Information Relay
A Translation Process Protocol

This essay speculates on some ideal processes for learning translation, that is, processes that the translator might find to be the most comfortable, interesting, and efficient ways of working. As a teacher of translation, I often see students scrutinizing the source text, looking everything up word by word and try to translate based on word meaning without first reading through the source text and digesting its message.

On the other hand, I have seen some bilingual people with excellent command of two languages wonder what the fuss is all about. Especially those gifted few that can do simultaneous interpreting almost without effort and can articulate the source ideas beautifully in the second language. But these are exceptional people.

Of course, we often encounter unfamiliar words or concepts in a source text. Without understanding them, it obviously is not possible to express that text in another language. Hence we must deal with two aspects of the first attempt at translating a piece of source text:

(1) understanding the meaning and

(2) expressing the meaning in the target language.

1. Understanding the Meaning of a Text

If the text is a "memorable" story, such as breaking news, a good joke, or a piece of gossip, chances are that we can remember most of it just by reading it or hearing it once. We can express the meaning (the content) of the story with little effort. Naturally, we have to go back and verify that we have not omitted anything in the source text. Our only problem here is our memory, not our understanding. And memory ability varies with age and skill in retaining ideas and facts.

If the text contains a lot of specific data - descriptions of complex processes, proper names and the like, it is unlikely that we could read a segment of the text and retain all of the information long enough to write it down without checking back to the source. But we can write down the general outline and go back and fill in the details.

The text may contain unfamiliar terms and concepts. Such texts require us to note carefully the problem terms, find appropriate equivalents in the target language, and prepare a glossary of such terms (1) for consistency in the current translation if the terms reappear and (2) for use in the future.

When still in the process of learning effective translation techniques, it is important to conduct background research on the topic(s) in the source text, find related information in both languages, and to develop a glossary. Glossaries have two main values (1) they provide appropriate equivalences in both languages and (2) they ensure that the terminology in the target language remains consistent.

2. Expressing the Meaning

We should have little difficulty expressing the meaning of the source text if (1) we understand it and (2) the concepts will be familiar to the reader of the translation. If there are wide cultural differences between the source and target languages, it may be necessary to find a way of expression that is more suitable for the target culture. For example, in translating SAI WENG SHIH MA (in Chinese 塞翁失馬, in Japanese 塞翁の馬 "Sai Weng lost his horse") into English, we will have to find a suitable expression or create something that captures the idea of the expression.

Sometimes a translator will be the first person to express a source language concept or term in the target language. This term, created by the translator, will likely become a new term in the target language. This happened on a large scale in the Qing Dynasty and early years of the Chinese Republic when many Western scholarly books were translated into Chinese and in general when Western concepts were introduced into Asian languages at that time.

3. The Process of Relaying Meaning

Danica Seleskovitch, in her book, Interpreting for International Conferences (p.9), describes the interpretation process as follows:

* auditory perception of a linguistic utterance (of the source) which carries meaning
* immediate and deliberate discarding of the wording (of the source) and retention of the mental representation of the message (concepts, ideas, etc.)
* production of a new utterance in the target language, which must meet a dual requirement: it must express the original message in its entirety and it must be geared to the recipient.

In other words, when interpreting, "hear the words, see the meaning, throw away the words, and formulate the meaning in the target language for the benefit of the recipient." It should be possible to view the translation process in much the same way as in interpreting, and to practice translation by following the process.

Of course, one can practice an exercise where both the source language and target language are the same, in which case we produce not a translation, but a paraphrase or retelling. We do this all the time when we tell jokes, stories, and gossip, although we usually add or modify things as we tell them. (This is a bit like "gearing the message to the recipient" in Seleskovitch's terms).

Exercises

The purpose of these exercises is to practice translation of meaning without allowing the words of the source text to come between our understanding and expression of its meaning in the target language. In the beginning, we try to find a source text that

* is perfectly understandable
* does not contain much detailed, "report" type information, such as statistics, lists of data, proper names and other specific information.

We will then consider texts that do not fulfill the above conditions, and strategies for dealing with them.
In the exercises, ideally we read (part of) a source text, see the meaning in our mind, and relay it in the target language. We then go back and compare source and target carefully and make the necessary adjustments for consistency, style and idiomaticity.

Exercise 1. Working with easily comprehensible, memorable material

1. Select a short text, preferably a "memorable one," such as an exciting narrative, and work preferably with only a couple of paragraphs at the outset.
2. Read the selection and "savor" its meaning.
3. Retell (in writing) the passage in the target language (or in the same language if you are paraphrasing).
4. Examine what you wrote for possible errors or omissions.
5. Check the source text again, put it aside, and fill in the gaps or corrections from memory.
6. With both source and target text open in front of you, fine tune your translation to include all the details of the source, "listen" to the translation to see that it sounds/reads well.
7. "Fresh look." Wait a few hours and then re-read your final translation to see if you want/need to make any final revisions. See Perez, Translation and Project Management in http://accurapid.com/journal/22project.htm

The amount of content that you can hold in memory will vary between individuals and your memory capacity. It is necessary to work with a piece of text that you feel comfortable with. For some, it may be a sentence. For others, it may be longer.

Exercise 2: Dealing with detailed information.

1. Before selecting the passage for translation, especially if the text is non-fiction, scan a major portion of the text that contains the passage in order to get a larger picture of the overall context.
2. Reflect and make notes on the organization of the overall content, i.e. make a brief outline, compare with the source and adjust.
3. Go to the selected passage and using the processes of Exercise 1, produce a draft translation, with blanks for the details that you will fill in by comparing the source and target texts directly (cf. step 6 in Exercise 1)
4. Compare source and target texts, read and revise your translation.
5. Do a fresh look.

Later we will deal with other problems, such as terminology, unraveling complex sentences, and the like.