by: rebecca
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Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 Time: 12:27 AM -
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This is most obvious in the various business subcultures, such as legal, financial, medical and Information Technology. Each of these areas have their own terminology, jargon, templates and cultural mores. An effective translator must know and understand these specifics in the field in which he or she is working.
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While many of these cultural and linguistic patterns are quite straightforward and can be learned, others are more subtle and require more intensive exposure. Some of the best medical and legal translators, for example, have actually worked in those fields prior to embarking in a career in translation. They are thus able to bring an invaluable, real-world context to their work.
Other fields require different kinds of knowledge in order to provide proper context. A marketing text profits from a translator who understands the purpose of marketing and can transform it across cultural and geographic borders, making sure it is equally effective in the target language.
There are many other clients who require something altogether different. These include academics, governmental and non-governmental organizations, news and other media agencies and various sorts of consultancies. In many of these businesses, context also includes knowledge of various issues and events, both current and historic. A serious translator in these fields should keep up to date, reading newspapers, journals and other current literature in his or her field of expertise.
As mentioned above, this sort of in-depth knowledge is invaluable, but it is not, however, always reflected by just looking at how many years of experience a translator might have. Is there any way then, that a client or a translation agency can judge or ascertain a translator’s level of seriousness and sophistication?
Most often translators are asked for resumes which include all the obvious: educational background, years and fields of experience and such. But they also press for such factors as daily output (how many words per day the translator can handle), accreditations and facility with various sorts of software and hardware.
It should be obvious that none of these criteria, especially the latter, have any bearing on the translator’s actual expertise. Unfortunately many of the ways a translator is judged has to do with factors that serve the bottom line rather than the quality of the product.
The most typical manner in which a client or agency attempts to gauge a translator’s competence and facility is to have then do a “sample test.” This is usually (and hopefully) a short, several paragraph test translation, again, hopefully in a relevant field. If the translator is actually trying out, as it were, for a specific project, it may even be an excerpt from that text.
I would like to suggest, assuming the client or translation agency is actually seeking quality work, that questions as to the translator’s non-translation work experience, reading habits and interests might also be surprisingly useful in sorting the wheat from the chaff.
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