Paper No.

: 05 Communication Through Translation

Module : 04 Translation in the Present-Day World

Development Team

Principal Investigator: Prof. Anita Khanna

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Paper Coordinator :
& Prof. Ashok Kumar Chawla
CSIR-NISCAIR, New Delhi
Content Writer :

Content Reviewer: Prof. P. A. George

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Communication Through Translation

Japanese
Translation in the Present-Day World
 Description of Module

Subject Name Japanese

Paper Name Communication Through Translation

Module title Translation in the Present-Day World

Module ID JPN-P05-M04

Quadrant 1 E-Text

Communication Through Translation

Japanese
Translation in the Present-Day World
 Translation in the Present-Day World

1. Recapitulations from the Previous Module <全モジュールの要点の繰返し>

Translation and the Translation studies are not new domains. In fact, both these fields have
grown multi- fold in recent years owing to various factors, which include movements and
migration of individuals from one place to another, more exchanges taking place at local as well
as overseas places owing to globalization and localization. International trade, patenting,
sanctions due to various reasons and terrorism have all added to the needs of such works. In the
process, the activity in the domain of Translation Study has only widened the gap between the
experts of Studies and the Practitioners so much so that knowledge-rich scholars in their silos
and the resourceful practitioners may not show convergence for time to come and the result is
two streams – the theory and applied categories.

The future trend in both the streams will be governed by market pulls. While there is no doubt
that the translation as practice will be in demand, part of these needs will be met through
machine-aids. There is a possibility of convergence on selective use of common languages for
certain objectives, which may rationalize the needs, but the core profe ssional part of the needs
will continue to remain human dependent and this core professional component will also
continue to expand. As the quantum will expand, demand for kaizen on quality will also increase
and this demands building strong corpora at different levels (word, compound term, clause and
sentence levels). It is desirable to set a mechanism of joint building and sharing these resources.

2. Translation Shifts, Three Aspects and the Expansion

Translation shifts over the centuries can be easily visualized. The journey started with state-
sponsored translation in the field of religion, obviously for some defined purpose, to academia
taking up translation for introducing literature, social aspects and technology or other such
knowledge from one language to other and the current scenario led by market demand that may
be academic, legal, commercial, literature, technology transfer or state-of-art reports. One factor

Communication Through Translation

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 remains common that translation has always remained trans-national and trans-cultural. Typical
shifts include visible changes in translation as practice and as studies after 1980’s, use of
machine translation and machine aids have come to interplay between theory and practice, tools
transformation from pencil-paper-typewriter to memory-based electronic typewriters to hand-
held tablets, use of computing devices for corpora creation and updating, auto and manual
individual and occasionally organized translation banks and almost universal shift to paper- less
flow from order to delivery.

Three important aspects of translation are (1) the matter to be translated. Accuracy is of prime
importance and it must be maintained religiously, (2) professional knowledge & skill
(technology use ability) of the translator and (3) the peripheral knowledge of the tra nslator,
which includes imagination, values, style and ability to take liberty to deviate all in very
judicious manner. In the absence of empirical study, it may not be correct to claim that
translation profession was adopted more by the area experts than the language specialists.
However, study of traditions has clearly indicated that though the theory or the systems might
have been studied or established more by the linguists or the language experts, the area experts
dominated the practice of translation and it goes without saying that the domain as a whole
evolved and expanded in last five to six decades.

India is a unique example of traditions of translation for its multi- lingual multi-culture diversity,
but the trans-communication remained a micro- industry at least till and never developed as a
commercial domain as in the case of Europe, though in terms of number of languages, India is
comparable to combined Europe. Religious and old texts were translated in almost all Indian
languages and almost no deviation in the content across different language zones of India clearly
indicate that high level of translation skills were available in those days. Further, as these stories
travel across the border, even though the core message and the philosophy remained unhindered,
certain degree of adaptation to suit the local culture, habits and traditions is observed clearly.
Recent phenomena of last 4-5 decades, such as globalization & localization as well as the
increased awareness and interest in literature and texts written in other languages have added to

Communication Through Translation

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 the demand of translation both in terms of quality as well as quantity. Needs have also
diversified from the contracts and specifications to legal and compliance related issues. Further,
mere population size and the diversity make the translation a very significant domain in today’s
world. And this is why specialized courses in translation and translation studies have continued
to flourish in universities across India during this period. Let us have a glimpse of translation
activity in different domains.

3. Lite rature

No profession is as divided as that of translation. This is particularly true with regard to

translation of literature. One area is concerned with knowledge, facts and ideas, information, and
reality; the other with human individuals, nature and the occupied planet in the imagination; the
first with facts, the second with values; the first with clarity of information, the second with style
as a reflection of character i. Translation has always been international but remarkable changes
have occurred in the fields of practical translation, theoretical Translation Studies, and the
interplay between theory and practice with special emphasis on the sea changes since 1990.
Developments have become particularly visible in the last decade, such as large-scale useful
translation memories, Internet translation, and the introduction of computers at all levels of
language work.

Best-documented and debated activity is translation of elitist documents. It began with literature
texts and religious scriptures or sermons. Buddhist sutras were translated from Sanskrit and other
languages of India into Chinese. Christianity is also based on teachings of Jesus Christ who
spoke Aramaic ii . Gradually, the scope widened to publications, journals, drama, movies,
animation, comics and advertisement. Similar to other cultural domains, literary translation also
lacks reliable statistical evidence in spite of largest continuous UNESCO database Index
Translationum iii.

In India, translators from institutes, such as NISCAIR (erstwhile INSDOC), DESIDOC, BARC,
ATIRA, BHEL and other formal bodies were active in literary translation also, but barring some

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 exceptions, by and large they did not take interest in publishing their works. Though they were
extremely competent in delivering accuracy, translation of literature might have created doubts
in their mind about the high degree of creativity that literature demands. Last few decades
witnessed translation of established works in regional languages in India translated through
institutionalized mechanisms such as National Book Trust (NBT), National Translation Mission
(Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL)) and private publishing houses.

In the present day world of ‘Globalization’ and ‘Localization’, translation now has evolved into a
multidisciplinary field and is no more confined just to linguistics. India, as one of the oldest
knowledge bases, has a cherished tradition of translation. Here, multiplicities of languages,
diverse cultures and religions have co-existed, each impacting the other and evolving a rich
composite whole. In the 21st century the role of translation has become even more significant. It
is one of the most effective ways of building cross-cultural bridges, i.e. making the rich
literatures of one language accessible to the other. Therefore, the need of translation and different
categories of translators is a natural occurrence. The developments and significance of
translation in various fields follow with special focus on India.

4. Science and Technology

Scientific and technical knowledge has always been a prized commodity throughout history
(Tebeaux 1997) and the communication of this information through translation has played a
tremendous role in development of human civilisations and the advance of science and
technology (see for instance Delisle 1995 and Montgomery 2000) iv . In translating technical-
scientific texts, one must first be aware of the accuracy of the translated text, in terms of how it
transmits the goal of the writer of the source text to the reader of the translated text. Thus, the
translated text will be able of contributing instrumentally to the technical-scientific area as a
whole.

According to Garcia (1992), the available technical-scientific literature normally has, as its
audience, graduate and undergraduate students, in addition to teachers and researchers. As a

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 result, this literature is often written in a high- level linguistic pattern, with the exception of the
material prepared for secondary students1 .

Russia, Japan, Germany and the non-English speaking European countries, in all probabilties in
that order, have the tradition of translation of Science and Technology texts in terms of span of
time or quantity or both. However, with the dissemination of technology, this domain expanded
very fast. It called for very high degree of accuracy but at the same time it was not so difficult for
the area experts doing translation either themselves or helping the translators deliver translation.
The texts ranged from state-of-the-art reports, specifications, manuals, patents, experiments and
surveys, etc. Further, as the quantum is huge, introduction of machine aids and machine
translation in this domain was attempted first. It started with corpus based weather forecasting,
for example, in Canada and thereafter various models have evolved. Rich corpora and data banks
coupled with larger memories and faster machine processors have positioned machine translation
as a strong tool for the translators.

5. Legal

In this age of globalization, the need for competent legal translators is greater than ever. This
perhaps explains the growing interest in legal translation not only by linguists but also by
lawyers, the latter especially over the past 10 years (cf. Berteloot, 1999). Although Berteloot
maintains that lawyers analyze the subject matter from a different perspective, she advises her
colleagues also to take account of contributions by linguists.

While some legal translators seem content to apply principles of general translation theory
(Koutsivitis, 1988), others dispute the usefulness of translation theory for legal translation
(Weston, 1991:1). The latter view is not surprising since special methods and techniques are
required in legal translation, a fact confirmed by Bocquet, who recognizes the importance of
establishing a theory or at least a theoretical framework that is practice oriented (1994). By
analyzing legal translation as an act of communication in the mechanism of the law, the book

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 New Approach to Legal Translation (Susan Šarcevic, 1997) attempts to provide a theoretical
basis for legal translation within the framework of modern translation theory.

Vested with the force of law, authenticated translations enable the mechanism of the law to
function in more than one language. Translations of legislation, treaties and conventions, judicial
decisions, and contracts are authoritative only if they have been approved and/or adopted in the
manner prescribed by law. In accordance with the theory of original texts, all authe nticated
translations are just as inviolate as the original text(s). Hence, they are not regarded as “mere
translations” but as originals and are not even referred to as translations (Šarcevic, 1997;
Berteloot 1999) v .

In India, demand of competent translators is greater than ever today. Market has driven lawyers
taking over from linguist-translators starting with proof-reading to re-writing to profession shift
post economic liberalization in 1990’s. It is termed as a healthy trend as it creates right mix o f
competition and excellence. Legal translation demands legal style also, but accuracy with single-
interpretation is of utmost importance. Translation of legislation, treaties, conventions, judicial
decisions, contracts command authority only when approved and authenticated. As the resources
have been limited, Lingua franca such as Latin2 has been the medium of communication in
international politics till Middle Ages in Europe and now English/Spanish or the language as per
the agreement are giving way for other or the minor languages.

6. Medicine

Medicine has always enjoyed special status. Medical terms have been drawn from many
languages, a large majority are from Greek and Latin. Interestingly, terms of Greek origin occur
mainly in clinical terminology (e.g., cardiology, nephropathia, gastritis) and Latin terms make up
the majority of anatomical terminology (Nomina Anatomica) (e.g., cor, ren, ventriculus) vi. Of
course, there are terms from French, Italian or Dutch or other languages, but the terms are part of
terminology and not the pure natural evolution. Users also, accordingly, used a language, which
turned more technical or rather mechanical. In other words, the medical language (syntax and

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 semantics put together) becomes difficult for the persons outside the domain. It continues to hold
a special position because it deals with human beings, i.e., with persons—their personality, their
body and their life. This is probably the reason why medical translation is one of the oldest fields
of translation. “Medical translation is the most universal and oldest field of scientific translation
because of the homogeneous ubiquity of the human body (the same in Montreal, Mombasa and
Manila) and the venerable history of medicine.” - Fischbach, 1986. The extensive history and
recent practical importance of medical translation, combined with the fascination medicine has
always held in all cultures, are powerful incentives for would-be translators. Medical translation
has always been of major importance within the field of translation, because a large number of
texts are translated and hence this area represents a large share of the market vii.

In general, it can be said that medical translation needs team work with the subject expert as the
risks involved are too big and at the same time the incentives are also huge, in terms of
knowledge as well as material gains. Medico-legal texts are further more difficult or specialized.

7. Trade

International trade has called for translation between 'minor' as well as 'major' languages 2 .
Communication is prerequisite in trade, which otherwise can give rise to language barriers.
Language intensive tasks that are essential to trade include researching foreign markets, adapting
and marketing products to foreign consumers, and communication and contracting between
importing and exporting firms. Language may affect the foreign direct investment decisions of
multinational firms, e.g. the location of regional headquarters, and trade in final and intermediate
goods may follow from such decisions. Empirical estimates of trade costs acknowledge the role
of language, usually estimated by inclusion of a binary variable for whether two countries share
an official language. The size of language barriers can be expected to depend on the language
intensity of specific tasks involved in trade, and the cost of hiring workers within a country with
the required language skills viii.

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 8. Way Forward

Two dominant factors have been witnessed in recent times. One – the international scenarios
have become dynamic. International meetings and conferences find more use of Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Russian or even Hindi. Communicating in the mother tongue may be because
of nationalism or may be because of changing equations among different pairs, e.g., Japan –
Russia or Japan – China or US – China or US – Russia or even Russia – Taliban. Two – the
terrorism, which is making language knowledge a very important factor. This involves multi-
lingual or bi- lingual skills with reference to deciphering tacit moves by the extremist groups,
news gathering, tapping of conversation, questioning and documentation.

Developments in the field of computing, artificial intelligence and the market pulls have brought
the machines replacing or assisting the human translators. Anticipating automated machine
translation (MT) is nothing new. In 1999, at a symposium on translation studies hosted by the
UK’s University of Surrey, Mike Shields remarked, “I can see novels being banged out in
machine translation systems and handed over to ghost writers to turn them into as good English
as is necessary, and completely wipe out translators—and even interpreters” (Anderman/Rogers
2003). Indeed, the speed with which MT technology has been developing is nothing short of
remarkable, when viewed on the scale of human history, though it may be difficult to remove
human intervention for long time to come. As most of the machine tools reuse the elements,
clauses or sentences and human judgement still plays significant role.

At this same time, Pérez (2003) found that, throughout industry, Computer-Assisted Translation
(CAT), in the form of translation memories, terminology management systems, and machine
translation, was “used at different stages of the translation process, depending, on the
requirements called for by the translation job: type of text and the possibility of reusing previous
translations, target text quality required by the client or consistency in the use of terms across
different translations”. CAT had by now expanded into the “multilingual workflow system” in
which “Translation is an essential part of the information cycle”, resulting in a shift toward

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 “controlled translation” in which translators are parts of teams developing “language
technology”.

However, as mentioned earlier also, despite the remarkable developments in MT and the
translation process, further improvements to MT seem all the more daunting. The human
judgement and wisdom required at these stages, rooted as they often are in social and cultural
knowledge, seem complex to the point that they do not fit with ease into the flow charts of
computer programming. Dillinger (2012) stresses that MT “does not really translate; it only help
us reuse words and segments that have already been translated. That’s it.” Hutchins (2004)
elaborates, “…we are not going to get MT systems that can take any text in any subject and
produce unaided a good translation. Literature, philosophy, sociology, law and any other areas of
interest, which are highly culture-dependent, are beyond the scope of MT. It is true now, and will
probably always be true.”

What is driving both the trend towards increased translation and the trend to automate and
accelerate is the economy part of the information economy. Translation leads to better
understanding, which leads to increased customer satisfaction, which leads to increased sales.
Automation, along with its lubricant, standardization, saves costs. It remains to be seen to what
extent the trends identified will continue or level off in affecting accuracy of meaning,
efficiencies of production, and, inevitably, employment of translators ix . As mentioned above also,
translator will have to keep pace with the machine aids and at the same time adopt systematic
and scientific approach to deliver high-quality translation in productive and efficient manner.

9. Translation in India

The current translation scenario in India seems to be heading in the right direction, though the
focus in the domain of language has temporarily tilted towards studies (literature). Necessary
correction will take place in natural course of time. With visible all around initiatives, be it the
government itself launching the National Translation Mission (NTM), or the On-going
Translation Training Program launched by NISCAIR in 2009, which have been continuing since

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 then and the research output includes papers on accuracy-readability-style, machine translation,
core-peripheral-contextual-implied (CPCI concept)0 , evaluation meterics and benchmarking0 ,
etc and also the major language institutes like JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Indira Gandhi
National Open University (IGNOU) are doing their part in developing the young crop of
translators.

10. In the End

In the fields of education, science and technology, mass communication, commerce tourism etc.
the need for translation has increased greatly. And translation allows us to tap the rich knowledge
base that exists in different languages and cultures of the world. India’s multilingualism and
multicultural ethos can be celebrated in the real sense of the word by understanding and
appreciating its diverse literatures and this is being done through translation. Thus cultural
dialoguing through translation will facilitate nation building and preservation of cultural
diversityx .

********

i
The Journal of Specialised Translation - Issue 1- January 2004.
ii
TRA NSLATION TODA Y: A GLOBA L VIEW - Cay Dollerup, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
iii
Publishing Translation in Europe: Trends 1990 – 2005
iv
THE TRANSLATION OF TECHNICA L-SCIENTIFIC TEXTS — A BRIEF ANA LYSIS : Renata Jorge Vieira
v
Legal Translation and Translation Theory: a Receiver-oriented Approach - Susan Šarcevic, University of Rijeka,
Croatia
vi
Teaching medical translation: an easy job? - Hannelore Lee -Jahnke
vii
Basics of Medical Terminology, Lat in and Greek Origins, Textbook for 1st Year Students of Medicine, comp iled
by Laszlo Repas, December 2013.
viii
Language barriers to foreign trade: evidence fro m translation costs - Alejandro Molnar
ix
Current Trends in Translation - Bruce Maylath
x
Ro le of Translation in the 21st Century - Kirt i Kapur

Communication Through Translation

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