Is cultural distance a factor in the training of translators?

1. Is cultural distance a factor in the training of translators? Anthony Pym

2. A teaching space

3. EMT competence wheel

4. Possible activities • Pre-translation phraseology mining of parallel texts • Translating for different purposes • Translate a text into A without using the key terms • Two texts in A on the same topic: Which is the translation? Why? • Translation and revision of self-authored text • Transform translators’ notes into text, and vice versa • Comparative discourse analysis • Comparative cultural analysis • … . 

5. Then again • Highly mobile professional cultures and diasporas. • The problem is not so much the cultural differences as the maintenance of advanced L1 written communication skills. • Technical translation into Asian languages has heavy interference from English. • The prestige differential is very high. • Translation technologies between Western and Asian languages still perform poorly, although they are good between Asian languages. • The théorie du sens suggests that translation between non-cognate languages enhances deverbalization and thus can make translating easier. . 

6. Then again • Highly mobile professional cultures and diasporas. • The problem is not so much the cultural differences as the maintenance of advanced L1 written communication skills. • Technical translation into Asian languages has heavy interference from English. • The prestige differential is very high. • Translation technologies between Western and Asian languages still perform poorly, although they are good between Asian languages. • The théorie du sens suggests that translation between non-cognate languages enhances deverbalization and thus can make translating easier. . 

7. The orchestra, for all . 

8. Ye and Shi (2009) • 1. Conversion • 2. Amplification • 3. Omission • 4. Negation • 5. Division and Combination • 6. Moving components in a sentence • 7. Translating relative clauses • 8. Translating adjectival clauses • 9. Translating adverbial clauses • 10. Translating sentences with the passive voice • 11. How to translate metaphors • 12. How to handle idioms and other culture-bound expressions 

9. Separate Translation Studies? • The analytical categories are adapted from Western or Russian sources. • The same companies, and styles of company, operate in the two spheres. The localization industry spans the divide quite well. • The interest in the China Foreign Languages Publishing is in the promotion of Chinese culture abroad, and the advanced training of translators and interpreters for this, beyond MA level. • In Korea the obsession is still with winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and failures in this tend to be blamed on bad translations. • In Japan? Intercultural communication, in a sustainable future. • In Malaysia? Indonesia? They seem to be more concerned with getting more translations into their languages? 

10. The MT time trial Please translate the following text for publication in Wikipedia. Group A should translate just using Internet reference sources. Group B should feed the text through Google Translate (http://www.google.com/translate_t#) then post-edit the output. Since we are interested in how long these processes take, work at what you consider your normal pace. You will be stopped after 15 minutes. 

11. The MT time trial

12. Time-on-task analysis • Start BB Flashback or QuickTime. Select RECORD. • Translate the text into your favorite language-other-than-English, doing websearches and revising as necessary. Aim to complete the translation in about 20 minutes (we will allow you 25). • Play back your screen recording. Keep a track of how many minutes you spend on the following tasks: a) pre-draft reading and comprehending, b) in-draft documentation (web searches, dictionaries), c) translating, d) post-draft revising (not including the correction of typos as you type). Give the total number of minutes for each of these four activities.  • Upload your translation, give the percentages, and answer the questions in the assignment.

13. Time-on-task analysis • What is your translator style (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)? Do you plan first, then do the task, or do you do the task, then make changes? • Do you think your style will be different when you translate in Word?  • Did any aspect of your translating surprise you?

14. Time-on-task analysis • Somewhere between architect and bricklayer. I plan first then make little changes. I think this is because the TM already gave out pretty good result, so all I need to do was to figure out how reorganize the structure.   • Yes. I think I usually do the task first then make more changes in later stage. • Yes, I didn’t think I actually spend quite some time to do the planning!

15. Time-on-task analysis • I am a watercolorist – I spend a lot of time translating and researching but minimal time planning and revising. • It will take longer to translate [in word], just because I’ll be typing from scratch, but I think my translation/research/editing percentages will probably remain the same. • I am a boomerang translator, and I had no idea until now. To translate faster, I should use my first translation and edit it later, if necessary. I would translate, delete my translation, and then immediately retype exactly the same thing. Very inefficient!

16. Time-on-task analysis • I am an oil painter. I do minimal reading just to get an overall understanding of the text and start drafting right away. • I think the way the text was segmented in units of sentences prompted me to want to start translating sentence by sentence, whereas in Word, I would spend more time pre-reading the text in larger translation units. • I was surprised that I actually spent a higher percentage of time that I thought on post-draft editing. I was also surprised by my time-consuming way of correcting typos---retyping everything. Also, when under time pressure, it took more time to find the correct Chinese character from the pinyin input box.

17. Directionality • In pairs: one translates into A; the other into B. • Play back your performance and keep a track of time spent on pre-drafting, drafting, documentation and post-drafting revision. • Revise your partner's translation. Indicate the translation mistakes with Track Changes. • Discuss your findings with the authors of the translations. • Upload your translation and all the analytical numbers on it. • Then do the same thing, but in reverse directionality. 

18. Directionality • How does your time-on-task distribution differ according to directionality? • Did you change translator styles (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)?  • Could a TM be useful to you when translating into B? 

19. Directionality • How does your time-on-task distribution differ according to directionality? • Did you change translator styles (bricklayer, oil-painter, etc.)?  • Could a TM be useful to you when translating into B? 

20. Directionality • I spent more time on analyzing and revising the text when I am translating to my B language (English). • Percentage-wise, I am watercolorist in both cases. But more time was spent on pre-drafting when I am translating into Chinese.   • Could a TM be useful when translating into B? Very much. I’m not very familiar with the journalist writing style, so TM did help me overcome that barrier. (I think journalist text in general will have good results in TM since the data base is big.)  

21. Directionality • I spent more time on pre-draft reading and less time on in-draft documentation and post-draft revising when going into my B language.   • TM would be more useful if it’s more populated. I used memoQ for both of the translations, but my memoQ TM didn’t help much either in translating into A or B because the memory was almost empty. But I found MT very useful when going into B. The suggestions from MT supplemented the lack of word choices when going into B, especially when translating terminology, and names of people and organizations.  

22. Other classes on… • Time pressure • Revision (self vs. other) • Pre-editing vs. post-editing • Spoken vs. written translation • Translation technologies with different text types • And so on.

23. Summary • In times of change, there is no authoritative “best practice.” • We must all learn to experiment.