passive learner has few opportunities to
practise using the language; the dominant
learner is neither exposed to counter
suggestions nor receives any feedback.
Pairs who formed a dominant/dominant
relationship seemed to have difficulties in
agreeing on what to write together. Each
learner was reluctant to accept the
suggestions made by the other. The end
product was two parallel texts rather than
one joint text. In these pairs, there was an
exchange of opinions and feedback, but the
learners were not receptive to such feedback
and therefore its benefit for language
learning was lost. Thus it is important for the
teacher to observe and monitor how
students interact in collaborative writing
tasks, and encourage them to interact and
collaborate throughout the activity.
A number of strategies may encourage
collaboration. One is to allow learners to
self-select their partners rather than for the
teacher to assign pairs. When working with
partners they know, they are more likely to
collaborate. Another strategy is to model
collaborative interaction. This can be done
using short video clips, shown to students
in advance.
Teachers need to make a number of
decisions to ensure the success of the activity.
One concerns the type of task to use. Short
compositions and reports of about 250-300
words work well. An example, which I have
used successfully with my ESL students, is a
data commentary report where learners are
asked to describe the main trends in a graph.
Other tasks include summarising a short text
that students have read previously and an
editing task in which pairs are asked to
correct a text that includes typical errors
made by students in the class.
The authoring of relatively short texts is
manageable within the constraints of class
time (45-60 minutes). Longer assignments
may be more suitable for implementation
using platforms such as wikis and Google
Docs. However, preliminary research findings
Vol/52 No/4 2013
Over time,
any reluctance
to participate
dissipates as
learners see
their peers
enjoying the
activity
suggest that learners tend to interact more
readily in face-to-face collaborative tasks than
in computer-mediated environments.
Overcoming resistance
Despite the benefits of collaborative writing,
learners may not embrace the opportunity to
co-author. When I first introduce collaborative
writing in class, some learners seem averse to
participating, preferring to write on their own.
This is not unusual. The introduction of any
new teaching strategy is often met with some
resistance. Surveys conducted with students
(and language teachers) show that their main
concern is that they will ‘learn the wrong
grammar’ from their peers. Students may also
be reluctant to engage in collaborative
writing because of their belief that writing is
inherently an individual activity.
To overcome this reluctance to participate,
I suggest the following strategies:
1 Prior discussion. Before implementation,
allow learners to discuss briefly how they
feel about collaborative writing activities.
The discussion may bring to the fore their
concerns and provide the teacher with an
opportunity to allay these concerns by
reference to research findings and by
explaining the benefits.
2 Give learners a choice. Despite my beliefs
about the merits of collaborative writing, I
do not impose such tasks on students. I
give them a choice of working alone or in
pairs. I have observed that, over time, any
reluctance to participate dissipates as
learners see their peers enjoying the activity.
3 Make the activities part of regular class
work. If implemented regularly, learners will
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
become more familiar and comfortable
with collaborative writing activities, and
therefore more willing to participate.
Surveys investigating the nature of
workplace writing and the kind of skills
employers require of graduates suggest that
the ability to work and write collaboratively is
becoming a valued attribute. These results,
together with the latest developments in
computer-mediated collaborative writing
platforms, such as Google Docs, provide a
greater imperative to implement such tasks in
the classroom. To maximise the success of
these tasks, it is important to design and
implement the tasks carefully, and to monitor
how students interact during the activities.
Although I advocate the use of collaborative
writing tasks in the languages classroom, I do
not argue that all writing tasks should be
completed collaboratively. Rather, such
activities have many language learning
potentials, and therefore teachers should
consider employing both collaborative and
individual writing tasks in their classes.
Collaborative Writing in L2 Classrooms
(2013) by Neomy Storch is published by
Multilingual Matters.
Notes
1 See, eg, Fernández Dobao, A, 2012,
‘Collaborative Writing Tasks in the L2 Classroom:
Comparing group, pair, and individual work’ in
Journal of Second Language Writing 21(1), 40-58;
Storch, N and Wigglesworth, G, 2007, ‘Writing
Tasks and the Effects of Collaboration’ in Pillar, M
(ed), Investigating Tasks in Formal Language
Settings, Multilingual Matters, 157-177
The Linguist 15
 FEATURES

Better for business

Deborah Swallow offers five practical guidelines to help
you through the minefield of doing business across cultures

The notion that language might shape

thought was, for a long time, considered
untestable at best and crazy at worst.
However, in the past decade, cognitive
scientists have begun to measure not just
how people talk, but also how they think,
proving that language does profoundly
influence how we see the world. The
structures that exist in our languages
profoundly shape how we construct reality
and create our culture, and this will have
important implications for our politics,

religion, law… and how we do business.
So what do you need to know to do better
business abroad? First, recognise that people
from other countries and cultures think
differently, reason and process information
differently, and communicate differently. They
may do international business in English, but
a Norwegian’s English is not the same as an
Italian’s English, and neither uses English in
the same way as a native speaker. The
potential for misunderstanding is great. It is
essential to get on the same wavelength, to
make a connection and, above all, to try to
meet expectations.
In their efforts for global reach and local
touch, marketers still manage to make
translation blunders. The Swedish furniture
giant IKEA somehow agreed on the name
‘Fartfull’ for one of its new desks. Panasonic
created a new web browser and used the
cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as an
interactive internet guide. The day before it
launched a huge marketing campaign it had
to pull the plug on its slogan: ‘Touch Woody
– The Internet Pecker’. The company didn’t
realise its cross-cultural blunder until an
embarrassed American explained what ‘touch
Woody’s pecker’ could be interpreted as.
Clearly, doing business abroad can be a
minefield. It is much more than flying out,
staying in posh hotels and eating different
food. It’s about entering a different world
where everyday business events have different
rules. So let me offer five practical guidelines
to help improve your understanding of
business undertakings overseas.
Contracts
It is always wise to find out how contracts are
regarded in the country you are dealing with.
If you think that, when a contract is signed, all
negotiations are over, you may be in for a
shock. In many regions, including China and
the Middle East, signing the contract only
signals the start of real negotiations. The
contract is no more than a statement of
intent – now the business of striking a deal
can really be done.
Not only that, in some countries, such as
Finland and The Gambia, a handshake
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DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNS
Ikea in Gungzhou, China. The Swedish
furniture store has not always got it right
internationally: its ‘Fartfull’ range had to
be pulled from its website
matters more than a written contract. And
in others – for example, Afghanistan and
Japan – asking for a written agreement
implies a lack of trust. In China and Japan,
the contract is between you and the individual
employee who signs the document, not with
the company. So if that individual leaves, you
may have to re-negotiate.
When things go wrong – and they often
do – remember that in many cultures
emotion is not merely recognised, it is an
indication of integrity. In the Middle East,
what one says in front of the court is more
important than what has been written down.
The Maoris believe that speech is meant to
be from the heart, rather than in a more

16 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER www.iol.org.uk


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prepared way from the head, where facts
may be carefully contrived.
Deadlines
Learn to be less rigid about deadlines. The
English-speaking nations are time-driven. We
even have expressions such as ‘time is money’.
Other nations may be driven by other
imperatives. For example, they may insist on
achieving the highest standard of quality, even
if it takes longer than originally estimated.
A lack of punctuality and an ‘ability’ to
ignore time can drive British people crazy.
Even on the way to an important meeting,
most Brazilians would stop to chat if they
were to meet an old friend and would find it
very difficult to interrupt the conversation.
They would prefer to be late for the meeting,
favouring relationships over punctuality.
If you are in Spain, you will soon discover that
mañana may mean ‘tomorrow’ to you, but to
the Spanish it simply means ‘not today’.
Meetings
In Britain, we have meetings all the time, and
we follow a certain protocol, but it’s not the
same all over the world. When a European
team was working on an aid project in
Guatemala, after the first meeting, they
expected minutes to be circulated. None
came. So at the next regular meeting they
explained that it was customary to write
minutes and circulate them soon afterwards.
Still no minutes. At the next meeting, they
explained why minutes were important, not
only for those who attended but also to
reassure their masters back home about the
work that was being done in Guatemala.
The Guatemalans did not regard meetings
as occasions for decision making, rather as
Vol/52 No/4 2013
opportunities to get together and reinforce
relationships. They could not understand all
the fuss about minutes. So at the next
meeting they arrived with the minutes
already written – just to satisfy the Europeans.
The lesson here is to establish how meetings
are run – and for what purpose – when you
are in another country.
Communication
I want to make two points here. The first is
about the style of communication. Some
nations, such as the Japanese and north
Europeans, like facts and figures; others, such
as the Americans, like emotional appeal and
always open their presentations with a joke. It
would be a mistake to use the American
approach in northern Europe, and vice versa.
The second point is about the use of
language. Native English speakers use a lot
of colloquial expressions that are
meaningless to people from other countries.
The expression ‘out of sight, out of mind’ was
translated into Russian as ‘blind idiot’.
Sporting expressions should also be avoided:
‘ball-park figure’, ‘level playing field’, ‘knock it
for six’. To you, these expressions may seem
commonplace but not everyone knows
baseball, football or cricket. Colloquialisms
get in the way of clear communication abroad.
Face
‘Face’ is a concept that is second nature to
Orientals but little understood in the West. At
its simplest level, it is about never making
someone else embarrassed or uncomfortable.
But it is much more than that.
‘Face’ lies at the root of all business
relationships in Asia, and is an essential
ingredient in all social contact there. It is
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
The English-speaking
nations are time-
driven. An ‘ability’ to
ignore time can drive
British people crazy
about giving respect and about not
undermining someone else’s self-respect.
It is about acknowledging one another’s
place in society. It is so important, yet there
is not one line about ‘face’ in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
A colleague was giving a talk in Asia and
mentioned a common mistake people make.
In typical British fashion, he said, ‘Hands up
anyone who has been stupid enough to have
made that mistake’. Everyone in the room
froze. No one even blinked an eye in case it
could be interpreted as a public admission.
They would have lost face.
Learning his lesson, when he gave his next
talk, he said, ‘Hands up if, like me, you have
been stupid enough to make that mistake.’
This time, every hand in the room went up.
They did not want him to lose face by being
the only stupid one. Even when we try to get
it right, we can get it wrong!
It takes a combination of good self-
awareness, cross-cultural knowledge and
cultural sensitivity to be effective across
cultures. If you want to get on in business
across the globe, make sure you do your
homework about the countries you will be
visiting. Understand their values, what makes
them tick and, above all, how they
communicate; do they speak frankly or do
they hint at what they mean?
Few people take offence when a mistake is
made and the intent is good. But when
things get tough or are continually ‘going
wrong’, we tend to revert back to our own
worst stereotypes, and resentment begins to
build. Don’t take things personally; reach out
and try to put yourself in others’ shoes. Then
you just might see a different world and
enrich your own outlook.
The Linguist 17
 FEATURES
Local heroes
By publishing in local languages,
Room to Read is setting children up
for success, says Jessica Moore
T
he American novelist Danielle Steel is
best known for romantic fiction. She
has written about a great many steamy
relationships – and has probably inspired at
least as many. She is, however, an unlikely
catalyst for a global child literacy initiative and
a minority-language publishing venture. But
for former Microsoft high-flyer John Wood,
her role was pivotal to launching both.
This story starts in 1998. Having taken a
career break to go backpacking in Nepal,
Wood found himself visiting a village school
at the foot of the Himalayas. There, he saw a
dilapidated and under-resourced classroom,
and a well-thumbed Steel romp. It was one
of a few books the school owned, alongside
The Rough Guide to Mongolia and a few
other backpacker cast-offs. These books were
the school’s pride and joy. And, as such, they
were kept under lock and key – well out of
the reach of the children.
Wood couldn’t get Steel – or, more
accurately, the school’s lack of appropriate,
accessible books – out of his head. So he
emailed friends and family, asking them for
donations. Within two months, he had
collected more than 3,000 books. The
following year, he returned to Nepal with six
book-bearing donkeys. Then, in late 1999, he
left Microsoft to start Books for Nepal, a
charity that worked with rural communities to
build schools and libraries, particularly
supporting girls’ education.
By 2003, Books for Nepal – by then
renamed Room to Read – had expanded into
Vietnam, Cambodia and India. Its role had
changed too. ‘Children weren’t reading the
English-language books that were being
donated,’ explains Wilfredo Pascual, who
works at the charity’s San Francisco HQ.
‘Those books were not culturally relevant, they
were not linguistically relevant.’ And there was
18 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
another problem. ‘We couldn't find anything
in the local languages.’ So Room to Read
launched a publishing programme, working
with local writers, illustrators and publishers.
‘I remember [before we started] there was a
book that was about celebrating a birthday
and cutting a cake,’ says Sunisha Ahuja, former
Country Director for Room to Read India.
‘Children here might celebrate a birthday by
going to the temple – but a cake doesn’t fit
into that context at all.’ Instead, Ahuja
believes it is important to choose subjects that
resonate locally. ‘Children have to be taken
along the continuum – so you give them
exposure to aeroplanes and computers, but
you start with what they have around them.’
Today, Room to Read operates in ten
countries, having added Bangladesh, Laos,
Tanzania, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zambia
to its number. The charity has published more
than 850 titles across 27 languages, printing
more than eight million copies. Operations
are run entirely by local staff who, like Ahuja,
are familiar with their community’s challenges,
customs and languages.
Book development is overseen by a
committee, composed of Room to Read staff,
representatives from the local publishing
industry, established local writers and linguists,
university professors, illustrators and artists.
© SUSIE CUSHNER
Books are sometimes commissioned from
local authors, but most are developed
through Room to Read’s writers’ and
illustrators’ workshops. ‘Most of the people
who attend are from the local university, NGO
workers, curriculum developers, some are
teachers and some are just writers who want
the opportunity to start publishing children’s
books,’ explains Pascual, Global Programme
Officer of the book publishing programme.
Vasanthy Thayavaran is one such author,
based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. ‘It’s one of the
happiest moments of my life, to see my books
being read,’ she says. But beyond personal
fulfilment, Thayavaran sees a broader value in
bringing localised, contexualised children’s
books to her country. ‘Stories have a major
role in human history. In Eastern culture,
grandmas sat grandchildren on their lap and
The books children
want to read are story-
driven… It’s about
making the child the
central character
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told stories. But now the culture is slightly
different; people don’t have time and families
are separated. We need to fill that gap. We
need to give the children books. Books can be
their companions forever, through all their life.’
Meeting needs
The subject matter and audience of each
Room to Read book is determined by local
needs. ‘When we enter a project area, we
open a library and purchase local language
books to support local publishers,’ says
Pascual. ‘From those, we can see the gaps in
terms of reading levels or genres.’
Governments play a vital role too, offering
support and clarifying the needs and literacy
levels of their children. Room to Read works
with the ministries of education in each
country to make sure that ‘reading time’ is
established in schools, and guidelines are put
in place to help teachers and librarians
establish the reading level of each child, which
they can match with appropriate materials.
‘We find out which words are being taught
in the classroom and we give that list to the
writers and illustrators at our workshops,’ says
Pascual. ‘Those words are a starting point for
developing stories with really interesting
characters. We’re setting the children up for
success by making sure we’re using some
words they already know and, by also using
Vol/52 No/4 2013
words they need to learn, we’re making sure
the teachers want to use the books.’
These books are carefully vetted too.
Manuscripts and artwork are screened by the
charity’s book development committees.
Those they approve are taken to a focus
group of local children to make sure they
understand the words and engage with the
stories. Books are then edited and printed.
Thereafter, Room to Read programmes
provide training for teachers and librarians to
help them use the books to engage with
children, whether that’s through reading aloud,
group reading or independent reading.
Part of Room to Read’s success comes
through its collaborative approach to sharing
ideas and practices. From his San Francisco
office, Pascual often brings country directors
and committee members together on Skype.
‘Most of the people we work with speak
English as well as their local language,’ he
notes. ‘You will have a Cambodian, someone
from Bangladesh and someone from
Tanzania, and they all have very different
levels of English. We learn from each other
and share the good things we’ve done.
‘Through that process, we’ve had titles that
have been adapted from one country to
another too,’ he adds. That’s possible by
changing the cultural context. As an example,
he cites a Sri Lankan picture book about hands
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
CHOICE SELECTION
A child picks a book in Cambodia
from a wide selection (left & below)
STORY TIME
Children in South Africa read a Room
to Read book (bottom left)
and tools. ‘That concept is universal, so in
South Africa they contextualised it using local
tools.’ Another example is collaborative work
between India and Vietnam. ‘We sat down
together in a workshop and they brainstormed
a story about watercolour tubes drawn as
characters, talking to each other. They each
took that as a starting point and built their
own books, working with local illustrators.’
Subject matter varies from country to
country, but Pascual sees one common factor
across all successful titles. ‘The books the
children want to read are story-driven and
character-driven,’ he says. ‘Stories with an
overt lesson – “the honest boy”, “the
obedient girl” – are not engaged with. It’s
about making the child the central character.
Have a little girl that solves a problem or a
little boy that resolves a conflict. Write stories
that are familiar to a child in a context, and
make sure it captures their imagination. It’s
about telling a story and the development of
those characters.’
All of which harks back to Wood’s ‘eureka
moment’ back in the village school in Nepal
15 years ago. Room to Read is about giving
children access to books – and it’s about the
importance of using appropriate language,
content and, crucially, context.
To support Room to Read visit
roomtoread.org/checkoutchallenge.
The Linguist 19
 TRANSLATORS’ WEB
Change is a-coming
New technologies bring new demands. Nataly Kelly
asks how linguists can meet the challenges ahead, as the
lines between translation and interpreting appear to blur
T
ranslators who started out within the
last 20 years or so can barely fathom
it, but there was a time – prior to the
invention of word processing software – when
people translated primarily using speech,
dictating their translations aloud. From there,
a typist would render the dictation in written
form. Even though the process involved two
people, it was more efficient than having a
translator write out the target text by hand. A
normal rate of speech is roughly twice as fast
as typing, so you can deliver twice as much
content via spoken language as you can via
written language.
Most professional translators have an
average output of around 2,500 words a day.
That is around 312 words an hour or 5.2
words a minute. This doesn’t seem fast, but
that’s because a lot more than just typing is
taking place. Translation takes time.
This has spurred the development of many
technologies. When buyers of translation are
asked why they turn to machine translation,
their number one response is ‘turnaround
time’. The need for speed has sparked an
interest among technologists for greater
investment in methods, systems and
software that can speed up the
translation process.
Computer-assisted
translation (CAT) tools have
many benefits, including
consistency and
reduced costs, but
they do not
appear to be having much impact on the
productivity of individual translators, or on
the industry at large. A 2012 study by
Common Sense Advisory showed that the
daily output rate for translators using CAT
tools was only slightly more than the 2,500-
word average. So, if CAT tools are not
increasing the speed of translation, what will?
Two separate professions?
The field of interpreting has long been looked
at as a separate profession from translation.
Indeed, along with many colleagues, I have
tried to help people from outside the industry
to understand the difference by explaining:
‘translators work with written language and
interpreters with spoken language’. Of course,
in reality there are many problems with this
simplified – if not simplistic – description.
First of all, many translators deal with
spoken language, and many interpreters
deal with written language. When I took my
interpreter certification exam, one of the
skills I was tested on was ‘sight translation’ –
verbally rendering a written document in the
other language. This skill is not so different
from the translators of yesteryear who
dictated their translations.
So how different is this
work? Obviously, there is
some overlap.
Many translators use
dictation software, either for
physical reasons or as a
productivity booster.
They tell me they find
this faster than
typing themselves,
especially when
age-related
illnesses, such as vision problems and arthritis,
begin to appear.
In subtitling, the work involves both text
and speech, even if the output is written.
Conversely, translators who work in dubbing
often have output that is spoken. So, the
more we dive into the subtleties of our
professions, the more overlap we discover.
How we communicate
Adding sign language to the mix forces us to
think about visual information, and the
possibility of communicating beyond speech
and text. It requires us to think about
communicating via video. When it works
properly, video technology provides the best
of all worlds: you can display visual information
while conveying audio information, and you
can also have text on screen in the form of
captions or subtitles. Video is the most
well-rounded and comprehensive method of
communication. However, it isn’t as
universally affordable or accessible as text, at
least not in most Western societies.
If we look beyond the Western worldview,
we begin to see that spoken and visual
information are of much greater importance
than text-based information to the majority of
societies on earth. Of the 6,000-7,000
languages in the world today, just 2,261 have
writing systems. All of them, except the signed
languages, have a spoken form.
Machine translation is available in a relatively
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small number of languages – 65 in the case of
Google Translate. These tools have their limits,
which they will reach eventually, unless they
can automate spoken and visual information.
An even greater challenge is that, in many
languages, very little information is available.
A writing system does not guarantee the
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© ANDREY POPOV | DREAMSTIME.COM/ AJV123AJV | DREAMSTIME.COM
presence of large amounts of written
information, as many cultures prefer oral
histories. Human knowledge is in no way
limited to text, but because this is the way
that Western cultures are accustomed to
transfer and record knowledge, it is currently
the dominant method. This is changing.
The rise of video
Information preferences are evolving before
our very eyes. Video, the most efficient
communication method at our disposal, is
experiencing tremendous growth. According
to a mobile analytics report from Bytemobile,
online video now accounts for more than half
of all mobile traffic – and 69 percent of traffic
on some networks. YouTube receives more
than 1 billion unique visitors each month.
A report from Borrell Associates found that
online video production will account for more
than a third of online advertising spending
within the next five years. There is no denying
that video’s usefulness as a communication
tool – with the combined power of audio, text
and visual information – is superior to any one
of these forms of communication on its own.
Of course, video’s importance for global
purposes relies on two things: more people
coming online and increased access to
broadband. Reports from Akamai show that,
globally, broadband adoption is increasing
every quarter. Google’s Executive Chairman,
Eric Schmidt, recently predicted that every
person on earth will be online by the year
2020, even though today only a third are
online. Numerous sources show that the
conditions are being created to enable video
Vol/52 No/4 2013
As communication
trends evolve around
us, how could this not
affect our professions?
to expand even further, and not only in
developed nations.
Preparing for change
What can translators and interpreters do in the
face of these changes?
1 Take note of them. Much ado is made
about machine translation, but this
technology alone does not have the
power to transform our professions.
Automation is important, but automated
text translation cannot address most of the
world’s languages.
2 Learn more about them. If we want to
understand how technologies will shape
our professions, the worst thing we can do
is isolate ourselves from technology
developers and ignore the changes. Find
out more about areas of the field that you
don’t already work in but that interest you,
such as transcription, subtitling and dubbing.
At the next conference you attend, find
out as much as you can about technology
providers and what, in their view, they are
doing to help the industry evolve. Pay
attention to industry blogs and articles that
discuss how translators and interpreters are
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
TRANSLATORS’ WEB
BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES
The lines between the spoken and written
word are blurred, especially when we consider
visual communication. Video (left) now
accounts for more than half of mobile traffic.
Two people use Sign Language (bottom left)
working with new technologies,
instead of assuming this will not
apply to you. If it doesn’t today, it
might tomorrow.
3 Make it clear that you are open to
trying new tools and technologies.
Tell agency clients that you would
like to be on the list to help pilot new
developments. Talk to colleagues and
find out how you might try your hand
at some new areas.
Technological evolution
I am often asked about the role of
technology in helping the translation and
interpreting professions to evolve. I am quick
to point out that technology has been an
important part of this profession since the
invention of the printing press.
Most of the developments in the translation
industry have revolved around the needs of
consumers of information – the end-clients
we serve – and not around the needs of the
people who do the language conversion work.
After all, our professions exist to support
human communication across languages. As
communication trends evolve around us, how
could this not affect our professions?
In generations past, translators moved
from working with typists to doing the typing
themselves, then to using translation memory
tools. We, too, will adapt to society’s changing
communication needs. The difference today is
that so many communication methods exist
that instead of replacing one method with
another, we have more options and
opportunities to use our skills in varied ways.
For that reason, we cannot necessarily view
speech, text and visual information as
completely separate entities. For much work
in the future, they might be blended.
The diversity and complexity of our fields is
growing in response to changes in
communication methods and preferences.
This is simply another part of the global and
societal evolution that technology enables. As
to whether our professions evolve alongside
these changes, that is entirely up to us.
The Linguist 21
 TRANSLATORS’ WEB
Coping with
web blindness
Vanessa Enríquez Raído on how
to get the most out of online searches
F
or more than a decade, search engine
use has been one of the most popular
online activities in the United States,
rivalled only by email as an internet pursuit,
according to the Pew Research Center.
Moreover, online Americans – and, it is fair to
assume, other netizens besides – claim to be
more satisfied than ever with search engine
performance and feel confident in their own
search abilities, although many ‘report having
experienced the downside of search’.1
The demographic effects on users’
perceptions of their own search abilities and
experiences with search engines are, of
course, not to be underestimated.
Educational background, gender, age and
level of income play a major role in our
experiences with search. Adults with the
lowest level of income, for instance, primarily
reported positive search experiences,
whereas ‘college educated search engine
users’ were more likely to report having both
positive and negative experiences.
This may also be the case with experts in
specialised domains, who are not primarily
interested in recall – ie, the ability of the
information retrieval (IR) system to retrieve all
relevant documents (as well as a number of
non-relevant ones) – but in precision, or the
ability of the IR system to retrieve only
relevant documents.
For translators who rely on expert
information from the web, understanding the
22 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
Web blindness:
a sense that we know
there’s stuff we want
to find, but have no
idea how to find it
process of information seeking and retrieval is
essential for successful search performance.
This, in turn, may lead to successful translation
performance. The keyword search method is
generally considered to be the most powerful
and comprehensive, but it appears to cause
what John Battelle refers to as ‘web blindness:
a sense that we know there’s stuff we want to
find, but have no idea how to find it.’2
Searching via search engines can therefore
be ‘a more analytical and demanding method
for locating information than browsing’, as it
involves several steps, including planning and
formulating queries, evaluating results and
refining queries. In contrast, ‘browsing only
requires the user to recognize promising-
looking links’, according to Anne Aula.3
Making use of search features
Our ability to cope with web blindness very
much depends on our understanding of
© ALPHASPIRIT | DREAMSTIME.COM
search engine features and knowledge of a
given domain, as this enables us to transform
questions into appropriate search queries.
Correctly matching queries to web content is
the single most important skill for information
retrieval effectiveness.
This so-called ‘term mismatch problem’ is
compounded by synonymy and polysemy.
Whereas synonymy, along with word
inflections, ‘may result in a failure to retrieve
relevant documents, with a decrease in
recall’, polysemy ‘may cause retrieval of
erroneous or irrelevant documents, thus
implying a decrease in precision.’4
Other issues that affect the precision of
document ranking include the order of search
terms (eg, language for special purposes vs.
special purpose language); out-of-phrase
terms (when a query is not treated as a single
unit, eg to remove wisdom teeth surgically vs.
“to remove wisdom teeth surgically” in double
quote marks); secondary topic keywords (eg,
statistical machine translation vs. machine
translation); and non-categorical terms (eg,
‘windows’, which refers both to openings in a
building and an operating system).
To match queries to web content more
effectively, searchers can use Boolean
operators (ie, AND, OR and NOT) along with
other search operators, such as double
quotes for exact phrase searches. Most of
today’s commercial search engines provide
their own advanced search features and
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operators, which offer numerous options to
expand and/or narrow down users’ search
queries, according to their information needs.
Google Advanced Search, for example, lets
the user search for all query terms, an exact
query phrase, at least one of the query terms,
and/or none of the specified query terms. The
latter is typically used to remove ambiguity, eg
in the case of polysemous words such as ‘cat’,
which can be both a mammal and an
acronym, as in ‘computer-aided translation’.
The minus (‘-’ or NOT), plus (‘+’ or AND)
and double quote operators narrow a search
down (eg, cat -animal). The synonym (“~”) and
OR search operators broaden it; the former is
also useful for finding different spellings of the
same word (‘gray’ vs. ‘grey’). Some search
engines also allow users to construct ‘nested
searches’, ie, more complex queries, by
grouping search operator statements using
parentheses (y OR (NOT x) AND z).
Most of today’s commercial search
engines, including Google, Yahoo! and
Ask.com, support basic Boolean operators.
Yet only a few, including Yahoo! and Exalead,
allow for nesting or the use of proximity
operators, such as NEAR (to find documents
where the query terms are in a short range of
words) and ADJ (to find documents where
the query terms are next to each other).
Nevertheless, proximity searching can be
performed in most commercial search
engines via phrase searching (which allows
for adjacency in ordered searches), as well as
the use of the asterisk (*) to find variations of
the exact phrase when used with double
quotes (eg, “the server was unable to * file
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Vol/52 No/4 2013
on *”). Only a few web search engines,
such as Exalead, support the use of the
asterisk for text truncation, ie to find
documents containing words with the same
root (eg, educat*).
Other operators that may prove particularly
useful for translators are define: to search for
term definitions; site: to restrict searches to a
single website, top-level domain (such as .org
and .edu) or country top-level domain (eg, .es
and .jp); and filetype: to filter results according
to the type of document (eg, pdf or Word).
Providing the right information
In general, the more information we provide
about a specific search need, the higher the
likelihood of the IR system (Google for most of
us) retrieving relevant search results. Providing
more information is, however, not as simple
as typing in more query terms. ‘The terms
need to be highly relevant to the task, and
they need to be entered in combination with
system-specific correct syntax.’5 Hence, the
notion of ‘term selection’ becomes highly
significant in web search.
The underlying implication is that not all
terms carry the same weight or importance.
Another important notion is that of ‘term
co-occurrence’ – the fact that a search engine
(via automatic query expansion) or a searcher
(via interactive query expansion) can use
similar terms to those specified by other
users to expand the current query and
improve retrieval performance. Google
Suggest is one of the most popular systems
for interactive query expansion, providing real-
time suggestions to complete a search query
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
TRANSLATORS’ WEB
as the user types. Term co-occurrence is,
however, a tricky area, as frequently occurring
terms tend to discriminate poorly between
relevant and non-relevant documents.
One of the main rules that search engines
use to rank matches involves the location and
frequency of keywords on a given webpage.
Yet not all search engines retrieve and rank
results in the same way, due to their different
proprietary methods for indexing the web. To
mitigate the lack of overlap in results, users
can employ metasearch engines (such as
Metacrawler and Dogpile), which leverage the
content and ranking capabilities of top search
engines to provide the top-ranked results.
Other technologies that promise to
leverage the power of search engines and
improve the user’s search and navigation
experience are those used in the attempt to
expand the web as we know it today – ie, to
transform it from a medium of documents for
humans to read, into a semantic web that
includes data and information for computers
to process and manipulate. For the time
being, however, search success will continue
to depend largely on users’ knowledge about
search engine capabilities.
Translation and Web Searching by Vanessa
Enríquez Raído will be published in October
by Routledge.
Notes
1 Purcell, K, Brenner, J and Rainie, L, 2012,
‘Search Engine Use 2012’, Pew Internet and
American Life Project. Available from
www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/20
12/PIP_Search_Engine_Use_2012.pdf
2 Battelle, J, 2006, The Search: How Google and
its rivals rewrote the rules of business and
transformed our culture, Nicholas Brealey,
London and Boston, 32
3 Aula, A, 2005, ‘Studying User Strategies and
Characteristics for Developing Web Search
Interfaces’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University
of Tampere
4 Carpineto, C and Romano, G, 2012, ‘A Survey
of Automatic Query Expansion in Information
Retrieval’ in ACM Computing Surveys, 44(1), 1-50
5 Op cit, Aula, 18
USER PERCEPTIONS
Experience of search engines differs
widely depending on the educational
background of users. University educated
users have a more negative experience
The Linguist 23
 TRANSLATORS’ WEB
On better terms
Tim Cooper looks at the challenge of translating
specialist concepts and offers advice on using an
invaluable EU database, available freely in 24 languages
T
erminology is not primarily about terms.
It is fundamentally about concepts (and,
of course, the terms used to denote
those concepts). As translators, we have to
understand the meaning behind the source
text and render that meaning in another
language. Most of the texts we translate are a
mixture of language for general purposes
(LGP) and language for special purposes (LSP),
which present different challenges.
To translate LGP requires a thorough
understanding of the source language, the
subject matter, and the purpose of the
original document and of the translation, and
the ability to write well in the target
language. Information that was implicit in the
source text may need to be made explicit in
the translation, and vice versa.
Translating LSP requires complementary
skills. When reading the source text, the
translator identifies terms (ie, words or
phrases with a precise meaning in the
relevant technical field); identifies the
concepts those terms denote; and renders
those concepts in the target language by
using the equivalent terms. There is generally
less variation in the vocabulary available to
the translator, as the correct technical term
should be used.
However, considerations of register still
apply – different terms may be used in texts
for specialists or for a broader readership (eg,
‘myocardial infarction’ vs. ‘heart attack’) – and
a noun may be replaced by a pronoun or
even a verb. Therefore, a technical term
appearing in a source sentence may not
appear in the translation and vice versa.
24 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
Translation memory (TM) software helps
translators work quickly and efficiently, by
comparing every new sentence to be
translated with all previously translated
sentences. This saves time, as you do not
have to re-translate what has already been
translated, and enhances consistency.
Sentence (or segment) matching is
particularly useful for LGP, and concordance
searching for LSP. A concordance search will
show you every instance of the search string
in the context of the original sentence,
alongside the translation into your target
language, indicating the source document.
When working in a large organisation, such
as the European Commission, you can benefit
not only from your own previous translations,
but also from those of your fellow translators
(both in-house and freelance). You can see that
a particular translator rendered a particular
term in a particular way in a particular
document, but the TM won’t tell you why. If
you find alternative translations of a technical
term, which one should you choose? Did the
translator research the term thoroughly and
come up with the right solution, or might the
translated term be wrong because the
translator lacked the time, knowledge or
search skills to find the right term?
This is where a terminology database, such
as the EU’s InterActive Terminology for Europe
(IATE; iate.europa.eu), comes in. Ideally, it
should contain one – and only one – entry
for every relevant concept. Unfortunately,
IATE, which is available freely to the general
public, contains many duplicate entries, but
we are working on consolidating them.
Unless a term is self-explanatory, the
concept it denotes should be defined in at
least one language, which should be the
anchor language for the entire entry. In IATE,
the anchor language is usually English (and
sometimes French) for general concepts; the
language of the country concerned for
country-specific concepts; and Latin for
species of animals and plants, which are
identified by their Latin names. Unfortunately,
the anchor language is not identified as such
in the public version of IATE. If definitions are
added in other languages, they must define
the same concept, and all terms for that entry,
in all languages, must denote that concept.
If a terminologist or translator cannot find
or write a suitable definition in the time
available, a snippet of text – usually a
sentence but sometimes several
paragraphs – taken from a reliable published
source, can be sufficient to identify the
concept. For instance, a French text about
nuclear power might explain that the cœur is
the core of the reactor, whereas a medical
text might explain that the cœur is the heart.
www.iol.org.uk

If you find alternative
translations, which one
should you use? Did
the translator research
the term thoroughly?
In this example, the homonyms come from
different fields, so the domain labels (‘nuclear
power station’ and ‘medical science’) would
differentiate them. In other cases, a clear
definition is needed to determine whether
two terms are synonyms (and should
therefore appear on the same entry) or not
(in which case they should appear on different
entries, and the difference between the
concepts they denote should be made clear).
For instance, is fraud the same as
swindling, or embezzlement the same as
misappropriation? If not, what is the
difference between them? Does évasion
fiscale mean ‘tax evasion’ (which is illegal) or
‘tax avoidance’ (which is legal, although
perhaps of doubtful morality)?
IATE not only provides you with terms
and definitions, it also tells you where they
were found. Every term and definition
should have a reference to the source that
led the translator or terminologist to include
it in the database.
In a similar way to Google, IATE is an
invaluable search tool, providing information
that you would otherwise have great difficulty
finding, but it is not intrinsically reliable. You
should trust information not because you
found it via IATE or Google, but because you
trust the original source.
Long-term legacy
The public version of IATE has 24 languages –
the 23 official EU languages, plus Latin – and
it will soon have 25, with the addition of
Croatian. It was created in 2004, subsuming
and replacing the databases previously used
by the various EU institutions. The oldest of
these – the Commission’s Eurodicautom –
was created in 1969, and was made available
to external users in 1981, well before the
advent of the worldwide web in 1990.
Eurodicautom provided the Commission’s
translators with a single access point to its
Vol/52 No/4 2013
numerous multilingual glossaries, which had
previously existed only on paper, thus greatly
reducing search times.
However, many of those glossaries merely
juxtaposed equivalent terms without defining
them. Such ‘legacy data’ may still be relevant
today, so it is included in IATE, even though
it doesn’t meet our current standards for
recording terminological information. Some
entries have no definitions, and some
references (to paper sources predating the
web) are so cryptic (because disk space was
at a premium) that no one can decipher
them. However, the terms may have the
same reliability code (3 stars = ‘reliable’) as
more recently researched data.
Tips for using the database
Most IATE users specify their target language,
but there are advantages to selecting ‘Any’.
First, the number of languages available and
the amount of data provided are indicators of
the quality of an entry. (The hit list provides a
preview of the term reference, context, term
note and definition fields.) An entry
containing all 23 official EU languages and
extensive data is likely to be the result of a
recent terminology project, whereas an entry
with just two languages and little data is likely
to have been saved by a translator with little
further checking. Entries with 4, 6, 7, 9 or 11
languages may date back to a time when
that was the number of official languages.
Second, your target language may be
missing but another language may refer to a
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
TRANSLATORS’ WEB
source document published in the Official
Journal of the European Union, which is also
available in your language. If you follow the
hyperlink to Eur-Lex, you can then switch
languages and display the equivalent
document in your target language, or view a
bilingual display of any two available
language versions. This is particularly useful
for EU jargon, for which EU documents are
the authoritative source. For non-EU-specific
terminology, an original document from an
authority in the relevant technical field might
be more reliable than an EU document,
which may be a translation.
Although the hit list gives a preview of
certain fields, you need to click on ‘Full entry’
to see all the information available. If you
searched for all target languages, you can
then click on the code for your target
language to move it to the top of the entry
(above the source language). If you searched
for a single target language, you can then ask
to see all available languages.
Full entry display provides access to the
‘Feedback’ link, so that you can inform
IATE terminologists of any errors or
omissions you find, which would be greatly
appreciated. IATE will never be perfect, but
is improving all the time. Used discerningly,
it is an essential aid to translation between
EU languages.
POOLING KNOWLEDGE
Translators at the European Commission’s
DG Translation (below & left)
© EUROPEAN UNION, 2013
The Linguist 25
 FEATURES

Learning to adapt
Students can learn a lot from the ‘tradaptation’ of classic
works, rather than close translation, says Laurence Raw
When teaching a Shakespeare course to
second-year undergraduates at Başkent ADAPTABLE: ‘Hamlet’
University in Ankara, Turkey, I dispensed with performed by Lithuanian
a content-based pedagogy and asked them, company Meno Fortas
instead, to think of a Shakespeare play as a
basis for their personal development. Rather
than reading the text closely, translating it
and commenting on its themes, what
mattered was the ways in which individual
learners consumed or adapted to the text.
As long ago as 1934, John Dewey
emphasised that a learner-centred approach is
one in which ‘elements that issue from prior
experience are stirred into action in fresh
desires, impulsions and images’.1 Yet this

‘stirring’ can only be achieved if learners
understand the significance of the
Shakespearean text to their development as
individuals. Hence they should be
encouraged to engage collaboratively with a
variety of issues – textual, thematic,
sociological, cultural – posed either by
themselves or by the educator.
In Turkey, students on translation courses
are typically expected to translate texts from
English into Turkish and vice versa, looking
for the closest possible linguistic equivalents.
Their assessment is very much dependent on
the educator’s understanding of how ‘faithful’
their translations are to the source texts.
I wanted to direct learning away from the
literary text per se, and to centre it instead on
the learning experience as a whole. I began
by asking the basic question, ‘what would
learners like to achieve through the
Shakespearean course?’ In other words, what
sort of things could they know about that they
did not know before the course had begun?
I encouraged them to think of answers not
in terms of knowledge – that they might
understand Shakespeare better – but in terms
of abilities; how could exposure to the text
help them to acquire the kind of real-world
abilities that would stand them in good stead
once they had graduated? After receiving a
series of answers, I tried to create a syllabus
based on the learners’ own experience.
What they understood from a Shakespeare
play depended very much on what they
knew, believed and valued. The course
involved interacting with learners’ prior
educational experiences, for example by
acknowledging their belief – reinforced
throughout their educational careers – that
translation was a more ‘academic’ form of
textual transformation than adaptation.
A natural selection
The choice of plays was determined through
negotiation: we read a number of
Shakespeare plays (either in English or in
translation), and they then tried to convince
everyone within the group – learners and
© DMITRI MATVEJEV
educator alike – that their choice of play was
the best. This was an interesting task, as they
set aside the notion that a text had to be
translated before it could be understood and
looked at the plots instead.
Some liked the brutality of Hamlet, others
the rough-and-tumble of The Comedy of
Errors. The latter was particularly popular; its
setting in Ephesus was recognisable to
learners brought up in the west of Turkey
(Ephesus is about an hour’s drive from İzmir).
However, it was decided collaboratively that
the principal objective should be to select
texts that could best fulfil the learning
outcomes – in other words, develop learners’
abilities to communicate with one another, as
well as encouraging self-reliance.
Eventually the group settled on Romeo
and Juliet and Hamlet, the subject-matter of
which seemed especially applicable to most
students’ experiences. Familial rivalry forms
the subject of innumerable popular

26 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER www.iol.org.uk


melodramas in Turkish cinema, as well as the
seemingly endless stream of serials broadcast
nightly on most television stations.
In determining how the plays would be
approached, the group once again kept the
learning outcomes in mind. The need to
translate a text seemed less attractive when
compared to the idea of creating new
narratives inspired by the original text.
Different groups chose one of the plays and
devised a variety of approaches to adapting it.
Some opted to sub-divide into groups of two
or three, each charged with the responsibility
of rewriting one act at a time; others worked
in larger groups to adapt the play as a whole.
The emphasis throughout was on negotiation:
learners made their own decisions as to which
characters to retain and which to omit, and
whether the plots needed simplifying or not.
My role, as an educator, was confined to that
of a collaborator, offering feedback on the
various drafts and subsequent rehearsals.
The language of communication was
left open. This particular course was literary,
rather than translation-based, and learners
were given the freedom to use either
Turkish or English. What mattered was
what they discussed in their group situations,
and how it contributed to achieving the
learning objectives.
Shakespeare in Turkey
All the learners shifted the plays’ locations
from Verona and Denmark to the Republic of
Turkey. This decision was not only inspired by
their cultural backgrounds but also by their
knowledge of the conventions of Turkish film
and television melodramas. They wanted to
show that they could adapt these conventions
into a dramatic form that had something to
say both to themselves, as performers, and to
the audiences witnessing their performances.
One example will serve to illustrate the kind
of creative work the students produced: a
group of four girls (Seçil, Hande, Begüm and
Hazal) rewrote the balcony scene in Romeo
and Juliet. ‘You are more beautiful than the
morning sun. You are more beautiful than the
stars at night’, simpers Juliet (Hazal) in Act II,
Scene i. But her enjoyment is abruptly
© GUTO MUNIZ
INSPIRING: ‘Romeo & Juliet’ has been
adapted in many ways, including this
Brazilian circus interpretation
Vol/52 No/4 2013
curtailed when the Nurse (Begüm) enters to
ask whether she wants a cup of Turkish coffee
before bed.
According to the Nurse, this is essential as
Juliet needs to have her fortune told before
she can marry Paris. Juliet tries her utmost to
put the Nurse off, while Romeo (Seçil) waits
patiently below for her to return to the
balcony. Eventually, Romeo and Juliet part,
and Juliet returns to the Nurse, breathlessly
urging her to ‘forget the coffee’.
In Juliet’s view, her destiny has already
been determined; she does not need anyone
to read her coffee dregs. In spite of her
family’s objections, she will marry Romeo.
Through this sequence, the learners tried to
show how young women – especially those
in over-protective families – often find it
difficult to find any opportunities for self-
expression. This kind of experience is as
important in the contemporary Republic of
Turkey as it was in Shakespeare’s time.
Each group created a series of supporting
materials designed to accompany their
narratives – for example, a series of questions
that might be asked to audiences (or other
groups in the class), in order to prompt
reflection on the themes of the plays: family,
conflict, love and revenge. This scheme of
work was inspired by the students’ desire for
professional development; if they became
Family rivalry forms
the subject of
innumerable popular
melodramas in Turkey
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
FEATURES
educators in the future and took their
learners to a theatrical performance, how
could they demonstrate that the experiences
of Shakespeare’s characters were similar to
their own?
Tradaptation
This process of transforming the
Shakespearean text might be described as
‘tradaptive’ in the sense that canonical texts
are invested with new meanings designed to
force the target culture to confront itself
through exposure to the rewritten source
text. Tradaptation involves processes of
translation and adaptation that resist
distinctions between the two.
According to locally-constructed definitions,
the learners created an adaptation, not a
translation, in which textual concerns
mattered less than having the freedom to
create new versions of the Shakespearean
text. In truth, however, such value-judgments
hardly mattered: learners used their
narratives to embark on a process of personal
adaptation; in other words, developing their
abilities. They used their experience of
Shakespeare to develop skills such as self-
reliance, collaborative organisational thinking,
negotiation and decision-making.
There are certain criticisms that might be
levelled at this kind of course. Literature
teachers might argue, with some justification,
that it fails to develop students’ critical and
analytical skills. However, I would counter that
all language-based courses should help
develop transferable abilities such as empathy,
sensitivity to difference and collaboration.
Unless courses are structured in this way,
they risk being reduced to a series of
academic hurdles that learners have to pass in
pursuit of academic qualifications. I contend
that they need to discover how the ideas
discussed in Shakespeare – as with any great
author – have intrinsic value to their own lives.
This article is based on Laurence Raw’s
chapter ‘Bridging the Translation/Adaptation
Divide’ in Translation and Adaptation in
Theatre and Film, edited by Katja Krebs
(Routledge, 2013).
Notes
1 Dewey, J, 1934, Art as Experience, Minton,
Balch and Company, New York, 65
The Linguist 27
 REVIEWS
Language
Change:
Progress
or decay?
Jean Aitchison
Cambridge
University Press,
4th ed, 2013,
298 pp;
ISBN 978-1-
10767892-7,
Paperback,
£21.99
The fourth edition of this classic has new
material about text messaging and netspeak,
polysemy and language death, plus study
questions and updated references. The
chapter on child language and aphasia has
been dropped, on the grounds that they do
not significantly affect language change.
Chapter 1 introduces the tradition of
bemoaning language change, the hankering
after purity in language and the contrast
between prescription and description. It
considers the appeal of Latin as a model for
other languages and the belief that the
written language is superior to the spoken.
Chapter 2 describes the methods of
comparative historical linguistics – the
detective work of collecting evidence and
reconstructing earlier stages of a language –
and chapter 3 shows how ongoing changes
can be detected by studying patterns in
language variation.
The following ten chapters describe how
and why sound changes. Syntactic and
semantic changes arise from variational
features already present in a language and are
spread both consciously and unconsciously,
driven by overt and covert prestige, with men
and women typically playing different roles as
agents of language change.
Similar patterns of sound change and
grammaticalisation (in which lexical categories
become functional categories) are observed
repeatedly in different languages – eg, verbs
of volition typically become markers of futurity.
28 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
Fashion, foreign influence and social need
are triggers that accelerate trends already
present in a language; underlying causes of
change include efficiency in the articulation of
sound sequences, analogy, elimination of
pointless variety and a preference for
adjacency of related syntactic components.
After chapters on language birth and
death, including descriptions of pidgins,
creoles and decreolisation, the final chapter
concludes that there is no evidence of
languages evolving in any particular direction,
but rather a continuous pull between the
disruption and restoration of patterns.
So, progress or decay? The answer is, of
course, neither. This book explains clearly
how and why languages change, and
deserves to be widely read, especially by
those who think that English is in decline, and
that language change is due to carelessness
or ignorance, and should be stopped.
Jean Aitchison stands out as a scholar who
writes about language compellingly and
entertainingly for a non-specialist readership.
The book is richly illustrated with examples
from different languages, apposite and
sometimes humorous quotations from a great
variety of sources, and telling analogies that
help to make the contents accessible even to
readers with no background in linguistics.
Jonathan Marks MCIL
Quality in
Professional
Translation
Joanna Drugan
Bloomsbury,
2013, 222 pp;
ISBN 978-1-
44117664-6,
Paperback,
£27.99
Although translations are constantly evaluated
by those who produce, receive and use them,
there are no established criteria for evaluating
translation quality. This book derives from
interviews, questionnaires and observations
involving translators, clients, editors, project
managers, quality managers, etc, and
describes how translation quality is managed.
The Introduction notes that interest in
translation quality has risen because of
increasing demand for quick, low-cost
translation, the development of tools, and
efforts to establish industry-wide standards.
Chapter 1 outlines today’s translation
profession, focusing on recent demand-driven
and technology-driven changes. There has
been a huge increase in translation activity,
between an increasing number of language
pairs, as a result of globalisation, demand for
localisation, and fast-changing products and
services. There are new requirements for
speed and coordination of deadlines.
Increasingly sophisticated tools can have a
detrimental effect on quality, as well as
advantages. Translation of updates to sections
of texts, without access to their context,
possibly involving multiple translators, also
affects quality and consistency.
Chapter 2 compares academic and
professional approaches to quality, and
describes four academic approaches in detail.
These focus primarily on final products, asking
what makes a ‘good’ translation, whereas
professional approaches take a more holistic
and relativistic view of the translation process
in context, asking questions such as ‘Does the
level of quality in this translation represent
value for money?’.
Chapter 3 considers new tools and
workflow types, and their impact on quality.
Chapters 4 and 5 respectively evaluate
top-down and bottom-up translation quality
models. Core concerns of top-down models
include finding the optimum balance between
human and technological resources, learning
from experience in order to pre-empt future
problems, not wasting resources, and
balancing quality with other requirements.
Bottom-up models involving translator
communities, crowdsourcing, reliance on
edited or unedited machine translation
output, etc have arisen in response to
downward pressure on costs, technological
advances, new text types, and translation
increasingly being demanded – or even
carried out – by end-users themselves.
Here, quality assessment and improvement
rely largely on collaboration and peer
assessment and support. Bottom-up
www.iol.org.uk
 SECTION REVIEWS
HEADER

Crossword puzzle no.6

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

9 10
assessment procedures will probably aware of a text’s intended audience and
become more widespread as demand for function, as well as ensuring one has sound 11 12 13 14

translation increases and text is continuously subject knowledge.

created and amended, without a single Chapters 3 and 4 incorporate 15 16 17 18

source language. descriptions and case studies on the

Chapter 6 summarises lessons learned, various kinds of text types that scientific 19 20 21 22

challenges facing the profession and areas for and technical translators work with, such as
23 24 25 26
research. This book is highly recommended scientific journals, data sheets, instructions,
for its overview of quality in the translation reports and so on. These demonstrate to
27 28
industry today and future prospects. the reader the importance of knowing the
Jonathan Marks MCIL text type throughout the translation
process, but also offer practical ways to Across Down
identify them and avoid difficulties 6 It means ‘surrender’ 1 Originally from Latin

Scientific and particular to those text types. What is

more, some case studies are left blank for
in any language. (5-2)
7 Verdant spot in the
meaning ‘be pleasant
towards’, it gets you

Technical the reader to complete, allowing for a

greater degree of engagement.
desert, taken from
Greek via Latin. (5)
into a party. (10)
2 International
The ‘tools’ with which to translate 9 From Hawaiian telephone code 0034
Translation technical and scientific texts are provided for ‘quick’, a website in its own language. (6)
in Chapter 5. A run-through of the basic which develops 3 A lengthy narrative
Explained techniques and strategies for effective
translation are explained concisely, and
collaboratively. (4)
10 Given official
poem, such as the Iliad
or Mahabharata. (4)
Jody Byrne would likely be useful to translators in approval after meeting 4 Accepted now as
St Jerome other fields as well. A section on ‘When standards. (10) Maori for New
Publishing, not to translate’, suggesting official 11 Popular surrealist Zealand. (8)
2012, 230 pp; translations, proper names, laws and EU Japanese writer. (8) 5 It is spumante from
ISBN 978-1- Directives, is valuable. 13 Its 160 ethnic Italy. (4)
90576336-8, The final chapter continues by dispensing groups speak 100 6 Traditionally it has 17
Paperback, £20 more immediately practicable advice. It languages, according syllables. (5)
identifies 20 or so features specific to to 2002 census. (6) 8 International
technical communications and how to deal 15 Commonly used to telephone code 0046
with them in translation. These include refer to someone from in its own language. (7)
abbreviations and acronyms, number-based 4 down. (4) 12 One of two
Drawing on Byrne’s experiences as a language (formulae, equations, units of 17 Language from branches of the
technical translator, technical writer, trainer measure, currency), computer-based issues West Chadic family Eskimo language. (5)
and researcher, this book is intended as a (code, graphics, screenshots) and the great which features 14 Adjective to
guide for translation students (and their importance of translating warnings and implosives. (5) describe the origins of
tutors), in addition to self-learners, who wish advice carefully; much more than can be 18 Here in Berlin, but the Taliban. (10)
to enter the complex realms of scientific and listed here. yesterday in Paris. (4) 16 Slanting style of
technical translation. It has acted as a Extra resources in the form of 19 It’s a GPS to a lettering often used for
particularly pertinent ‘refresher’ course for me, bibliographies and online activities, not to French driver, but Navi emphasis. (7)
as I look to establish myself part-time as a mention practical activities prescribed to a German. (6) 17 Native word for
freelance technical translator, having gained through each chapter, do much to further 20 This could Croatia, from which
an MSc in these fields a few years ago. assist the self-learner. Relevant ‘real-world’ describe the Mare was derived ‘cravat’. (8)
Byrne chooses carefully the historical anecdotes from Byrne also serve to keep Tranquilitatis. (8) 21 Describes
context, theories and definitions of scientific the reader engaged. 23 Relating to two articulation of ‘d’ and
and technical translation with which he I recommend this resource to any groups, especially ‘t’ in French. (6)
introduces the book in Chapters 1 and 2, translation student wishing to enter political parties. (10) 22 How a Finn refers
and does not dwell on them (but does scientific and technical fields, whether 26 Phonetically it could to his homeland. (5)
provide a further reading list). This allows for through formal tuition or self-study; it acts be glottal. (4) 24 ‘So be it’ in
the reader, who is assumed to have an as a handy ‘go-to’ guide. The book is a 27 Just a little bit of Hebrew. (4)
understanding of these translation welcome addition to St Jerome German bacon? (5) 25 Comme ci,
fundamentals, to arrive more quickly at the Publishing’s ‘Translation Practices 28 Mimi ninakupenda comme ça. (2-2)
‘hands-on’ material. The most significant Explained’ series. wewe says ‘I love you’
point for me was the importance of being Jack Sellen in this language. (7) Answers on page 30.

Vol/52 No/4 2013 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER The Linguist 29

 OPINION & COMMENT
Email linguist.editor@gmail.com with your views
© SHOWFACE | DREAMSTIME.COM
Anarchy in the UK primary?
I am surprised at the optimistic title and tone
of the article ‘Ready to Roll?’ (TL52,3), which
contrasts with the survey’s very disturbing
findings. We learn that teachers lack
linguistic skills, are not confident in the
teaching of grammar, reading and writing,
and need training, support and guidance.
Under these circumstances, is it likely that
pupils will reach ‘high standards of practical
communication by the end of Key Stage 2’
(KS2), as the National Curriculum expects?
The survey describes an almost anarchic
situation in which primary schools can and
do choose any language they like – and
allocate very little time to teaching it. There
is no agreed curriculum and no consistency
of practice. Is it surprising, then, that the
primary-secondary transition is a major
problem? What can a secondary school be
expected to do when it receives pupils with
varied experiences in a range of languages
‘including Portuguese, Hebrew, Welsh,
Turkish, Danish, Swahili’?
At the very least, it might be expected
that there would be agreements between
secondaries and their feeder primaries on
which language(s) to teach, as well as on the
curriculum, with appropriate goals for the
30 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
end of KS2, as is the case for English and
mathematics. Such a requirement, of course,
would need to be supported by the
Secretary of State, and would have major
spending implications for teacher training,
since it would reveal the shortage of
qualified teachers.
Finally, the article states but does not
illustrate ‘how much previous policies have
achieved’ and alludes to young people
being able to ‘enjoy the same opportunities
as those in other advanced countries’. It
would be interesting to learn what, in fact,
previous policies have achieved, as they
have led to the unsatisfactory situation
revealed by the survey; and also to learn
how other countries manage the primary-
secondary divide (maybe fewer languages
are taught?).
Perhaps the authors of the survey should
read that earlier NFER publication, ‘Primary
French in the Balance’, published in 1974. If
it has one message it is that the teaching
and learning of modern foreign languages in
the primary school requires considerable
support from the authorities. Without this
support, nothing will roll very far.
J E Trickey FCIL
In praise
It is always a great pleasure to read
The Linguist, which is full of great information
and excellent articles. I was particularly happy
to read the article about Soheila Dayani
(TL52,3). For me, Soheila has been the face
of the Institute – the person who’s there when
I have questions. Living on the other side of
the world, in Australia, hasn’t been easy and
Soheila has always tried to help.
I’m sure that, in those schools and
universities she visited this year, students were
encouraged and felt at ease to ask questions.
I take this opportunity to thank her for her
excellent work.
Cátia Cassiano MCIL
Me defiendo
On a recent trip to Spain I found myself
repeating the words ‘Me defiendo en
español’. This was because various Spanish
speakers addressed me spontaneously in
English, sometimes even without hearing me
speak or after I had said something in quite
careful Spanish (I can get by).
No doubt they meant well, but they seem
to have assumed that an English speaker can
only (or will only) speak English. Linguists need
to counter this frustrating stereotype by
resolutely speaking other languages, wherever
possible, when abroad. Spain cannot be the
only country where this issue arises.
Paul Guest ACIL
Crossword answer
Puzzle on page 29.
www.iol.org.uk

First steps
A lesson in moving forward – and in
selecting assignments carefully
JULIA GRAHAM
H
ere’s a question: Do you ever feel that
you aren’t ready? In other words, do
you find yourself waiting to do
something because you need to be sure you
have everything in place first? If so, you are
just like me. But the million-dollar question is,
will you ever be 100 percent ready?
I believe that being a perfectionist is a great
asset in a translator. If the service you deliver
adheres to your strict standards, it will certainly
meet clients’ expectations and perhaps even
surpass them. It was only attending the launch
of The Freelance Box, the new venture of
Marta Stelmaszak and Valeria Aliperta, which
provides courses on productivity and
marketing for translators and interpreters, that
opened my eyes to the other side of the coin.
When I discussed my business situation
with Marta, I realised that my perfectionism
was getting in the way of moving forward.
She made me see that you just have to get
yourself out there and keep improving your
material (such as your website and your
copy), rather than waiting for it all to be
perfect before approaching new clients.
Receiving excellent and honest advice is
just one of the great things about face-to-face
networking events. Much as I love the serenity
of my home office, attending events can help
you to get an outsider’s perspective. Industry
events are also a fantastic way of sharing new
ideas, boosting morale, and promoting
professionalism by looking to other industries
for inspiration.
At the Freelance Box launch, we focused
on business networking, first impressions and
where to find new clients. What struck me as
innovative about these workshops was the
focus on follow-up. We were set a number of
SMART tasks for homework.
Vol/52 No/4 2013
I also attended the ITI Conference, which
was a great opportunity to meet some of the
people I follow on Twitter and to listen to
talks from people who inspire me on a daily
basis. I left feeling I was part of a larger
network of colleagues and buzzing with a
head full of new business and translation
ideas and tips. The CIOL’s Members’ Day in
October is the next major event on the
calendar (see page 33 for details).
Twitter has been another extremely useful
resource. Before joining the translation
industry, I never went near this social media
platform; now I have become something of an
addict. I’ve received translation work through
the site, found recommendations on time
management tools and apps, and followed
conferences I was not able to attend in person.
While I was watching the 2013 Proz.com
International Conference (#portoconference)
from the comfort of my garden, I came across
several tweets quoting Konstantin Kisin, a
Russian and English translator, that really
resonated with me: ‘Productivity isn’t about
working hard, it’s about working smart… Do
only what you’re really productive at.’
When you are offered work, it can be
tempting to accept anything for fear that you
may find yourself in a famine period. However,
you have to consider whether you could be
more productive (and consequently earn
more) by devoting your time to a text you are
more familiar with. Even if the rate appears
reasonable, is it sufficient if you have to spend
time doing extensive background research
and carrying out extra quality assurance
checks? Some may say it is worthwhile in order
to build a specialism in the subject, but we
can’t be specialists at everything, so we have
to draw the line somewhere. When deciding
whether or not to accept projects, I now
consider whether they will take me to where I
want to be in one, five or ten years’ time.
about.me/juliagraham
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
OPINION & COMMENT
TERESA TINSLEY
With the holiday season getting under way,
The Express reported that the sign of a Brit
abroad is wild hand signalling. Apparently,
three quarters of us resort to gesticulation
when abroad in order to get our message
across, with 17 percent having mimed
being desperate for the loo in order to find
a toilet! However, the TravelSupermarket
survey found that 60 percent do try to learn
some words or phrases, and that we tend
to underestimate our own abilities – many
people can correctly identify common
phrases in a foreign language, despite
believing that they don’t know a word.
Language help for tourists has arrived in
the form of ‘the world’s first beer-ordering
app’. This translates ‘one beer please’ into
59 languages, including obvious candidates
such as Japanese and Thai, as well as what
The Daily Mail calls ‘more obscure offerings’
– ie, Scots, Gaelic and Welsh. The app may
well cut down on gesturing but, as ‘Bugsy’
from Malaga points out on the Mail
website, not everyone wants a beer.
The Mail also contributes a piece on how
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party is
seeking to ‘increase the use of German in
EU institutions’ – a move readers are
clearly encouraged to see as threatening
and, as the Mail has it, ‘likely to annoy
other countries’. Meanwhile, The Sun
reports that the Germans are relieved that
a 63-letter word has been dropped from
their language. Rindfleischetikettierungs-
überwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
has become obsolete as a result of the
EU withdrawing legislation relating to
BSE in cattle.
Writing in The Telegraph, Anne Merritt
(19 June) provides a useful round-up of
recent research into how learning a
language ‘improves the functionality of your
brain’. Presumably these benefits are not
enjoyed by the six percent of Brits abroad
who, according to the TravelSupermarket
survey, resort to ‘speaking English with a
bizarre foreign accent’.
Teresa Tinsley is Director of Alcantara
Communications; www.alcantaracoms.com.
The Linguist 31
 INSTITUTE MATTERS

DIVISIONS & SOCIETIES

September
Raising cultural awareness
STUDY WEEKEND
INTERPRETING DIVISION MEMBERS IMPROVED THEIR ABILITY TO WORK ACROSS 6-8 September
CULTURES, WITH TWO INSIGHTFUL SEMINARS AT THE AGM, SAYS CHRISTINE POCOCK Coburg, Bavaria GER
This year’s topic is Prince
With a view to demonstrating how a better cultural In his very interactive talk, ‘Interpreting as the Art of Albert of Saxe-Coburg
awareness can improve both your interpreting and life Cultural Mediation’, Robert explored how culture and Gotha (aka the Prince
skills, the Interpreting Division AGM on 8 June impacts on business. Participants were invited to reflect Consort). For details, email
included two seminars that looked at ‘Effective on the role of the interpreter as a cultural mediator, j.bobrowska@gmx.net.
Intercultural Awareness’. requiring complex intercultural skills, specific local
Our first speaker, Dougal Lammond, has a knowledge and a high degree of flexibility. BUCKINGHAM
journalistic and training background, and has lived in Cultural competence is the ability to interact PALACE: EXCLUSIVE
both the US and Brazil. He has already logged more effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, EVENING TOUR
than 10 years of cultural awareness training with a based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, Saturday 14
range of multinational companies. His talk, entitled skills and reflection. How that competence is applied September BPG
‘What Does Cultural Awareness Really Mean?’, began can vary considerably from one interpreting setting to London, 5.30pm
by asking participants to give their view of culture, another. The public service or business liaison An expert guide will
based on what people in a series of pictures were interpreter can ask for clarification if they realise there describe furniture,
wearing. He went on to look at what culture really is, has been a cultural misunderstanding; conference sculpture and paintings,
touching on some of Hofstede’s work, including interpreters have to develop other strategies. including masterpieces
‘software of the mind and collective programming of Robert also looked at how an interpreter might build from the Royal Collection,
the mind’. on existing skills to offer cultural mediation as a separate in the State Rooms.
He also looked at the important aspects of what strand to their career profile. In addition to their existing Price £35, includes
constitutes visible and invisible cultural differences, skills set, they would need to develop an ability to glass of champagne.
and at why it is dangerous to try to interpret invisible encourage other people to explore what cultural To attend, contact
aspects of culture (eg values and beliefs) by looking differences are. julie.hobbs@iol.org.uk.
only at the visible ones (education, history, tradition, To become an intercultural communication trainer, it
dress, behaviour, customs, etc). would be advisable to acquire greater theoretical ‘HINDI’ SCOT
In the last part of his talk, Dougal initiated a lively knowledge (for example by doing an MA in business, Saturday 21
debate by asking the audience to look at a list of psychology or applied linguistics); in-depth experience September
cultural symbols, heroes and rituals, and to consider of living in the target culture; knowledge of the culture Perth, 2pm
what makes up the ‘British Onion’. Delegates then of potential trainees; extensive experience of working in A modern perspective of
reflected on the most commonly declared values of international business environments; training skills; and Hindi by Anju Okhandiar.
British culture, such as politeness, compromise, the persistence to build a new area of one’s own Sandeman Room, A K
humour, tolerance, modesty and tradition. freelance business. It is not a well established profession Bell Library, Perth.
Our second speaker, Robert Johnson, is a trainer, and there is no established body of qualifications.
consultant and lecturer at Birkbeck College, University As a closing tip, Robert recommended reading Kate KEY
of London and at the University of Surrey. Specialising Fox’s book Watching the English – a brilliant, accurate DIVISIONS
in intercultural communication, he has worked with a and often very funny book. Business, Professions
wide range of institutions and & Government: BPG
companies in both public and private Education: EDU
sectors. He has extensive experience of Interpreting: ID
living and working as a language and Translating: TD
communication trainer and consultant SOCIETIES
in France, Germany, Japan and China. Cambridge: CAM
German: GER
GAINING INSIGHTS Hong Kong: HK
At the AGM (l-r), former Lincolnshire: LINC
CIOL Chief Executive John London: LON
Hammond, student Tatiana North West: NW
Wates and speaker Robert Scottish: SCOT
Johnson; and (inset) Kate Spanish: SP
Fox’s ‘Watching the English’

32 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER www.iol.org.uk

 INSTITUTE MATTERS

November

NETWORKING
LUNCH LINC
Saturday 16
November
Wig & Mitre, Lincoln,
midday-4pm
For details call Candia
Hillier on 01522 526695.
Wig and Mitre, Steep Hill,
Lincoln LN2 1LU.

CONTACT DETAILS
BPG Judith Ridgway,
ridgway@talktalk.net
ID IoL.Interpreting. Ensuring quality
Division@googlemail.com
TD Michael
Cunningham, michael@ JOINT EXAMINATIONS MANAGER ROSARIO LAWRENCE OUTLINES THE DETAILED
michaelcunningham.net PLANNING THAT GOES INTO ENSURING THE HIGH QUALITY OF IoLET EXAMS
CAM Leslie Ray,
leslie.ray@btinternet.com Our team of four manages the academic part of the take place at the end of the year. Examiners who
GER Stephanie Tarling, Diploma in Translation (DipTrans). We have just started cannot attend are trained by us electronically.
setarling@t-online.de; with the production of seven examination papers in 14 Our duty is to monitor every single activity. Every
Gabriele Matthey, languages for the 2014 session. For this purpose, we piece of material that comes to us has to be
translations@gmatthey.de have commissioned setters who, according to their scrutinised, making sure the content is free from
HK Francis Lee, own specialism, have to set two versions for each of mistakes and at the required standard. All submissions
francisleekc@iolhks.hk the seven options offered. All the set texts will go to have to be properly logged in, and all forwarded
LINC Candia Hillier, a series of moderators, who will choose the better of material has to be tracked and accounted for.
candia@chezhillier. the two versions. At times, papers have to be re-set. Within our team we know English, Spanish and
freeserve.co.uk Candidates have already received the results of the Polish, can cover German and French relatively well
LON Rannheid Sharma, 2013 examination. Those who failed have started to and, to a lesser extent, Italian, Portuguese and
RSharma105@aol.com ask for re-marks. Thus, along with the setting process, Russian. For the rest, we rely on our experience and
NW Katrin Hiietam, we have to commission re-markers for more than 100 expertise. Indeed, we have found that being
katrin.hiietam@ee- requests in a variety of language combinations. monolingual is no barrier to effective proofreading.
translations.com Reports on general candidate performance, written We pride ourselves on being hawk-eyed and we can
SCOT Anne Withers, by examiners at the end of the marking stage, need normally spot flaws in source texts, mark sheets,
amwithers@msn.com to be available to the public at the beginning of the reports and any material that will eventually be in the
SP Martin Caine, academic year, so we must ensure they are ready for public domain. However, we put our faith in our
martincaine2008@ the printers on time. examiners to ensure that all tasks are top quality.
gmail.com Before the end of the year, and at the final stages Managing the DipTrans requires vision,
of the setting and moderation processes, we start organisation and minute planning. We feel lucky to
commissioning examiners to mark examination be able to stay in touch with examiners with such
MEMBERS’ DAY
scripts in the language combinations candidates linguistic and cultural diversity, and who work in so
This year’s event will have registered for. There are usually around 45 many different fields. Some of them do not live in the
be held on Saturday combinations. We count on an existing pool of UK, just as candidates can sit the examination in any
5 October at the experienced examiners but, inevitably, there are part of the world. Making the DipTrans qualification
Royal College of always changes and new language combinations available to so many people around the world brings
General Practitioners, crop up, so new examiners have to be recruited. real pride and satisfaction to our jobs.
30 Euston Square, Distributing examiners for seven options can be
London. For details, challenging. One language combination most often Rosario Lawrence and Mar Peláez-Muñoz are Joint
see www.iol.org.uk. needs three examiners, and they are chosen based Examination Managers for IoLET’s Diploma in
on their area of expertise. Marking training sessions Translation and IDBC examinations.

Vol/52 No/4 2013 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER The Linguist 33

 INSTITUTE MATTERS
Who’s on Council?
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE CIOL COUNCIL
James Farmer MCIL was re-elected to
Council in March. He has an MA in
Oriental Studies (Japanese) and also
speaks fluent French and good Russian.
He has served on the Committee of
the Business, Professions and
Government Division since 2002 and is
currently their Membership Secretary.
My first contact with the French
language came as a very small child, as
my parents spoke in French if they didn’t
want me to understand. Moving swiftly
on, I worked in the UK civil service for 30
years before taking early severance in
2012. Half of that time was spent on
promoting trade with Japan and, later
on, trade policy with Japan and other
Far Eastern countries.
For three years, I was joint Project
Manager for the European Commission’s
highly successful Gateway to Japan
campaign, based in Brussels. I also did
part-time Japanese teaching.
I joined the Institute in 1981, taking
the entrance examination in French. I
have been closely involved for the last 12
years; this is my second spell on Council.
Having retired from work, I have more
time to devote to Institute matters and
am keen to contribute all I can to
Council. I would particularly like to see
more involvement with the Far East.
A list of current Council members
appears on page 3. For further
details about CIOL committees
and governance, see the ‘About
us’ section at www.iol.org.uk.
34 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
Karen Stokes FCIL is a professional
freelance translator, working from
French to English in the fields of law,
international development and
business. She is a visiting lecturer on
the Diploma in Translation (DipTrans)
course at the University of
Westminster, and designs and delivers
continuing professional development
(CPD) workshops for the CIOL.
Oddly enough, I don’t recall
‘translator’ being on the list of career
options recommended for linguists at
Oxford in the 1980s, and a good thing
too: well-versed as I was in the 19th-
century novel and 17th-century drama,
with a bit of Old French and
existentialism thrown in for good
measure, I was hardly equipped to
survive commercially.
It was only 15 years later, after
working in business, living abroad and
teaching in Further Education, that I
braved the Dip Trans, began
freelancing and joined the Institute. A
year later, I found myself on a divisional
committee and have been actively
involved ever since, at the sharp end
of organising events, taking part in
working groups and, more recently,
chairing a series of committees.
I joined Council to bring some of
that practical experience to bear at a
more strategic level. I have a special
interest in CPD, the status of
professional linguists and the
governance of professional
associations, and am keen to help raise
the Institute’s profile and build strong
relationships with other institutions.
CONTRIBUTORS
Sabir Hasan Birot
Sabir Hasan Birot is a freelance interpreter
and translator. He is studying at the
University of Leeds for a PhD on the
translation of journalistic texts. See p.8
Trinidad Clares
Trinidad Clares Flores MCIL is a freelance
translator, and conference and legal
interpreter. Since 2010, she has taught
translation at Cardiff University. See p.12
Tim Cooper
Since 2007, Tim Cooper has been a
full-time terminologist at the European
Commission, having spent 20 years
working as a translator. See p.24
Alfred Cudjoe
A lecturer in Translation Studies at the
University of Education, Winneba in
Ghana, Dr Alfred B Cudjoe is also an
experienced writer and journalist. See p.10
Vanessa Enríquez Raído
Vanessa Enríquez Raído is a Senior
Lecturer in Translation Studies at the
University of Auckland, with a particular
interest in translation technology. See p.22
Nataly Kelly
Vice-President of Market Development at
Smartling, Nataly Kelly has worked for 17
years in the translation industry. Found in
Translation is her latest book. See p.20
Jessica Moore
Freelance journalist and editor Jessica
Moore is a former Acting Editor of
The Linguist and co-Founder of WM
Editorial (wmeditorial.com). See p.18
Laurence Raw
Laurence Raw teaches in the Department
of English at Başkent University in Ankara.
His research interests include adaptation
studies and Middle Eastern film. See p.26
Neomy Storch
Dr Neomy Storch is a Senior Lecturer in
ESL and Applied Linguistics at the
University of Melbourne, with a special
interest in collaborative writing. See p.14
Deborah Swallow
Dr Deborah Swallow is an expert on global
cultural diversity. For details of her latest
book see www.thediversitydashboard.com;
www.deborahswallow.com. See p.16
www.iol.org.uk