Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen - Volume 45, Issue 1, 1993

Have you ever had problems reading the directions for using a newly bought piece of equipment? If so, than apparently it was a translation that gave the translator difficulties.The degree of difficulty of a translation is determined by various factors, and depends not only on the knowledge the translator has of the subject matter and its specific jargon. It can also depend on the way in which the source text was delivered, e.g. without explaining figures, and equally on the technical knowledge the eventual reader possesses. The term "degree of difficulty" is therefore relative and can have a different value, dependent on the task.A further problem with technical translations for consumers is the product liability that is going to be more and more an essential part of directions for use. This article addresses the question of what can be considered a good technical translation.

Conference interpreting is a relatively recent and highly specialized branch of one of the oldest professions in human civilization. Since its inception at the Peace Conference of Versailles the profession has rapidly expanded: an ever increasing number of international and private organizations require interpreters for their meetings. Two main modes of interpreting are currently in use: consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. In consecutive interpretation speakers can talk freely for about 5 minutes and the interpreter gives a full rendering of what has been said after the speaker has finished. Simultaneous interpretation requires a technical installation comprising soundproof booths, headsets and microphones which enables interpreters to give a running interpretation. Both are complex techniques: all elements of the reception-assimilation-reproduction sequence need to be perfectly mastered. At the moment there are relatively few qualified professional conference interpreters. AIIC (Association Internationale d'Interprètes de Conférence), the only world-wide association of professional Conference interpreters, has around 2000 members in 68 countries. The Dutch language has acquired international status in the institutions of the European Community. Even today most Dutch interpreters work for the EC. Their professional outlook therefore depends on how the position of Dutch within the EC evolves.

The Dutch linguist Knuvelder once said that a writer generally succeeds in putting on paper only 90% of what he intended to write, that a reader understands only 90% of what he reads. A translator, who may be considered a privileged reader, understands therefore 81% of the original thought, translates it for 73% in order to make the new reader understand 64% of it. If we suppose that the average reader is not a privileged reader, we may assume that the reader of a translation understands more or less half of what was said in the foreign language. Partly this is due to the fact that language is culture-specific. A Dutchman will think that a Russian "dacha" is something like a second home, but is unable to make a representation of it, no more than a Russian is able to imagine what a "café" is, let alone the typically Dutch "bruin café". Like a Dutchman, a Russian will stand in line on Saturday morning in the supermarket, but unlike the Dutchman who will just have the time to read a small newspaper item before it is his turn, the Russian can buy another novel when he is half the line, because he has finished War & Peace while waiting. That poses the question: how should one translate Dacha into Dutch or second home into Russian, how should one translate "bruin café" or "stand in line"?

Translation usually is a solitary activity, but it is often taught in the classroom and not as a skill (or art) leading to a goal, a text in a target language, but as a means of helping language learners to increase their awareness of the subtleties and intricacies of a foreign language. Unfortunately, teachers are rarely sufficiently equipped to anticipate all the variants which students may come up with in a classroom situation. It may difficult to convince students that certain options are wrong, and others acceptable only in a certain context. When the translation training does not take place in the classroom, but rather in a written form, on the basis of a large number of translations sent in by students, the teacher/author can select all variants in the quiet of his study, and argue his choice carefully and with an eye for details. An added advantage is that the teacher/author will be able to distinguish between very common mistakes, between variants which occur very often, and those that are very rare. For more than a century, the Dutch magazine De Talen [the languages] has offered students (in the broadest sense of the word) the opportunity to increase their language proficiency through carefully discussed translations. Five times a year, students are offered texts in French, German, Spanish and English for translation into Dutch, and five times Dutch texts must be translated into these foreign languages. Subscribers to the magazine can send in their attempts at a translation, using a pseudonym. These translations are corrected and used as the basis for a thorough discussion of all possible variants. It does not concern a correspondence course, although the submitted translations are graded, and these grades are published under the pseudonym. It is assumed that the mother tongue of the subscribers is Dutch, although quite a number of people whose native language is not Dutch use the magazine to improve their command of Dutch. This article, by the editor of the English part of the magazine, describes in some detail the history and setup of De Talen.

We may assume that there is a relationship between the various ways in which literary texts can be interpreted, and the strategies that can be applied in their translation. Inevitably, translation strategies only pay attention to a limited number of aspects of the original text. It is, indeed, impossible to preserve all the aspects of a literary text in translation - the whole contents, the exact form, the rhythm, metaphors, puns and so on. This implies that the translator always has to choose so as to keep the features he considers most important, while giving up others.Since translation is a special kind of interpreting and reading, reading and translation strategies are bound to be interrelated. This paper deals with the influence of translating on the reading competence (and vice versa) and shows that when one is translating a text, one becomes more aware of the different ways in which it can be read and interpreted, and this, in turn, makes the translator more conscious of the choices (s)he can make. It is possible, then, to establish a 'hierarchy of priorities' in which the translator can take translation decisions more deliberately.I became aware of this influence of translating on reading attitude when I was leading a translation project at the University of Groningen, in which a group of students translated a number of poems of the Spanish poets Antonio Colinas and Julio Llamazares into Dutch. It appeared that during the classes, while we discussed the first Dutch versions of the poems, the students became gradually aware of a number of features they had not realized before, such as the intentional ambiguity of Colinas' word order, the use and significant position of certain key words, the musical qualities of the poems and the etymology of certain terms. This changing attitude brought about a number of modifications in our translations: the source texts were followed with more precision, importance was given to the preservation of various interpretations and the identification of key terms, the etymology of words was maintained wherever possible, the students tried to keep rhythm and musical effects and became sensitive to word order.This experience shows us that translation can have a useful place in the teaching of foreign languages, in that it sharpens the reading attitude, stimulates the analyzing and interpreting competences, and makes students more aware of the various choices they have when translating, and of the consequences these bring about.

The question was addressed whether it is useful to pay attention in modern language teaching to translation on a higher level than that of simple disconnected sentences. The author concludes that translation of complete texts to and from the foreign language can improve language proficiency.

This article presents some results of a survey that has been conducted by Van Dale Lexicografie amongst Dutch professional translators. In that survey the needs of professional translators for translation and writing tools have been investigated. The article gives an idea of the problems that these needs cause for a publisher of paper dictionaries and how Van Dale as a dictionary publisher feels that it should react to this, now and in the future.

What aids does the translator have at her disposal and in to what extent do these aids respond to her needs. An important part of the working time of a translator is spent looking for the right word. Definitions of words can be found in dictionaries and in terminological databases. More often than not, however, the term looked for by translator cannot be found in these tools. If the term is mentioned, the definition given often does not exactly correspond to the meaning used in the source text. And if the translator wants to know how a term is used in a certain discipline, with what other terms it can be combined, in which different meanings it is used, what its frequency is and in what situations it is used, then dictionaries and termbanks fail to come with an answer, which then can the only be found in the literature of the disciplineConsulting existing contexts or specialized literature is a time-consuming, but nevertheless necessary activity for a translator who wishes to produce terminologically correct texts.To cater for the need of context for a translator we have developed a "context bank". In this database the translator can search a large number of contexts with his own p.c.During the presentation a demonstration was given of the context bank by means of a number of translation problems. It was explained how the records in the database have been built up and how a translator can consult the database via his own p.c. without leaving his text. It was explained also what types of software and hardware can be used and how one can subscribe to the context bank.