WILL IT EVER BE AGREED BY THE MASSES THAT PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATORS ARE EXPECTED TO BE VIRTUAL MIND-READERS?
I am a self-employed professional translator (as if it were necessary to state that). If I won’t convince people that I am one worth the name, then who will? That’s right, no-one. That said…
I can’t help thinking that anyone who would decide to write an article which was little more than a list of ways in which translation can go wrong – for translation is not just replacing words with words, but I think we all agree that we live in an age where more or less everyone soon becomes aware of that – would soon agree that it’s hard to be sufficiently coherent and articulate about each one, even if they had some convenient examples to hand. I must admit that even I sometimes feel the need to ask someone for whom I am doing a translation job exactly how they feel about what is my best educated guess of my translation of something, or maybe it’s “Do you feel that this phrase is clear enough and suggests what should be suggested (and only what should be suggested)?” But, if only for the sake of reinforcing the idea in the previous paragraph, I have often shown an ability to be inventive with phrasing which is enough to resemble the intended message in the original. I have often come up with wording in the writing of translation products which I was confident would not be misleading even if it didn’t include certain expected terminology. But sometimes… it’s just not enough.
It’s often the case that, when I start work translating a new sentence, I allow my mind to wander, allow for whatever indefinite images may occur in my mind as I read the words – but not without being ever ready to look beyond the apparitions, the hallucinations. The very fact that it’s by no means rare for words to have more than one meaning, should be reason enough; and that’s just one argument in support of this practice. Outside of plain academically oriented arguments, one could mention the use of carefully selected language for manipulative purposes. You see, context is hardly a simplistic subject, especially when you’re in no position to judge the facts for yourself; all you can do is have simple faith in the (supposed) truth of what you’re reading while exercising common sense with regard to your own expression at all times. Indeed, a statement or idea doesn’t have to make sense to impact people in the real world – probably in a negative way. Here’s an example (contains swearing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo6ujFYWat0
They say a picture tells a thousand words… in a way, good translation / the pre-requisites for it is enough for clarification of notions where it simply cannot be managed by any picture (at least to a certain extent). Even for someone like me, translation / techniques for doing it with confidence / how translation should really be done is such a broad subject that I dread to think how long it would take me to cover everything I could conceive of in connection with it. But I believe that the contents of the official translation quality standard DIN EN ISO 17100:2015 (available on the ISO website) are capable of providing at least some enlightenment in this regard.