Is there a bottom line in translation?

IS THERE A BOTTOM LINE DEFINITION OF CONSISTENCY IN TRANSLATION?

Could I define “translation consistency” if I had to? What do people think they mean when they say that? …What would I think I meant if I said that?

With some of the professional translation tasks I do I know that I am expected to keep my translation of this or that certain term or expression the same throughout the entire text, and that passes for translation consistency, at least to a certain extent. But I insist on elaborating, taking the discussion of the whole thing further. My latest two translation-related anecdotes from my work as a professional translator are as follows:

German to English, original: “Mit voller Akku-Ladung kann der Haar- und Bartschneider max. 45 Minuten netzunabhängig betrieben werden.”
Translation: “When the battery is fully loaded, the hair / beard trimmer can be used for a maximum of 45 minutes with no connection to the mains necessary.”
With the “with no connection to the mains necessary” bit, I put that without really thinking about it – I must have dismissed talk of “independent of the network” unconsciously!
German to English, original: “Stimmen unserer glücklichen Gewinner”

Translation: “The statements [rather than “voices” / “votes”] of our lucky winners.”

Here we see two cases where I decided to use one or more items of vocabulary in the translation where the counterpart words in question were nowhere to be found in the original, foreign language version. I merely saw it as the best way to generate / keep optimal flow and therefore consistency of the translation, so to speak – the best way to ensure a reading of it where, in the eyes of anyone, the IMMEDIATE GRASP OF IT will actually be categorically along the lines of the subject matter; even if one could view the original ideas that I was inevitably going to have (i.e. “independent of the network” in the former, “voices” in the latter) as enough to reflect the intended message and clearly (in other words, pass for satisfactory / do the job) – maybe.

Although I have never interpreted professionally before, I know that there is one key difference between translation and interpreting, and it is this: translation is the rendering of a written message from one language into another, while interpreting is the rendering of a spoken message from one language into another. I definitely, definitely know that people have specifically said that on the ProZ forums at least once. On the basis of this, I readily suggest that written translation is viewed as more definitive than spoken translation. For written material tends to be regarded as the final output product of discussion or thinking about something, following the consideration of many facts, considerations and viewpoints, all concluded and compacted into one. Prepared written material is more common than staged conversation, isn’t it? I find that it is usually the case that, when you look at / start to read a piece of written material, you can usually see where the end of it is in a matter of seconds, and you make the decision of whether or not you want to read the whole thing in a very short time frame if that’s feasible; if you do decide to do that you usually want to do it all one go, and you are very likely to get irritated at anything which disrupts you from it. Spoken fare, however, is far more abstract, often with no hard and fast rules about the conditions under which it all stops, and I think we would all agree that the ongoing exchange of opinions / discussion happens most in conversation, where the option of getting back to something later is often non-existent (or at least considered as such). Also, if you ask me, people are more likely to see images relevant to the matter under discussion in written fare compared to spoken fare (compare Facebook chat to talking at the dinner table, for example). Hence people are more sensitive to “consistency” in written material than they are to “consistency” in anything spoken, like general conversation. They may never have described or even considered the reason(s) behind it for themselves, but that’s precisely what I’m endeavouring to do here: to me, it is generally universally accepted that a written document is better at helping people to see eye-to-eye about something than spoken fare is. And why not, when people don’t expect the kind of interruptions in written fare that might occur with spoken fare like conversation?

The best example of non-consistency in communication I can think of, is this conversation between Jade and Spencer on Big Brother (by the way, for the record, I’ve never watched that show myself; I’ve merely enjoyed reading this book of things people actually said in reality TV shows). I call it this because it’s as if they both specifically refuse to stick to any point in particular (Jade especially, but then she in particular was notorious for being less than bright before she died). It goes like this:

Spencer: You know you see those people in Venice standing on the back of gondolas, pushing it around?
Jade: They don’t do that on the Thames though, do they?
Spencer: No, I don’t work on the Thames. I work in Cambridge.
Jade: Is there not the Thames there?
Spencer: No!
Jade: Is there a river called the Cambridge river?
Spencer: Yeah, it’s called the Cam.
Jade: Really? You swear? I only thought there was the Thames. I thought that was the main one in London.
Spencer: It is. I don’t live in London.
Jade: I’m confused. I thought Cambridge was in London. I knew Birmingham weren’t in London.
Spencer: Would you like to go and tell the group what you just said?
Jade: No…
Spencer: Cambridge is a city.
Jade: But we’ve got a city in London.
Spencer: Yes. This city is called London. And there’s different parts of it. Cambridge is a city.
Jade: Of where? Kent? Well England’s a country, London’s a city, Bermondsey’s just a throw-off. Now where are you? What’s your country, and what’s your things?
Spencer: What country am I from? England. The city is called Cambridge, the county Cambridgeshire.
Jade: So not Kent then?
Spencer: No. The region is called East Anglia.
Jade: Where’s East Angular, though? I thought that was abroad.
Spencer: Jade, have you been taking the stupid pills again?
Jade: Every time people tell me they work in East Angular, I actually think they’re talking about near Tunisia and places like that. Am I thick?
Spencer: Well, I hate to say it, but you are.
Jade: ‘Cause Scottish and Irish and all that comes under England, doesn’t it?
Spencer: No. They come under Great Britain. Scotland and Wales have their own flags. Ireland and Northern Ireland are different.
Jade: So they’re not together? Where’s Berlin?
Spencer: Germany…

When Jade says, “What’s your things?”: it’s hard to get any more vague or inconsistent in communication matters than that. However, as far as I’m concerned, she could only have been basically meaning to ask one of two things: “What you trying to say?” or “What are you all about?” But what you can say when it was so haphazardly and ambiguously put that not even she really cared about what she was saying (judging by what she started talking about soon after)?