Community Translation 9781474221658, 9781474221641, 9781474221689, 9781474221672

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Community Translation

BLOOMSBURY ADVANCES IN TRANSLATION SERIES Series Editor: Jeremy Munday, Centre for Translation Studies, University of Leeds, UK Bloomsbury Advances in Translation Studies publishes cutting-edge research in the fields of translation studies. This field has grown in importance in the modern, globalized world, with international translation between languages a daily occurrence. Research into the practices, processes and theory of translation is essential and this series aims to showcase the best in international academic and professional output.

OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES: Corpus-Based Translation Studies, Edited by Alet Kruger, Kim Wallmach and Jeremy Munday Global Trends in Translator and Interpreter Training, Edited by Séverine Hubscher-Davidson and Michał Borodo Music, Text and Translation, Edited by Helen Julia Minors Quality in Professional Translation, Joanna Drugan Retranslation, Sharon Deane-Cox The Pragmatic Translator, Massimiliano Morini Translation, Adaptation and Transformation, Edited by Laurence Raw Translation and Translation Studies in the Japanese Context, Edited by Nana Sato-Rossberg and Judy Wakabayashi Translation as Cognitive Activity, Fabio Alves and Amparo Hurtado Albir Translating for Singing, Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter Translation, Humour and Literature, Edited by Delia Chiaro Translation, Humour and the Media, Edited by Delia Chiaro Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust, Jean Boase-Beier

Community Translation MUSTAPHA TAIBI AND ULDIS OZOLINS Bloomsbury Advances in Translation

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Mustapha Taibi and Uldis Ozolins, 2016 Mustapha Taibi and Uldis Ozolins have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-2165-8 PB: 978-1-4742-2164-1 ePDF: 978-1-4742-2167-2 ePub: 978-1-4742-2166-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Bloomsbury Advances in Translation Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

To Jabir To Kallena Kucers

Contents List of Figures  viii Acknowledgements  ix

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8



Introduction  1 Community translation: Definitions, characteristics and status quo  7 Sociocultural issues in community translation  29 Approaches to (community) translation  53 Translating official documents  77 Translating for temporary communities  95 Quality assurance and translation assessment  107 Translation revision  127 Community translation resources  149 Concluding remarks  165

Bibliography  169 Index of Authors  181 Index of Subjects  185

List of Figures Figure 0.1 Typical community translation context

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Figure 2.1  Cultural transfer in translation vs double cultural transfer in community translation

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Figure 3.1  Overarching mission and other factors influencing community translation

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Figure 4.1  European Commission (2014) Memo: Public Documents: European Parliament backs Commission proposal to slash red tape in the Member States.

88

Acknowledgements W

e would like to thank our colleagues Eva Melhem, Chris Quan, Leong Ko and Richard Yu for their assistance with resources for the last chapter of this book. Our thanks also go to Sedat Mulayim for textual examples from the field. We similarly appreciate Maroua Bounfaat’s help with the figures. A final word of appreciation goes to Gurdeep Mattu and Andrew Wardell (Bloomsbury) and to Prof. Jeremy Munday, the series editor, for their encouragement, understanding and suggestions.

Introduction

C

ommunity translation both as a practice and as a field of investigation is a relatively new addition to the spectrum of translation studies, and as the first substantial published book on this topic, this publication is as much an exploration as a definitive study of the genre. The field of community translation, as fixed in this book, covers translation not for readers in different countries and cultures to that of the original text, but translations made largely for readers within a country or region. These translations are necessitated above all by the post-World War II phenomenon of massive population shifts as a result of immigration, either peaceful or forced, as well as other movements of people with different languages – such as temporary visitors – or changes in the status of indigenous languages in some countries. Information needs for these various target readerships are paramount – whether for the stream of multilingual visitors visiting a place of pilgrimage, or information on health or other aspects of the institutional system of a country for immigrants or the indigenous population. Yet while primarily a means of conveying host society information to minorities, the translation of such material is often far from straightforward. ‘Community translation’ as a genre is still finding its niche in translation studies, but it is related to the somewhat better known and better established practice of community interpreting. Significantly however, while the kind of interpreting known as community interpreting – or its various descriptions as liaison, dialogue or public service interpreting – is by far the most prevalent form of interpreting in the world, and is an increasingly professionalized area of activity, community translation is dwarfed by the market for technical, business, governmental and literary translation. Community translation is a niche activity, but one that is growing in importance, particularly in the context of increasing immigration and the exponentially increasing need for translation often in languages not of wide diffusion. However, while the radical linguistic diversity is apparent in community translation as it is in community interpreting, a great deal of community

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translation is also needed in widely diffused languages – in English, in Chinese in its varieties, in Arabic or Spanish or French. Very often for these languages there will be trained practitioners, who may also work seamlessly from community translation to international translation needs. When dealing with languages of limited diffusion and little translation training for practitioners, such as is the case for minor African or smaller Asian languages, then significant issues of professionalism and translation project management arise, which we address in detail. Some of the issues raised in relation to less widely diffused languages may make it tempting to put translation into these languages into the too-hard basket. Yet a useful counter to such a view is provided by Wallmach and Kruger, who, commenting on translation needs in African indigenous languages, question the oft-perceived gap between translation – in this case – of African indigenous languages and translation between European languages: If one views translation as a mirror image of the original, then it is true that this exactness cannot be achieved in the African languages – but the same goes for European languages. Linguistic and cultural differences between languages make it necessary to broaden the notion of translation to a more functional approach which includes adaptation and reformulation. (Wallmach and Kruger 1999: 276) Outside the strictly technical or literary sphere of translation between major world languages, we would argue that indeed all pragmatic translation must strive to present information, persuasion or warnings about many aspects of life that are not immediately familiar to readers. This is particularly the case where the texts to be translated relate to the social, administrative, institutional and cultural areas of life. Social security systems may not exist in some countries; healthcare is organized differently across the globe; legal regimes and legal roles differ widely; education is (more or less) universal but differs radically in organization and processes, and moreover, many who may be required to translate educational material from a host society have never themselves gone through that society’s educational system, which challenges their understanding. Adaptation and reformulation, and the quality assurance processes that must attend this endeavour, will emerge as major themes in this book. One other unique feature of the community translation environment is the already mentioned perspective that community translation, rather than translation for an international audience, is translation largely for the residents of the country from which the source text originates: those residents without command of the dominant language. This demands a particular alertness on

Introduction

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the part of community translators to the characteristics of this readership: depending on how long the particular readership has resided in the host society, they too are inevitably shaped by the culture, institutions and languages of that host society. Often imperceptibly to the residents themselves, their cultural orientations and even their languages diverge over time from those in their former homeland, in the cases of immigrants. Indigenous populations have often also been heavily influenced by the larger majority society. The relation of the community translator to this readership is then a complex one, for they are not translating between two distinct languages and cultures, but between a host language/culture and a language/culture of immigrants or the indigenous that over time has been strongly influenced by the host society itself. This can be diagrammatically represented as follows:

Sociocultural Context of Text L1 – Host Society

Text L1

Text L2

Sociocultural Context of Text L2

FIGURE 0.1  Typical community translation context (Adapted from Di Biase

1987: 57)

Here, the text (L1) to be translated is a product of the host society, and it needs to be translated into the language of text L2. Yet text L2’s culture with its customs, language and stocks of knowledge is not separate from the culture of L1, but depending on length of residence and other factors is already influenced by it; a translation into L2 for this readership may differ, perhaps, from a translation of a similar text that is intended for residents of L2’s former homeland. Boundaries between cultures L1 and L2 are porous (marked by a dotted line). This particular characteristic of community translation marks the beginning of a theoretical and practical journey in determining the parameters of community translation, and this focus on the eventual readership of translations signals another major theme in this publication. *

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The chapters of the book seek to systematically set out not only our analysis of the current state of community translation, but also provide some recommendations for translation pedagogy in community translation (increasingly, if patchily, addressed even now in mainstream translation education courses) and for the organization of language services, which are still too often haphazard or poorly resourced. Chapter 1 deals with issues of definition, which are likely to bedevil the field into the future. The field has been characterized in different ways – as community translation, or public service translation – but also includes a much older area of translation that precedes post-war mass people movements: the translation of official documents (identity, education, employment, status of different kinds) covered in more detail in Chapter 4. However, the term ‘community translation’ is not without its ambiguities, and recently has also been used in quite different ways, to characterize the very contemporary phenomenon of voluntary or crowdsourced translation. The notion of ‘community’ (incidentally a notion often difficult to translate simply into many languages) is of course very plastic, and the chapter treads carefully between the definitional tangles, settling on community translation as perhaps, in Churchill’s words, the worst definition of the genre apart from all the others. Chapter 2 tackles the issues of culture and the question of how sociocultural factors of immigration, foreignness or indigeneity, and their place in the host society, influence and challenge the translation process. At the heart is the issue of how a particular minority culture in a host society requires translation needs to be satisfied while that minority culture itself is often slowly acculturating to the host society, linguistically, socially and behaviourally. Chapter 3 on approaches to (community) translation examines some of the major debates in translation theory to find a basis for theorizing community translation: it looks at how issues of truth, understanding and trust have contributed to theories of translation, arguing that reader-oriented functionalist approaches offer the best guidance for proceeding in this area. The chapter goes on to look at the nuts and bolts of going about community translation, but while many features of community translation are indeed universalizable to any translation undertaking, the particularities of the community translation context, the nature of its texts and the position and status of its translators provide distinct challenges and the necessity to closely monitor practice. Many texts for community translation were never written with the intended audience of such translations in mind, and often contain extensive assumptions of institutional, legal or social practices which, if left unexplained, may lead to incomprehension on the part of the target readership. Principles of adaptation and reformulation – and their limits – are outlined, with examples from actual translation practice.

Introduction

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Successful community translation depends crucially on the translator identifying skopos, text type and the characteristics of their readership, but translators will always be faced with the ethical/ideological dilemma of whose perspective to take to determine the text function – is it source text authors, commissioners or target text users whose needs are paramount and to whom loyalty must be given? While the issue of loyalty has long been debated in regard to literary translation, this chapter breaks relatively new ground in raising questions of loyalty of the translator embedded in local communication issues, and by addressing the active relation between translators and authoring institutions (and intermediary agencies), as a critical but little-researched factor. Chapter 4 examines the translation of official documents, which, as indicated already, often has a longer history than that of translating information for the community. The high stakes translation of personal documents related to status, identity and achievements is usually carefully controlled by requirements of having authorized translations for legitimation and official purposes. Significantly, while much of community translation is translation from the host languages into minority languages, in the translation of official documents a large part may be translation of documents in other languages into the host country’s official language. In languages of limited diffusion, where few of the host society command a particular minority language, this often means that the only available translators are those whose mother tongue/stronger language is the minority language, and the oft-cited proposition that one should translate only into one’s mother tongue cannot hold. The chapter looks at the increasing awareness of host institutions of the requirement to have a reliable translation process for these needs, and describes attempts such as templating or extract translation to bring order and/or efficiency to a still often complex practice. Chapter 5 on translation for temporary communities looks at translation requirements for often fluctuating multilingual populations such as temporary refugees, temporary foreign workers, or participants at international sporting events or pilgrimages. This area has often been characterized by the use of truly volunteer translators (and interpreters), or various stopgap practices by sporting or religious bodies. Needs in this area have driven the increasing international use of symbols, particularly at major hubs such as airports or religious/cultural sites and stadiums, but translation needs of information remain beyond the basic orientation where symbols can be of assistance. Chapter 6 on quality issues poses the issue of how to guarantee quality in a field where there may not be the educational and infrastructure prerequisites that are enjoyed in the (relatively few) mainstream languages of international communication. Closely allied to this is the concern that while academic approaches to translation quality somewhat unhelpfully refer to how to

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assess quality after a translation is done, those who pay for translations and those providing language services (not only in community translation but in any translation context) need assurance of quality before the translation is undertaken. While community translation as an area sees increased professionalization, very often translations in many languages of limited diffusion will need to be undertaken by practitioners without training in translation, placing greater demands on translation project management and requiring careful attention to resources and the translation process. Chapter 7 on revision deals with this vital element in the quality chain, in a community translation context in which the reviser needs to be absolutely reader-focused and alert to a range of issues, from skopos to readability and understandability of the translated text. The peculiarities of revision in community translation often revolve around the potential input of anyone in the target community, with whatever level of language or translational expertise, to comment on the translated text, at times beyond the control of the translation project management regime. And while training of translators for community translation is itself often limited, attention to revision is even more limited. The chapter follows on from the previous chapter in recommending possible strategies to ensure quality at each stage of the translation process. We finally provide a short section on Resources, identifying some useful links and literature in a community translation field still under-published and under-discussed.

1 Community translation: Definitions, characteristics and status quo

1.1 Definitions

N

iska (2002: 135) defines community translation as ‘written translation of mainly informative texts, addressed by authorities or institutions to people who do not understand texts in the language of the text producer’. Taibi (2011) clarifies that the materials handled by community translators are not only informative, nor always produced by public institutions. Rather, they may be produced by a number of different social agents such as non-governmental organizations, local or ethnic community leaders, private organizations with an interest in community welfare and development, and so on. For the author, community translation is the translation of: texts generated by the larger community (society) or by smaller communities (linguistic or ethnic communities within the larger society, local communities, religious groups, etc.) in order to ensure communication with all citizens [and residents] and permit their participation and, therefore, empowerment. (Taibi 2011: 214–15) In the call for papers of the International Conference on Community Translation, held at the University of Western Sydney from 11 to 13 September 2014, this type of translation was defined as: translation of different types of texts intended to facilitate communication between public services and people who do not have a good command of mainstream language(s). These texts may be produced by national or local

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authorities, non-governmental organisations, ethnic community organisations or leaders, neighbourhood associations, or any other social agent. Like community interpreting, community translation is a service offered at a national or local level to ensure that the members of multilingual societies have access to information and active participation. Like community interpreting too, community translation is still emerging as a subfield of translation studies. An indicator of this early stage of development is the different names used to refer to it and the quite distant concepts associated with the same term. Community interpreting has been known as liaison interpreting, public service interpreting, dialogue interpreting, cultural interpreting or interlingual mediation. Community translation is also known as public service translation, and each of the two terms is given different meanings by different authors and groups. Community translation, as in the definitions above, is understood as translation for the community, preferably done by qualified translators. However, there are others who use the term to refer to translation by the community for the community, that is to say members of a community of interest translating content for each other’s use; in O’Hagan’s (2011: 14) words, ‘translation performed voluntarily by Internet users and […] usually produced in some form of collaboration often on specific platforms by a group of people forming an online community’. Public service translation is also used in at least two different senses: 1) as equivalent to community translation in the sense of translation for the community, which is the sense given to it in this book; and 2) in the sense of translation relating to foreign affairs and administrative, economic and cultural relations between different countries (between ex-colonies and colonial powers; in Bandia 1998). For the sake of conceptual clarity, we now propose to enumerate and comment upon various definitions and references regarding community translation to be found in the scholarly literature. Gouadec (2007: 35) provides a general definition which is close to the definition and scope adopted in this book, except that Gouadec includes interpreting as well: Community translation encompasses all translating (and interpreting) carried out to facilitate inter-community relations within a given country where diverse linguistic (and cultural) communities cohabit. With this definition the author acknowledges the common ground between community translation and community interpreting, namely the fact that they are offered locally or nationally to facilitate communication and relations between linguistically and culturally diverse components of the same society.



Community translation

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Gouadec (2007: 38) also defines ‘institutional translation’, which, although involving public services, is quite distinct from community translation. Institutional translation, according to Gouadec, is ‘any translation carried out in the name, on behalf of and for the benefit of institutions’, as is the case in bilingual or multilingual states and organizations such as the United Nations, European institutions, NATO or national ministries (Gouadec 2007: 38). Although translations produced by or for national institutions may overlap with community translation (e.g. general information published in different languages by ministries and government agencies), institutional translation, as defined above, clearly differs from community translation and therefore falls outside the scope of this book. Reference to interpreting apart, Gouadec’s (2007) first definition (community translation) offers a succinct description of what this subfield of translation consists of. However, the use of the term ‘community’ is not unproblematic. As Pym (2011: 77) points out: The problem with the reference to ‘community’ is that all translating and interpreting involves communities of one kind or another […] so there is no substantial specificity indicated. Further, the interactions are hardly from within any pristine language community as such: they involve the provision or intrusion of government services, and thus encounters between communities. For more specificity and clarity, Pym recommends the use of setting labels or institutional terms such as ‘medical’ or ‘court’. It is true that all types of translation and interpreting involve working within, for and between communities, in different senses of the term. However, the challenge in naming what is referred to as ‘community translation’ or ‘public service translation’ is that work in this area does not include only one or two institutional settings. Community translation involves translation in fields as distinct as healthcare, education, welfare, municipal governance, the environment, and so on. It would therefore be impossible to use specific setting labels or institutional terms without limiting the scope or distorting the essence of community translation, namely that it is translation intended to ensure communication with all citizens and residents and empower minority language speakers by giving them access to information and enabling them to participate in society. Community translation is not exactly the same as medical, scientific, legal or administrative translation. It may intersect with all these, but still not be identical to them. Pym (2011: 78) also refers to the quite different senses in which the term ‘community translation’ is used by different groups of researchers and practitioners, in particular the sense in which it is used by authors such as O’Hagan (2011) above and the definition provided and adopted in this book:

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Community translation: Term used for the practice whereby non-professionals translate software or websites that they actually use (cf. collaborative translation, crowd-sourcing, fan translation, user-based translation, lay translation, citizen translation, etc.). The problem here is that the term can also (in the United Kingdom and Australia, at least) refer to the use of written translation in the areas of ‘community interpreting’, which has so far been quite a different sphere. As a solution to distinguish the two activities, Pym recommends using ‘volunteer translation’ to refer to O’Hagan’s (2011) sense of ‘community translation’. We believe that this suggestion is appropriate and useful. Alternative names may (and do) include ‘translation crowdsourcing’, ‘user-generated translation’ or ‘collaborative translation’. Garcia (2014) distinguishes between ‘conventional community translation’, as presented in this book, and what he refers to as ‘community translation 2.0’, which denotes crowdsourced or volunteer translation on the Internet: Conventional community translation is there to help linguistically disadvantaged minorities gain access to services, and enable them to participate in society on equal footing with prestige-language speakers. Community translation 2.0 is about bypassing the traditional gatekeepers so that everyone can have a public voice. Thus, while their external circumstances are different, both share a core ethos of individual empowerment and social inclusion. With the above different definitions and views in mind, we would like to conclude this section with a general definition and description of community translation as understood and presented in this book. Within translation studies, community translation is a subfield that covers written language services needed in a variety of situations to facilitate communication between public services and readers of non-mainstream languages. It is a type of translation that is generally associated with a local or national multilingual community, although authors like Lesch (1999: 92) contend that ‘the term community does not refer to a specific geographical community but rather to a type of translational approach whereby the needs of the language-impoverished community, irrespective of its geographical setting, are addressed’ (italics in source). Situations which require community translation may include historically multilingual societies as well as emerging or temporary diversities arising from migration, natural disasters or armed conflicts. What is common in all these situations is that there is a mainstream community (and language), one or several linguistic and cultural minorities, and a resultant need for



Community translation

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mainstream public services to communicate in writing with those minorities and vice versa. Community translation is a language service that ensures the rights of all individuals and communities to public information and services. By so doing, it facilitates and encourages social, economic and political participation. It is a professional activity which is closely related to community engagement, social action and social change.

1.2  Features of community translation From the definitions provided by Niska (2002), Gouadec (2007) and Taibi (2011), it becomes clear that community translation is a branch of translation which is characterized, arguably more than any other type of translation, by its social mission. Like community interpreting, it bridges the communicative gap between public services and those citizens or residents who do not speak the mainstream language, and thereby improves relations and cohabitation between different social groups; facilitates information flow between mainstream/established community members and less powerful, minority or newcomer members; and provides opportunities for the latter to improve their socio-economic position and participate more effectively in their (new) community. In this section, we will address three main features of community translation: power imbalance, language (im)parity and audience diversity.

1.2.1  Translation and power imbalance In community interpreting it has become established that communicative situations are usually characterized by a power imbalance between service providers and users (e.g. Gentile et al. 1996; Hale 2007). Community interpreters usually work in triadic (dialogue) situations where there is, on one hand, a service provider invested with institutional power and access to information and, on the other, a member of a linguistic, social and/or ethnic minority who is both relatively powerless in the institutional setting and disadvantaged as a result of the language barrier. The interpreter (and the user) needs to deal with ‘an information gap’ and a ‘status differential between the clients’ (Gentile et al. 1996: 18), together with the resulting asymmetries in participation rights and discourse privileges/disadvantages. In community translation, there is no direct (dialogical) interaction between service provider and user and no strictly interpersonal relation which could be labelled as asymmetrical. Yet, the entire translation process is imbued with power imbalance at a number of levels. At the first level, community translation services are usually offered to disempowered social groups (local ethnic and/or linguistic minorities, local

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majorities with less socio-economic and political power, migrants, refugees, and so on). This means that public service text production is mainly carried out in a language other than the languages of those groups, and the extent to which public service texts are made available in the other languages is itself a political decision in the hands of the most powerful group(s), except when individuals, organizations and groups representing less powerful communities take the initiative and decide to produce materials or have them translated. In a number of African countries, for instance, public service texts are made available in English or French – languages of former colonizers and current elites who have had a French or English education – while local languages are either not sufficiently recognized in the administrative system or treated as target languages when a decision is made to translate into them. (See Djité 2008 for an interesting discussion of language policies in Africa, especially in relation to health and education.) At the second level, as a result of different historical developments and sociopolitical relations, disempowered social groups would usually score lower in terms of human development indicators such as education, literacy and, therefore, access to written information. For example, decades of apartheid and disempowerment of non-whites in South Africa led to a wide gap between them and the dominant group in terms of education, healthcare and social services. Lesch (2004) provides statistics showing that the majority of South Africans with qualifications were white, while most uneducated citizens were black. Servaas van der Berg (2007: 851) refers to census data which shows that ‘[t]he black cohort born in 1920 had on average attained 7.2 fewer years of education than whites, the 1950 cohort 6.0 years less, the 1960 cohort 4.9 years less, the 1970 cohort 3.6 and the 1980 cohort only 2.3 years less’. The author points out that racial inequalities in terms of educational access and attainment have ‘been substantially reduced’, but that in terms of quality a gap still persists, hence the title of his paper, ‘Apartheid’s Enduring Legacy: Inequalities in Education’. The point here is that both the current political and socio-economic situation of a community as well as the underlying historical developments may produce inequalities in education and literacy, which manifest in turn as less access to information for some groups than for others. This would apply regardless of whether members of disadvantaged groups continue to live in their home country or migrate to another and, in many cases, independently of whether the information is translated into their mother tongues or provided in its original language. At the third level, community texts are often public service in nature, with official discourse, specialized terminology and a relatively high register. At a discourse level, users of community translations are normally less powerful than the text producer (public institutions) because of the gap in specialized knowledge and access to specialized terminology. At the same time, they are on



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an unequal footing with other social groups, not only because they do not speak (the) mainstream language(s) but also because of educational gaps (as pointed out in the paragraph above) or language imparity (see the section below). As will be discussed in Chapter 3, this multidimensional imbalance poses a number of questions relating to the community translator’s role and translation approach. For some authors, community translators working in contexts characterized by power asymmetries need to go beyond accurate and stylistically equivalent reproduction of texts. Lesch (1999: 93), for instance, clearly states the following: Community translation is a means to an end, namely to equip the community with the necessary information and other means to develop skills for themselves. It is an attempt to balance the power relationship between the sender and the receiver by prioritizing the needs of the community. Effective, empowering communication between the author and the reader via the translated text implies that the translator needs to be on the side of the powerless, that is the reader. The mere act of translating in the community translation context contributes to redressing asymmetries between those who have access to written information and those who do not. However, this is only the most basic level of balancing power relationships: further levels would require translators to focus on the needs of powerless communities, position themselves on the side of these communities (in the translation process) and aim to empower them through information and skill development.

1.2.2  Translation and language (im)parity As has been pointed out above, community translation is a service that is normally required in multilingual and multicultural societies where disempowered groups such as migrants, refugees or local ethnic minorities do not have access to texts written in the mainstream language(s). In such contexts it is often the case that the difference between the mainstream audience and the users of community translations is not only linguistic, but also socioeconomic, cultural and educational. Because not all societies have developed in the same pattern and at the same pace, not all community languages have evolved in the same fashion or to the same extent. As Campbell (2005: 32) points out, there may be a gap between one community and another and, therefore, between their respective languages, in terms of terminology and availability of certain text types, which makes it difficult to speak of language parity between the

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two communities and languages. Campbell refers to the case of Laos, a country which lags behind not only in relation to English-speaking countries like Australia but also in comparison with neighbouring Asian states such as Thailand and Singapore. The country’s underdeveloped economy, infrastructures and institutions have an impact on the Lao language and on the linguistic resources available to translators. ‘The Lao language professional knows that the chance of Lao catching up with the institutions of English-language publishing, language teaching, lexicography and information technology is as slim as Laos winning an Olympic medal in skiing’ (Campbell 2005: 34). Campbell’s verdict might be too harsh, as the rise and fall of empires has sometimes taken unpredictable courses, but the point is that in the current state of affairs there is a major gap between developed and underdeveloped countries and languages, and what is lived and expressed on one side might not be expressible on the other: ‘Lao translators have to imagine what those foreigners are doing and then find Lao words that pretend to describe things that are not yet done in Laos’ (Campbell 2005: 35). Snell-Hornby (1995) makes a similar observation, using Tamil and Swahili as examples of underdeveloped languages: ‘while a report on atomic reactors is fully translatable among languages of societies that participate in modern technology, it is far less so if the envisaged target language is Tamil or Swahili’ (Snell-Hornby 1995 [1988]: 42). Gawn (1988) goes further to recognize that the same translation problem exists between well-developed languages, in his case English and French. Writing with regard to Canada, where French is an official but minority language, the author discusses the factors that negatively impact the quality and authenticity of translations from English into French. He points out that translations are produced with limited access to resources and subject experts, in a context where the topics covered may not have established terminology in the target language, the institutions referred to may not have a parallel in the target culture or the technological and conceptual advances discussed may not be as developed in French as they are in English (Gawn 1988: 457). Gawn concludes with a ‘law’ stating that ‘the possibility of a successful translation is proportional to the parallelism of the two cultures involved’. The three authors above refer to scientific and/or technical language when discussing language imparity. However, language asymmetry is by no means limited to these fields of discourse. As any community translator working with a minority language would know, lexical gaps and translation challenges are often faced in a number of administrative, political, social, educational, environmental and other areas. Concepts taken for granted in developed countries (e.g. recycling, civic rights, social security, municipal councils, further education, etc.) can pose comprehension difficulties for some community groups and attendant translation challenges for their community translators



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(see Chapter 3 for a discussion of translation challenges and strategies). This is related to general cultural differences between one community and another (see Chapter 2), but more particularly is a result of asymmetrical socioeconomic development in different local communities (as is the case when a country has marginalized ethnic or social groups) or different countries (as is often the case when migrants and refugees from underdeveloped countries resettle in developed host countries).

1.2.3  Diversity of readership Language variation is one of the challenges that face those who perform or commission community translations. For a number of reasons, including migration from different parts of the world, what is intuitively identified as the same language community Page  15:   presents sociolinguistic variations that complicate   the process of making information available to all members. Community ‘‫ﻋﺎﺋﻠﻲ‬ ‫’ﺗﺠﻤﻊ‬ translators working with Arabic in the UK, the USA or Australia, for instance, would use Modern Standard Arabic to make sure all Arabic readers understand their translations. However, even within the standard variety of Arabic [tajammuʻ ʻāilī] there are regionalPage   variations. 15:   For instance, translating a key concept such as ‘family reunion’ in   an immigration leaflet or webpage, a North African trans‫[ ’’ﺗﺠﻤﻊ‬tajammuʻ ʻāilī ], while another from the Middle lator would use ‘‫ﻋﺎﺋﻠﻲ‬ ‘ East would use ‘‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﻞ‬ ‘ ‫[ ’’ﻟﻢ‬lamm aš-šaml ]. The same applies to Spanish: the use of Peninsular or South American varieties of the language may result in [tajammuʻ ʻāilī] comprehension issues and sociolinguistic sensitivities. For this reason, many [lamm would aš-šaml] community translators usually opt for the language variety associated with the majority component(s) of the linguistic community (e.g. Moroccan in Spain or Lebanese ‘‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﻞ‬in‫’ﻟﻢ‬Australia). Others may choose to use a more neutral variety of the community Page 49:(written) language, as free as possible from regional variation and sociopolitical sensitivities. [lamm aš-šaml] Swahili is perhaps less known in this context, so the following paragraphs focus in more detail on when this language is used as a community language ‘‫ ’ﻋﻘﺐ‬used to translate public resources for speakers of (i.e. a minority language that language). Writing from the Australian context, Burke (2014) asserts that Page 49: language variation within the Swahili-speaking community is a challenge for translation. Members of after] the Swahili-speaking community in Australia come [ʻaqiba: from different multi-ethnic and multilingual communities in Central and East ‘‫ ’ﻋﻘﺐ‬Republic of Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya). Not Africa (e.g. Democratic only the communities of origin are multilingual, but individuals as well. ‘The ‘‫ ’ﺇإﻳﯾﻼﺝج‬of many individuals’, Burke (2014) explains, ‘can lead resultant multilingualism to the use of different languages in specific domains as well as variability in [ʻaqiba: after] fluency and proficiency.’

[īlāj: insertion] ‘‫’ﺇإﻳﯾﻼﺝج‬

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Swahili is used as a lingua franca across tribal communities and national borders and, therefore, presents variations at different levels ‘according to the geography and the language policy of relevant African countries’ (Burke 2014). As a lingua franca, Swahili has developed in a way that reflects the imprint of the people and languages that came into contact in the region where Swahili is spoken. The lexicon of the language has assimilated a large number of items from Arabic (Petzell 2005) as well as from Persian, Portuguese, German and English (Burke 2014). In addition to using established loan words, Swahili speakers (and, in our case, writers) may switch codes and use resources from different languages in the same communicative event. As Burke (2014) asserts, code-switching is common in documents written by the community members themselves (e.g. personal letters, refugee statements, and so on). These documents may be written in Standard Swahili but at the same time contain Congolese Swahili, together with words and expressions in French, English, Kirundi, Kinyrwanda or other languages and dialects. This presents challenges for translators when such documents are needed as part of an official process (e.g. application for refugee status). For resources translated from English into Swahili, Burke suggests that Standard Swahili is probably the most appropriate language variety for community translation given its neutral status and the fact that it serves ‘as a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication as used in mass media, education and government in relevant African countries’ (Burke 2014). However, as the same author indicates, not every Swahili reader will be able to understand translations into Standard Swahili, as this will depend on their schooling background, literacy level and language varieties available to them. Burke (2014) recommends that: Translators should be prepared to adapt their translations in order to communicate optimally with the diverse Swahili readership. In line with government and agency clients’ aims to achieve receptive understanding of their communications by a broadly targeted audience, translators can carefully select vocabulary to avoid common misunderstandings amongst the variety of Swahili readers. Among the strategies that the author suggests are: 1) simplification of vocabulary and grammatical structures; 2) retention of some English words and expressions in the Swahili translation ‘to facilitate understanding, which is particularly crucial in the case of times and weekdays for Congolese readers who may be more familiar with these in English or French than Standard Swahili’; and 3) lexical choices drawing from Bantu-based words more than Arabic-based lexicon, in order to facilitate comprehension, especially for Swahili readers from the inland regions and Central Africa.



Community translation

17

1.3  The state of the art 1.3.1 Research As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, community translation is still in its infancy as a subfield of translation studies and as an area of translation practice. A couple of decades earlier, Fraser (1993: 326) rightly asserted that community translation ‘as a specific form of the translation process is almost wholly neglected in the literature’ and that ‘the available community translation literature is extremely thin’ (1993: 327). More recently, Kelly (2014) described community translation as ‘the poor sister of a poor sister’, the latter being community interpreting. In comparison with community interpreting, itself neglected in research until recently (Hale 2007: 197) and struggling to become an established profession (Roberts 2002: 157), community translation is far more neglected, not only in research and publications, but also in training and service provision (as will be shown in Sections 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 below). A number of reasons lie behind this state of affairs. In terms of research, translation studies has long been occupied with linguistic analysis, source and target texts, fidelity, structural and other types of equivalence, cognitive processes, textual features and similar aspects of translation and interpreting. Too much focus has been placed on sentences, metaphors, style, units of translation, pragmatic equivalence, cultural transfer, text types, and so on, at the expense of the human beings and communities that use translation and interpreting services. Referring to interpreting, Pöchhacker (2006) points out that the interpreting studies community for a long time failed to recognize interpreting activities and settings other than conference interpreting. Thus community interpreting, the saliently social type of interpreting, remained out of focus until just a couple of decades ago. ‘Using the word “theory” in its original Greek sense, i.e. as an act of looking at or viewing’, Pöchhacker (2006: 216–17) suggests, ‘we can say that interpreting scholars had “theorized”, or seen, interpreting in such a way as to eclipse part of their object of study.’ The same may be affirmed of translation scholars; they have studied and theorized translation in a way that has eclipsed an essential part of their object of study: the user as a social being and a community member, the translator as a social agent and translation as a social action. The classification system followed by many translation studies scholars has eclipsed the social dimension of translation. Based mainly on discourse fields, it has produced categories such as legal translation, scientific translation, technical translation, literary translation, and so on. As suggested in Taibi (2011), this classification system has led to two outcomes where community translation is concerned. First, disempowered users of translation

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such as migrants, refugees and members of ethnic and linguistic minorities have been left out of focus. Second, social issues have been scattered and overshadowed in research and publications covering translation types such as legal translation, medical translation or audiovisual translation. For instance, although Mayoral Asensio’s (2003) Translating Official Documents is classified as a book on (a type of) legal translation (‘translations that meet the requirements to serve as legally valid instruments in a target country’ (Mayoral Asensio 2003: 1; italics in source)), it covers many social aspects of translation which overlap with community translation, including the social context of migrants who need their personal documents translated, cultural distance between the societies of the source and target texts, the translator’s loyalties and ethical dilemmas, accessibility of translations, and so on. Publications with a clear focus on community translation (or public service translation), in the sense in which the term is used in this book, are quite scarce and mostly fall within the category of descriptive or argumentative essays rather than empirical research. Works such as Di Biase (1987), Lesch (1999, 2004), Taibi (2011) or Valero-Garcés (2014) offer definitions of community translation, outline the distinctive features of the field, describe its situation in different countries or argue a case regarding issues such as the need for community translation services, the need for appropriate training or the role community translators are expected to undertake. Fewer exceptions (e.g. Fraser 1993, 1999; Burns and Kim 2011; Qadi 2011) offer research findings. Fraser (1993) uses the verbal accounts of twelve community translators to verify the strategies they adopted in translating a British local council leaflet (see Chapter 3). In another paper, Fraser (1999) reports the findings of a think-aloud-protocol study with one community translator and one community text. With insights from her research participant, Fraser analyses the complexities of public service texts and the challenges they pose for community translators. Burns and Kim (2011) study the accessibility of public service texts and community translations by eliciting readers’ feedback on two healthcare texts, their respective revised versions, and the Chinese and Korean translations of all these documents. Finally, Qadi (2011) offers the findings of a quantitative and qualitative study on translation services provided during the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, when a temporary multilingual and multicultural community is formed (see Chapter 5). Among the aspects covered in this research are service availability, user satisfaction, translator recruitment criteria, quality standards and quality assurance.

1.3.2  Provision of service Another reason why community translation has not received much attention is that it is associated with a low social status (Fraser 1993: 326). Like



Community translation

19

community interpreting, community translation is closely concerned with migrants, refugees and local language minorities. As these groups usually fall into low socio-economic strata and lack social, economic and political power, community translation itself has been perceived as a non-priority service and a non-prestigious area of study. Governments and decision makers often cite cost and budgetary constraints to explain lack of community translation services, the limited resources made available to multilingual communities or the insufficient number of languages into which these resources are translated. Some politicians and community leaders may even argue against using taxpayers’ money to provide translations for members of the community without a good command of the mainstream language(s). In addition to cost, the argument often put forward is that translation services do not encourage minority language speakers to integrate in the mainstream society. For example, in the UK, Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, openly described the translation of leaflets and documents into other languages as a ‘very expensive and poor use of taxpayers’ money’ (The Telegraph 2013). For Mr Pickles, ‘[w]hilst there may be rare occasions on which this is entirely necessary – for instance in emergency situations […] such services are in many cases being provided unnecessarily because of a misinterpretation of equality or human rights legislation’. Making use of an oft-cited argument, he added that translations had an ‘unintentional, adverse impact on integration by reducing the incentive for some migrant communities to learn English and are wasteful where many members of these communities already speak or understand English’ (The Telegraph 2013). These arguments may be internalized by members of minority groups as well, as can be seen from the following statements by Zia Haider Rahman, a British novelist of Bangladeshi origin: It’s a shocking figure: more than £100m was spent in the past year on translating and interpreting for British residents who don’t speak English. In the name of multiculturalism, one Home Office-funded community centre alone provides these services in 76 languages […] The financial cost is bad enough, but there is a wider problem about the confused signals we are sending to immigrant communities. We are telling them they don’t have to learn English, let alone integrate. (Rahman 2006; see Cronin 2013 for a discussion of this quotation and the argument of cost) Availability of community translation (and interpreting) services is to a large extent determined by the sociopolitical regime and the national and local governments’ approach to social equity, human rights, multiculturalism and language planning. Probably the best example to illustrate this is South

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Africa. English and Afrikaans were the only official languages in the country during the apartheid era, while the other local languages were hardly recognized and were treated as minority languages, although they are majority languages in terms of the number of speakers. When apartheid came to an end and the country embraced democracy, eleven languages gained official status and a transformation process was triggered in South African public services (Erasmus 2000: 191–2). As a result of this change, translated and adapted public service materials started to be made available in the African languages that had formerly been given minority treatment. The availability of community translation (and interpreting) services in this case reflects how a sociopolitical regime change results in the restitution of linguistic rights to a long-dominated population and the empowerment of historically marginalized communities. One very specific way of providing community translation is to establish it as a right, as in the legal provisions in the USA, where the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as amended in 1975 stipulated the need to have translations for speakers with limited proficiency in English. As lawyer Benjamin D. Winig comments: The 1975 amendments to the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) marked the first time that Congress addressed the issue of translation. In declaring that ‘citizens of language minorities have been effectively excluded from participation in the electoral process’, Congress required that any covered jurisdiction providing materials or information related to an election must make such materials available ‘in the language of the applicable minority group’ so that all citizens have an effective opportunity to engage in the political process. (Winig 2008) The Act laid down conditions under which such translations must be provided (percentage of populations of various groups, indigenous or other minorities), although translations were usually provided only in the most salient minority languages. Winig (2008) points out that many agencies charged with organizing elections were often unclear as to the extent to which they should provide translations, leading to occasional complaints from potential voters. Some states (e.g. California) have passed their own Voting Rights Acts, strengthening various provisions of the federal one. This legalistic approach to community translation was continued by Clinton’s Executive Order 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency, which cast a wider net, mandating language services including translation for all federal agencies or federally funded programmes. Again, individual states have supplemented this: for example, the California Dymally-Allatore Bilingual Services Act stipulated that agencies



Community translation

21

must employ bilingual staff, or use interpreters and provide translations for any language ‘spoken by a substantial number of the public serviced by the agency’ (Winig 2008), although admittedly on the proviso of local funds being available. With both Federal and State Acts reaching down into local government bodies, various strategies have been devised to meet these requirements, including human translation services and machine translation to provide information. These examples of community translation provision point to the highly legal and constitutional basis of US social policy, an approach that has rarely encompassed community translation and interpreting in other countries. However, legal and constitutional provisions are not the only origin for policy in this area, as our examples from other countries show. In Canada, an officially bilingual country, public services have to cater for three categories of people facing language barriers: Francophone minorities in Anglophone provinces (and vice versa), Aboriginal peoples and immigrants (Industry Canada 2007). Francophone and Anglophone citizens are served through the statutory recognition of their respective languages as official nationwide and, consequently, through translation of a wide range of public service documents from one language to the other (McRae 1998). Within this bilingual framework, language and cultural diversity (beyond English and French) is acknowledged and encouraged. In terms of Aboriginal languages, some are recognized as official in the Canadian territories and Labrador (Chan 2015: 490). In one such territory, Nunavut, for example, all signage and written public communication must be made available in an Inuit language, be it through translation or otherwise (Chan 2015: 500). In relation to migrants and refugees, Canada has generally adopted receptive policies and practices, including with respect to language services. The country has a long history of settlement programmes intended to facilitate the relocation and integration of newcomers with services such as orientation, language teaching, occupational training, housing and welfare assistance (Vineberg 2012). These programmes are understood to be a contribution not only to the well-being and successful settlement of immigrants but also to the economic and intellectual wealth of the nation (Vineberg 2012). Bearing this background in mind, it is not surprising to find that Canadian public services have produced a large body of community translations in a number of languages. All official and public communication is available in English and French, but beyond that, Canada’s government ministries, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, local councils, health services and other public services provide information in a relatively large number of non-official or heritage languages. With the advent of the Internet, much of this multilingual information has been made more accessible, not only across the country (to current community members) but also worldwide (to potential

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migrants, given that Canada continues to target skilled professionals). Current and potential members of the Canadian community are able to access information on immigration, education, employment, housing, healthcare, legal advice and even food and climate, in languages as diverse as Arabic, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil or Urdu, to name just a few. (See Chapter 8 for some examples of available multilingual resources.) Another case is Australia. Despite the ups and downs of politics, the country has generally adopted a favourable approach to cultural and linguistic diversity. As a result of this approach, many public services provide their information in English and a number of community languages. Especially in urban communities with a high level of multilingualism, it is common to find public notices in languages other than English. Administrations such as Centrelink (Department of Human Services) publish their leaflets and online resources in a number of languages too. As part of its settlement services for migrants and refugees, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship offers free translating (and interpreting) services. ‘Free translation of personal settlement-related documents is provided to permanent residents, some temporary or provisional visa holders and returning Australian citizens within their first two years of arrival in Australia, or grant of permanent residence’ (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2014). In New South Wales, the Community Relations Commission provides accredited translation (and interpreting) services to individuals and organizations in more than a hundred languages. In some cases, including personal documents such as birth certificates, driving licences or family booklets, translation is provided free of charge (Community Relations Commission 2011). For CRC, ‘[t]he provision of linguistic services […] is part of the New South Wales Government’s commitment to ensuring the full, fair and equal participation of all people in programs, services and processes, and enables the New South Wales’ Public Service to achieve community participation by breaking down barriers’ (Community Relations Commission 2014). However, in most other parts of the world, community translation services are either inexistent or fall short of community needs. For the reasons mentioned earlier, the public services of many countries ignore the communication needs of (usually disempowered) speakers of minority languages, provide translations in a limited number of languages and for a limited number of resources, and/or adopt ad hoc measures in addressing the need for language services. As Fraser (1993: 326) observes, ‘[w]here provision is made, moreover, the quality can be uneven and the qualifications and professional status of those providing language services are far from uniform’. Professionalism is still an issue in translation services in a number of countries, but in the area of community translation this is much more so. As Taibi (2011) points out, volunteers, bilingual staff or untrained freelance



Community translation

23

translators are often commissioned to undertake community translations. When recruitment of language service providers finds an entry in the budgets of public services, job descriptions do not necessarily seek qualified translators, but may prefer bilingual persons who can undertake multiple roles, including information desk officer, administration staff, intercultural mediator and translator. In some cases, public services rely on non-government organizations that work with ethnic communities and language minorities using the services of volunteer or untrained freelance translators. The result of all this is often poor, inappropriate or less effective translations, which constitute eloquent evidence of inappropriate commissioning processes and inexistent or inadequate quality control measures (Qadi 2011; Taibi 2011; see also Scottish Consumer Council 2005). Public services in some countries have found in machine-assisted translation a quick and easy solution to the cost issue of community translation. However, handy as this option may appear in certain circumstances, it raises serious concerns over the quality of the translations (and communication services) provided to speakers of minority languages. In Japan, for instance, Carroll (2011: 58) notes that, although the official national policy does not favour immigration or multiculturalism, municipalities are taking the lead in providing for the actual language diversity on the ground by making written information available in languages other than Japanese. Some prefectures do so by using machine translation for their websites, which is neither sufficient in quantity nor consistently good in quality (Carroll 2011: 65). As the disclaimers of some of these prefectures themselves suggest (e.g. Fukuoka Prefecture website disclaimer, cited in Carroll 2011: 65), translation software is unable to guarantee accurate and appropriate translation and, accordingly, may do more to cause harm than facilitate information and communication.

1.3.3 Training Finally, and in relation to the quality issues mentioned above, training is another area where community translation has a long road to run. This type of translation has had little presence in the curriculum; in the UK, for instance, Graham (2012) reports that out of eighty-five postgraduate programmes in translation, interpreting and related disciplines, only five courses focus on community interpreting and only one specifically covers community translation. As Kelly (2014) has confirmed, the situation is not very different in other parts of the world. This is arguably a result of the status issue, but also due to other factors: on one hand, the traditional classification system in translation studies (literary, legal, technical, audiovisual, and so on) and, on the other, an underlying assumption that generalist translation training caters for the

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professional translation needs in different contexts, have also contributed to community translation not being recognized and included in translation curricula. As Graham’s (2012: 28) report points out: Applied translation courses develop a range of skills that are relevant to any context, including PST [public service translation]. However, PST still requires knowledge of public service institutions and practices (e.g. police, councils, hospitals) and academics report that these are rarely taught as part of a translation programme. Taibi (2011) also argues that generalist translation programmes are a good starting point for community translators, but training specifically addressing community contexts would be more efficient and relevant. General translator training programmes aim to enable trainees to develop and apply a number of competencies. To use the terminology of the PACTE Group, these are: a Bilingual sub-competence: knowledge of the working languages,

including lexico-grammatical, pragmatic, sociolinguistic and textual aspects and features; b Extra-linguistic sub-competence: general encyclopaedic or thematic

knowledge; c Translation knowledge sub-competence: knowledge of the principles

underlying the translation process and translation professional practice; d Instrumental sub-competence: documentation and information

technology skills necessary for translators; e Strategic sub-competence: procedures used to plan the translation

task, identify translation problems and solve them as efficiently as possible; f

Psycho-physiological components: cognitive, behavioural and psychomotor abilities and attributes such as memory, concentration, perseverance and critical thinking. (PACTE 2005: 610)

Whether they use the above terminology or not, translation curriculum designers and teachers generally aim to equip students with at least three core sub-competences, which PACTE (2005) considers the most specific to translation: knowledge about translation, strategic sub-competence and instrumental sub-competence. Generalist programmes are expected to provide students with the theoretical and practical education necessary for



Community translation

25

them to work as professional translators. In principle and by so doing, they graduate future professionals with transferable competences that can be put into practice in different translation settings and thematic fields. Nevertheless, programmes with a clear focus on community translation would expose trainees to the community texts they will ultimately be translating, raise their awareness and understanding of the relevant local communities and public service settings, and develop the specific translation and intercultural communication skills they will need when translating for public services or for local communities. Among the very few institutions that offer specific courses in this area is the University of Western Sydney (UWS), under an interpreting and translation programme which is approved by the (Australian) National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students at this university undertake community translation, a semester-long unit (course) that focuses on the skills necessary to translate texts commonly used in local community contexts. The texts covered include general information and advice about healthcare, legal services, social security, taxation, elections, municipal councils, the environment, and so on, as well as personal and official documents (e.g. family entry, birth certificate, academic qualifications, refugee statement). As both Australian and international students enrol in UWS programmes, the materials used for community translation aim to cater for both local and international perspectives and communities. Texts for translation from English are usually selected from Australian public services and Internet resources, while those to be translated from other languages (currently Arabic, Chinese, Japanese or Spanish) are normally taken from a variety of communities where these are spoken by mainstream society. Another community-oriented degree is the Master of Intercultural Communication and Public Service Interpreting and Translation, offered by the University of Alcalá, Spain. As its name suggests, the programme includes both interpreting and translation. The translation component consists of mainly healthcare, legal and administrative translation (University of Alcalá 2014), with practice focusing on texts frequently used by Spanish public services in their awareness-raising campaigns and daily dealings with migrant populations. Examples include informed consent forms, healthcare guides, migrant services guides, immigration law and refugee statements. In addition to the considerations above (status, cost and the classification system), training in community translation faces many other challenges. Situations requiring this translation service are characterized by multilingualism, yet paradoxically this language diversity itself may impede institutions from offering community translation courses or from catering for all the relevant languages. Effectively, training institutions need to make sure their

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programmes are financially viable, but minority language communities are often too small to ensure sufficient demand for community translation (and interpreting). This is why when a community translation course is available, the number of language combinations offered is limited and can by no means satisfy the needs of different minority groups. Also, as Graham (2012) explains, local communities change constantly, and so do community translation and interpreting needs, which may impact on the viability of training programmes. Moreover, it is not always possible to find qualified trainers working in minority community languages. This greatly complicates both translation service provision and quality assurance for countries that support language services for all components of society. The job opportunities and remuneration available in the sector do not help incentivize potential candidates for training either. This leads to a well-known vicious circle: community members are unable or reluctant to undertake training due to less-thanencouraging employability and remuneration; the consequent shortfall of professionals is countered by using non-qualified personnel; the ensuing quality of translations suffers generally; community translators are consequently perceived as largely amateurish; job opportunities and remuneration are negatively impacted, and the cycle goes on.

Concluding remarks The above account depicts a less-than-desirable situation for community translation in terms of service provision, training and research. As a result of political agendas, budget constraints and the disempowered status of community translation users, community translation services are the exception rather than the norm in multilingual societies. When these services are made available, quality standards vary from one country or community to another and, generally, are less than optimal. The lack of relevant training programmes, quality assurance measures and appropriate working conditions only contributes to perpetuating this situation. The translation research community in its turn has not done enough to promote interest in community translation and professionalization of these services. However, judging from developments in other relevant disciplines, sub-disciplines, professions and services, we can clearly identify heartening stories and indicators. A comparison of the present situation of community interpreting (2014–15) with that of a couple of decades ago leaves us with a sense of relative satisfaction. Since the first Conference on Interpreting in Legal, Health and Social Service Settings, held in 1995 in Geneva Park, Canada, community interpreting has gained much more visibility in research, training



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27

and public service agendas. Something similar, we hope, is starting to happen with community translation. The International Conference on Community Translation, mentioned above, was a significant milestone. With participants representing different stakeholders – including universities, further education colleges, professional bodies, translation agencies, government departments, practising translators and interpreters – the conference gave visibility to this area of translation studies, and provided an opportunity to discuss major issues relating to (written) language services in multilingual communities, empowerment of minority language groups, quality assurance, training and certification. The active participation of key stakeholders such as Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services; Mr John Beever, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters; and Mr Hakan Harman, the Chief Executive Officer of the Community Relations Commission, ensured a link between researchers, practitioners and policymakers, which is indispensable for change and improvements to take place. It also demonstrated that the research and training community has a lot to contribute on different fronts to promote community translation (and interpreting), and that decision makers are often responsive when researchers take initiatives. Gawn’s (1988: 458) third law reads: ‘the quality of a translation is proportional to the degree of the client’s commitment to bilingualism’. Echoing and expanding this statement, it can be affirmed that the situation of community translation in the world as a whole and in any country in particular depends on the stakeholders’ commitment to language services as professions and as human rights, and to communities as collectives of human beings with equal rights and obligations. When there is a favourable political will and genuine interest among researchers, practitioners and trainers, it is possible to find innovative and practical solutions to overcome some of the constraints outlined above.

2 Sociocultural issues in community translation

2.1  Culture, culture, culture …

C

ulture is one of those concepts we encounter every day and everywhere, whether we use the term ‘culture’ or not. Even in a community that is supposedly culturally uniform – if such a thing is ever possible – we can often find people discussing or pointing at behaviours, hairstyles or dress which are not ‘part of our culture’, are ‘imported culture’ or ‘the influence of foreign cultures’. In diplomatic encounters, culture, cultural differences and cultural sensitivity are important. Many diplomatic gaffes arise as a result of differences in aspects as apparently simple as handshaking, kissing or crossing legs. In professions such as medicine, education or social work, service providers are made aware of the risks associated with cultural differences, and are advised on how to handle them for a more effective consultation or service. At the workplace, organizations and managers often provide guidelines advising employees how to deal with cultural differences in order to reduce friction and conflict, which may have an impact on the cohesion, productivity and/or reputation of the organization. In neighbourhoods, behaviours are often interpreted in terms of cultural differences: our neighbours sit in their ‘front yard’ (a culture-specific concept) because they originally come from a rural area; they talk loudly because they are originally from Country X; their food smells ‘awful’, ‘funny’, ‘strange’ or ‘unusual’ because they are from Culture Y, and so on and so forth. At the same time, culture is one of those concepts that everybody – and probably every discipline – uses but that is difficult to define in a precise yet comprehensive way. As Katan (2004: 24) points out, ‘[p]eople instinctively know what “culture” means to them and to which culture they belong’. However, if asked about the term, they will most probably provide different,

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if not contradictory, definitions, including references to and overlaps with religion, language, history, geographical origin, race, food, local dress code, level of education, and so on. Scholars from different disciplines differ too in their definitions of ‘culture’, of which – without going into detail – it suffices here to include two representative examples (for a more thoroughgoing account of definitions of and approaches to culture, see Katan 2004). The first is the old and widely cited encapsulation offered by Tylor (1958 [1871]: 1): ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. The other is provided by Goodenough (1957: 167–8): A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves. That knowledge is socially acquired; the necessary behaviors are learned and do not come from any kind of genetic endowment. […] Culture is not a material phenomenon; it does not consist of things, people, behavior, or emotions. It is rather an organization of these things. It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating, and otherwise interpreting them. What both definitions agree upon is that an individual acquires culture as a member of their society. With expressions such as ‘forms of things’ and ‘models of perceiving’, Goodenough’s definition also highlights the nature of culture as a way of seeing and interpreting the world – that is, as a number of built-in frames and scripts that help people categorize and make sense of the world around them, and enable them to determine (or retrieve) the most appropriate reaction or behaviour in each situation. In relation to these definitional considerations and as a result of the omnipresence of culture, arguably one of the most problematic issues is when to interpret phenomena and behaviours in cultural terms. That is to say, how to activate cultural sensors to identify cultural differences and then deal with them appropriately, without falling into the pitfall of overgeneralization and stereotyping: in other words, without forming ‘a fixed, often simplistic generalization about a particular group or class of people’ (Cardwell 2013 [1996]: 227). It is easy to mistake isolated individual behaviour for a cultural norm. If such misinterpretation is maintained and acted upon in future intercultural encounters and situations, it is highly likely that what is wrongly presumed to be (inter)cultural knowledge will be used inappropriately to judge a group of people or an entire community. This risk is present not only in interpersonal encounters – as can be seen in the tendency of many laypeople to overgeneralize about a social, religious



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or cultural group based on one or a few encounters with presumed representatives of that group – but also in scholarly discourse on culture, cultural differences and intercultural communication. To give just one example, under the subheading ‘The Influence of Culture’, Katan (2004: 11–12) provides an example of a commercial product (‘Super Disc Shot’) that is presented differently in different countries as a result of a combination of ‘legal restraints, norms and socio-cultural differences’ (Katan 2004: 11). The author points out that the product is made in Italy, where it is not recommended for children under three years old, while for British and French children the minimum age is eight years, and the North European versions (Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch) of the product label include an additional warning that inappropriate use may cause permanent hearing damage. For the Arabic version, however, Katan observes that technical information and the risks associated with the product are not translated at all. Instead, the consumer is informed that the product is made in Italy, is warned against imitations and reminded or advised that a given importer is the exclusive company agent in the importing country. The author then concludes that ‘[t]he Arabic version shows just how far culture, in particular, impinges on what information is to be highlighted’ and that ‘[d]ifferences in technical consumer information provide just one example of the way each culture has its own appropriate ways of behaving’ (Katan 2004: 11). On a hasty subjective assessment, the preceding example might suggest that the Arab culture is concerned first and foremost with entrepreneurial rights, and only secondarily with consumer rights, if at all. The real question is how much of this apparent behaviour is related to or informed by culture, and how much is an isolated outcome of the common commercial drive to appeal to customers using different strategies to sell products and make a profit. It depends on one’s own disposition whether to consider the Arabic product presentation in Katan’s example as an instance of non-compliant labelling or an indicator of culture-specific behaviour. Advertisements around the world teem with expressions such us ‘don’t accept imitations’, ‘beware of imitations’ or ‘exclusive distributor’. Interpreting this in cultural terms is likely to result in a certain cultural group being unfoundedly perceived as greedy, misleading or unconcerned about safety and consumer rights. To be able to assert – or insinuate, for that matter – that product labelling in the Arab World does not include safety warnings or restrictions of use, one would need to survey a significantly wide range of products and settings. As Arabic is spoken in over twenty countries, various representative samples would be required before making a generalizing statement about the Arabic language or Arab culture. As Scollon et al. (2012) explain, the concept of ‘culture’ is both difficult to define and full of perils. Some people see it as a place that people

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belong to or live in, others as a set of beliefs or a system of thinking; some understand it as a set of rules or norms by which people’s behaviour is bound, others as subconscious habits that determine or drive our actions, and so on (Scollon et al. 2012: 3). The limitations associated with different understandings of ‘culture’ and different applications of the concept entail corresponding risks, such as lumping the wrong people or too many groups under the same category, drawing the line in the wrong ‘place’ or at the wrong level, failing to identify subcultures within what is presumed to be one culture and, as we have seen above, overusing cultural interpretations in an attempt to understand people’s behaviour and language production. Scollon et al.’s (2012: 5) provocative statement ‘culture is a verb’ probably offers a way to use the concept while guarding against the perils. What the authors mean is that culture should not be taken as something people possess, think or belong to, but as something people do. Different people do different things with the same tools; different people do the same thing with different tools; and the same people may do different things (or behave differently) with different people. To understand intercultural communication, then, as Scollon et al. (2012: 5) suggest, ‘we should not focus so much on the people and try to figure out something about them based on the “culture” they belong to. Rather we should focus on what they are doing and try to understand what kinds of tools they have at their disposal to do it.’ One would add that no conclusions can be reached without observing a significant number of subjects and recurrences, while being mindful that people may belong to different groups and cultures at different times or in different situations, and that external observation is not sufficient to classify people and form an opinion about their communication patterns or cultural values. What also counts is people’s self-identification as members of social or cultural groups, as well as their narratives about their own behaviour and affiliations.

2.2  Translation studies and culture The connection between translation and interpreting on the one hand and culture on the other is now well established. Culture and intercultural communication are often present in interpreting and translation conferences, publications, training programmes and professional forums. Pöchhacker (2008: 11), for instance, points out that the juxtaposition of ‘translation’ and ‘intercultural studies’ or ‘intercultural communication’ has become quite common in the titles of conferences and the names of translation studies organizations and research groups. Pöchhacker parenthetically mentions that a Google search for the phrase ‘translation and intercultural’ resulted,



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presumably in 2008 or earlier, in more than 20,000 hits. Taking Google as indicative of what people talk or write about, more updated results (4 May 2014) show that the phrase ‘translation and intercultural’ produced nearly four million hits, the phrase ‘translation and intercultural communication’ triggered over 460,000 hits, ‘culture and translation’ resulted in 17,400,000 and ‘translation and culture’ produced 20,800 hits. Pöchhacker (2008: 11) comments that ‘[t]he implication of this juxtaposition may be that whenever there is “translation”, there is also “culture”’. Indeed, this has become axiomatic. Translators and interpreters work with and between (speakers of) different languages and, as Brody (2003: 40) asserts, ‘[l]anguage and culture are inextricably intertwined. Culture is negotiated in large part through language and language codifies many cultural assumptions and values.’ The strong link between culture, language and translation was recognized by early modern translation theorists such as Nida (1964 [1945]: 90), who warns that ‘[t]he person who is engaged in translating from one language into another ought to be constantly aware of the contrast in the entire range of culture represented by the two languages’. In a more recent publication, Nida (2001: 13) writes that ‘competent translators are always aware that ultimately words only have meaning in terms of the corresponding culture’. Bassnett (1980: 14) uses an analogy that likens language to the heart and culture to the body. She goes on to compare a translator to a surgeon who cannot operate on the heart (language) without attention to the surrounding body (culture). Vermeer (1986) rejects the idea that translation is merely a question of language transfer; instead, he views it as primarily a cultural transfer operation whereby information provided in a given language of a given culture is imitated in another language of another culture. This, according to Vermeer, implies that translators need to be bicultural, if not pluricultural. Similarly, in her book Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach, Snell-Hornby (1995 [1988]) dedicates an entire chapter to ‘translation as a cross-cultural event’, implicitly criticizing the centuries-long tradition that sees translation as something that occurs from one language to another. For Snell-Hornby, translation entails transfer that is not only linguistic but also cross-cultural. She therefore agrees with Vermeer (1986) that translation requires language and cultural proficiency for both the source text and the target text: ‘If language is an integral part of culture, the translator needs not only proficiency in two languages, he must also be at home in two cultures. In other words, he must be bilingual and bicultural (cf. Vermeer 1986)’ (SnellHornby 1995 [1988]: 42). Hatim and Mason (1990: 223) agree as well: ‘the translator has not only a bilingual ability but also a bi-cultural vision. Translators mediate between cultures (including ideologies, moral systems and sociopolitical structures), seeking to overcome those incompatibilities which stand in the way of transfer of meaning.’

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Nida’s (2001: 13) statement above, ‘words only have meaning in terms of the corresponding culture’, should not be interpreted as suggesting that cultural differences and culture-related translation challenges are only a matter of words. It is true that many authors who have discussed translation and culture have focused on or provided examples of cultural differences at the levels of individual words/concepts, proverbs or idiomatic expressions. To give just a few examples, Bassnett (1988: 15–36) discusses the sociocultural associations and translation challenges associated with concepts and expressions outwardly as simple as ‘pastry’, ‘butter’ or ‘bon appetit!’; Baker (2011 [1992]), in her discussion of equivalence at word level, comments on lexical items such as ‘home’, ‘exotic’, ‘mystery’ or ‘cool’, among others; Katan (2004) discusses occurrences of cultural references such as ‘tandoori’, ‘Blackpool’, ‘money’ and ‘Maxwell House’. However, the presence of culture in translation goes beyond such basic and relatively visible levels. Perhaps more importantly, cultural differences manifest themselves in the way texts are categorized, structured and realized, and in the conventionalized forms and strategies used to achieve discourse functions. In this regard, Hatim (1997: xiii) argues that ‘a careful consideration of what actually happens to a given text when someone attempts to mediate in communicating its “import” across both linguistic and cultural boundaries is one way of making sure that we do not settle for a partial view of what goes on inside that text’. What Hatim presumably means by ‘a partial view’ is a level of textual analysis that stops at ‘the mechanical, lower-level vagaries of the linguistic system’ (Hatim 1997: xiii). Instead, he sets out to address ‘higherorder considerations of language in use and text in context’ (Hatim 1997: xiii). Drawing upon translation theory, contrastive linguistics and discourse analysis, he discusses deeper levels of cultural differences such as ‘argumentation across cultures’, ‘degree of texture explicitness’, ‘emotiveness in texts’ and ‘the pragmatics of politeness [in written discourse]’. In relation to the argumentative text type, for instance, Hatim (1997: 35–46) distinguishes between two types: 1 Through-argumentation: the speaker or writer has a thesis

(evaluation, viewpoint, etc.) to support and does so by stating the thesis, substantiating it and concluding, without any explicit acknowledgement of or reference to opposing viewpoints; 2 Counter-argumentation: the speaker or writer may start with a

statement acknowledging or summarizing an adversary’s opinion or position, but only to rebut it subsequently and substantiate his/ her own counter-claim. Citation of opposing views is therefore only a built-in strategy intended to serve the speaker’s or writer’s argumentative plan, as required by the (genre and text-type) cultural



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conventions of those societies which have counter-argumentation as a norm. What is of relevance to translation and culture here is that Hatim (1997: 35) compares argumentation in English and in Arabic, and concludes that ‘the mode of arguing by citing an opponent’s thesis, then countering it [counterargumentation] – a format which is common in languages such as English – is fairly uncommon in Arabic, for example’. Effectively, Arabic writers and speakers show a preference for through-argumentation in a number of sociopolitical circumstances where Western convention would indicate counter-argumentation, and translating argumentative texts without due attention to such a deeper level of cultural difference may have undesirable consequences. ‘It may be true that this form of argumentation [throughargumentation]’, Hatim (1997: 35) points out, ‘generally lacks credibility when translated into a context which calls for a variant form of argumentation in languages such as English.’ Whether the relevant cultural differences lie at a conceptual level, within social and cultural norms or in the use and organization of texts and discourse, translation studies has long been occupied with the central issue of how to approach otherness (cultural difference). The different positions in this regard can generally be subsumed under the continuum of domestication and foreignization. Venuti (1995) uses these terms to denote the extent to which translators reflect the cultural norms of the original text or conform to the norms and expectations of the target culture. Foreignizing translations take the reader to the writer and their cultural context and norms, retaining structural, lexical and other elements which might be judged ‘foreign’ or unidiomatic. This usually involves a deliberate move away from the conventions of the target language and culture. The domestication strategy, on the other hand, takes the writer to the reader by ironing out cultural differences and conforming to the conventions and norms of the target language and culture. The ultimate goal of this approach is to produce a fluent and ‘natural’ text where the unusual and foreign is minimized (Venuti 1995). Although culture is taken for granted as a central element in translation, the concept and its associated constituents have not been sufficiently and systematically operationalized in translation studies. Tymoczko (2009, 2014 [2007]) criticizes the manner in which culture has been approached in translation studies, and judges it to be simplistic and shallow. She believes that the notion of culture has not been ‘sufficiently problematized’, that too much focus continues to be placed on material culture, observable behaviour and the lexical and linguistic reflections of these aspects, and that the limitation of perspective is aggravated by a tendency to draw from Eurocentric situations and practices (Tymoczko 2014 [2007]: 225). With respect to the manner

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in which translators approach cultural issues in texts, Tymoczko argues that there are shortcomings in the common linear or serial method, which consists of identifying segments that present cultural translation challenges and resolving them one by one: Translators are taught to direct their attention to specific locations in texts where cultural problems are embodied in surface elements of the language of the text: unfamiliar words referring to elements of the material culture, behaviours and practices that are unknown to the target audience, culture-bound symbols, sociolinguistic conventions such as politeness conventions that vary across languages and cultures, alternative institutions and social structures, and so forth. (Tymoczko 2009: 182) This approach, according to Tymoczko (2009, 2014 [2007]), falls short of dealing with cultural difference in a systematic way, fails to address the question of how source cultures and their people are represented through entire texts, and does not demonstrate that the translator sufficiently engages in ‘self-reflexivity’ (i.e. actively and critically reflecting upon the translator’s own cultural background and ideology, their position vis-à-vis the text and the impact of their translation actions on the text and, consequently, on cultural representations). Tymoczko (2009, 2014 [2007]) argues that translation studies needs systematic, practicable and flexible methods to address cultural aspects of translation, i.e. holistic approaches that seek to understand the systemic, deeper-level cultural underpinnings of texts, take into consideration the translation action as a set of practices and cater for different ideological positions and interests, not only for the powerful, their values and cultures. However, this is not an easy mission, as the concept of ‘culture’ itself is slippery and problematic (Katan 2004; Koskinen 2004; Scollon et al. 2012). Koskinen (2004), for instance, shows how her use of the concept to refer to institutions of the European Union as forming an entity with its own culture has revealed that different disciplines, theoretical positions and scholars have different understandings of ‘culture’, and that the polysemous or vague nature of the word is apt to cause misunderstandings and controversy. Indeed, she concludes that avoiding the term or substituting it with Scollon et al.’s (2012) ‘discourse system’ could constitute a safer and more revitalizing option for translation studies, were it not for the fact that similar problems would arise in relation to the concepts of ‘language’ and ‘translation’ themselves. Tymoczko’s (2014 [2007]: 232–49) holistic approach is not put forward as a translation strategy, but as a framework for contextualization and understanding that precedes translation strategies and the translation process. It acknowledges that culture is dynamic and heterogeneous: every culture



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undergoes changes and developments, which translators must be aware of; cultural groups are not homogeneous, and texts may reflect variations or non-mainstream voices and behaviours within what is generally considered the same cultural context. Tymoczko suggests that a holistic approach needs to consider a series of elements: a ‘The signature concepts of a culture’: ‘cultural elements that are key

to social organization, cultural practices, and dispositions constituting the habitus of a culture’ (Tymoczko 2014 [2007]: 238). These are central concepts or values that influence a culture’s discourses and practices, and may be either abstract (e.g. progress, shame, honour) or material (e.g. cattle, ships, pyramids). b Discourses: a cultural element that is reflected in language and which

relates to an author’s or subject’s ideological (and other) dispositions. c Cultural practices: these include not only observable actions and

social practices but also symbolic or linguistic practices (e.g. naming, coding related to identity and social relations, etc.). d Cultural paradigms: culturally shared models and principles of

what is acceptable or expected (e.g. humour, logical sequencing or argumentation as in Hatim’s example above). e Overcodings: ‘linguistic patterns that are superimposed on

the ordinary ranks of language to indicate a higher-order set of distinctions in language practices’ (Tymoczko 2014 [2007]: 243). These are structural, linguistic and stylistic features that signal mode of communication (e.g. spoken vs written), genre, register, intertextuality, literary conventions, politeness conventions, technical or official language (e.g. as in public service discourse), and so forth. Tymoczko’s approach offers useful ideas to translators, alerting them to locations or levels where cultural underpinnings may lie, and urging them to engage in broader reflection upon and deeper analysis of the cultural contexts of texts before translating them. However, this is not sufficiently close to the systematic, practicable and flexible approach which, Tymoczko asserts, translators need to deal with culture in translation. Notions such as ‘signature concepts of a culture’, ‘cultural paradigms’ or ‘overcodings’ are considerably broad and in need of detailed guidelines for their operationalization. They also overlap with a number of other analytical tools proposed by other scholars and schools of thought: ‘overcodings’, for instance, covers a number of areas and leads in different directions, including into systemic functional linguistics (mode of discourse, genre, register, etc.), pragmatics and intercultural pragmatics (e.g. politeness strategies) or text-linguistics (e.g.

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intertextuality). ‘Discourses’ also raises serious questions – probably as many as ‘culture’ in Koskinen’s case – being understood not only as a belief system or (ideological) disposition, but also as language use in a given communicative situation, among other definitions (Johnstone 2009: 2–3). When used in the sense of language usage characteristic of a given social group or institution, it overlaps with Tymoczko’s ‘overcodings’, as the latter covers aspects such as the technical language characteristic of institutional contexts. Discourse is also so pervasive in human interaction, linguistic production and identity manifestations that it is impracticable to distinguish between discourse as a cultural element and discourse with more relevance to other dimensions of human identity, such as social class, political affiliation, education or profession. Translation studies literature abounds with references to culture and cultural mediation, and translation teachers and competence models underscore the importance of the cultural context, cultural appropriateness, cultural conventions and expectations (e.g. Hatim 1997; Simon 1997; Katan 2004; Amigo-Extremera 2015). However, as Simon (1997: 464) suggests, the manner in which culture is portrayed in translation studies is still beset with weaknesses. A solid, systematic and practical framework of culture is yet to be produced, but contributions like Tymoczko’s above provide a general and helpful framework wherein translators can situate their translation practice. Building on this approach, translators can reflect not only on what are usually considered cultural aspects with a possible impact on translation (cultural background knowledge comprising values, social organization, interpersonal and social relationships, genre conventions, text types, etc.), but also on cultural representations through texts and translations, the translator’s own cultural background and degree of biculturalism, their position vis-à-vis the original text, as well as their perspective of the source and target cultures, and the impact of their translational actions and choices on each.

2.3  Community translation and culture As a subfield in translation studies, community translation shares most of the challenges of cross-cultural transfer encountered in other types of translation. Like other translators, community translators will often face culture-specific concepts, idioms and metaphors, and deal with discrepancies in cultural backgrounds, expectations and norms. What is different and special about culture in community translation, though, is that the different cultures coexist in the same community, sometimes relatively insulated from each other, but very often with direct and continuous contact. Translating community



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texts cannot be likened to rendering (say) Indian literary works for a Russian audience, be it with a view to affording access to ‘exotic’ literature (foreignization) or offering a glimpse into a far-away world through a locally tinted lens (domestication). Nor is it exactly like the translation of an international company’s product user manual into a number of languages. Community translations are usually those produced by, and for, institutions, organizations and people who share the same nation, territory, public space, and attendant services. This means two things: first, (the lack of) translation and translation quality will often have an immediate and direct impact on social relations and public service transactions; and second, coexistence in the same space will result in varying degrees of acculturation (‘those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous firsthand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups’ (Redfield et al. 1936: 149). These are sensitivities and potential conflicts that intercultural mediators, including translators, need to be aware of. Another distinctive feature of community translation is the dual crosscultural transfer involved in performing it: community translators, especially when translating between public institutions and laypeople, find that they have to build bridges between the subculture of public services and that of lay users on the one hand, and between the mainstream cultural frameworks of both on the other (see Figure 2.1 below). Mishler (1984) explains that in medical encounters (involving institutional experts and lay patients) there is tension and competition between ‘the voice of medicine’, i.e. the doctor’s objective and uninvolved observation, and ‘the voice of the lifeworld’, i.e. the patient’s narrative based on their own experiences and feelings. In a sense, such encounters are cross-cultural, as they involve two distinct subcultures (sets of beliefs, expectations and values). When the medical encounter involves a doctor and patient who belong to different cultures, there is an additional dimension of cultural difference and intercultural communication. Similarly, written communication between institutions and community members (general public) involves contact between different subcultures – one usually formal, organized and documented (both in terms of expertise and legal references), the other relatively more informal and subjective, and less organized and documented (compare, for instance, a complaint letter from a citizen to a public service and a typical response from the latter). When the user of the public service is someone from a group identified as culturally different, this adds another layer of cultural distance to what has been mentioned above. Finally, community translation involves bidirectionality and, in some cases, grappling with individual writing styles, all of which increases the cultural challenges for the translator. As pointed out in Chapter 1 and in Taibi (2011),

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FIGURE 2.1  Cultural transfer in translation vs double cultural transfer in community translation community texts are not the preserve of public services alone, but may be produced by non-governmental organizations, local or ethnic community leaders, private organizations or individuals. Public services, NGOs and private organizations tend to have their established ‘corporate’ discourse, with clear guidelines on public relations, publications and public discourse. There are multicultural aspects involved in many countries, but one would presume that discourse remains subject to the (dominant) mode of the respective institution. Community leaders may also conform to a given ‘corporate culture’, depending on the nature and level of organization of the social group with which they associate themselves. But individual citizens or residents present a myriad of cultural and educational backgrounds, writing styles and language variations, and here lies one of the most important challenges that community translators face. Hatim’s (1997) above point about cultural differences at the level of text type and text organization is of particular relevance to community translation. Most translators would be aware of the challenges associated with culturespecific concepts and idiomatic expressions, as well as with differences between countries in terms of territorial divisions, institutional nomenclature and administrative organization. Cultural differences at a deeper level may very easily go unnoticed, however, in many cases to the detriment of the user.



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Like Hatim, a number of authors interested in intercultural communication have drawn attention to cultural differences at a textual level. Kaplan (1972) and Clyne (1987), for instance, show that the structure of expository texts may differ from one culture to another. Whereas in English an expository text is generally linear (a sequential chain of pieces of information), other languages/cultures show a different organization (Kaplan, 1972): a Parallel constructions: in Arabic, for example, parallel structures

are used so that the first idea is completed in the second part of a sentence or paragraph. Clyne (1994) points out that this may be a reflection of the ancient Semitic (oral) rhetorical tradition present in the Quran and in the New Testament. b Circling organization and multiple perspectives: in Japanese, Korean,

Chinese and Indian cultures the topic is viewed from a variety of perspectives, but not directly. Hinds (1980: 148–50) points out that one of the features of Japanese expository text is that the theme is reinforced continually, but without necessarily being explicitly stated. c Freedom to digress: in German, Spanish, Latin American or Italian

cultures, digression and the introduction of what may be considered ‘irrelevant content’ (by other cultures) is common and tolerated. In German academic texts, argues Clyne (1987: 163), ‘digressions enable writers to add a theoretical component in an empirical text, a historical overview, ideological dimension, or simply more content, or engage in continuing polemic with members of a competing school’. Interestingly, this last observed characteristic brings German expository text closer to argumentation. Although some of the studies above are more related to academic texts than to community translation, they clearly illustrate how different cultures have different writing norms and different discourse practices. Perhaps an area of cultural difference, at a textual level, that is more closely related to community contexts is letters. In many Anglo-Saxon cultures, for example, letters tend to follow a deductive pattern – that is to say, a to-the-point approach where the purpose of the letter is stated first and then explanation, substantiation or additional information can be included. Kirkpatrick (1991), in a study on letters sent by Chinese native speakers to the China Section of Radio Australia, found that these letters tended to leave requests to the end. Probably due to face considerations (politeness), these Chinese letters opened with a salutation, followed by a preamble (attention to the receiver’s face through good wishes or compliments, for instance), then reasons and finally the request. Similarly, Clyne

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(1991) found that Arabic students tended to mention their requests last, although their letters showed more creativity and variation from one writer to another. This inductive (as opposed to deductive) approach in Chinese and Arabic letters is likely to disorient, frustrate or even upset (threaten the face of) an English reader who is not aware of cultural differences at the level of text conventions. Another tendency Clyne (1991) found in letters written in English by persons coming from different cultural backgrounds is the use of address terms and honorific features. While in English a succinct ‘Dear Sir/Dear Ms Jones’ would properly satisfy courtesy before proceeding to the main business (purpose) of the letter, writers from India, Pakistan and the Arab World tended to introduce their requests (and even statements) with honorific features and expressions of deference toward the addressee and their organization, such as the following: – – – – –

I beg to say … (Pakistani) I have the honour to intimate … (Indian) I have the honour to inform you … (Egyptian) I begged you to accept my application … (Egyptian) It is a great honour that I ask you to help me subscribe in your university (Moroccan)

Apparently, this is a reflection of the pragmatics of letter writing (and communication in general) in these writers’ respective cultures. But what is of interest here is that the English reader who is not aware of cultural differences will have different expectations. Such ‘excessive’ use of honorific features can be viewed with bemusement (‘how quaint!’) or frustration (‘can’t they just get to the point and save my time?’). It may also be interpreted as subservient, and potentially encouraging the reader to assume a superior position toward the writer. Similarly – and notwithstanding that in the context of public service correspondence a power differential is normally present – a concise, to-the-point letter from an English speaker might be perceived as curt, tactless or a sign of ‘arrogance’ by an Indian or an Arab addressee. Awareness of and compliance with culture-specific or cross-cultural norms of text production is essential to effective communication through written texts. Failure to abide by text-type and genre conventions may result in inappropriate, insensitive or counterproductive texts. What is worse, it may lead to a negative evaluation of the writer, with all the ensuing consequences this may have in real-life situations (business, education, immigration, and so on). A case in point is international students at Australian (or other) educational institutions. Clyne (1994:162) reports some comments made by secondary school examiners in the state of Victoria (Australia), which show



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how failure to adjust to the writing norms and expectations of the mainstream culture (or institution) may lead to failure at other levels: – ‘… those who write controlled relevant essays will always be appropriately advantaged.’ – ‘Lack of relevance remains the major cause of failure.’ – ‘Rather than answer in structural terms, many resorted to circular arguments.’ Whether the characteristics and patterns discussed above are relatively isolated or apply systematically throughout the cultures in question, the point is that there are demonstrable situations where cultural differences must be a consideration. Intercultural communicators and mediators – community translators included – need to be aware of and negotiate this additional hurdle if they wish to achieve successful communication or effective and appropriate translation. When translating from and into (minority) community languages, community translators need to continuously assess the cultural differences between the original writer and the ultimate target reader. Texts must be analysed not only with regard to the broad cultural context wherein they are produced, but also in light of the institutional subculture and conventions of the organization or public service that originates the material or commissions its translation. Based on such analysis and assessment, translators would select the most appropriate translation strategy for each case, taking into consideration the features and context of community translation discussed in Chapter 1 (language imparity, literacy, power imbalance, diversity among target readers, etc.). Needless to say, no single strategy will suit all texts, settings and target communities.

2.4  Examples of sociocultural issues 2.4.1  Translation of consent forms The translation of medical informed consent forms into ‘minority’ languages is a prototypical case of the sociocultural challenges and the professional and ethical dilemmas facing community translators. As previously noted, community translation involves a dual operation of cross-cultural transfer: at one level, from the general cultural framework of the source text to the general cultural framework of the targeted demographic; at the other, from the subculture of the source text producer to that of the target text reader. To

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this we need to add the other usual sources of complexity, such as variation of literacy levels and access to information from one community to another. But first, let us outline the nature and characteristics of an informed consent form. Faden and Beauchamp (1986: 278–80) define two senses of ‘informed consent’: the first one as ‘an autonomous action by a subject or patient that authorizes a professional either to involve the subject in research or to initiate a medical plan for the patient (or both)’; the other as ‘legally or institutionally effective […] authorization from a patient or subject […] obtained through procedures that satisfy the rules and requirements defining a specific institutional practice in health care or in research’. In other words, the first sense of the concept is the autonomy-based principle that an individual has the right not to undergo any procedure without their consent, while the other sense focuses on the extent to which that consent is valid in the context of legal requirements and institutional procedures and standards. Berg et al. (2001: 3) open their book Informed Consent: Legal Theory and Clinical Practice with three senses to the term ‘informed consent’, none of which, according to the authors, can alone encompass the complexity of the entire concept: a) legal rules that govern interactions between healthcare staff and patients; b) an ethical doctrine based on the principle of autonomy and the individual’s right of self-determination in situations requiring medical treatment; and c) the interpersonal interaction between the two sides (healthcare professionals and patients) to choose an appropriate medical treatment option. The informed consent process varies from one country to another. As Berg et al. (2001: 4) point out, ‘[t]here are not only vast differences in clinical realities, but also differences among cultural, ethical and legal systems’. The essence of the process, however, is that patients must be informed as to their health condition, the treatment options available, the proposed course of action and the associated risks. In many parts of the world the process would normally start with information provided by healthcare professionals orally and, subsequently, the patient would be asked to express consent by signing a form which notionally contains the same information, followed by a declaration that the patient understands the nature of the procedure. Given the focus of this book, we are more interested in the communication process that takes place through a written informed consent form. As defined above, the medical informed consent process occupies a position between medicine and the law. A medical informed consent form, therefore, is a hybrid between a legal and a medical document: it contains medical information intended as a step in a medical process, but at the same time it constitutes legal evidence that the patient has been duly informed and has authorized the corresponding surgical or other procedure. From a legal and ethical perspective, an essential condition for the process to be valid is that the patient must comprehend the diagnosis, the treatment proposed



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and the risks involved. The extent to which this is possible, especially when communication between healthcare professionals and patients is mediated (by interpreters or translators), raises major ethical questions, not only for medical institutions and staff, but also for translators and interpreters. Before we deal with translated consent forms, it is worth presenting an interesting example of monolingual communication for informed consent purposes. To introduce a number of ethical issues, Berg et al. (2001: 4) refer to the case of a patient who had hardly completed high school and who had been suffering from pancreatitis. The Chief Resident and the Senior Resident advise him as follows: Chief Resident: […] What I think is that you will do better if we take out part of your pancreas, as long as you understand that this is a serious operation in that, while you probably won’t die from it, there is a small chance that you might, although not much. But there are serious side effects from it, like you will probably have some diabetes and have trouble digesting your food. Then I think that we should go ahead and have you talk with your wife about coming in and make plans for you to come in. Senior Resident: I think that you ought to understand that this is not going to be a cure-all. This is not going to do away with all of your problems. You are still going to have a lot of problems from that pancreas of yours. Patient: I know that. (Berg et al. 2001: 5) Later on the same morning, the authors report, a researcher who had observed the interaction above asked the patient whether he knew why he had a pancreas problem and he replied that he did not. When asked about the operation he was supposed to undergo, he responded: ‘They are going to take my pancreas out’ (Berg et al. 2001: 5). The authors follow what goes on in the communication with this patient at different stages, with different healthcare staff, but what is of interest to us is that there was a clear misunderstanding or lack of comprehension in this case, although the interaction was monolingual, between two native speakers of English, and the information was provided in non-specialized language. This implies that the risk of misunderstanding or incomplete comprehension is even greater when patients have to obtain information about their health and the ramifications of medical treatment through a written (and consequently more formal) document whose comprehensibility will likely be even more problematic once translated into another language. Consider the informed consent form below. The first text is the Spanish original, followed by an English translation done by the interpreting and translation students of a Spanish university as part of a project to provide translated materials to hospitals and healthcare centres.

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DOCUMENTO DE CONSENTIMIENTO INFORMADO PARA CERCLAJE CERVICAL DOÑA………………………………………………………… (NOMBRE Y DOS APELLIDOS DE LA PACIENTE) DE……………….AÑOS DE EDAD. CON DOMICILIO EN………………………………………………….Y D.N.I. Nº……………… DON……………………………………………………………………………………………….. (NOMBRE Y DOS APELLIDOS)DE……………………….AÑOS DE EDAD CON DOMICILIO EN……………………………………………….Y D.N.I. Nº……………….. EN CALIDAD DE ……………………………………………..(REPRESENTANTE LEGAL, FAMILIAR, ALLEGADO) DE………………………………………………………….. (NOMBRE Y DOS APELLIDOS DE LA PACIENTE) DECLARO: QUE EL DOCTOR/A………………………………………………………………………………. (NOMBREY DOS APELLIDOS DEL FACULTATIVO QUE PROPORCIONA LA INFORMACION) me ha informado de la necesidad/ conveniencia de practicar procedimiento quirúrgico de CERCLAJE CERVICAL cuya finalidad es reducir el orificio cervical uterino por riesgo de aborto/ parto prematuro, y que se me ha explicado y he comprendido y aceptado que: 1. Que la intervención consiste en colocar una cinta o hilo alrededor del orificio cervical y mediante su anudación se produce una reducción de la amplitud del mismo. 2. La intervención debe realizarse bajo anestesia (general o locorregional), que será valorada por el Servicio de Anestesia. 3. Que la intervención no garantiza absolutamente la corrección de la insuficiencia cervical, y existe un pequeño porcentaje de fracasos sin poder garantizar, por tanto, la posibilidad de un parto pretérmino. 4. Que la vía habitual de abordaje para realizar esta intervención es la vaginal. 5. Que los riesgos potenciales de esta intervención son la rotura prematura de las membranas, amnionitis, sangrados cervicales, imposibilidad de realizar la intervención infección urinaria, desencadenamiento del parto/ aborto, y los secundarios a la anestesia. Por mi situación actual, el médico me ha explicado que pueden aumentar o aparecer riesgos o complicaciones como ………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6. Que existen otras opciones terapéuticas conservadoras, que me han sido explicadas, que no implican la intervención quirúrgica, por lo que no producen el cierre del orificio cervical, como el reposo absoluto, la administración de fármacos uteroinhibidores, etc., con un porcentaje de éxito muy inferior. 7. Que me han sido explicados y he comprendido los cuidados, y tratamiento en su caso, que he de seguir tras la intervención y me comprometo a observar. 8. Que si en el curso de intervención surgiese algún imprevisto, el equipo médico podrá variar la técnica programada.



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DOCUMENTO DE CONSENTIMIENTO INFORMADO PARA CERCLAJE CERVICAL (INGLÉS) INFORMED CONSENT FOR CERVICAL CERCLAGE MRS/MS ……………………………………..…………………………………………………… (PATIENT’S NAME AND SURNAME/S), AGED ..….……. RESIDENT OF ………………………………………….. ID NO. ……………………………….. MR ………………………………………………….…………………………….……………… (NAME AND SURNAME/S), AGED …..………. RESIDENT OF ………………………………………….. ID NO. ……………………………….. ACTING AS …………………………… (LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OR RELATIVE) OF ………………….……………………………. (PATIENT’S NAME AND SURNAME/S) I STATE: That I have been informed by the HEALTH PROFESSIONAL ……………………….. ………………………………………………. (NAME AND SURNAMES OF THE HEALTH PROFESSIONAL PROVIDING THIS INFORMATION) of the necessity/convenience of performing a CERVICAL CERCLAGE. This surgical procedure aims to reduce the cervical uterine orifice due to the risk of abortion/premature labour. I have been informed and I have accepted that: The surgical operation consists in encircling the cervical orifice with a loop. When this is tightened, the size of the orifice is reduced. This surgical operation must be performed under general or local/regional anaesthetic, which will be assessed by the Anaesthesia Department. This operation does not absolutely guarantee the correction of the cervical deficiency. There is a small possibility of failure, therefore it is not possible to guarantee a natural birth. This surgical operation is usually performed through the vagina. The potential risks of this operation are the premature breakage of membranes, amnionitis, cervical bleeding, the inability to continue the operation, urinary infection, the induction of labour/miscarriage, and those adverse events deriving from anaesthetics. Due to my current situation, the practitioner has explained to me that the following risks and complications may appear or worsen: …………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… I have been informed about other possible conservative therapeutic options such as complete rest, administering uterus inhibitors, etc., which do not involve a surgical operation and, therefore, will not reduce the cervical orifice. The success rate of these alternatives is much lower than with cervical cerclage. I have been informed of and I have understood the care and treatment, if necessary, that I must follow after surgery and which I am committed to following if something unexpected occurs during the intervention, the medical team will change the programmed technique. In the event of something unpredictable happening during the intervention, I hereby give my consent for the medical staff to change the technique to be used.

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The underlined terms and phrases in the Spanish and English texts above are but a few examples of the specialized terminology and complex structures that characterize medical texts. As a quick comparison shows, the level of formality and complexity is notably higher in the written texts than in the spoken explanations given by the healthcare professionals taken from Berg et al. (2001: 4). Although the forms are aimed at patients, they are written as though they were instances of communication within the same subculture: that is, communication between experts in the same area. As Burns and Kim (2011: 59) assert, ‘it may be difficult for health professionals who are usually highly educated to place themselves in the position of readers with very varied levels of literacy in their first and second languages’. If complexity and specialized language may constitute a comprehension challenge for native Spanish and English readers whose level of education and access to information are relatively more developed, the challenge may be even greater for community members for whom the language of the text is a second or foreign language; those who have a lower educational level; users whose language skills are not sufficiently developed to accommodate science and technology; or those who speak one language for ‘lifeworld’ interactions while the official or written language of their country is another (e.g. diglossic situations as in the Arab World, or colonial vs local languages as in some African countries). Taibi (2006a) conducted a survey in Madrid with Spanish, Arabic and (African) English speakers to verify the extent to which they were able to understand medical informed consent forms and to compare comprehension difficulties between the three groups. The research method, which employed a consent form for a toracotomy-thoracoscopy, consisted of supplying the original (Spanish) text and its Arabic and English translations to the three language groups, and asking the participants to underline any lexical items they could not understand. The demographic data of the people approached for the study showed significant differences between the Spanish group and the two migrant groups (Arabic speakers and speakers of English as a second or foreign language): none of the Spanish participants were illiterate, while 30 per cent of the Arabic-speaking participants and 21.42 per cent of the African English-speaking group were. This meant that they were unable to use written texts without the assistance (mediation) of another person. For those who were able to read, the survey showed that out of the approximately 330 words comprising the text, the readers of the Arabic, English and Spanish versions underlined an average of twenty-four, nineteen and six words respectively. This indicated that, at least in terms of lexical items, the migrants from Arab and African origins faced greater comprehension challenges. The underlined words in the Spanish version were all specialized terms (‘toracotomía’, ‘toracoscopia’,

[lamm aš-šaml]

‘‫’ﻋﻘﺐ‬

‘‫’ﺇإﻳﯾﻼﺝج‬

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[ʻaqiba: after]

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[īlāj: insertion]

‘plexo braquial’, ‘neumotórax’, ‘empiema’, ‘dehiscencia’), while the Englishspeaking African immigrants and, especially, the Arabic-speaking users underlined even non-specialized lexical items (e.g. ‘undergo’ and ‘discharge’ ’ [īlāj: insertion] and ‘‫ﺃأﻧﺒﻮﺏب‬ in English, or ‘‫’ﻋﻘﺐ‬ ‘ ’ [ʻaqiba: after], ‘‫ﺇإﻳﯾﻼﺝج‬ ‘ ‘ ’’ [unbūb: tube] in Arabic). These findings are understandable given the educational and sociolinguistic backgrounds of the participants: a) literacy rates are relatively lower [īlāj: insertion] [ʻaqiba: after] [unbūb: tube] in African and Arab countries than in Spain or Europe in general, as recent data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics indicate (UNESCO 2013); b) the African participants were migrants or refugees who spoke English as a second or foreign Modern Standard Arabic, the language ‘‫ﺃأﻧﺒﻮﺏب‬ ’ ‘‫ ’ﺇإﻳﯾﻼﺝج‬language; and c) of the translated Arabic version, is only used in writing and very formal communicative situations, and is therefore only accessible to educated people. [unbūb: tube] [īlāj:a insertion] All this raises number of questions and dilemmas for the community translator. One such is how to translate a formal medico-legal document, which is often full of specialized terminology and complex structures, to a patient from‘‫ﺃأﻧﺒﻮﺏب‬ a different culture and with a lower socio-educational level. ’ Ultimately, this goes to the community translator’s role – namely, whether one should assume the mantle of communication facilitator, intercultural mediator, inter-literacy mediator or ‘faithful’ transcoder (see Chapter 3). tube]that community translators have ‘the right and Taibi (2006b: [unbūb: 63) argues obligation to find a balance between formal equivalence and communicative efficiency’, based on an analysis of the characteristics of each institutional context and the sociocultural background of the target readers. Burns and Kim (2011: 69) suggest ‘that health information and its translation for the community [should be] made as accessible as possible’. Even for original texts, the authors argue, there is room for improvement for better clarity and readability. The question of accessibility and cultural appropriateness may be taken even further by considering those communities where orality is more common or preferable than written communication in the transmission of knowledge or advice. In such a case, other formats of translation or trans­ creation (e.g. audiovisual content) may be more effective alternatives. And here emerges the necessity for the community translator to be proactive in advising text producers on the suitability of texts and of medium of communication. In other words, the community translator will at times need to act as a cultural or community advisor, especially in those situations where no other professionals or organizations are able to perform this role. Rather than waste time and resources on a translation that would be inaccessible or inappropriate, it would be more useful to advise the relevant authorities or parties of alternative ways to communicate.

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2.4.2  Translation of asylum seeker statements While official documents such as informed consent forms are generated by authorities for public service users, we also find this directionality reversed in certain instances – such as the statements produced by asylum seekers for consideration by the authorities of the country where they are seeking protection. Refugee status is governed by the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. According to the Convention, a refugee is a person who, ‘owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’ (United Nations High Commission for Refugees 2011: 10). To be able to present a credible case of persecution for religious, racial, political or other reasons, the applicant needs to ‘supply all pertinent information concerning himself and his past experience in as much detail as is necessary to enable the examiner to establish the relevant facts. He should be asked to give a coherent explanation of all the reasons invoked in support of his application’ (United Nations High Commission for Refugees 2011: 40). This is usually done through both a written statement and an interview, in addition, of course, to any evidentiary materials the applicant may possess. The thrust of this last quotation hinges on keywords such as ‘relevant facts’ and ‘coherent’. Relevance is understood as pertinence to the criteria specified in the Convention; coherence is assessed from the (cultural) perspective of the examiner, who also assesses relevance. Due to language barriers, applicants often require intermediation to supply their ‘pertinent information’ – transmitting verbal accounts through interpreters and written statements through translators. This again takes us to the issue of how the ‘voice of the lifeworld’ is received and perceived by the ear, eye or cognitive system of the examiner or expert. To illustrate, the following is an extract from a student’s translation of an asylum statement made originally in Arabic by an Iraqi applicant:

What my mother narrated of what had happened to us was little and we were hoping that our story would be taken into consideration because of the hardship we suffered. We would like to inform you that we cannot and will never return to Iraq because of our fear of those rabble hardliners and extremists. We were threatened by more than one group and, as my mother



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said, we were under constant and heavy surveillance and we couldn’t go out, while we heard those evil groups calling us infidels, “filthy” and that there is no place for polytheists in Iraq. Finally we had no option but to escape. Those rabbles spat in my beloved mother’s face, they also slapped her so hard she fell to the ground, not mentioning the obscene language they have used which I cannot reproduce. All of that was not enough, they were harassing me and I feared for my wife’s and children’s safety.

The passage above occurs at the beginning of the applicant’s statement, immediately after a first paragraph identifying the applicant and their family members. Although it is relatively clear that the writer is describing some relevant grounds, namely religious persecution, the account is not written in a clear, well-structured and effective manner. It does not clearly and concisely start with the applicant’s claim(s), but with an unclear ‘what my mother narrated of what had happened to us was little’. In addition, rather than specify who the alleged persecutors are, the writer keeps referring to ‘evil groups’ and ‘rabbles’. In a clear culture-specific discourse strategy, the applicant’s mother is referred to three times. The sentence ‘Those rabbles spat in my beloved mother’s face’, in particular, suggests that extremely offensive behaviour took place. Only with a cultural understanding of the position of the mother and the symbolism associated with this figure in Arab cultures can a reader fully understand the narrative above and the persecution grounds the writer puts forward. The text from which the excerpt above was taken reflects some of the common textual features in statements and accounts written by individuals from certain sociocultural backgrounds and presented for translation in a community context: 1 A narrative that focuses on life experiences rather than the relevant

criteria. 2 A text organization that does not match the expectations of the target

culture and institution (e.g. inductive vs deductive). 3 Poor coherence and cohesion, at least as assessed from the

perspective of the target culture and readership (i.e. public service staff). 4 Discourse strategies that might be common in the source culture but

inappropriate in the target culture or the culture of the public service

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addressed. For instance, emotive language such as ‘you have a compassionate heart’ or ‘I have three orphans to feed’ are commonly used as persuasion strategies by public service users in undemocratic countries, but in countries where people are treated as citizens with institutionalized rights, such strategies would be perceived as odd, self-demeaning and out of place. 5 Cultural references that might not be understood outside the writer’s

community without appropriate intervention by a translator. This type of texts presents the translator with the recurrent challenge not only to address cultural differences but also to mediate between the voice of an individual applicant’s lifeworld (Mishler 1984) and the voice of the public service. In this case the role or mission of the translator is also raised: is it to render texts as they are presented (form, argumentative/narrative structure, and so on) or to reformulate and restructure them in an effective and institutionally more appropriate manner (to empower and serve the purposes of the asylum seeker)? Such seemingly radical departures from neutrality have been raised in community interpreting literature (e.g. Barsky 1996) and need to be considered for community translation. In the following chapter, we discuss this as part of a general discussion of the translation approaches in community translation and the ethical considerations applicable to community translators.

3 Approaches to (community) translation

3.1  Translation norms and values

W

e have seen in the previous chapters that community translation is an activity that facilitates written communication between components of the same society, where some member groups do not have a good command of the dominant language. The ultimate aim of this activity is to ensure that all citizens and residents have access to information, full access to public services and an opportunity to participate in the social, economic, cultural and political life of their society. The materials to be translated may be produced by a number of different social agents – principally mainstream public services and community organizations, but also, in some cases, individuals seeking a service or applying for a certain status or benefit. We have also seen that community translation usually takes place in a multicultural context characterized by power asymmetry – between minority and majority groups, and between the providers and the users of public services – as well as by language imparity, linguistic variation inside the same target community and varying levels of literacy. As has been indicated earlier, this complexity raises a number of questions about the role of community translators and the approach they should take when dealing with community texts. The synthesis of translation norms and values by Chesterman (2000) affords a useful starting point for our discussion of both the community translator’s role and community translation approaches. According to Chesterman, translation is a type of action that takes the form of strategies determined by certain translation norms, which in turn have their origin in four fundamental ethical values: clarity, truth, trust and understanding. a Clarity: clarity is an overriding value in language use in general

and in translation in particular. One of Grice’s (1975) oft-quoted

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conversational maxims suggests that audiences generally expect communicators to avoid ambiguity and obscurity and to be brief and orderly. Clarity ensures rational communication in human societies (Chesterman 2000: 175). Translators in particular attend to the value of clarity both preventively and productively. Preventively, they process texts from one language to another in a way that avoids obscurity and confusion. Productively, they generally make translation choices that contribute better to clarity by, for instance, favouring iconicity, i.e. unmarked linguistic forms whose meaning can easily be identified (Chesterman 2000: 177). However, evaluating clarity is not unproblematic, as it is relative to the situational context and to the background of the audience: what is clear for some might not be sufficiently so for others, while in some circumstances clarity is something the communicators themselves may wish to avoid (Chesterman 2000: 176). This is very relevant to community translation, as will be discussed below. b Truth: truth means correspondence to reality or a state of affairs;

in translation it refers to correspondence to the source text. It is related to what has been traditionally referred to as translation fidelity, faithfulness or equivalence. In terms of translation norms, it is closely associated with the relation norm: ‘a translator should act in such a way that an appropriate relation of relevant similarity is established and maintained between the source text and the target text’ (Chesterman 2000: 69). This value is even more problematic and controversial than clarity. Noting that the concept of truth is debatable and that the adjective ‘true’ is used in a number of different senses (e.g. true photograph, true copy, true report, etc.), Chesterman (2000: 180) adopts a flexible position regarding the extent to which translations (should) reflect their corresponding original texts: ‘Source–target relations are elastic, but the elastic must not be cut completely.’ This means that varying levels of ‘truth’ – or cross-mapping between source and target texts – may be acceptable, depending on contextual and textual considerations. In the context of community translation in particular, this warrants a number of possible ways of producing and translating texts in consultation and collaboration with the relevant stakeholders (see Section 3.3 below). c Trust: as an overriding value, trust has to do with the translator’s

assumption that the different stakeholders and participants in the communication act (original writer, translation commissioner, audience, other translators) are acting in good faith and, at the same time, expect the translator to act in a loyal and trustworthy manner.



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‘Translators, in order to survive as translators, must be trusted by all parties involved, both as a profession and individually. They must therefore work in such a way as to create and maintain this trust’ (Chesterman 2000: 181). The fact that this is a key value is reflected in common references in translator codes of ethics to expectations such as upholding the reputation and trustworthiness of the profession, observing impartiality, taking responsibility for one’s work and declaring any conflict of interest (e.g. AUSIT 2012). However, like the other values, trust often poses dilemmas for the translator, especially in those situations where loyalty to one stakeholder may impinge on loyalty to another. This too will be discussed below in relation to community translation. d Understanding: people communicate to achieve understanding,

and translators undertake their work to produce and expand understanding by making texts accessible to a larger and more diverse audience. As communicators, translators value understanding and work towards it by ‘(a) minimizing misunderstanding of the text among included readers, and (b) minimizing the number of potential readers who are excluded from understanding’ (Chesterman 2000: 186). Like clarity, however, understanding is relative: what is easily understandable for some might be less so for others; what some listeners or readers understand might be slightly or significantly different from what is understood by others; and perfect understanding does not exist (there is always a degree of mismatch between the speaker’s or writer’s intended meaning and the hearer’s or reader’s interpretation). However, what is of importance to us, especially in the community translation context, is that understanding is an ultimate value for translators and that this value is related to both minimizing misunderstanding and minimizing the circle of excluded readerships. The values above can be reduced to three: truth, trust and understanding. The values of clarity and understanding are related, to the extent that one (clarity) can be subsumed under the other (understanding). Chesterman (2000: 186) differentiates between them and explains that clarity regulates translation expectancy norms (expectations of the target readership) while understanding relates to the communication norm (achieving optimal communication between parties in a given context). He adds that clarity and truth concern relations between source and target texts, while trust and understanding concern relations between people (stakeholders). However, it can be argued that logically the ultimate goal behind clarity is understanding, and that the

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communication norm relates to both: writers tend to make their texts as clear as possible to facilitate understanding and therefore achieve communication; translators generally seek to produce clear translations in order to achieve understanding and, as a result, communication among a larger audience. Indeed this plausibly explains why explicitation is a translation universal (see e.g. Baker 1993; Toury 1995; Øverås 1998; Klaudy and Károly 2005).

3.2  Approaches to translation Much of the translation studies literature has in a sense occupied itself with the value of truth, i.e. with linguistic and textual analysis of source texts to determine the state of affairs that needs to be reflected in another language, and comparison with target texts to assess the extent to which these products are a true reflection of the source texts. At the same time the value of understanding has been central, especially with the advent of readeroriented translation theories. Rather than present an exhaustive historical account or an evaluative overview of translation theories, the following paragraphs briefly overview some influential approaches to translation, with a special focus on reader-oriented and functional models. This is done with the intention of providing some background to the subsequent discussion of approaches to community translation, and identifying the views in the literature that best suit the context of this activity. As Munday (2012: 9) has noted, ‘[i]t is interlingual translation, between two different verbal sign systems, that has been the traditional focus of translation studies’. Some of the most influential theoretical models (e.g. Vinay and Darbelnet 1995 [1958]; Catford 1980 [1965]) date back to the 1950s and 1960s – decades when linguistics was a dominant discipline, language was conceived of as a code and structuralism and language universals dominated language studies (Nord 1997: 6). As a result, these early approaches offer a limited understanding of translation which centres round the contrastive study of the source and target languages. Vinay and Darbelnet (1995 [1958]) address a number of linguistic aspects of translation, including differences between syntactic structures, the lexicon, word classes, stylistic variations, number, time, tense, and so on. Based on a contrastive linguistic comparison of English and French, they put forward seven principal translation procedures which are presumed to apply to other languages: borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. Influenced by the same structuralist linguistic models of the time, Catford (1980 [1965]) proposes his concept of ‘translation shift’: when there is a mismatch between a formal correspondent and a textual equivalent, a translation shift



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occurs or needs to occur. Catford identifies two broad types of translation shift: level shifts, where an equivalent to a source text item is found at a different linguistic level (e.g. a shift from the level of grammar to that of lexis), and category shifts, which include structural shifts, class shifts, unit shifts and intra-system shifts. Early theoretical contributions such as Vinay and Darbelnet’s and Catford’s have been criticized by many scholars (see e.g. Roberts 1984; Snell-Hornby 1988; Fawcett 1997) on the grounds that they reduce translation to a linguistic exercise, focus on units of translation below the text level, use idealized and out-of-context sentences as examples and do not offer practical or useful solutions to translators. However, these pioneering efforts still have a presence in translation studies and translation training, and can still offer valid insights. Collombat (2003), for instance, concludes that the essence of Vinay and Darbelnet’s contribution, as an instrumental theory, remains useful. Chesterman (2012: 32) recognizes that Catford’s contribution carries useful seeds for translation studies, and values the fact that ‘[d]espite his 1960s linguistic framework, he does see the importance of relevance, situation and context; the distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence is fundamental (although not exclusive to him), as is the contextualizing of the notion of equivalence itself’. Hatim and Mason (1990) offer another linguistics-centred approach to translation, but in their case with a strong orientation towards discourse analysis and the insights it may offer to translators. Inspired by the Hallidayan linguistic framework, they go beyond structural aspects of language to consider texts as discursive practices and as reflections of different functions encompassing the ideational (representation of reality), the interpersonal (relationship between speaker/writer and listener/reader) and the textual. Central to their work are register analysis (field, tenor and mode of discourse), intertextuality, intentionality, text types (expository, argumentative and instructive), text structure and discourse structure. Another important aspect of translation that the authors address is ideology and power relationships. For them, translators are mediators between the producer (and culture) of the original text and the reader (and culture) of the target text . It is therefore the translator’s duty to use structural, semantic, pragmatic, discursive, semiotic and other levels of analysis to reproduce the intended meaning, the rhetorical purpose and the ideological tone of the source text. ‘Whatever is said about the degree of freedom the translator has’, Hatim and Mason (1990: 161) suggest, ‘the fact remains that reflecting the ideological force of the words is an inescapable duty.’ Baker (2011 [1992]) also espouses a linguistics-based approach to translation. Unlike the work of Hatim and Mason (1990), Baker’s book adopts a bottom-up hierarchical organization, dedicating chapters to different types

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(levels) of equivalence (word level, above word level, grammatical, textual, pragmatic, beyond equivalence). The author identifies translation problems and suggests translation solutions at different linguistic levels. At the lexical level, for instance, she suggests generalization, neutralization, cultural substitution, using loanwords, paraphrasing, and so on. For translation challenges posed by idioms, she suggests a number of options (e.g. idiom with similar form, idiom with different form, borrowing, paraphrase, omission). In relation to equivalence at the textual level, Baker addresses translation challenges and possible solutions relating to information structure and cohesion. Recalling Halliday’s (e.g. 1970, 1985) ‘given/new’ and ‘theme/rheme’, and echoing Hatim and Mason’s (1990: 220) assertion that different languages use different patterns of thematic progression and that these ‘patterns are always employed in the service of an overriding rhetorical purpose’, Baker offers an insightful analysis of text organization in different languages and alerts translators to the importance of information structure and text cohesion. In the 2011 edition of her book, Baker adds a new chapter on ethics ‘to respond to increased pressures on translators and interpreters to demonstrate accountability and awareness of the tremendous social and political impact of their decisions’ (Baker 2011 [1992]: xiii). Although a considerable part of the chapter deals with interpreting, it discusses some important ethical issues facing translators. Basically, Baker argues that for translators to do their job accountably and ethically, their decisions need to be informed by general principles such as not causing harm or not acquiescing to injustice (Baker 2011 [1992]: 278). However, approaches to ethics vary, and so do the explanations ventured for any decision a professional might take. Deontological approaches (e.g. Kantian ethics) determine what is ethical behaviour based on the value judgement associated with the action or behaviour itself (morally right or wrong), regardless of the impact it might have in a certain situation. Teleological approaches (e.g. utilitarian ethics), on the other hand, judge ethicality based on the likely consequences of an action and, therefore, prefer one course of action to another depending on which option is likely to yield the best results for the largest number of stakeholders (Baker 2011 [1992]: 276). Whether professionals follow one model or another, ethical dilemmas will always be present: In translation, act-utilitarian logic would support a decision that results in the largest number of participants, including the translator, achieving their objectives on occasion, even if the rights of one participant, perhaps an immigrant or the author, are undermined. (Baker 2011 [1992]: 279) Similarly, someone following universalist ethics might find themselves in a dilemma, for instance, when two or more supposedly universal values or



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rules are in conflict in a given situation (Baker 2011 [1992]: 280). An example is when the norm of accuracy (see value of truth in Chesterman 2000 above) is in conflict with the rule of ‘do not cause harm’. Baker alerts translators to their responsibility not only as transmitters of messages but also as producers of language and discourse, especially discursive and language choices which might represent people, characters and communities in a negative manner (Baker 2011 [1992]: 282–9). Reiss (2000 [1971]) offers a functional approach to translation that is centred on a relation of functional equivalence between the source text and the target text. For Reiss, an ideal translation is one ‘in which the aim in the TL [target language] is equivalence as regards the conceptual content, linguistic form and communicative function of a SL [source language] text’ (Reiss 1977, as cited by Nord 1997: 9). In this approach to translation, the typology of texts plays a main role in determining the criteria for both translation and translation criticism (assessment). According to Reiss, both the translator and the translation critic (assessor) need to recognize the typology represented in the source text before carrying out their work. She draws upon Bühler (1990 [1965]), who believes that ‘language serves simultaneously to represent (objectively), express (subjectively) and appeal (persuasively)’ (Reiss 2000 [1971]: 25). Based on this classification, Reiss identifies three basic language functions and text types, but at the same time notes that texts often present combinations of different functions, as summarized below: a Depictive or informative, evident in ‘content-focused’ writing

(pragmatic texts): texts serving this function are informative in the sense that they represent facts and states of affairs. Translation of this type of text is expected to convey the referential content of the original text in ‘plain prose’, with explicitation strategies if necessary. b Expressive, evident in ‘form-focused’ writing (e.g. literary texts): texts

serving this function use language with a predominantly aesthetic value, so translators need to reflect the aesthetic form of the original text, positioning themselves in the perspective of the author of that text. c Persuasive, as in ‘appeal-focused’ writing (e.g. advertising): texts

serving this function are operative and appellative in the sense that they appeal to readers and purport to elicit a certain response or action. Translation of this type of text is expected to produce an equivalent effect (comparable response) by adapting the message to the target audience. Reiss also adds a fourth category, which she initially calls ‘audio-medial’ and later changes to ‘multi-medial’ (Reiss 1980). This refers to those texts

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which have been written to be spoken, or which require audiovisual media for them to be fully realized (e.g. songs, film scripts, comics, audiovisual advertising, etc.). Reiss (1990) admits that this category does not constitute a separate type per se, as texts of this kind may fall under any of the three types described above. This qualification is correct insofar as the descriptors ‘multi-medial’ or ‘audiovisual’ concern the medium of communication rather than the function of language. However, differentiation between texts according to how they are conveyed is of paramount relevance to the work of translators, as each such medium has its particular constraints and conventions. In addition to offering a model that transcends word-level and sentence-level equivalence to attain a comprehensive textual understanding of equivalence, Reiss stresses the role of the intended audience – an important factor for the focus of this book, community translation. Reiss (2000 [1971]: 79) argues that the translator needs to ensure that target language readers see and understand the text according to their own cultural context. The audience factor must especially be considered in those textual features that require adaptation, such as idiomatic expressions, quotations, proverbial allusions and metaphors. Again, text typology is essential to determine the extent to which translations need to adapt to the audience, as this may vary from one text type to another. Reiss can scarcely be invoked without citing her student Vermeer, whose Skopos Theory – considered an influential contribution to translation thought – can be encapsulated in the following quotation: Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The Skopos rule thus reads as follows: translate/interpret/speak/write in a way that enables your text/translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with the people who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function. (Vermeer 1989: 20, cited and translated by Nord 1997: 29) In short, the paramount factor is the purpose for which a translation is produced, with the source text being merely an offer of information in a given source culture and source language. In consistence with this, the target text is also an ‘offer of information’, but in a distinct language and cultural context (Reiss and Vermeer 1984: 119). A translation is not an imitation of the source text, but a reproduction of this text in a manner that best serves its new purpose. Accordingly, information about the sociocultural background, knowledge, expectations and needs of the audience is extremely important for the translator to decide how to go about the translation task (Reiss and Vermeer 1984: 101).



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One important question that arises concerns who determines the skopos or the principle governing it. As Nord (1997: 30) explains, every translation normally has an initiator, who will ideally specify the purpose, time, place, audience and medium for which it is needed. It is through their translation brief that the initiator decides the translation skopos. However, as Nord clarifies, the translation skopos is often negotiated between initiator and translator, because the former does not always possess the necessary knowledge and expertise to determine the most appropriate type of translation for a given communicative situation. The fact that translators can be instructed as to the skopos does not mean, however, that initiators decide upon the required translation type and strategies, since ‘[t]hese decisions depend entirely on the translator’s responsibility and competence’ (Nord 1997: 30). Skopos Theory is one of purposeful action which does not seek a relation of equivalence between a source text and a target text, but of adequacy between a translation and its skopos – namely, the intended function in the new context. Unlike in linguistic and equivalence-focused approaches, in Skopos Theory the source text is ‘dethroned’. Considered as an ‘offer of information’, it is not the most important factor or criterion on which the translator needs to base their translation. Moreover, the internal coherence of the translatum (target text) is given priority over its external or intertextual coherence (in relation to the source text). The ‘coherence rule’ in this theory stipulates that the target text needs to be interpretable as coherent with its receiver’s situation (Reiss and Vermeer 1984: 113): that is to say, it needs to be sufficiently coherent and comprehensible from the point of view, context and background knowledge of the intended readers. Only once this condition has been satisfied does the translator need to comply with the ‘fidelity rule’, which moreover is formulated so loosely that fidelity is understood as being some relationship or match between source and target text. Indeed, like Holz-Manttäri’s (1984) theory of translatorial action, Reiss and Vermeer’s (1984) approach allows for a number of possible renderings of a source text, including summary translation, free translation, adaptation or even non-translation (advising the client not to have the source text translated). As Nord (1997: 29) notes, the skopos rule aims to put an end to the long-debated dichotomy of faithful vs free translation, as it gives the translator leeway to choose a formally faithful or a free translation approach, or any appropriate position between the two, depending on the situational and communicative purpose that the translation is intended to serve. Pym’s (2010 [1992]) essay raises a number of thorny issues, some of which are closely relevant to community translation. Pym understands and presents translation as a process of text transfer, and translators as active subjects who work on transferred texts. Text transfer is ‘understood as the simple moving of inscribed material from one place and time to another place

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and time’ (Pym 2010 [1992]: 13). Movement in space and time also means movement between cultures, or in an intercultural space. This, in turn, leads to the conclusion that a significant difference between the context of text production and that of text reception necessarily leads to different meanings (Pym 2010 [1992]: 20). The author claims that linguistic models of translations, as well as the later semiotic and pragmatic additions, fall short of understanding ‘transfer as a bridging of material time and space’ (Pym 2010 [1992]: 29). These models, he argues, place the source text and the target text side by side, as static entities, and analyse and compare their linguistic features, which may produce interesting linguistic findings, but these will have little relevance to the essence of translation, as they fail to discern the movement or transfer it involves (Pym 2010 [1992]: 29). Like Baker, Pym discusses the translator’s role and professional ethics, and offers views which are worth discussing in the context of community translation. In line with his belief that translators are active subjects, Pym asserts that ‘translators cannot help but take position – since even neutral positions have to be created –, their ethics should break with passive non-identity, forcing them actively to evaluate the texts they work on, making them take on a major degree of responsibility for the texts they produce’ (Pym 2010 [1992]: 170). Translators, he adds, are expected to be intellectuals who have ideas about their collective identity and aims (Pym 2010 [1992]: 179). Ultimately, their loyalty should lie with their own profession, with themselves as a collective of professionals who are able to justify their translation decisions in light of their ultimate aim, namely to improve intercultural relations (Pym 2010 [1992]: 176–7). In relation to this last point, Pym argues that translators are entitled to improve the texts they transfer in the course of their work. However, improvement is relative, as translation involves a number of stakeholders (original author, initiator, receivers, translator, etc.). The question then is whose perspective and criteria should translators base their improvements on, and whose authority should they seek to realize them? (Pym 2010 [1992]: 171). Pym’s answer is that translators must position themselves in an intercultural space first (intercultural communication as a priority) and then consider the positions and interests of stakeholders (writers, readers, communities, cultures, etc.) (Pym 2010 [1992]: 174). Of special interest in this regard is Pym’s discussion of Kingscott’s (1990: 48) analogy in which translators are compared to advocates. Kingscott argues that the translator or interpreter ‘is in the same position as an advocate’ in the sense that they represent innocent victims as well as heinous villains in a professionally detached manner: both the clients of a barrister and those of a translator/interpreter trust that the professional will put their case ‘as they [the clients] would like to see it put’. Pym notes some differences between the two cases (e.g. presence of both accusation and defence, as well as the authority of a judge in the case of



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court proceedings) and determines that ‘the fact that the advocate’s aim is to serve a client does not necessarily mean that the same purpose is valid for translators’ (Pym 2010 [1992]: 176). The points raised by Pym (2010) and Baker (2011) in her chapter on ethics seem to signal a steadily growing interest among translation studies scholars in aspects of translation that go beyond the source text/target text relationship. In another publication, Pym (2006) notes that where much of the focus used to be placed on source texts and target texts, it is now placed on translators as mediators: who undertakes this mediation, who it is done for and what its social impact is. Snell-Hornby (2012: 372) asserts that the future of translation studies lies in ‘fostering and exploring languages and cultures hitherto ignored and in rediscovering the role of translators and translation scholars as intercultural communicators and mediators between them’. This shift towards holistic approaches to translation as a social action with a social impact, translators as social agents and cultural mediators, and, therefore, the translation profession as a practice with ethical ramifications is not a product of the twenty-first century. Rather, it had its beginnings with the functionalist approaches, some of which are mentioned above, and the ‘cultural turn’. By advocating for translator agency, addressing social relations and the roles of different stakeholders, and focusing on the skopos of translations, functionalist theories were early precursors of sociologically oriented approaches (Pym 2006; Wolf 2007). As Prunč (2007: 40) observes, however, the social framework of translation practice was not clearly defined nor sufficiently elaborated in these earlier contributions. With the ‘sociological turn’ (Prunč 2007; Wolf 2007) of the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, the social dimensions, constraints and impacts of translation have gained more prominence. Wolf and Fukari’s (2007) edited volume, for instance, stresses the social context in which translation is embedded – as a process, a product and a profession – and the social impact attached to different conceptions of the translator role. In her introduction, Wolf (2007: 1) notes that translation is ‘undeniably carried out by individuals who belong to a social system’ and ‘inevitably implicated in social institutions’ which influence translation at different levels, including selection of materials to be translated, distribution of translations, and even translation strategies. In the same volume, Chesterman (2007: 173–4) notes that sociological translation research focuses on people and their actions, and addresses aspects such as the professional market, translation commissioners and the publishing industry, the translator’s status and role, and the activity of translating as a social practice. Sociological approaches to translation generally do not provide practical assistance with translation strategies, but by situating translation and translators beyond the classic relationship between source text and target text, they provide holistic frameworks whereby translation

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practice can be viewed in relation to the people and institutions involved in it or affected by it. As such, they offer useful reference points for translators in general and community translators in particular. Like Tymoczko’s (2014 [2007]) holistic approach to culture, discussed in Chapter 2, sociological insights complement other translation approaches by providing a general framework for contextualization and understanding that precurses actual translation strategies and implementation. They also provide translators with a broader theoretical frame for them to reflect upon their actions, professional role and social impact. This is especially needed in the context of community translation, where translation (or lack thereof) and translation strategies have an immediate and direct impact on the lives and interests of people and communities – arguably much more than in other translation fields. Shin-Hee Kim (2009) calls for ‘a peoplecentered theory of translation’. Although this is made as a general statement, it clearly applies perfectly and more particularly to the community translation domain. It may be added that the profession is in need of people-centred and community-centred approaches to translation (and interpreting).

3.3  Approaches to community translation The above contributions to translation theory, and many others that space prevents us from covering here, offer community translators a rich source of conceptual understanding, explanatory frameworks, analytical tools and textual and communicative criteria that will ideally enable them to understand the nature of translation and to make informed translation decisions. No translation theory is sufficiently comprehensive and elaborate as to cater for all possible translation settings, text types and intercultural situations; consequently, almost every theoretical framework has been criticized for one reason or another, depending on individual perspective. For instance, while some theorists consider that linguistic-centred approaches focus too much on the lower levels of linguistic form, others object to certain functional approaches for exactly the opposite reason. Writing about Skopos Theory, for example, Munday (2012: 125) claims that it ‘does not pay sufficient attention to the linguistic nature of the ST nor to the reproduction of microlevel features in the TT. Even if the skopos is adequately fulfilled, it may be inadequate at the stylistic or semantic levels of individual segments.’ While some theoretical positions are more developed and more relevant to professional practice than others, it is true that useful insights can be found in all of them. Just as Chesterman (2012: 32) considers the often-criticized work of Catford ‘an important source of ideas and insights and well worth re-reading,



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albeit with a critical eye’, translators, including community translators, can find helpful ideas, suggestions, strategies and resources in practically every work on translation and related disciplines. Having said that, and before discussing approaches to community translation in particular, it is worth summarizing some of the insights that can be gathered from the relatively long trajectory of translation studies: a Translators work with texts, but texts also consist of words and

grammatical structures, which vary from one language to another. b Texts convey meaning at different levels: semantic, pragmatic,

discursive, and so on. c Texts, including translations, are produced and used for certain

purposes; the purpose or function of an original text is not necessarily the same as that of its translation(s). d Texts fall into different genres and text types; and each culture or

community of users has its own expectations and conventions for different text types and genres. e Translators work with and for several stakeholders, not only with/for

the direct clients or commissioners. f

Texts are cultural artefacts: translating or transferring texts involves transfer from one culture to another; cultural differences require intercultural communication strategies.

In the context of community translation, these generally accepted principles need to be applied in the framework of an overarching mission or role: empowering the social groups for whom translations are provided, and enabling them to have full access to public service information and to participate actively in the different realms of the society in which they live. This is a point that is often underscored in the tiny body of literature addressing this subfield of translation. As remarked in Chapter 1, Lesch (1999: 93) understands community translation as ‘a means to an end’, which consists of equipping the target community with information and redressing the balance of power between the producer of public service texts and the language-impoverished communities. Taibi (2011: 214–16) describes community translation as an empowering exercise. Similarly, Cluver (1992: 36) acknowledges the heterogeneity of societies and the existence of marginalized groups, and therefore suggests that community translators are expected not only to transfer information from one language to another but also to ensure it is assimilable by the intended recipients. In view of the characteristics of community translation outlined earlier (local yet multicultural context, power asymmetry, language

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imparity, linguistic variation, varying literacy levels, etc.), this position appears to be well founded. At the same time, it needs to be borne in mind that the source texts of community translation are often produced by or for public institutions, which expect their communication with community members to be conveyed as precisely as possible in its original terms, be they official, authoritative or even – in some cases – vague. As Chesterman (2000: 176) has observed, text producers may intentionally be unclear in their messages – and this is not unusual in public service discourse. This may create a certain tension between the expectations and needs of the text producer and those of the target community, and confront the community translator with some challenging decisions. As Fraser (1999) shows, this tension may present itself in different parts of the same text, as public services may disseminate texts which are informative at a surface level or overall, but which may have a different function at a deeper or localized level. Fraser (1999) analyses a poll tax leaflet from the UK and reports the views of an experienced community translator who had to translate it from English into Spanish for Spanishspeaking minority groups in the UK. Fraser finds ‘a mismatch between the explicit register (the giving of neutral public information by a local authority to all residents in a form written to be easily accessible and to serve as a trigger for applications for exemptions), and the implicit register (the regulation – and hence control – of exemptions)’ (Fraser 1999: 204). However, unaware of this double function, the translator in this case study processes the text as a piece of information which is provided with a helpful and egalitarian attitude, ‘whereas it is in fact marked for authority or for the relationship between regulator and regulated’ (Fraser 1999: 204). In an earlier paper, Fraser (1993) reports the views of twelve community translators working from English into one of seven languages (Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi, Urdu and Spanish). Fraser elicits their comments on the translation issues they faced and the strategies they used to translate the same poll tax leaflet mentioned above, especially when dealing with terms relating to British society and institutions. The study shows that the translators generally adopted a functional, reader-oriented approach and used translation strategies selectively according to the needs and expectations of their respective communities: for example, they retained English terminology when they deemed it empowering for the community, and provided contextualization and clarification when necessary. The participants’ comments, examples of which are given below, offer a glimpse into how at least some community translators may view their work: 1 ‘If people are to participate, they need to know the system’ (p. 336).

This comment alludes to the mission of community translators as



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professionals who facilitate the participation of their readership in the society where they live and, therefore, seek to enlighten their community readers on the different institutional and social systems in which they operate. 2 ‘I used [the term] community charge first in English, then I put the

Spanish translation and an explanation – three things. But after that I the [sic] used English all the time’ (p. 333). This illustrates a similar approach to the one above, namely one that gives priority to the value of understanding (e.g. by providing explanations and paraphrases) and empowers the target recipients: first, by making translations accessible to them; and second, by keeping keywords in the mainstream language so that they can use them functionally in their dealings with the local institutions. 3 ‘I believe that each language is capable of conveying the “same

meaning”’ (p. 334). This comment seems to indicate an opposing position to that expressed in quotations 1 and 2 above, as it apparently prioritizes the value of truth – however it might be conceptualized – over the value of understanding, and seems to suggest that regardless of sociocultural differences between source text readers and translation readers, a semantic rendering of original texts is sufficiently communicative. 4 ‘There is no need to go too much further unnecessarily, just to give

more information with the intention to educate your community, because the purpose of the pamphlet is to inform any community, you see, and if you can achieve that, I think you have done great things’ (p. 336). The translator here seems to adopt a similar position to that in quotation 3. 5 ‘[Explanation] might not be enough for some of the people but on

the other hand, people who live here know a lot already, so there’s always a danger of over-explanation’ (p. 336). This appears to defend a similar position to that expressed in the previous quotation, but goes further to warn against patronizing practices such as over-simplification or over-explicitation. This reminds us of a common challenge facing community translators: their readers’ diversity of backgrounds, and varying levels of expertise and immersion in the mainstream culture and public services. 6 ‘People are more likely to have come across the English terms

than anything else; the equivalents, certainly in Mexico, would be meaningless to them’ (p. 334).

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expressions in the British system need to be not known necessarily, but familiar because any leaflet or any bill they will get will have the name in English. You need to have the visual aid of the word, that it looks like that’ (p. 337). 8 ‘We’re writing for people living here. Even newcomers eventually

need to know these words and phrases’ (p. 337). The last three quotations (6, 7 and 8) show that community translators are usually aware that their translations are produced for people who live in the same sociocultural context in which the original texts were produced. If these readers are culturally different from the mainstream society (e.g. migrants or refugees), they begin to occupy a cultural space that is somewhere between their home and host cultures. In this regard Di Biase (1987: 64) argues that ‘the forms to be used in community service translations are those which more closely reflect the semantic system of the socio-cultural context in which the users operate and with which they are likely to be more familiar. The limit to this proposition is the degree of acceptability of the text by the community.’ For example, it would be inappropriate to translate a leaflet about welfare benefits in Australia for the Italian community residing in the country as though this readership were still located in their country of origin (Di Biase 1987: 55). 9 ‘I’ve translated nursing home as a “centre providing medical care”

because in Spain you go to either a hospital or an asilo [old people’s home]’ (p. 333). Here we have the opposite, i.e. community translators who need to use their audience’s culture of origin as a point of reference when translating for them in their new country of residence. The above insights from practitioners suggest that the conception of community translation as an empowering service is quite common and that, as a result, many community translators consider that the values of clarity and understanding (see Chesterman 2000 in Section 3.1 above) override other considerations. This is a logical position to reach if one believes that community members can only operate effectively and autonomously in their society if they have access to information and they are able to understand it. However, there are also community translators who gear their work towards the value of truth more than anything else, albeit with a misconceived sense of truth in some cases. Yu (2014), a translator and proofreader who checks Chinese translations for Australian government agencies, notes:



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most translators tend to take a very cautious approach towards translating community brochures. They believe that the safest way is to do a literal translation, which, however, often results in an awkward and sometimes incomprehensible target text. In the meantime, I have also seen bold translators who take a very free approach, which sometimes results in distortion of meaning. Similarly, a report published by the Scottish Consumer Council showed that the end users of community translations thought that these were often not reader-oriented. Focus groups from minority ethnic communities (Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, Turkish, Iraqi and Brazilian) reported ‘that the quality of translated material was variable and frequently used inaccessible and out-ofdate terminology’ (Scottish Consumer Council 2005: 37). The translation shortcomings reported by the study participants included, among others, excessive literality, outdated or overly formal language, and a profusion of unnecessary lexical items or expressions (Scottish Consumer Council 2005: 35–6). These opposing tendencies reflect divergent understandings of translation as much as the existence of a variety of competing interests and needs that translators must attend to. Given the special context of community translation, Ko (2014), for instance, believes consideration should be given to a number of factors, including the functions and meanings expressed in the source text, appropriateness in the target language, the needs of target readers and the intentions of the commissioning clients. In other words, community translators need to strike a balance between the requirements of truth (the forms, meanings and functions of the original text), understanding (the background, needs and expectations of the target readership) and trust (loyalty to the different stakeholders, including writer, reader and commissioner, among others). Depending on these constraints, Ko (2014) suggests, the community translator may opt for a number of different translation strategies and procedures, or combinations thereof: a mixture of semantic and communicative translation, domestication and foreignisation may be employed to achieve different purposes in community translation. In order to achieve these purposes, a range of specific translation strategies may need to be used, including adaptation, modulation, borrowing, paraphrasing, keeping [segments of] source texts untranslated or providing them in brackets, and using explanatory notes. (Ko 2014) Community translators may well be aware of the range of options available to them, but what they need is a systematic framework within which they

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can determine confidently when one option is more appropriate than others. Discourse-based and functional approaches (e.g. Holz-Manttäri 1984; Reiss and Vermeer 1984; Hatim and Mason 1990) have much to offer in this regard. First, functionalist approaches to translation would be the most attractively suitable for community translators in their capacity as active social agents. As Gentzler (2001: 71) asserts, ‘the functionalist theorists have done the most to empower translators, elevating them to equal status with authors, editors, and clients, entrusting them to make appropriate, rational decisions that best realize the intended cross-cultural communication’. Second, the intended function of a translated text is given pre-eminence as the weightiest and most relevant criterion to inform the translator’s decisions, thereby establishing a useful decision hierarchy in the face of potentially competing considerations. Third, functionalism identifies and acknowledges differences between text types (a translation approach that is appropriate for one text type might not be so for another). Finally, there is allowance for a wide range of renderings and translatorial actions – including, among others, summary translations, adaptations and transcreations, as well as ‘translations’ without an original text – which are often required in community contexts. These points are discussed further in the following paragraphs. Functionalist approaches, however, are not to be implemented only as translation models that seek functional equivalents for source texts: they also need to be framed within a sociological understanding of community translation practice. Essential to this understanding is the overarching mission mentioned above, namely empowering the communities served by community translators. This in turn cannot be achieved without a general awareness of the social status of text producers, translators and users; the relations between social classes within the local community; and the role of community translators and translations in introducing socio-economic and political change whether top-down or bottom-up. The foregoing strongly indicates that an approach that draws upon functionalist theories of translation while remaining mindful of the distinctive features and objectives of community translation would prove effective and empowering – both for the translators themselves and for the communities they serve. For community translators, it could provide support and enablement to engage in translation as a purposeful activity: to undertake interventions that go beyond linear and parallel transfer from one language to another, to complete translations that have an impact in their social context and, ultimately, to gain visibility thereby as social agents. As Chesterman (2000: 169) rightly affirms, ‘[t]he visibility issue also concerns the translator’s role in society, the translator’s status and power, the translator’s rights. Invisible translators, who seek to efface themselves textually, also tend to get effaced socially.’ For the community, a functionalist approach will at the same



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time yield translations which are relevant, adequate, accessible and effective essentially by definition. With their inherently practical emphasis, functionalist approaches would help ensure that communities obtain the translations they need in a way eminently useful to them in terms of that need considered in its context. For instance, let us imagine that a government publishes a sixty-page immigration law rich in legal discourse and specialized terminology; now suppose that some non-governmental organization (perhaps an advocacy body) subsequently commissions a translation into a number of relevant community languages, but with a brief clearly specifying that the intention is to inform the relevant social groups of updates to migrant rights, obligations, restrictions and procedures. In this case, the hired community translators could produce, say, ten-page summarized versions that reflect the communicative needs and expectations of their respective communities (i.e. values of clarity and understanding) more than the exact definitions, complex structures, or specialized terms and phrases of the original text (i.e. a narrow sense of the value of truth). If, on the other hand, the same legal instrument needs to be translated fully for institutional purposes, in a country where ‘equally authentic’ bilingual or multilingual versions need to be available (e.g. from English into French in Canada, or from Spanish into Catalan, Basque and other regional languages in Spain), then the approach will be different. Likewise, community translators subscribing to this approach will be able to advise when, instead of a written summary translation, it would be more effective to produce audiovisual versions or adaptations of the source text(s), or to organize community gatherings where advice can be provided orally (with speakers who are able to speak the relevant language(s), or with the mediation of community interpreters). As noted earlier, communities vary in terms of literacy levels and the extent to which they show preference for one medium of communication or another (e.g. oral vs written). In such a case a functionalist approach will, again, be empowering for both community translators and the community. It may also be cost-effective for translation commissioners, as it would ensure that the target audience receives the required information or instructions in the most appropriate, effective and culture-sensitive manner. Though important in some applications, strict parallel renderings (e.g. geared towards linguistic or formal equivalence only) can be inappropriate and counterproductive in others. Before allocating funds to projects that may well ultimately fail in their desired communicative goals – and perversely, discourage further funding – public services (and commissioners in general) would ideally use the expert advice of community translators or other professionals to reach their audiences through the most effective channel.

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3.4  Role and ethics Two related issues arise from the above discussion. Given that community translators work with and for a number of stakeholders (public services, community leaders, community members, etc.): 1) Whose perspective should be taken into consideration when determining the translation approach to adopt?; and 2) What are the limits of the community translator’s role? Different actors and roles are involved in text production and translation (initiator, commissioner, source text producer, target text producer, TT user and TT receiver). This means that even when the translator adopts a functional approach to translation, they will always be faced with the ethical or ideological dilemma of whose perspective to take to determine the text function. This is especially the case when, as Fraser (1999) suggested above, the text to be translated presents both explicit and implicit registers and functions. If the discourse functions embedded in the original text are there intentionally, the text producer (e.g. public services) would expect the translator to convey them faithfully. This may go against the interests of the translation receivers if the translation product is not comprehensible, not informative or not culturally sensitive. As communication mediators, community translators will often find themselves in a loyalty paradox whereby serving one party faithfully may have an impact on the other parties’ trust. Working in a local context, the community translator’s dilemma is even more acute than, say, that of a literary translator: their intervention is embedded in pragmatic texts used in the context of local communication and intra-community relations, and the consequences of one position or another would be easily and immediately noticeable. The commissioner’s translation brief can certainly serve as the basis for community translators to determine a hierarchy of interests. However, this implies that they will usually adopt the position and serve the interests of officialdom when translating institutional material (informative brochures and leaflets, community advice and instructions, government advertising, etc.) and those of individual community members when translating personal documents for submission to public services (e.g. identity documents, refugee statements, statutory declarations, etc.). The dilemma pits professionalism and principle against ongoing employment, and can understandably be resolved in a questionable (un)ethical position driven by remuneration: the community translator serves the interests of the party who assures their continued salary or fees. Indeed, some may identify themselves with the target ethnic community or social group, and consistently adopt a translation approach that favours the needs, expectations and aspirations of the readership in question. This in turn would be disloyal to the mainstream



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society and/or its institutions, which pay for translation services in many cases. Hale (2008) enumerates up to five different roles that may be assumed by court interpreters and community interpreters in general. Although the modality of mediation and the contextual constraints of community interpreting are not exactly the same as those of community translation, these roles show some similarity to those that may be found among community translators: a Advocate for the powerless participant: an interpreter who is partial

to the minority language speaker and who, therefore, serves the interests of the latter (e.g. by presenting their case in the best possible manner). b Advocate for the powerful participant: an interpreter who is partial to

the mainstream language participant and the institution they work for. c Gatekeeper: an interpreter who is not partial to any party, but who

assumes a powerful position and decides what should or should not be communicated. d Filter (embellisher, clarifier): an interpreter whose main concern is

to ensure effective communication between participants and who, therefore, may clarify, improve or embellish the messages of both or all parties involved. e Faithful renderer: an impartial interpreter who conveys both form

and content in a faithful and appropriate manner and leaves the responsibility for communication to the parties involved. Hale (2004, 2007, 2008), as well as many other authors adopting the impartial model of interpreting, argues that only the role of ‘faithful renderer’ is professionally appropriate and ethically sound. This is rightly based on the fact that interactions in institutional settings, especially in adversarial judicial systems, involve other parties whose interests might be affected if the interpreter adopts roles such as that of advocate of the powerful/powerless party or that of gatekeeper. Even discourse simplification and explicitation are thought to place the speaker of a minority language in an advantageous position vis-à-vis speakers of the mainstream language. Positions such as Barsky’s (1996) have therefore been heavily criticized, as they advocate for an interpreter role that goes beyond faithful rendering of the speaker’s utterances, to assist powerless and vulnerable clients (e.g. migrants and refugees) by acting as intercultural agents, improving their client’s narratives, fixing inconsistencies and presenting their discourse in an effective and convincing manner. Such positions are ethically motivated by social justice, but for reasons related to

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professional accountability (i.e. the value of trust) and dominant professional discourse they are considered minority voices. In community translation, however, such positions are worth considering, especially in those contexts where the interests of parties other than the relevant community members are not at risk. In this book we have defined community translation as an empowering exercise for minority groups who lack a good command of the mainstream language(s), and it might thus be understood that the recommended role is that of advocate for the powerless. This is to some extent true: the essence of community translation is service to disadvantaged social groups. This service consists of making information available and accessible. As has been indicated several times, a number of authors (e.g. Scottish Consumer Council 2005; Lesch 1999, 2004; Burns and Kim 2011; Taibi 2011; Yu 2014) argue that community translators should make their products as accessible as possible and gear them towards the needs and sociocultural realities of the relevant communities. Yu (2014), for instance, suggests that in order to ensure understanding, public service brochures written in institutional English need to be processed into plain English and stripped of specialized jargon first, and then expressed clearly in the target language. Likewise, the report of the Scottish Consumer Council (2005: 22) includes recommendations of good practice which are oriented towards similar aims: MM

‘Texts in English to be translated [need to be] especially prepared for this purpose, for example by using short sentences that focus on positive actions in plain English.’

MM

‘Jargon should be avoided in texts for translation and circumstances that can challenge the skills of a translator such as abbreviations, colloquialisms, puns, word play and sayings or proverbs should be avoided.’

MM

‘Bilingual professionals need to work in partnership to develop information in the language of the target communities and/or work with communities themselves to develop resources in their language.’

MM

‘Summary and bilingual versions of written materials are preferred. Bilingual presentation enables people to check nuances of meanings in both languages and can also help when the information is discussed with others.’

MM

‘Leaflets with a strong visual and pictorial element are preferred.’

However, this is by no means to say that the default role of community translators is that of advocate for the community for which they translate.



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Indeed, as Fraser’s (1993) research revealed, the professional self-perception of community translators is not uniform (perceptions ranged from impartial translator to community advocate). As stated already, community translators work with diverse stakeholders, with different text types and in a variety of communicative situations. They may also work for public services as permanent staff members or occasional employees, so realistically they would be expected to satisfy the needs of their employers and acquit their contractual obligations. As linguistic and cultural mediators working in a community context, community translators will frequently be members of a minority group themselves, which may drive some either to one extreme or another (advocate for the minority group or for the mainstream society and institutions). As Campbell (2005: 21) observes: The point at which an immigrant gains accreditation [as a professional translator] represents a door opening, where the world of otherness is left behind, and a kind of double agency lies ahead – a role where he or she has a foot in the domain of the institutions of the centre and one in the world of the periphery. Nonetheless, a professional translator would understand that their loyalty lies with the different participants in the communicative act (translatorial action) and would base their understanding of their role, translation strategies and ethical position on a critical and objective assessment of the different factors involved (translation commissioner, translation brief, text type, intended readership, intended function, risks involved, and so on). For example, a simplified version of a general informative public service text may be appropriate, but an official speech delivered by a minister or a community leader might be explicitly required to remain in its original formality and tone (interpersonal meaning). Similarly, a statement written by an individual applicant may be rewritten or improved in the target language before submission to a public service, but the same does not apply to an official document (see Chapter 4). To conclude, it is worth recalling Pym’s (2010 [1992]: 170) assertion that translators inevitably have to take a position, assess the material they work on and assume their professional responsibility. Inghilleri (2010: 153) offers similar advice: Whatever the limitations on their social or interactional status in a given context, in situations where conflicting agendas arise or where the proper exercise of human or legal rights may be in doubt, translators’ ethical and political judgments become as central to their task as cultural or linguistic competence. Translators cannot escape the burden of their moral proximity to others.

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For community translators, it is hoped that these ethical and political judgements as well as translatorial actions are undertaken within the framework of translation as community empowerment, but with due attention to the contextual constraints and possibilities of each local community and each communicative situation (see Figure 3.1 below).

FIGURE 3.1  Overarching mission and other factors influencing community

translation

4 Translating official documents

T

ranslation of official documents has an older history than that of community translation, as it has been important in international affairs, the international movement of people and the necessity to secure identity and status in that context. Nevertheless, with accelerating immigration and the spread of language services for local needs, there is now increasing need for translation of personal documents of all kinds for settlement purposes for immigrants, and for documentation of temporary visitors and workers. In this area there is an intermeshing of international and local needs in very specific ways, and the influence of international practice is considerable. Official documents include the spectrum of documents that relate to immigrants’ or temporary residents’ identity, status, qualifications and histories in various ways. They range from basic identity documents such as birth, marriage and death certificates, through educational and employment certificates, to driving and other licences, security and legal documents. Importantly, this area of translation, in a way, turns on its head the paradigm of community translation advanced in this book – that is, the translation of official or semi-official information or other public documents so that immigrants, visitors or others not familiar with the majority language can obtain access to vital information. In the translation of official documents, it will often be translations of documents that the immigrants or visitors themselves have brought, often from another country of origin, that need translation for recognition by institutions in their host country. But also included in this category is the translation of documents of residents in a country that are intended for their use when they travel to, migrate to or do business with another country. Here, considerations of translating official documents may merge with the translation of commercial documents, both brought by newcomers to testify to monies or business interests in or from another country, or required by those wishing to do business elsewhere. As always, the boundaries of community translation are porous.

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The translation of official documents has been far less researched or professionally commented upon than several other areas of community translation covered in this book. Indeed, despite the ubiquity of need and huge numbers of such translations undertaken, perhaps because of their limited size, predictability and repetitiveness, the translation of such documents has often been seen as very journeyman work for translators, lacking the complexity of technical or more social translation, and of a lower order of difficulty. Indeed, some professional translators have tended to scorn such work. Blogger Corinne Mackay has noted over the years that: many translators are somewhere between lukewarm and downright scornful of translating individual clients’ official documents: birth certificates, educational transcripts, diplomas, drivers’ licenses, you get the picture. I think that a lot of experienced translators view this as ‘beginner’s work’ or not worth their time, so they take it off their range of services. (McKay 2010) Yet as McKay points out, such work is a very useful supplement for freelancers as it is lucrative (especially if charged by the page), gratifying to the clients, easy to schedule because of its generally restricted length, and the client pays in advance. Advice on finding friendly notary services and how to make the translation look good (screenshots of the official stamps, signatures, etc. on the original) are part of McKay’s advice. Such a positive view of translation of official documents can raise awareness that this is indeed an area of considerable volume and importance both to clients requesting the translations and to the institutions that will receive them. At the same time, despite MacKay’s view of it as relatively easy money, it is an area of translation that has its own complexities and difficulties. Moreover, unlike most other areas of community translation which are dependent upon local policy settings and local needs, translation of official documents is often caught up in a maze of rules, legal requirements, international precedents and international variation that can make the process a logistic as well as linguistic jungle. We look first at the range of documents covered in this field, then at the translation infrastructure that meets this need in the community sector and finish with some pointers to good practice and pedagogy.

4.1  The range of official translations The sub-area of translation of official documents can be identified in a very clear way. Mayoral Asensio argues that:



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any text is liable to be the object of official translation if it falls within a judicial process or a request of acknowledgement of rights before any kind of administrative body. (Mayoral Asensio 2003: 4) This legal or administrative point is crucial, and affects both the style of translation to be adopted and the logistics of official translation, as already indicated. Whereas other areas of community translation largely provide information, and often persuasion, warning or instruction, official documents are a gateway to having rights or status recognized. As this can be a high-stakes issue, these translations come under scrutiny in a way no other community translation document will: Is the ‘original’ a valid document? Has it been translated by the correct translator? Has it been verified according to legal or administrative requirements? A cursory glance at the translation market reveals a significant degree of attention to translation of official documents, with each translation company’s website claiming particular expertise in this area, but then each also immediately pointing to the complexities of how official translations should be certified and validated in a variety of ways around the world. Given that many such documents are fundamental to establish identity and status, governments differ in their degree of requirements, but: MM

All governments require something more than just a translation from a translator.

MM

All governments desire that such a translation be certified or validated according to certain criteria.

MM

Many governments specify which translators are qualified to do such translations; this ranges from having to be a ‘sworn translator’, to being an official translator as stipulated by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs or a Justice Ministry, to having a particular accreditation or certification, or belonging to a particular professional body.

MM

Where there are no clearly established credentials or certification/ accreditation system, translators must supply a particular wording in a declaration and sign their translations in particular ways.

MM

In numerous countries translations may need to be notarized or otherwise validated.

MM

In some countries the translation itself must be approved by a judicial process.

MM

If any document is to be sent to another country, an apostille process is required, where an institution such as the Foreign Ministry asserts

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that the notary or other validator of the translation is a recognized notary or other relevant officer in that country. (See the company Translated (n.d.) for a representative overview, as well as Mayoral Asensio 2003.) The Translated list shows that in the most difficult case, for example in Italy, a translation must not only be performed by a sworn translator but each translation must be sworn before a notary public in court. In perhaps the simplest case, in Canada being a certified member of a recognized professional body entitles you to be a certified translator and sign your translation as such, while in the UK or the USA translators themselves certify the translation; as an example, in the USA any translator may make a certified translation by including a particular statement, for example for a marriage certificate: I [translator name] of [residence], hereby declare that I have a sufficient knowledge of English and [x] languages, and certify the above translation [of the Marriage Certificate] from [x language] as true and correct in all respects. (Comech n.d.) Some institutions in the UK and USA may, however, require such translation to be notarized. A useful overview of the necessary steps in official documents in relation to immigration issues is given for the USA in the Oakland system of gathering documentation and ensuring translation (DiSalvio 1999). Mayoral Asensio’s (2003) engaging and delightfully idiosyncratic work well describes formal requirements in a range of countries, with a heavy emphasis on Europe and South America. Control over official translations is always evident, but mechanisms differ. Argentina stands out as a country demanding both governmental approval of certified translators to engage in official document translation and the need for those translators to belong to a professional organization. Mayoral also points to the extensive variety of content in similarly named documents (e.g. a birth certificate) even within the same language, for example English documents from a range of countries where English is an official language (Mayoral Asensio 2003: 17ff.). We briefly examine here some of the more common documents and their particularities.

4.1.1  Names and identity Virtually all documents will have as their basis the establishment of identity to substantiate the claim or representation being made. Yet names are highly culturally variable. At the simplest level, identifying family name (or surname)



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from given name (or first name, or now more rarely Christian name) where these may be reversed, multiple or unclear demands knowledge by the translator of the naming systems of particular countries or even minorities within countries; some forms of names are not universal, e.g. an expectation of a patronymic in documents from countries that have no such system. In a small number of cases persons have only one name (seen in some parts of Asia in particular). Beyond this simple level, persons may for any number of reasons have an assumed name. Where this relates to only one document to be translated, the translator may still be faced with a situation where a client known to the translator by one name may come with a document in a different name, but insists that the name on the document is theirs, or asks the translator to change the assumed name to a name they may have on another document (e.g. a passport or identity card). The status of an assumed name is not and cannot be an issue for a translator but must be a representation that the individual makes to the relevant administrative body; a translator is in no position to certify that the assumed name of an individual on a document is a different name and must render the name as given. This is quite apart from any issue of possible fraud, covered below. Moreover, while the name on a single document can raise these issues, there can be additional complexities if the translator is faced with several documents to be translated relating to the same individual, and which may contain variations or discrepancies in the name or parts of the name. One issue is the different ways different bodies may have written a person’s name on different documents, which may be for orthographical or even social or political reasons. These can normally be explained with a translator’s note. Beyond that, apart from assumed names, a common issue widely recognized is the change of name upon marriage (itself by no means universal). Also within the family, different naming practices may result in, for example, a child having a different surname or family name to either of their parents (in some countries this is a matter of choice, in others custom). If links are to be knowingly made between documents by an administrative body, the translator may be in a position to annotate such a situation in a translator’s note if, for example, there are other indicators in the document to identity, but not beyond what the documents themselves say: in some cases, if a link is not explicit in the documents, the translator can do no more than give a literal rendition of names and it is up to the administrative body to make its decision on identity, as with assumed names. This also raises the first theoretical and logistical point to be addressed: translations of official documents have a clear purpose, a skopos defined, to enable the bearer to make representations to an administrative or legal body. That body in turn must be able to understand the document within its frame of reference, i.e. within the categories in which it views such matters as identity, names, status, and so on. The translation hinges, then, on enabling

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what on the surface may not easily fit into prescribed target institutional categories to be understandable to those bodies. While in most cases this will be a simple equivalence, in other cases this may require particular action on the part of the translator, such as adding a translator’s note. In yet other cases a translator should recognize the limits of what they can translate: for example, when a judgement of identity must come from the administrative body itself, the translator needs to be mindful their translation does not hinder this process (e.g. by producing versions not understandable to the administrative body) even if they cannot fully assist in it through their translation.

4.1.2  Birth certificates The growing provision of birth certificates even in most developing countries has been a significant step in public administration and improving life chances in recent decades, and this has made expectations of translation of these documents ubiquitous. The basics of date of birth, birth name and place of birth are now virtually universal on birth certificates around the world, but beyond that details can vary greatly. Parent details, for example, vary from one country or culture to another. Mayoral Asensio (2003) shows this in Pakistani documents, where English is one of the languages used on such documents: According to Islamic law the father is the one to decide filiation, religious confession and kinship. The mother’s last name is irrelevant from this point of view. So in Pakistani birth certificates, you find the name of the grandfather, of the midwife, of the informant, but you cannot usually find any heading for the mother’s particulars (Mayoral Asensio 2003: 20–1) Fortunately, Mayoral reports, Pakistan is relenting on this as more countries of settlement demand information on the mother, but as birth certificates have currency for the lifetime of a person and even in some cases well beyond, discrepancies in birth certificate information are likely to continue to be encountered. It is not surprising that documents as fundamental as a birth certificate have exercised the minds of those wishing to increase uniformity and ensure ease of administration, and the EU example of providing an exemplar extract translation pro forma of a birth certificate is described more fully below.

4.1.3  Educational certificates While compulsory schooling is universal, and virtually all education systems have a primary/secondary/tertiary division, the content of education systems



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and their particular organizational patterns vary enormously, making educational certificates among the most culturally distinctive documents to translate. While certain critical points such as finishing secondary education or gaining a university qualification may be relatively clear-cut, the actual detail of subjects, organization, progression and particularly grading systems can be labyrinthine and difficult to match up to settlement country institutional patterns. Educational certificates are also high-stakes documents, and given the growing international student market many universities, colleges or school ministries are instituting their own rigorous standards, such as insisting on original documents from overseas institutions coming in sealed envelopes, or translations from translation agencies delivered in the same manner (Claremont Graduate University n.d.). More ambiguous is the claimant who is not an international student but a permanent resident seeking to get recognition of a previous educational achievement; the translator is then faced with the issue of equating educational levels and particularly grade levels. Much information on educational certificates is highly cryptic or highly implied. Thus, for example, a school document may record student grades variously and literally in all kinds of descriptive words, but may or may not reveal that these grades pertain to, say, parts of a ten-point grading system; a translator must choose whether or not to make implicit information explicit. A major reason for the Bologna process in European higher education is to make educational standing and qualifications more transparent (by making them uniform) across the continent; outside strictly inter-EU translations, however, the issues of adequate rendering of grade and qualification levels will continue to be a sensitive issue for translators, with clients often highly dependent on the outcomes.

4.1.4 Employment Employment documents for employment in skilled, technical or professional work will in most cases be translated in a person’s country of origin if they are planning to migrate for that purpose and have secured sponsorship or employment guarantees, but refugees, immigrants or temporary residents may also present such documents for translation when or after they arrive. For formal qualifications, much the same considerations apply as for education documents, but some countries will have qualifications which are not given by an educational institution per se but by a wider range of bodies, including guilds or trades associations, or the military. One-to-one correspondence with local qualifications may not be apparent; the key is to concentrate on issues such as length of training, type of training and status of the body issuing the

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qualification. Equivalences to host qualifications must be determined by host institutions with the assistance of the translation.

4.1.5  Security and criminal status documents This category varies widely and ranges, at one end, from formal prison discharge papers or police statements of lack of criminal records, to a number of idiosyncratic documents such as police assertions of good conduct, regional or city district affirmations of residence and good standing, or similar assertions from religious bodies. In the straightforward police or prison type documents, these will usually be of a kind known to local host institutions. In relation to the documents of good standing, migrant clients may be keen to have these translated even if they have not been requested by host institutions, and translators may well know that in many countries, host authorities generally do not issue such documents and would not request them, which poses not the only ethical dilemma for translators faced with such work. Of most fundamental concern, perhaps, is where translators work not at the request of a migrant client to translate documents, but are requested by host institutions to work forensically on documents of individuals who may be suspected of posing criminal or security risks. Here issues of fraud, of veracity of documentation or of issuing authorities may be foremost, with translators needing to inspect and translate documents symptomatically, under the guidance of police or security authorities interested in specific aspects of such documents. This can be regarded as the translation equivalent of work on telephone intercepts for interpreters; as such, it requires specific training and falls largely outside the purview of this book. Unfortunately, it is not likely to become a less sought-after use of translation in the foreseeable future. Paradoxically, if documents such as translations of telephone intercepts are to be presented in open court, it is imperative that the materials have been translated by independent translators not under the detailed direction of police or security services, to ensure the impartiality of the translation. Once again, we are at the borderline of community and highly specialized legal translation.

4.2  Official documents and translation infrastructure The legal and administrative nature of official translations forces a number of constraints and requirements on translations that may be irrelevant in



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other community translation contexts. Much of this legal and administrative nature was rooted in past legal or international practices (such as the apostille or notarial facilities) which were instituted for other administrative reasons long before the volume of translations increased exponentially, as it has in recent decades. With the increase in translations and, in a way, the normalization of translated documents becoming part of administrative record, the accepted ways of translating are undergoing change, and the need for translators to keep up with new administrative methods becomes more apparent. Several issues can be identified in this changing environment. First, the issue of fraud and security becomes even more important, affecting translators in several ways. Also, as the volume of translations increases, some authorities have already moved from requiring full translations of documents to requiring extract translations, formalizing what they need to see in documents presented, sometimes even on a continental level. This comes together with a move in some cases to reduce the legal steps needed to approve documents, where they have become unnecessary or outdated. And finally, this new translation situation has placed renewed emphasis on the qualifications of translators, and the quality of translation in particular. While general quality issues will be dealt with in a subsequent chapter (see Chapter 6), the move to greater emphasis on qualifications of translators in the community sector is now well underway. We discuss each of these issues in turn.

4.2.1  Issues of fraud The issue of fraud and guarantee of identity is a foremost consideration in the regulations that govern official translations, wherever they exist, and not only in the police or security domains referred to above. As Mayoral Asensio cryptically puts it, ‘[t]he authorities consequently behave as a party exposed to deception and fraud’ (Mayoral Asensio 2003: 10). For a translator, this becomes an issue wherever they have a direct relationship with a client and have to accept the client’s document at face value, but it may also exist when the translator acts for a translation agency or an institution commissioning the translation. Codes of ethics for translators are equivocal on this issue, or ignore it altogether. Likewise, almost all companies advertising the translation of official documents say nothing about fraud, though they devote considerable attention to their certification credentials. A consideration that a translator translates whatever is given to them without regard to its truthfulness or the purposes to which it is put is widely held, with an emphasis on accurate

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and appropriate translation but not concern with the ultimate use of the document. Such a view, however, is challenged for example by Mayoral Asensio (2003: 37–9), who argues this can raise uncomfortable feelings in the translator that they may be participating in deception and may well wish to withdraw from such an assignment if a client directly presents such a document, or warn their client institution, agency or commissioner if they are seeking the translation of a particular party; the example Mayoral gives is of a letter of credit. While codes of ethics generally do not address this issue of fraud, some organizations do set guidelines, for example the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters, whose very useful guidelines (NZSTI 2005) make specific reference to educational qualifications. Here the concern is not only with possible fraud but with the issue of asserting equivalence of overseas qualifications to those of the host country, in this case New Zealand; the guidelines recommend that translations of educational qualification should contain the following footnote: By law the New Zealand Qualifications Authority determines the value of overseas qualifications in New Zealand. This translation should not be seen as an assessment or validation of any qualifications. (NZSTI 2005: 17.3) Somewhat more complicated in terms of fraud is a situation whereby translators are asked to certify an already existing translation, but one which the certifying translator may feel has not been translated correctly – again, for example, in the case of an educational certificate. Two separate issues arise here: first, whether translators can or should ever certify another already completed translation (again, codes of ethics are mostly silent on this), but second, even if a translator is willing to certify another translation, they may become concerned if that completed translation misrepresents or mistranslates the original text.

4.2.2  Full or extract translations The issue of full or extract translations (variously termed also ‘summary’ or ‘selective’ translations’) is a recent one, as institutions – particularly in immigration societies – move to have more precise definitions of the information required in documents. Again from New Zealand, Pacific International Translations (n.d.) lays out the various cases in which such extract translations are appropriate. It should be noted that this is different from ‘gist’ translation, which identifies briefly the nature of the document



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and contents: an extract translation produces precise information from the document, information that will be required by the organization to which it is presented. Translators of official documents are usually in one of two institutional situations vis-à-vis their clients: MM

Where the translation is commissioned by an official institution, there may be guidelines in place for such issues as full or extract translation required, style and format, etc.

MM

Where a translation is requested by the holder of the documents and its institutional purpose is not clear, this will in most cases require a full translation, but other issues such as format are up to the translator to determine.

Situations where institutions specify the nature and characteristics of the translation needed are still probably the exception rather than the rule around the world, but as translations increase in volume, such specifications are likely to become more common. Usually in this instance immigration and related institutions lead the way, setting up patterns that may be followed by other institutions. Mature immigration language service structures, such as in Australia, set up quite formal requirements in terms of extract translations, usually using a template whereby essential aspects for the purposes of the institution are identified, and the translator is required to extract that information from a document of any length. For example, a birth certificate may contain any number of possible items according to different cultural and institutional patterns in various countries, as discussed above, but only certain information items are desired by the host institution. Two issues then become apparent: the first is that there may be information in the original that is superfluous to the requirements of the template, which tends not to be a problem – indeed, the very point of having a template is precisely to dispose of superfluous information, no matter how interesting or valuable to the issuing authority or nation. The second issue is that, as noted above in the example of the mother’s name in some Pakistani birth certificates, a piece of information desired by the host institution may not always be present in the document, requiring a blank in the template, or perhaps a translator’s note. The desire to cut down on paperwork and full translations can be seen in a recent European Union (EU) initiative to have a standard extract translation acceptable for birth certificates, reproduced here:

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FIGURE 4.1  European Commission (2014) Memo: Public Documents: European Parliament backs Commission proposal to slash red tape in the Member States (The Commission, 4 February 2014 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO14-76_en.htm) Significantly, the EU initiative came as part of a programme of reducing paperwork in bureaucracies, and is particularly apposite in the European context where identification and other documents had previously been subject to varying administrative processes that often made translation laborious and tied up in red tape. The coming of extract translations, as in this EU example, indicates a greater rationalization of translation needs, which in many cases will make translation work more standard and predictable, even if perhaps not quite as lucrative as former full translations.

4.3  Towards good practice in official document translation We conclude this chapter by drawing on the available guidelines and past translator experience to recommend approaches to translation of official documents useful for both trainee translators and professional practitioners. We make seven such recommendations below.



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4.3.1  Understand the linguistic features of official documents There has been limited research into official documents and how they are similar to or different from other areas of translation. A useful approach, also of great relevance to pedagogical purposes, is that of Źrałka (2007), who explicitly uses official translations as an instance of specialized translation in her translation classroom. Here, the orbits of community and specialized translation clearly meet. To familiarize students with the specific features of official translations, Źrałka points to such features as the rigid organization of grammatical structures, passive constructions, incomplete sentences, omitted verb forms, unusual imperative structures, highly formal expressions of simple facts (e.g. ‘This 21st day of December’) and historical forms (‘Witness my hand this …’). The challenge for the translator clearly is to understand the extent to which such forms need to be recreated (hence the examples of parallel texts which Źrałka provides). Alterations such as change from incomplete to complete sentences and formatting of items in target culture norms are suggested, but with attention to maintaining the register and degree of formality. It is also suggested that the visual form of the original be maintained as much as possible, largely to facilitate the direct comparison of the documents and particularly if the translation is to be presented in court or will be subject to an assessment process. Źrałka takes the reader through the process of teaching these features in translation class and the importance of methodological as well as content feedback on the part of the teacher to give students the tools for an adequate analysis of source text and their rendering in the target language. Backing up work such as Źrałka’s, a useful theoretical overview of the purpose and language of official translations is Nord’s description of documentary translation, which she sees as the category of translation that is absolutely source text focused and attempts to retain the exotic nature of the source text. Opposed to that is her category of instrumental translation, where the objective is to construct meaning to fit into target text norms. In speaking of translations of official documents, she sees these as documentary translations par excellence, for ‘the target text, in this case, is a text about a text, or about one of more particular aspects of a text’ (Nord 1997: 47). Such items as including a note [‘stamp’] or heading [‘Extract translation of …’] are clearly referring to the other text, explicitly drawing attention to features of the source text as text. The importance of this for clearly marking the translation as a translation is covered below.

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4.3.2  Know the requirements of the administrative bodies to whom these translations will be presented Particularly for translators working directly with clients, this may entail knowledge that goes beyond simply being able to make a good translation of what is presented. Many clients (immigrants or even business people) are trying to understand often unfamiliar administrative procedures in the host society, and will be grateful for advice on how documents need to be handled and what degree of certification is necessary or who else apart from the translator needs to be involved. When translating documents for other countries, in some cases the very stringent apostille requirements will cost the client dearly, and the translator needs to relay this. Ethical issues can come up repeatedly here. In some jurisdictions, government bodies such as immigration authorities may themselves offer a translation service to recent arrivals, yet not all recent arrivals will be aware of this; guiding clients to such services is something translators will sometimes need to do. In other cases, clients may feel it necessary to have translated a number of documents which have been important in source countries but may not have been requested by host administrative bodies; while a translator may not know all possible administrative requirements, not translating unneeded documents would seem to be an ethical requirement. The requirement to know how host administrative bodies operate also entails knowing how they will read the translation and what they will expect of translated documents, an aspect which is treated further below.

4.3.3  What you produce must clearly be a translation If this sounds strange, it needs to be remembered that in much of the translation routinely undertaken in other contexts, it is not at all a requirement that translations read like translations – indeed, very often it is intended that translations read like original texts or are not marked as translations, as in Nord’s instrumental translation, or Venuti’s (1991) domesticated translations. Leaving aside the considerable academic dispute over the visibility of translation and translators, in relation to translations of official documents the skopos is clear: the document produced by the translator is marked as a translation and, whether it is or is not accompanied by the original, always has this status. Although McKay (2010), cited at the beginning of this chapter, urges translators to make their translations of documents look similar to the original, for example by embedding screen shots of original stamps and artwork of the original certificate, it is crucial that the translation be seen as a translation, and cannot be mistaken as an original. Often this is accomplished by a heading



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asserting it as a translation, or by a translator’s certifying signature, statement or stamp, but whichever method is chosen its status must be clear. This is also important in the current practice of some institutions, particularly educational institutions in non-English-speaking countries, to also produce an English version of educational results: it is necessary to quite clearly distinguish where a translation is a translation and not a bilingual original document from another country.

4.3.4  Seek equivalence but know the limits of equivalence If recent translation theory has sometimes taken us far from a reverence for the source text and towards a reader-centred or deconstructionist orientation, with the translation of official documents we are back in an almost medieval situation of seeing a source text as a nearly sacred document, and the most literal approach to translation will be sought by the institutions that may understand little of translation and its complexities. Representing the original fairly and accurately and always striving for equivalence is the leitmotif of translation of official documents. The facts as presented in the original must be rendered accurately; in some cases, equivalence can be shown in both form and content, as where for example dates are written out in full in words, which should be copied into a date of words in a translation: this is for unambiguous stipulation of essential information. However, a limit must be put on trying to find equivalence when none might exist. Equivalence of educational or occupational qualifications, for example, is a socio-economic and institutional issue, not a linguistic one, and while it is possible to translate levels of study, hours of study and job sequence, drawing an equivalence in terms of ultimate qualification must be done by the respective host institution.

4.3.5  Understand how the institutional reader will read the translation Once equivalence is sought and adequately found, however, it is not the case that the reader is discounted. On the contrary, knowing how the reader – in almost all cases a specific institutional reader – will read the translation and what they are looking for is a key element of its skopos and how the translation must be rendered. The institutional reader too is looking for equivalence, and hindrances to understanding this must be removed as much as possible, even though the institutional reader may have some ultimate judgements to make for themselves – for example, the equivalence of qualifications. The reader

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needs all the help they can get to make that judgement accurately and fairly: thus, if grades are given in an institutional setting, and they deviate from, say, readily understandable percentage marks, they need to be rendered as data (‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘Very Good’, ‘Adequate’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Included’, ‘Conditional’, and so on), even though these may not be the grades used in host institutions. What can be useful is any means of understanding a hierarchy (e.g. that marks are on a particular scale), which can come from a translator’s note. Such notes need to be used whenever clarity to assist understanding can be given, rather than a straight equivalent to host institutional norms – that particular equivalence is for the host institution to work out. The translator thus needs to be in a position to enable the institutional reader to best analyse the data given and come to their respective judgements on the data, rather than the translator imposing judgements themselves. This position is not always easy to maintain when documents and contained data can be obtuse or ambiguous, and the translator serves both reader and applicant best by working to make ambiguities explicit, by translator’s notes or other means. This gives the institutional reader a context to understand and come to grips with the translated text. Linguistically, the understanding of different institutions’ approach to official documents is best given in parallel texts, already mentioned in the work of Źrałka (2007), to see the different content and sometimes radically different discourse styles adopted for the same official purpose. The practice of studying parallel texts in official documents is the same as for any other area of translation, but the purpose here is specifically to help understand how the source document needs to be organized in terms of formatting and categories that will be clear to the institutional reader in the host society. A variation of parallel texts is where an institution itself organizes translation of significant documents for foreigners or foreign residents to understand particular processes usually related to significant legal or regulatory areas. The Madrid Land Registry (n.d.) in Spain, for example, in its published information provides an English translation of the Spanish version of information relating to buying a house. While areas of high legal or commercial importance may have such translations prepared and give translators useful information in terms of received terminology and discourse style, in many significant areas of community translation it will be difficult to secure parallel texts, for example in areas of social policy where particular systems and institutions may not exist in source countries even though they are prominent in host countries: much of the social welfare and social security systems, for example, but in some cases even basic healthcare. Knowing how the institutional reader will read the translation can be a particular challenge for translators who themselves have limited familiarity with host society institutions, a situation most likely, say, with recently arrived groups where the few translators that can be found are themselves struggling



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with settlement issues and orienting themselves in the new society. More generally as a linguistic issue is the fact that many translators of official documents into the majority language of the host society will always be translating into their B language; the rubric that translations should always be into one’s A language or mother tongue goes out the window in many cases, for there will be few translators whose A language is, for example, German in Germany, but who are translating from Somali or Burmese or Dari into German; the translators are much more likely to be those for whom Somali or Burmese or Dari is their A language. The bulk of official translations may well be done by translators translating into their B language.

4.3.6  Use consistent and clear data norms The tendency for a translator to be ‘captured’ by source text syntax and formatting is a danger in translation of official documents as in any other area of translation. Given that translators almost always have options of how to format data, again the needs of the institutional reader need to be kept in mind. For example, the New Zealand guidelines (NZSTI 2005: 14.2) suggest that dates should systematically be given as ‘1 January 2004’, with the month written out in full and the numerals ‘1’ and ‘2004’ separated. In some cases host institutions may stipulate a format, but where this is not the case the translator needs to use a format consistent with practice in that host society, to provide an unambiguous translation of clear facts in the document. Where such data is itself unclear or ambiguous, however, the translator’s note must be used. There is another reason for establishing a particular format for data which is used consistently by a translator: although much of the translation of official documents may appear to be easy, non-technical and even seemingly trivial, it is remarkable how many mistakes can be made even in apparently quite straightforward translations (a driving licence, divorce papers or school report). Sometimes the ease is deceptive, and a ritual use of a standard format of dates, names, institutions, and so on will help the translator automatize these items so they are never omitted and never wrongly rendered. This also sharpens perception of when a piece of data is not standard and other means of conveying it are needed.

4.3.7  Be professionally useful – spread knowledge and expertise Many translator codes of ethics deal with issues of solidarity with one’s colleagues or helpfulness to the profession. Translator chat rooms are full

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of queries from translators called upon to handle various kinds of texts – including official documents – as an ever-increasing variety of texts become essential for settlement or other reasons, creating challenges for translators. Beyond the individual translator helping their colleagues, there is a clear role for professional associations to collate best practice and guidelines where there is a demand for this kind of translation and where institutional requirements can be to a reasonable extent identified and norms established. This should not remain an item at the level of marketing by companies who promote their expertise in official translations but who may themselves have set no guidelines for their translators and who may accept any variety of work as long as the work is done, and quickly.

5 Translating for temporary communities

5.1  Temporary communities

T

he term ‘temporary community’ is used here to refer to various types of conglomerations that may occupy a local space and form a multilingual microcosm during a limited time, which may vary from a couple of weeks to a couple of years. The creation of small communities within a larger one (society) may come as a result of different circumstances and reasons. These include emergencies such as wars and natural disasters causing populations to seek refuge in another part of the same country or another country; international or inter-ethnic religious events that take place periodically; foreign guest or seasonal workers forming a local community for a certain time; or sporting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics, to cite just a few examples. The movement of refugees and displaced people, for instance, can generate a number of situations, one being the creation of temporary communities in enclosed refugee camps. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (2015: 3) reports that ‘[b]y the end of 2013, 51.2 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations’. Of these, approximately 16.7 million were classed as refugees (11.7 million under UNHCR’s mandate and 5.0 million Palestinian refugees registered by UNRWA) and 33.3 million as internally displaced persons (refugees within their respective countries). When the issue is discussed in political, media or popular discourse in developed countries, the main destinations of the refugee influx are often assumed to be Europe, North America and Australia. However, statistics show that developing countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Kenya host the largest numbers (United Nations High Commission for Refugees,

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2015: 6). For these countries – most battling troubled economies and scarce resources, and some with questionable human rights records – it is to be expected that refugee services, especially interpreting and translation, will receive lowest priority. It is worthwhile to distinguish the dynamicity of the situations that produce temporary refugee communities. A controlled refugee intake fosters a gradual resettlement, individually or in small groups, as witnessed, say, with Asian, African or South American asylum seekers in Europe and North America. New arrivals live freely in the host society, avail themselves of the services available, send their children to school, look for employment and start a new life in a new country. They therefore do not constitute a temporary community in the sense in which the term is used here. However, when there is a mass influx of refuge seekers, the host country’s authorities can only offer a temporary solution to a humanitarian emergency, and the question becomes one of containment and organization within restricted areas (refugee camps). Language services are an important, but often underestimated aspect of welfare in such temporary communities. The housing of Syrian refugees between Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey is one example. In the first half of 2014, Syrian refugees numbered approximately three million: over one million were temporarily established in Lebanon, and approximately the same number in Turkey (United Nations High Commission for Refugees 2015). They lived in transitional reception centres, refugee camps or outside camps. While the Turkish refugee camps compared better than those in other host countries on conditions including basic services, security, schooling and occupational training, the language barrier was reported to be a disadvantage (Orhan 2014). Effectively, the temporary Syrian communities in Jordan, Lebanon and other Arab countries can communicate directly with the host institutions and communities because they are already equipped with the same language (Arabic); to be on equal footing, their compatriots in Turkey must acquire proficiency in Turkish, or else have access to quality language services. Another type of massive movement generating temporary communities is large religious events. For example, the Hindu Sabarimala Pilgrimage in Kerala, southern India, attracts three to four million people drawn locally, nationwide and from around the world (www.sabarimala.org). The pilgrimage lasts from November to January, in which period a multilingual temporary community is formed. Although in India multilingualism is the norm rather than an exception, this of itself does not guarantee the kind of communication that is essential to ensure the smooth running and safety of such an event. Echoing the Syrian experience in Turkey, even the best infrastructure and protocols are hampered without an effective interface. As a local police commissioner acknowledges, ‘[l]anguage is a major problem officials face every year while managing crowd [sic]’ (Balakrishnan 2014).



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Similarly, millions of Muslims gather every year in Mecca, Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj, one of the five fundamental pillars of Islam. The community of pilgrims coexists in a relatively small location for a few days or weeks (see Section 5.3 below). The preparation and management of these large-scale gatherings require clear communication at various levels: first, organizers or service providers need to communicate with pilgrim organizations or with the relevant authorities of their respective countries; second, service providers on the ground need to communicate with individual pilgrims and attend to their circumstances; third, written and audiovisual information needs to be prepared proactively and disseminated in a number of languages to ensure that the visitors are well informed and appropriately educated about rituals, sightseeing, security and safety, healthcare and hygiene, police procedures, accommodation, and so on. In such a multilingual and multicultural environment, translation and interpreting services are an integral component for effective engagement at all three communication levels.

5.2  Special situations, special challenges Temporary communities present special challenges in terms of public services in general, and communication services in particular. First, they give rise to a variety of special cases of diversity and communication needs. The easier ones (from a language service perspective) would be those involving relatively homogeneous and monolingual communities settling in a different country for some time (e.g. Syrian refugees in Turkey). In others, however (e.g. international or inter-ethnic religious events), although there is some degree of homogeneity (religious affiliation), there are numerous differential aspects such as language, language variety, geographical origin, cultural background, age group, and so on. Second, temporary communities often require urgent or time-constrained intervention. In emergency humanitarian situations, there is practically no time for planning and preparation. In regular mass events, there is a possibility to plan and prepare beforehand, but the required services are provided in a brief period and the end users may vary from one year to another. Third, these situations often involve dealing with relatively unknown sociocultural backgrounds, and possibly internal tensions and conflicts. These last two challenges are deserving of more detailed comment. In normal community translation contexts, the target community is either an autochthonous component of society (e.g. indigenous people in Canada) or a permanently resettled community of migrants and refugees (e.g. Somalis in Sweden). Living or resettling permanently in a community means that the smaller (minority) group is located within the larger (mainstream) society

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and, as Di Biase (1987: 57) puts it, ‘the socio-cultural context of L2 [target community language] is located, even physically, within the socio-cultural context of L1 [mainstream language]’. For community translators this implies that the target readership has developed some knowledge about the social and cultural context of the country in question, as well as some familiarity with the local administrative, healthcare, legal, educational and other systems. It also means that the translators themselves have developed their knowledge of the communities they serve through direct interaction with clients, their own translation work or the experiences of other professionals dealing with the community in question. This, however, is not necessarily the case for temporary communities. To quote Di Biase (1987: 58) again: members of the minority must, and usually do to a considerable extent, come to terms with and internalize at least some parts of the semantic system of the dominant socio-cultural context. The longer the time span of the interactions the greater the degree of internalization of the dominant semantic system is likely to be. In the case of temporary communities, especially those lasting for a few weeks or months only, the duration is not sufficient for members to internalize the sociocultural and administrative systems of the country in which they are staying. Likewise, it would not allow community translators to develop much knowledge about their target community, apart from what they can assemble in the course of their normal research processes. It should be pointed out, however, that the temporariness of communities may be blurry: some are so recurrent (e.g. periodic religious events such as the Hajj) as to be notionally perpetual, while other transitory ones eventually acquire permanency (e.g. Palestinian refugee settlements in Jordan, Syria or Lebanon). This can make the ‘temporary–permanent’ distinction moot in some cases. The other major challenge is that temporary communities typically impose significant urgency and time constraints, which calls upon a skill set extending beyond language transfer competence alone. Certainly, many authors writing on translation and translator training have stressed the importance of translator personal and interpersonal skills, such as ability to work in a team (with other translators or professionals from other fields), ability to work under pressure, flexibility, and negotiation and leadership skills (e.g. Kelly 2005; Gambier 2013). In emergency situations and large-scale events, however, these qualities go from being desirable to necessary. While most professional translators would affirm that deadlines are the norm, situations such as emergency humanitarian resettlement or short-term mass events involve above-average stakes and, logically, corresponding stresses – not only for translators but also for the public services and authorities involved. Anyone



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working in these contexts must be capable of cooperating with others and remaining clear-headed. Providing translations during humanitarian crises or refugee displacement will involve not only time pressure, but also liaising with other service providers and dealing with emotionally taxing situations. Similarly, translating for large events requires coordinated effort to produce a large amount of translations into many languages within a short time. Some instances will not only involve print format, but also various other media (e.g. audiovisual announcements, radio content, instructions and advice on illuminated panels), each with its own complexities and constraints. The required translator profile would thus include high transferability together with teamwork capability, resourcefulness and technology skills. Lastly, translators (and interpreters) may have their resilience tested by the intense dynamics and, at times, emotionally taxing situations that can be involved; worker attrition does no service to the project or team members, so a degree of social or ethical commitment is a useful attribute.

5.3  The case of the Hajj 5.3.1  The general context The Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) is a yearly religious event which takes place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in the last month in the Islamic calendar, D - ū Al-H.ijjah. Millions of Muslims come from all corners of the globe to the holy city of Mecca to perform the rituals of the Hajj, which is compulsory for any adult Muslim who can afford it. Either before or after the Hajj, pilgrims also optionally visit Prophet Muhammad’s Mosque and other religiously significant sites in Medina. As both the compulsory rituals and the optional visits take place in designated areas (mainly around the Holy Mosque in Mecca and Prophet Muhammad’s Mosque in Medina), three to four million pilgrims end up gathering and moving in a relatively small space and for a limited time (a few days for the compulsory rituals, a couple of weeks for optional visits and activities). In addition to the Hajj, Muslims may perform Umrah, an optional visit to the Kaaba, Mecca, accompanied by rituals which are partly similar to those of the Hajj. There is no fixed schedule for Umrah, but many people choose dates of special significance such as the month of Ramadan, which means that thousands of religious visitors gather in Mecca and Medina at any given time throughout the year. Muslim pilgrims come to Saudi Arabia from tens of linguistically and culturally diverse countries. The major contributors (with over 20,000 pilgrims each) include both Arab (Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and Oman) and non-Arab states (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Turkey,

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Iran, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Britain and Russia); notably, non-Arabic-speaking pilgrims far outnumber Arabic-speaking ones (Saudi Ministry of Hajj 2013). During both the Hajj and Umrah, the temporary community created by religious visitors gives rise to communication and public service needs in different areas (transport, accommodation, healthcare, safety awareness, legal and administrative advice, tourist information and guided tours, etc.). As part of continued efforts to offer the best possible service and organization, Saudi authorities have undertaken a number of improvement projects. These address not only infrastructure, but human services too: for instance, a number of management measures have been implemented to prevent or minimize the attendant health risks when large numbers of people from different parts of the world congregate in a limited space. These measures include monitoring the map of international health hazards, making immunization a requirement for Hajj and Umrah visas, and organizing healthcare awareness campaigns before and during pilgrimage, in collaboration with the authorities of the pilgrims’ home countries. In terms of infrastructure to accommodate the growing numbers of pilgrims and minimize the risks associated with overcrowding, Saudi Arabia has undertaken major construction, expansion and renovation projects to modernize the Hajj sites. The multi-level Jamarat Bridge, the multi-level circumambulation space around the Kaaba, the Makkah Mass Rail Transit and the Haramain High Speed Rail have all significantly improved the pilgrim experience, optimized crowd management and reduced the hazards relating to overcrowding. These and other improvements have been complemented by multilingual awareness campaigns, which are the main focus of the following section.

5.3.2  Translation and interpreting needs As affirmed earlier, the arrangements for and management of a large-scale multilingual and multicultural event such as the Hajj require effective translation and interpreting services. Understandably, a gathering comparable to the population of a small country requires communication services to ensure smooth and safe coexistence, movement and religious practices. Hariri (1422 IC [Islamic Calendar]), for instance, points to one often‑remarked feature of the Hajj – namely the diversity of linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds among pilgrims – and concludes that pilgrim needs are also correspondingly diverse, ranging from food and shopping to healthcare and safety. Hariri (1422 IC) also reviews earlier studies which call for a multilingual approach to Hajj-related awareness-raising campaigns. A multilingual approach naturally implies recruitment of professional translators and interpreters as well as other communication experts. Al-Sharif (1425 IC) asserts that pilgrims face



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communication challenges to inform themselves about needs as diverse as daily movement between accommodation and religious sites, local public services, religious rituals and shopping facilities. His research shows that 81.4 per cent of the people who performed Umrah during the months of Shaaban and Ramadan of 1424 (IC) reported having experienced difficulties. Al-Shafie and Al-Sharif (1424 IC) also found that there were shortages in the amount of information available to pilgrims and in the number of interpreters attending to their needs. As many as 85.3 per cent of the participants in their survey reported being unaware of the sites where religious advice was provided. Attendees would have appreciated multilingual signage indicating the locations of muftis (religious advisers), an essential public service given the nature of the Hajj. Those who were able to locate religious advice faced a further language barrier, as 44 per cent of them reported that there were no interpreters to facilitate face-to-face communication. Al-Sharif and Khidr (1425 IC) address the accessibility issue of the information available to the pilgrims. They report that Hajj-related material is mainly provided in written form (brochures, leaflets and booklets), while audiovisual media are used less often (39.2 per cent and 32.2 per cent respectively). The authors argue that print is not the most accessible and effective medium of awareness‑raising in this particular context, as literacy rates in Arab and Muslim countries are relatively low. They point out the existence of alternative initiatives such as the Radio of Hajj Awareness, which was launched in 1403 IC as a complementary medium of communication and broadcasts in several pilgrim languages, including Arabic, English, French, Urdu, Persian, Turkish and Swahili. However, Al-Sharif and Khidr (1425 IC) lament that the efforts thus far fall short. According to the authors, the Saudi national language (Arabic) is still dominant in Hajj education and awareness programmes, while others (e.g. Swahili and other African languages) are not sufficiently accommodated. Further highlighting this imbalance, the study reveals that although Arabic speakers account for just under one-third (32.35 per cent) of the target demographic, only 13.31 per cent of the awareness campaign effort is aimed at Asian pilgrims, who constitute a large numerical majority. Initiatives such as the Radio of Hajj Awareness remind us of some ubiquitous issues in community translation which have been discussed in previous chapters. One such is accessibility; another related issue is the format or medium of information. As has been explained earlier, varying levels of literacy and relatively lower socio-educational levels are among the common challenges facing language services and community translators. As suggested in Chapter 3, a pragmatic or functional approach to community translation would judiciously lead to selecting the most appropriate and effective medium of communication. In some contexts, especially in temporary communities, written information might not be the most suitable

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choice for the target community. Alternatives may include multilingual radio and television content, mediated community meetings, group briefings, on-site awareness‑raising campaigns, and so on. It would be inefficient –­­ not to say counterproductive, especially with ‘budgetary constraints’ and ‘costeffectiveness’ being common themes in the discourse of public services and organizations – to allocate funds to written texts if alternative media would achieve greater reach. Regardless, while the format or medium may vary from one context to another, community translators (and interpreters) will still have an essential role to play.

5.3.3 Quality Like many other temporary communities, the pilgrims who gather in Saudi Arabia do not constitute a social or ethnic group in need of empowerment in the sense discussed earlier in this book (i.e. participation in the different realms of society). They are religious visitors who stay in the country for a relatively short time, go mainly to Mecca and Medina to perform certain religious rituals and return to their respective home countries. Still, they require empowerment in the sense of being able to access information, communicate with and use the local public services and take informed decisions to make the most of their stay. For this to be possible, effective and adequate translation and interpreting services are fundamental. Hajj authorities and organizations have produced a large number of Hajj-related multilingual leaflets, booklets, road signs and illuminated panels, as well as Hajj-specific television and radio content. Organizations and research centres such as the Hajj Research Institute (Umm Al-Qura University) have also made laudable efforts to identify pilgrim needs and improve the different aspects of Hajj services, including police and administrative procedures, healthcare, accommodation, transport and communication. As noted above (Section 5.3.1), major infrastructure improvements have also made a difference in the last few years. Initiatives such as the Radio of Hajj Awareness and a number of Hajj-related websites have contributed to educating pilgrims about good practices conducive to their safety and well-being. However, while advances in several areas (infrastructure, transport, healthcare and communicable disease control, etc.) have been impressive, the informational aspect (that is, communication between Hajj public services and pilgrims, and particularly the provision of translation and interpreting) is still noticeably lagging. The little research that has been conducted on language services during the Hajj suggests that these fall short of both pilgrim needs and basic quality standards. In addition to the shortage and shortcomings identified by the authors mentioned above (Hariri 1422 IC; Al-Shafie and Al-Sharif 1424;

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‫ ‬

‫‪Al-Sharif 1425 IC; Al-Sharif and Khidr 1425 IC), Qadi (2011) found evidence‬‬ ‫‪of poor translation quality and inadequate quality assurance processes. His‬‬ ‫‪qualitative analysis of a sample of translations aimed at pilgrims revealed‬‬ ‫‪failings such as ideational distortions, ungrammatical constructions, unidi‬‬‫‪omatic choices, literal renderings that miss the pragmatic or functional point,‬‬ ‫‪as well as readability and comprehensibility issues. Qadi concludes that poor‬‬ ‫‪translation renders the materials provided by Hajj services ineffective and‬‬ ‫‪futile. The low-quality standard found in Hajj-related translations is consistent‬‬ ‫‪with Qadi’s findings on translator and interpreter recruitment practices for‬‬ ‫‪the Hajj season. The majority of the language service providers surveyed for‬‬ ‫‪his study (63.6 per cent) reported not having a system in place for assessing‬‬ ‫‪translator performance. Those who claimed they did were not overly specific‬‬ ‫‪about the quality assurance processes used – typically invoking subjective‬‬ ‫)’‪attributes (e.g. ‘diligence’, ‘field experience’, ‘good conduct’, ‘potential‬‬ ‫‪suggestive of rather vague and unsystematic recruitment criteria.‬‬ ‫‪ Our own research has also revealed serious quality control gaps in the infor‬‬‫‪mation and instructions translated for pilgrims. The English-language versions‬‬ ‫‪of a number of key documents (e.g. leaflets on preventive healthcare, crowd‬‬ ‫‪management, fire prevention, etc.) have been found to reflect poor target‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪language‬‬ ‫‪proficiency, inappropriate translation strategies or unintelligible‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪The following example is from the website of the Saudi General‬‬ ‫‪Pagesrenderings.‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Directorate‬‬ ‫‪of Civil Defence, which offers information about the Directorate‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Pages103-104:‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪and‬‬ ‫‪its‬‬ ‫‪services,‬‬ ‫‪as well as advice and educational contents for the public in‬‬ ‫‪Pages‬‬ ‫‪103-104:‬‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫‪source text:‬‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫‪text:‬‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫‪sourcesource‬‬ ‫‪text:pilgrims‬‬ ‫‪general‬‬ ‫‪and‬‬ ‫‪in particular. The excerpt below advises on the risks of‬‬ ‫‪ArabicArabic‬‬ ‫‪sourcesource‬‬ ‫‪text: text:‬‬ ‫ﻋﻨﺪ ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫‪overcrowding‬‬ ‫‪during the Hajj.‬‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕتﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫‪Arabicsource‬‬ ‫‪sourcetext:‬‬ ‫‪text:‬‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫‪source‬‬ ‫‪text:‬‬ ‫‪Arabic source‬‬ ‫‪text:‬‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫‪Arabic‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫‪Arabic source‬‬ ‫‪source text:‬‬ ‫‪text:‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫‪Arabic source text:‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﻨﺪﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝجﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕتﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻟﻠﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻋﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه ‪..‬‬ ‫ﻣﺎ ﻻﻻ ﺗﺤﻤﺪ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ ﻗﺪﻗﺪ ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﺭرﺷﺎﺩدﺍاﺕتﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫‪ ..11‬ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ ﻻ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰﻣﺎﺣﺪﻭوﺙث ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﻗﺪﺇإﻟﻰﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ ﻷﻥن ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ ‪.1‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ ﻻﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ ﻣﺎ ﻻ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱيﻗﺪﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪.1‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﺃأﺧﻲ‪1‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺎﺝج‪:‬‬ ‫‪ .2‬ﺃأﺧﻲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ ‪..‬‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‪..‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪..1.21‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻗﺪ ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫‪.2‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙثﻣﺎﻣﺎﻻﻻﺗﺤﻤﺪ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱيﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝجﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‪. .‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙثﻻ‬ ‫ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚﻓﻲﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪.1.21‬‬ ‫‪ 1‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪﻗﺪ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه ‪..‬‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﺪ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﻣﺎ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﻷﻥن‬ ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪1‬‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪2‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔﻣﺎ ﻻ ﺗﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﻘﺒﺎﻩه‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ ﺣﺪﻭوﺙث‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي ﻗﺪﻗﺪ ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻷﻥن ﺫذﻟﻚ‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔﺑﺎﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﺍاﻷﻣﺎﻛﻦ ﺍاﻟﻤﺰﺩدﺣﻤﺔ‬ ‫ﺗﺠﻨﺐ‬ ‫‪.1 .3‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت ‪.‬ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﻗﺪﺇإﻟﻰﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‪..‬ﻗﺪﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫‪.3  2 ...22.32‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝجﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓةﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱيﻗﺪﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ‪.‬ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ ‪..‬‬ ‫ﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡمﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕتﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫‪.3 ..22 ..423‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﺣﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭرﻭوﻗﺖ‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺤﺠﺎﺝج‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﻟﺰﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻗﺪ ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺪﻫﮬﮪھﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‪..‬ﻣﻦ ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪ‬ ‫‪.4  3 ...433.3‬‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕتﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱيﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱيﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽضﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱيﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽضﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪..43‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ‪..‬‬ ‫ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي‬ ‫ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕتﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‪..33‬ﻗﺪ ‪4‬‬ ‫ﻷﺷﻌﺔ ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ ﻧﺘﻴﯿﺠﺔ ﻟﻼﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻱي ﻗﺪ ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺔ ﺑﻀﺮﺑﺎﺕت ﺍاﻟﺸﻤﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻌﺮﺽض‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‪..‬‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫‪  4 ..44.4‬ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡمﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕتﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭرﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.4‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‪.4‬ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺴﻴﯿﺎﺭرﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﻮﺍاﺩدﻡم‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت ﺍاﻟﻤﻨﺒﻌﺜﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻣﻦﻗﺪﻧﺴﺒﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف ﻳﯾﺰﻳﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﻭوﺭر ﻣﻤﺎ‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪ‬ ‫‪.4 .5‬‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.5‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‪..‬ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ ﺣﺮﻛﺔ ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ ﻗﺪ ﺗﺤﻤﻞ ﺑﻌﺾ ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻗﺪ ‪.5‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫‪ 5‬ﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞﻗﺪﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔﺇإﻟﻰﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.5‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‪..‬‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﺗﺆﺛﺮ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥنﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑفﻗﺪﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕتﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫ﺻﺤﺘﻚ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ ﺗﺆﺛﺮ ﻋﻠﻰ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪5.5‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻗﺪﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‪ ..‬ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﻗﺪﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑفﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔﺃأﻭوﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱيﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‪.‬‬ ‫‪55‬‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ‬ ‫ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪5‬‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺑﻌﺾ ﺍاﻟﻤﺼﺎﺑﻴﯿﻦ ﻭوﺍاﻟﺬﻳﯾﻦ ﻳﯾﺤﺘﺎﺟﻮﻥن‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔﻗﺪ ﺗﺤﻤﻞ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩدﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺳﻌﺎﻑف‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد ﺣﺮﻛﺔ‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓةﺇإﻋﺎﻗﺔ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪ‬ ‫‪. 6‬‬ ‫‪5 .6‬‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ ﷲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻣﺮﻛﺒﺎﺕت ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩدﻻﻻ ﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.6‬‬ ‫ﻗﺪﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﷲ ‪.‬ﺳﻤﺢ ﷲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ ﻻ‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‪.6‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕتﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﷲ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫ﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ ﷲ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓةﻻ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ ‪.6‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺼﺤﻴﯿﺔ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺮﺍاﻛﺰ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻤﺴﺘﺸﻔﻴﯿﺎﺕت ﺃأﻭو‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻠﻬﮭﻢ ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫‪ 7 ..77‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪..‬‬ ‫ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓةﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚﻗﺪﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫ﷲ‪..‬‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫‪.6.6‬‬ ‫ﻓﻲ ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻓﻲﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫‪.7‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕتﷲ‬ ‫ﻻﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﻣﻦﻻ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﻓﻲﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕتﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩدﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓةﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﷲ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ ‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓةﷲ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺢ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕتﻻ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚﻗﺪ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم‬ ‫‪.6.76‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‪.‬ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡمﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫ﷲ‬ ‫ﻻ‬ ‫ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ‬ ‫ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد‬ ‫ﺣﺎﻟﺔ‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت‬ ‫ﻋﺪﺩد‬ ‫ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة‬ ‫ﺇإﻟﻰ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي‬ ‫ﻗﺪ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫ﻓﻲ ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻓﻲﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫‪7‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻻﺯزﺩدﺣﺎﻡم ﻗﺪ ﻳﯾﺆﺩدﻱي ﺇإﻟﻰ ﺯزﻳﯾﺎﺩدﺓة ﻋﺪﺩد ﺍاﻹﺻﺎﺑﺎﺕت ﻓﻲ ﺣﺎﻟﺔ ﻭوﺟﻮﺩد ﻛﺎﺭرﺛﺔ ﻻ ﺳﻤﺢ ﷲ ‪.‬‬ ‫‪.6‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﻓﻲﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‬ ‫ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓةﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕتﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‬ ‫ﻣﻦﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯزﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ‬ ‫‪ ..77.7‬ﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫‪.‬‬ ‫ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪.‬‬ ‫ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ ﻓﻲ‬ ‫ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ ﻣﻦ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز‬ ‫ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ‬ ‫ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ‬ ‫ﻟﺒﺲﻟﺒﺲ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ‬ ‫‪ ..77 .7‬ﻳﯾﺠﺐﻳﯾﺠﺐ‬ ‫ﻳﯾﺠﺐ ﻋﻠﻴﯿﻚ ﻟﺒﺲ ﺍاﻟﻜﻤﺎﻣﺔ ﺍاﻟﻄﺒﻴﯿﺔ ﻟﺤﻤﺎﻳﯾﺔ ﺍاﻟﺠﻬﮭﺎﺯز ﺍاﻟﺘﻨﻔﺴﻲ ﻣﻦ ﺍاﻟﻐﺎﺯزﺍاﺕت ﺍاﻟﻀﺎﺭرﺓة ﻭوﺍاﻟﺘﻲ ﺗﻨﺘﺸﺮ ﻓﻲ ﺍاﻟﻬﮭﻮﺍاء‪    .‬‬ ‫‪  ‬‬

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COMMUNITY TRANSLATION

English translation: Guidance to the pilgrims during crush: 1 Avoid the crowded places because this may lead to an unsatisfied

end. 2 Over runs due to the increase of the pilgrimages at one time. 3 Exposure to the sunlight due to the overcrowding may lead to sun

strike. 4 Crowding may hamper the passing process which will increase the

percent of the gases emitted by the cars which may affect your health. 5 Crowding may hamper the passage of the emergency cars that have

injured people on board that have to be transferred to the hospital. 6 Crowding may increase the number of the infected people if there

was a disaster God forbid. 7 You must wear the medical respiratory muzzle to protect your

respiratory system against harmful gases that are spreading in the air […]. (General Directorate of Civil Defence 2014) A cursory examination of the English version, even without referring to the source text, shows a number of serious weaknesses. The title itself (‘Guidance to the pilgrims during crush’) scarcely carries the meaning or forcefulness to be expected of such a key element. Instead of an impactful rendering to alert the reader – ‘overcrowding’ – the translation offers ‘crush’. The subsequent useful advice and instructions found in this short excerpt are further lost in translation, as a result of awkward constructions or inappropriate lexical choices. For instance, we find ‘unsatisfied end’ where logic and convention would indicate ‘undesirable consequences/ unfortunate accidents’; similarly, ‘respiratory muzzle’ appears in place of ‘respiratory mask’. The translator has also followed the syntactic structure of the Arabic source text quite literally, resulting in constructions that, while comprehensible with some effort, are neither natural nor appropriate in the target language. Thus for example we find the following sentence with its enchained relative clauses: ‘Crowding may hamper the passing process which will increase the percent of the gases emitted by the cars which may affect your health’; this may be acceptable syntax in Arabic, but not in English. Some deductive effort is also required from the reader at the phrase level: ‘passing process’ literally glosses the Arabic expression for ‘traffic’, and



Translating for temporary communities

105

the unnecessarily awkward ‘the percent of the gases emitted by the cars’ resolves itself as ‘vehicle emissions’. One might suppose that poor translation quality in the Hajj context correlates to the intense and transitory demand. Certainly, responding to temporary needs or emergency situations may require the use of ad hoc measures, which do not normally ensure a satisfactory level of quality and effectiveness. However, as mentioned above, the Hajj and similar large-scale events are organized periodically, and this should, in principle, provide opportunities to learn from previous seasons and plan subsequent services with care. The Hajj’s temporariness may have some bearing, but the issue of translation quality needs to be examined in the broader context of community translation worldwide, and of interpreting and translation in Saudi Arabia particularly. As has been noted in Chapter 1, community translation services are not widely available or sufficiently professionalized in many parts of the world. This is due to a number of factors, including the sociopolitical status of the target communities, underfunding and lack of trained professionals in a number of language combinations. In Saudi Arabia this is not only the case with community interpreting and translating, but seems to apply to the profession in general. As Al-Mahdia’s (2007) doctoral thesis shows, most translators working in the Saudi market have not been adequately prepared, and those trained locally attain lower levels of competence than trainees at international universities. Dr Ahmed Al-Banyan, the former President of the Saudi Association of Languages and Translation, agrees that there is a shortage of competent translators in the country and attributes this to a lack of appropriate training programmes, few employment incentives and no administrative body to develop and implement a national strategy for translation (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat 2008). Al-Banyan indirectly alludes to what we consider three essential elements – training, policymaking and certification – for securing adequate quality in translation and interpreting services, both community-based and general. For these elements to exist, a minimum of three conditions need to be met in turn: a) training providers that are able to offer appropriate and effective translator and interpreter education; b) policymakers who are aware of the needs for interpreting and translation and of the impact of quality (or lack thereof), and are ready to develop and implement policies to ensure service provision and professional standards; and c) quality assurance processes and measures at a national level (e.g. accreditation or certification body) and at the level of individual organizations and services. Saudi Arabia is still developing in these respects. On the positive side, Saudi authorities attach great importance to pilgrimage as a cultural diplomacy asset, and are aware of the attendant communication needs and the impact that better communication has on pilgrim experience; this certainly animates

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political will and policymaking. However, the progress in language services is by no means comparable to that already achieved in other areas (transport, security, accommodation, preventive healthcare, etc.). In terms of training, the major pilgrim languages have not found their way into the available interpreting and translation programmes. The majority do not offer wide choices of working languages (centring mainly on Arabic–English), nor are they particularly focused on community-based or pilgrim-related contexts (Taibi 2011). Finally, where quality assurance oversight and processes are concerned, to date (January 2015) there is no translator and interpreter certification body, and no professionally oriented evaluation system for interpreting and translation training programmes. As Qadi’s (2011) research has shown, recruitment – at least in the Hajj context – still relies on unsystematic processes. As can be inferred from the sample translation above and numerous others analysed in Qadi (2011), quality assurance measures mostly require improvement in the Saudi organizations and language service providers that have them, and implementation in the rest. The translations in question – ranging from blatantly poor to unintelligible – were commissioned and disseminated by a number of different organizations and public services, and their publication, whether print or electronic, is evidence of quality assurance failures on at least two key levels: recruitment and checking. (See also the following two chapters.) We have given here a relatively extended case study of community‑oriented translation during the Hajj, as thus far there are few case studies of its application to the specifics of a temporary community. In the interest of improving service delivery generally, research is urgently needed on translation issues in a greater variety of settings where such communities may have unmet or poorly met needs. No doubt there are also valuable success stories to be learned from, where language services and translators sensitive to such needs have performed admirably, even in difficult circumstances.

6 Quality assurance and translation assessment

T

he process of ensuring quality in community translation is multifaceted and indeed involves all stages of the community translation endeavour, from initial selection of translators and assessment of the source text, through the stages of project management, to the ultimate finalization of the text by the translation team. While many of the established means of quality assurance in international translation – and debates about what constitutes quality – are just as relevant to community translation, nevertheless a number of specific considerations, encompassing both treatment of content and treatment of the translation process itself, remain specific to community translation and need to be carefully identified. We focus here specifically on the relation between translators and their commissioning bodies – authors or translation agencies/companies – to identify quality issues that need to be addressed. Areas such as quality in machine translation, computer-assisted translation or automated translation project management processes are not in themselves considered here, though some comments will be made about the role of such technology in community translation. Two broad areas of literature can be identified as pertaining to quality in translation. The first is academically, linguistically and textually based, concerned with establishing criteria whereby translations can be compared with original source texts to establish their quality, and the limits of variation that can be allowed. Purposes here are both theoretical for translation critique (led by authors such as House 1977, 1997, 2001, 2013; Brunette 2000; de Praetere 2011) and pedagogic, the latter being concerned with issues of assessment and feedback on translation learning, to help translation students identify and appreciate quality features of translation (Petersen 1996; Hague et al. 2011). The second, but much smaller and more patchy, stream of quality literature is related to professional production processes, encompassing the process

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of translation in the context of translation project management (Orsted 2001; Samuelsson-Brown 2006; Dunne 2011; Drugan 2013). Some authors have pointed to the gap that exists between the academic concern for quality and the quality processes that are carried out in the field (e.g. Lauscher 2000), and this is the starting point for this chapter.

6.1  Academic and professional definitions of quality Some individual authors and key collections of texts have looked in depth at issues of quality, largely related to what is defined as Translation Quality Assessment [TQA], i.e. comparing a translation with its source text to identify aspects of quality. Primary has been the work of House and the collection in the 2000 special issue of The Translator on quality (Maier 2000). The steadily elaborated work of House in particular (1977, 1997, 2001, 2013) has given a well-argued functional basis for assessing translation quality. House argues that quality in translation has been described by several different schools of thought in translation: mentalists have concentrated on intuitions about exactness of lexical and stylistic choice (particularly in literary translation); another school largely emerging from the work of Nida has been concerned with translation effects, but this line of analysis has rarely been able to objectively evaluate the effects of translation upon readers. House is concerned to propose a functionalist view of quality: she argues that a translation needs to be considered along a variety of parameters, constructing a profile of a source text which can then be compared with a translation. The parameters she identifies draw on Hallidayan linguistics: first, a translation must be recognizable as equivalent in terms of both ideational (content) and interpersonal (how the reader is addressed) aspects. More precisely, House sees the notions of register as being crucial to quality, in its three components of field (the subject area), tenor (the relation between the author and reader) and mode (not only spoken/written, but also considering the extent to which the reader can participate in constructing meaning and be brought into understanding – as we have seen, a critical concern for community translation). A key to understanding equivalence along these lines, House argues, is the notion of genre, and the degree to which the genre of the original is recreated in the translation. Having established a profile of the source text along these lines, the target text can then be compared along these various dimensions, building a multifaceted view of quality. For community translation, several issues are already apparent, particularly the focus on genre. In some cases, as community translation is largely



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informative of institutional processes, the issue of genre is foremost: texts are largely pragmatic/informative but mix in other functions as well, largely educational/persuasive aspects, such as in preventive health, or encouraging participation in school governance or environmental awareness. Yet in many other cultures, some of these genres may be unknown or poorly developed, challenging the translator to then produce an understandable translation. Another issue that arises from House’s work is her distinction of the two basic ways translators engage in their task to produce either overt or covert translations. Her explanation of these terms, while technical, provides us with some significant theoretical insight into community translation. For House, a covert translation is one that is not prima facie recognized as a translation, but has adapted any culturally difficult concepts into more familiar concepts in the target text, and the translation can be read in the target culture as a standalone text, without any necessary understanding of the source culture, even if that may be considered exotic. An example may be a children’s story adapted to target audience culture, where Aladdin from medieval Arabia sounds and acts like the boy from the Bronx. The translator achieves this by applying what House calls a cultural filter, removing unfamiliar cultural references and substituting or adapting cultural forms. Such translations have classically been described as domesticating translations, reading naturally but not allowing access to cultural otherness (Toury 1995). Now, such a theory may generate an Aha! moment for considerations of community translation, for adaptation is at the very core of community translation, making the unfamiliar (particularly in institutional terms) familiar to a culturally diverse audience. However, in many cases community translation stands closer to the other kind of translation identified by House: overt translation – that is, translations that are clearly translations, and that often engage in explanation, definitions, augmented information and clarification, all quite clearly pointing out that this is a foreign (host) culture that needs to be explained, and the underlying assumptions and consequences of the information presented need to be spelled out. For overt translations, there is a process not so much of cultural filtering as cultural explication. House (2001) argues strongly that in evaluating translations there must be an ability to compare source and target texts, and attend to the linguistic aspects of a translation, rather than see translated versions playing a different social or political function; we are dealing with the specificity of translations, not social activism or rewriting. In community translation, while there may indeed be occasions for rewriting, this needs to be done by the original authors when an agency or translator declares an original text to be inappropriate or too erroneous or misleading to translate in its current form. This is commented on further below. The second stream of literature – looking at how quality is understood and responded to in the field of professional translation and specifically in

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community translation – turns the academic approach towards quality on its head: rather than looking at quality as being a relationship between source and target text (in the TQA model), the concern of this stream of literature is to look at how commissioners and agencies define quality in a context where they have to give guarantees of quality before any translation is done: agencies and companies that routinely advertise their quality aspects must convince clients their approach to translation will produce quality translations; and commissioners of community translation must be convinced that whoever they give the work to will also produce a quality product – how can this be guaranteed? In her admirably comprehensive study of quality in the professional translation field, Drugan (2013) recounts that in an exhaustive survey done of many varied translation providers (including community translation providers), not one provider cited the academic criteria of quality when discussing how to ensure quality for their clients. We appear to be on different terrain here, looking at what aspects of quality can be identified in the translation process itself, with an emphasis on Quality Control [QC] and ensuring all steps in the translation process have a concern for quality. Yet there are links between the two approaches, and perhaps this can be most usefully identified by linking the academic notion of the purpose of the translation – skopos – to the widely held perspective in the professional translation field that translations must satisfy client specifications: client satisfaction and a fit-for-purpose translation must be the ultimate criteria of quality. Lesch (2004) gives a significant account of translation in South Africa; mindful of the huge social and educational differences between groups in the country, he argues for an adaptive approach to translation and one that takes readers’ levels of understanding and background knowledge into account. He concentrates on translations between English and Afrikaans. Yet there is a catch: Afrikaans is an official language of South Africa, and so in areas such as legislation an official translation must have the same legal standing as the original (in this case English). Lesch takes the example of the legislation on school governance, and shows that the Afrikaans translation of the legislation has the same formality and register of full legalese as the original. Yet in explaining the legislation to actual school communities, Lesch argues that a simplified version of the legislation needs to be presented, without the formal register and legalistic exclusions characteristic of the actual legislative acts. Thus, a clause in the legislation reads (in English): 23(1) Subject to this Act, the membership of the governing body of an ordinary public school comprises a) elected members; b) the principal, in his official capacity; c) co-opted members



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(2) elected members of the governing body shall comprise a member or members of each of the following categories: a) parents of learners at the school b) educators at the school c) members of staff at the school who are not educators; and d) learners in the eighth grade or higher at the school (Lesch 2004: 263) There follow three authentic Afrikaans target texts: the first text is one translated by parliamentary translators for the official parliamentary record, and consists of a very close and exact following of each clause in the English text. But there are also two other translations. One is intended for school personnel such as principals, teachers and administrators, and in backtranslation reads: Who are the members of a governing body? The governing body of an ordinary public school is made up of three groups of people: MM

Members who are elected

MM

The school principal

MM

Members who are co-opted but not elected. They are people from the community who are invited by a governing body to assist it in fulfilling its functions

Elected members The members who are elected must consist of: MM

Parents of learners at the school, excluding parents employed at that school

MM

Educators (teachers) at the school

MM

Members of staff at the school who are not educators (such as the secretarial staff and those who work in the school garden)

MM

Learners at the school who are in grade eight or a higher grade

(Lesch 2004: 263) Compared to the wording of the official Act, in this translation aimed at school personnel we see a drop in formality, alternative terminology being adopted and some explications of who is intended to be members of a governing body.

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The third text is a translation ‘aimed at the community level, that is at pupils and their parents’ (Lesch 2004: 266), which in back-translation reads: Membership of a governing body Three groups are represented on a governing body: elected members, the school principal, and co-opted members. MM

Elected members

MM

Parents of learners at the school

MM

Educators at the school

MM

Staff members who are not educators, such as secretaries and gardeners

MM

Learners at the school who are in grade eight or above

(Lesch 2004: 265) Lesch uses this example to argue that plain language needs to be a feature of community translation; and to create understanding and (most importantly) involvement, translations must be understandable and focused on the main communicative intent of the original. Now, Lesch’s example is instructive on several fronts. First, it shows the importance of clarifying skopos in determining how a translation should be undertaken, as discussed in Chapter 3. Informing a school community of its access to school governance is vital, but Lesch is in the position of being able to have different translations of the legislation to suit different purposes – an official version for legislative purposes, and two further translations of communicative and adapted style for those most affected by the legislature: school staff, and the pool of parents and pupils needing to understand school governance. Secondly, relating back to arguments over quality assessment, it can be argued these latter translations cited by Lesch read very much like what House would describe as covert translations, applying not so much a cultural filter as a legal-bureaucratic filter to the source text. Yet thirdly, Lesch’s examples can be problematic, as in virtually all cases with a community translation there is not an opportunity for different versions: there will be one version only and a readership needs to be identified, and even if it is a mixed readership the focus must be on producing a translation that retains information yet presents a text understandable to putative readers. So, does simplification, or a more detailed explication, represent a more adequate approach? The issue of understandability is critical in community translation. To take an English example, the Sussex Interpreting Services, which run a substantial



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translation programme as well, define community translation as ‘the accurate written transmission of meaning from one language to another, which is easily understood by the reader’ (Sussex Interpreting Services n.d.). This reflects Lesch’s argument, but we show below how this organization in fact provides for quality measures that belie any conclusion of simplification. There is a danger if simplification of language leads to simplification of content, for this leaves the reader of community translations in a situation of information denied, confounding the very purpose of community translation. As an example, here is an extract from a document on disability from Victoria, Australia, referring to the standards that should be met by disability services in that state, in particular Outcome Standards for those with a disability: Outcome Standards The Outcome Standards for Disability Services describe what is important for people with a disability as citizens of Victoria. They form the basis for measurement of outcomes. They prompt us to consider the influence and impact our service has upon political, cultural, health and wellbeing, economic and social outcomes for people with a disability. These Standards guide approaches to recognise, understand and respond to the things that are important to each person who uses disability services. The Outcome Standards are: MM

Individuality: Each individual has goals, wants, aspirations and support needs and makes decisions and choices about their life.

MM

Capacity: Each individual has the ability and potential to achieve a valued role in the community.

MM

Participation: Each individual is able to access and participate in their community.

MM

Citizenship: Each individual has rights and responsibilities as a member of the community.

MM

Leadership: Each individual informs the way that supports are provided.

Organisations are required to comply with the Industry Standards and provide evidence of their planning for meeting Outcome Standards. (National Disability Services 2007) This is certainly a high-register text, yet caution needs to be exercised in approaching this with a view to simplification. Notions such as citizenship or leadership may sound odd when associated with the notion of disability, and it may be considered that, for example, disability would not be talked

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about in this way in, say, many source countries of Australia’s immigrants. But the point is that talk of citizenship or leadership would not have been common in previous discourse on disability in Australia either! It is not a case of something well understood in the host country needing to be translated for new arrivals. Those responsible for this policy precisely want to introduce new perspectives into discourse about disability, and a moment’s reflection tells us why: the long struggle by the disabled, individually and collectively, not to be discriminated against and to be regarded as valuable members of society has been characterized by the disabled asserting themselves, gaining leadership roles, demanding social recognition as well as simply better care and, indeed, claiming a citizenship that was often perceived as being denied by previous disability policies. Here the community translation issue is to be able to present what are novel concepts even in the host society, and simplification risks distorting this. Yet often some aspects of simplification are not only unavoidable but necessary if community translation is to be delivered in an efficient manner. Surveying the quality literature and trying to relate it to the work of translation companies and translators, Almeida e Pinho (2002) argues that: there is the need for new, more practical, principles for translation within companies that work at a more technical and professional level. It is thus crucial to have a quick and simple method of conceptual and/or terminological confirmation that will allow a final product of quality, recognized as such by all participants, that will provide credibility to this sector and that will increasingly allow clients/readers of translated texts to trust the products they receive. (Almeida e Pinho 2002: 420) Several significant issues are raised by Almeida e Pinho here, particularly the contrasting notions of trust and efficiency. Trust is a palpable issue, as all concerned in community translation (reader, translator, translation agency, authoring authorities) are aware of the variability in quality and reliability of translation that have dogged community translation (and community interpreting). And yet the focus on ‘a quick and simple method of conceptual and/or terminological confirmation’ is precisely what cannot be secured in many community translation contexts and in many languages dependent on community translation. We would argue, however, that quality is possible by focusing on quality processes that need to be employed by translation agencies/companies in a situation of teamwork with translators; such processes attend equally to issues of text and issues of professional interaction between all parties in the community translation endeavour. This method will not be ‘quick and simple’ but its consistent prosecution, we would argue, is the only way that the identified trust can be established.



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For the rest of this chapter we take up the second identified stream in the literature of concern for quality processes, and set out some criteria for what an adequate quality framework may be for the pursuit of professional community translation.

6.2  A quality framework for community translation The process of providing quality in community translation is here considered as consisting of six stages: i

Work on the text

ii Selection of translators iii Briefing of translators iv Ensuring project management focus v Enabling communication with authors or commissioners vi Ensuring quality checking or other post-draft quality assurance

features (this will be dealt with in the next chapter) We assume here that the majority of community translation work is secured by translation agencies/companies or non-government organizations choosing among a pool of potential translators. While there certainly are some direct relations between translators and clients in the community sector, and in some cases government bodies will have dedicated translation sections in some languages, these are dwarfed by the volume of translations handled by agencies of various kinds and translation companies.

6.2.1  Work on the text In referring to technical texts and the need for greater specialization, Heath makes the generalization that ‘few translators or translation agencies now question the need for editing both before and after translation’ (Heath 2001: 5). Yet this is precisely the area that is so often lacking in agencies that deal with community translation. To look first at the treatment of texts before translation: this one measure can tell us very quickly if an agency understands some of the central issues of community translation – that translations must present often complex institutional information and advice to audiences that potentially differ significantly

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in institutional understanding and cultural and educational background. Very often texts that government or non-government institutions need to be translated for their diverse constituency were not written with cultural diversity in mind (though this can be seen to be slowly changing with more awareness of heighted cultural diversity in many countries in recent decades). But even where authors may consciously address a diverse community, often implicit understandings of institutions and their processes remain, which will need particular handling, first by an agency that can read the text to evaluate if it is indeed likely to be understood by potential readers. Yet most translation agencies that deal with community translation are relatively small, may not have a significant institutional focus and have sometimes few staff who are expert in or even aware of these factors influencing translation. Many agencies see themselves as essentially letterboxes, passing on texts received from clients to translators, so that texts are never read by the agency. Also, in many cases the client’s requirement is for multiple languages, and given the often significant diversity of translators (in terms of training, certification or professional socialization), issues in the source text may be handled by these translators in varying ways – a point considered further in project management issues dealt with below. The letterbox model also leads to agencies or translation companies taking from their client whatever specification (or lack of specification) that is offered and simply passing this on to the translators. While many specifications are brief and perfunctory (‘translate into n languages in PDFs by next Friday, please …’), an agency always has the option of asking for more adequate specifications, at the same time as it may make comments on the text (on any issue from readability to logic, to style, to typos and typography). Moreover, it is essential to do this at the stage of quoting or bidding for a job, when good clients will appreciate feedback and attention to the text and specifications (and even poor clients will need to consider such feedback). The need for adequate specification of the translation, both in professional practice and in the training of translators, has been forcibly argued by Hague et al. (2011: 243), who urge agencies ‘in commercial, government and non-profit translation projects’ to adopt ‘a standard set of translation parameters, whose values depend mostly on factors external to the source text, such as audience and purpose’. They argue that this must go beyond the perfunctory kind of brief mentioned above. This is a specification to be received (or requested) from the client and conveyed to the translators for maximum understanding of project requirements. Such a process of providing more rich information to translators about their tasks implies that translators are receptive to such added information and capable of operationalizing it, an issue intimately linked to the selection of available translators.



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6.2.2  Selection of translators While a small proportion of community translations will be undertaken by in-house translators who are certified and effectively quality controlled by their company (or appear to be so), the greater proportion of community translations are and will be undertaken by freelancers with, as we have argued previously, often highly variable backgrounds in terms of certification, experience and professional socialization. But even in countries where certification and/or training is in principle available to a significant number of language combinations (say over fifty languages), many practitioners will never have received training or any test of proficiency. Agencies then must: a) first of all find practitioners in a usually ever-expanding range of languages; b) communicate some basic formal requirements at the level of agency practice: payment, deadlines and procedures (this may or may not take the form of a contract); and c) in some cases, indicate some macro quality parameters, such as adherence to a code of ethics or code of conduct. Beyond that, agencies vary widely in how they see quality. Selection of translators can be seen as a local issue of who is available, but also demonstrates some surprisingly universal issues that apply to all agencies: MM

Least problematic are the languages where local community needs are also in major world languages which, either by language study or by immigration, a significant number of people will speak and be literate in. English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic – the United Nations languages – are obvious examples, together with the major northern European languages where there is more likely to be a pool of potential translators, including some from the majority host group as well. For these languages there is also the possibility of reaching beyond the local community to recruit translators, but this is commented on further below.

MM

Other potentially high-quality candidates are likely to come from a range of countries which may not speak major languages but, because of highly developed education systems or bookishness of the cultures, often produce highly literate translators – for Eastern European and Balkan languages, for example, or Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese or Farsi (Persian).

MM

In some languages, including those mentioned above, with a long history of immigration, a second or subsequent generations have emerged whose A language will often be the language of the host society: Turks in Germany, Japanese in California, Spanish in Northern

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America generally and Italians or Greeks in many parts of the world. At times, and depending on texts or situations, translating into the host language becomes important, for example in the translation of official documents. If translation is formally taught, classes may contain a mix of first and later generation candidates. MM

Languages of most recent immigration – an expanding number worldwide, for various political and socio-economic reasons – present the most serious challenge, since needs in both translating and interpreting will be immediate but potential translators may be harder to find, may have limited understanding of professional translation protocols and will often have their own settlement issues to deal with. In some cases also, particularly with minor African or Asian languages, the language itself may have evolved a written form only recently, and literacy in that language may be limited, though there will be highly educated individuals in any refugee or migrant group. The Chin from Burma, Dinka from the Sudan or the smallest Indian languages are examples where, in some cases, material to be presented orally (through radio or audiovisuals) may be the preferred form of translation. Interpreting needs will often be more apparently urgent than translation needs for these groups.

MM

Indigenous languages may or may not have written forms, creating issues of translation similar to the newly arrived immigrant groups mentioned above. A special case is that of South Africa, already discussed in connection with Lesch’s work, where nine indigenous languages alongside English and Afrikaans are now official languages and need extensive translation work with insufficiency of translators. And finally, an indigenous group rarely considered in terms of translation is the Deaf in any country using Sign Language; while this is predominantly an interpreting issue, more material is now being translated in audiovisual form, such as material on health or social security, as part of government information efforts.

This categorization must be immediately calibrated against the question of whether any formal certification systems or training of translators exist in particular countries. Increasingly such systems are becoming more common, especially in advanced countries of high immigration, but the reach of the certification system into the very wide range of languages is often limited. The 2012 European survey of the Status of the Translation Profession in the European Union pointed to a ‘general lack of efficient signalling (training, qualifications or certification) with regard to translation services in “immigrant” languages’ (European Commission 2012: 4). As in community interpreting, a



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system of certification is often sought and supported by the various players in the field: government bodies in particular, consumer groups, as well as some agencies. It has also been argued that certification may in some cases serve more of a legitimation than quality function; the Translation and Interpreting Summit Advisory Council (TISAC) of the EU warned that in healthcare interpreting, for example, the current focus on certification might be misplaced, and they argue that standards for training should be given priority (European Commission 2012: 68). In relation to recruitment issues, many agencies are for very good reasons reluctant to go too far afield for practitioners, even though electronic communication allows recruitment from seemingly anywhere on the planet. The degrees of local knowledge required (which can be as specific as city or province knowledge or knowledge of national systems and institutions) means that only texts of a high degree of universality could be entrusted to translators outside the particular country or even more narrow geographical location. Texts dealing with local school issues, social security specifics, local planning, local law or welfare issues demand a level of familiarity with local sites and practices; translation of texts dealing with more generalized medical or health issues, or parenting or legal issues may theoretically be able to draw on a wider pool of translators, but not all agencies will make such distinctions between texts and capacities. These considerations also apply to getting translators from the country of origin of particular languages; knowledge of the local (as it is broadly defined) is often a requirement for community translation. This does not deny the usefulness of out-of-country language expertise for particular functions such as revising of texts (treated in the next chapter) or advising on training or certification. How agencies view and treat their pool of translators also reflects a remarkably universal range of possibilities. Many agencies will have a clear if not always articulated hierarchy, preferring trained or at least certified translators if available, but then needing to seek other quality measures. The previously mentioned Sussex Interpreting Services (SIS) gives a detailed categorization of the practitioners they contract in their hiring policies. First of all they will seek: Community translators who are members of: MM

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI)

MM

The Chartered Institute of Linguists (IoL)

AND/OR MM

Community translators who have completed the OCN [Open College Network] accredited Community Translation course

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AND/OR MM

Community translators who have a Diploma or Degree in Translation

However such practitioners are not available in all languages and they then describe their procedure as follows: There are occasions when SIS in unable to allocate a translation request to a qualified translator. In this instance SIS will approach a translator who has considerable experience working in the field of translation and, wherever possible, who has completed a CIESK (Community Interpreting Essential Skills and Knowledge) program. But they do not stop there and they report on their further ‘Quality Assurance’: SIS carries out internal spot checks of translated work on a monthly basis. SIS routinely proofreads1 documents translated into English. Additional relevant aspects for consideration when allocating translation work: MM

Feedback and comments from proofreaders

MM

Availability of CTs and urgency of the translations

MM

Language, dialect, country of origin, gender (for personal letters, assessments, etc.)

MM

Ethnic/cultural background of the target audience (leaflets, flyers, official announcements)

(Sussex Interpreting Services, n.d.) For some agencies, the concern for quality stops at this point of recruitment, however it is done. For better agencies and organizations, however, this is only one step of the quality process.

6.2.3  Briefing of translators Briefing of translators has already been touched on in terms of the degree of specifications that are obtained from clients and communicated to translators, plus the degree of trust that agencies may have with particular translators based on previous experience. To go further on the issue of specifications, By ‘proofreading’ here, and in subsequent references to ‘proofreaders’ in this text, this would presumably be the process of revising (checking) rather than simply proofreading per se (see Chapter 7). 1



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Hague et al. (2011: 243) argue that a specification approach ‘goes beyond the customer brief to include documentation of requirements of all stakeholders’, which makes an essential point particularly about the necessity to consider the target readership – the most important ‘stakeholder’ in the whole exercise. It is pertinent for agencies to reinforce the issue of communicability as not all clients will do so, perhaps seeing a translation as just an unproblematic technical task and not identifying hidden assumptions, institution-specific and difficult language or potential communicative difficulties. Briefing also relates to the central challenge faced by community translators when dealing with a variety of texts: the demand for accuracy and the demand to make the translation communicative. It is important that the injunction to be ‘easily understood’ must not be seen as giving licence to a dumbing-down of the text, and accuracy of the message must temper any desire to omit or tone down complex passages; it is precisely this issue that can be raised in briefing: how these twin objectives of accuracy and communicability can be achieved. Equally, briefing is an opportunity to reinforce that the translator’s task is not to produce a literal translation, heedless of the readership. An analysis of the text thus becomes critical in enabling a project manager to deliver such a briefing, as the agency must lead in raising issues; all too many translators have too often been left in the lurch by simply being given a text to translate with no briefing or help at all, developing a strong expectation of having to do it on one’s own and sometimes even a resistance to briefing or having other issues identified. This again shows that the ‘letterbox’ approach by agencies or companies reinforces translators’ isolation and often leads to a gap between what the translator understands their task to be and what is required of a communicative translation – one of the ‘quality gaps’ identified by Samuelsson-Brown (2006).

6.2.4  Ensuring project management focus An adequate briefing, if accepted by a translator, paves the way for a continuing translation project management relationship, particularly in translation projects of considerable size, that involves the translator in ongoing communication across a range of issues: commenting on the original text, seeing if issues specific to them are also common to other translators, or technical or process issues. Links with other translators on a multilingual project are rarely explicitly catered for, but may be of great benefit in revealing common problems that are often not language-specific. The activism of the agency needs to be directly proportional to the lack of training, certification or previous professional socialization of the particular translator; in the most significant case, which may not be at all rare, such

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project management will be the professional socialization that a translator may receive. In turn, however, this signals a significant burden on the translation agency, which is most likely to be small and running on tight margins; time and human resources devoted to establishing a communicative relationship are very precious, and also rely on the translation project management staff having the necessary translation knowledge, raising the question in turn of how these staff, not only the translators, are selected. It is also the case that some community translators will make little response to any overtures for a stronger relationship with the agency, or not see it as worthwhile to get or expect a long briefing; after all, they may work for several agencies which may have quite different and not always positive relations with translators, and the translators themselves are also running on small margins and, if untrained, may have a limited professional perspective. Yet, as we have reiterated, many community translators are highly professional, committed to doing quality work, and would welcome better briefing from agencies and original authors who often never meet or have contact with translators – a point we turn to next.

6.2.5  Enabling communication with authors or commissioners As part of project management, it may often be essential, even as a precautionary measure on the part of the agency, to ensure that translators have direct communication with clients and commissioners of translations. For example, where we are talking of translating educational documents for a school system, it is likely to be the case that most translators working in community languages will not themselves have ever attended the local school system; yet, despite some elements of universality, school systems are highly culturally specific in terms of overarching education policies, structuring of the educational experience, assessment and grading, organization of school, classroom practices and out-of-school activities. For example, the Austin Independent School District in Texas in the USA lists the following kinds of documents and information as needing to be translated for their service: Central Office Departments – Communication materials essential for parent engagement and/or to promote a district-wide program or initiative. MM

Community Meeting Handouts

MM

Brochures/Flyers

MM

Web Content

MM

Parent Letters



Quality assurance and translation assessment

MM

District Policies

MM

Registration Materials

MM

Surveys

MM

News Releases

MM

School Messenger Scripts

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Individual Schools –Translation services to individual schools are provided on a first-come, first-served basis depending on current workload. School-wide documents have priority. MM

Parent Letter

MM

Newsletter

MM

Student Handbook

MM

Generic Parent Release Forms

MM

Generic Field Trip Forms

(Austin Independent School District n.d.) Items such as student handbooks, district policies, surveys and web content, among others, are likely to be particularly challenging. Indeed, almost every item on the list may carry assumptions about education not shared by a particular target group for a translation. In many cases these will also be dynamic and constantly upgraded texts, which raises other issues of the extent to which translations will keep up with changes to original texts. These kinds of texts will often need explicatory and adapted translation, giving definitions or more details of practices taken as (presumably) understood in the host community. If translators are also interpreters in these schools, they are likely as well to face the need to sight-translate documents such as school certificates and assessments, features that vary significantly between countries and which again may challenge interpreters and translators who have never experienced the particular school system themselves. To balance this, being an interpreter can lead to greater familiarization with the nuances of the school system, and provide the opportunity to ask questions and obtain feedback in interaction with school staff, parents and students.

6.2.6  Ensuring quality checking or other post-draft quality assurance features This will be covered in the next chapter.

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The six steps identified above both build on and in some respects depart from quality process models that are at the heart of project management (Bass 2006; Samuelsson-Brown 2006). This is also an area where considerable technological advance has taken place in terms of now extensive translation project management systems created and sold for high-volume translations, particularly in the technical and politico-legal translation fields, with an emphasis on effective scheduling of complex translation tasks and teams (Dunne 2011). But importantly, the quality processes appropriate for community translation and outlined above are not only, or even primarily, issues of scheduling; rather, the primary issue is the use of often limited human resources in the most telling way to produce relevant community translations. Before concluding this chapter, however – and also related to technological advances – we need to consider the latest arrival that addresses some issues in community translation: the phenomenon of crowdsourced translation.

6.3  Crowdsourcing and the cloud definition of ‘community translation’ Finally, reference must be made to an increasing, though patchy, trend to look to automatic or Internet solutions to solve growing translation needs. On the one hand, the increasing availability and quality of Internet automatic translation facilities makes it tempting for many public and non-government organizations to resort to automatic translation and then post these translations, with or without warnings, on their websites, though few seem to be doing this for any print distributed materials. Further afield, some efforts have been made in the community area to translate by crowdsourcing, such as in one quite widely publicized instance of a translation of information for a diabetes campaign (Kelly, Ray and de Palma 2011). For these authors, such a process is what they mean by ‘community translation’, with the wisdom of crowds, through a constant editing process, determining the final acceptable version of a translation. We may conjecture that just as the printing press was viewed with deep mistrust by learned medieval scribes, the response by translators to these phenomena has often been one of scepticism tinged with fear (Bavington 2013). Yet a number of factors should be considered here. First, an increasing number of community translators are and will be using automatic translation and post-editing, at least for the more tedious and predictable texts in community translation (as in technical translation) and where the size of projects or predictability of long-term translation needs (as in the social security or health systems) can also justify use of Translation



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Memory or terminology banks. The quality aspect here, of course, is in the post-editing, and as more translators become used to this they will find increased efficiency but also professional satisfaction in quality in using postediting of automatically translated material. Second, however, the hierarchy of languages which influences translator supply also influences the quality of online materials that are available: while there may be endless terminology banks, automatic translation facilities and translation memory sources for, say, English–Spanish translation, some minority languages are still yet to develop a first dictionary, and online materials will be patchy to say the least. Whether in these languages there will be a great leap from lack of any print resources at all to adequate online resources relatively rapidly thanks to Internet development remains to be seen, but does not promise immediate solutions. In these cases, there is often also a lack of one of the translator’s most useful resources – parallel texts, particularly in the vast field of social services, healthcare, education and social administration. These points do not gainsay the possibility of some crowdsourced community translation of a useful kind being undertaken from time to time. However, crowdsourcing essentially depends upon private commitment to produce a popular outcome; the crowdsourced translations of new Microsoft programmes are an obvious example of this, though with massive back-office work to finalize them (Kelly, Ray and de Palma 2010). The diabetes example cited above is one very relevant to community translation, but to expect that myriad documents of a variety of government bodies or NGOs will all find enthusiastic crowdsourced translations is highly unlikely. And in terms of cost and efficiency, it is arguable that this methodology may be very uncertain in terms of deadlines, or costs if post-editing is required or the crowd simply does not materialize.

6.4  Quality and its mechanisms We have argued here that the requirements for quality are related both to treatments of texts and the treatment of processes of translation, with the latter’s central focus on the human resource of the translator and what support is needed to ensure understanding of and success in the translation endeavour. This highlights the processes in community translation that may differ from high-volume technical translation tasks, which are increasingly subject to Quality Assurance mechanisms of various kinds, most prominently in the European Union context with the EN15038 translation process quality requirements. Yet it needs to be pointed out that many such processes rely on what is precisely not guaranteed in community

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translation – a consistently professional cadre of translators across a range of languages, working on texts of a highly predictable and technical nature. Given these prerequisites, quality assurance in the EN15038 context then can attend to a rigorous documentation of process. Yet in the community translation sphere it is difficult to impose this by a process of documentation alone, which points to the perhaps limited efficacy of what has been a rush to ISO accreditation by many agencies and companies which predominantly service community translation. However well documents are kept or steps followed, the personal interaction with prospective and practising translators, and with clients and authors, remains a crucial element in ensuring quality in this area. In the next chapter we consider the process of revision, which is the last crucial element to ensure quality in community translation.

7 Translation revision

7.1. Translation revision and its complexities

R

evision is a translatory skill and a professionally indispensable part of the translation process that often does not receive emphasis in professional translation courses or translation tests; for translators who have not received training at all, as with many translators in the community sector, the very principles of revision and collaboration on quality control may be unknown or obscure. This places an unavoidable extra obligation on the part of agencies that manage translation assignments, or clients who directly contract translators and revisers: to have confidence in a revision process, sometimes close management of revisers will be inevitable. We look here specifically at revising the work of another translator, not self-revision, which is part of the work process of any individual translator. As we have stressed throughout this book, much of community translation is undertaken by professional translators, yet the area of revision has been rather confused even in the context of professional and international translation. Revision of translations goes under various nomenclatures: review, checking, revising, second opinion … but also sometimes ‘proofreading’ and ‘editing’ or even ‘QA’ [quality assurance]. This confusion of terminology underlines the often poor understanding of the translation process, and this is compounded not only in the community sector by both client assumptions and translation agency practices, but in some cases the unwitting contribution of translators and revisers themselves. We comment on some of these confusions throughout this chapter. In this chapter we follow the categories broadly established by Mossop (2007a: 110) and Drugan (2013: 197–8) where: MM

Revision is comparing a source document with a draft translation of that document, in order to detect errors and judge appropriateness of the translation. It is necessarily a bilingual process. Revision ideally

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results in the comments of the reviser going back to the translator to make any necessary corrections or amendments, though this step is not always taken. This can also be referred to as checking, reviewing, second opinion or rereading, provided these have the necessary bilingual comparative feature. MM

Editing is a term used more often in monolingual publishing, where it encompasses the many activities in preparing a manuscript for publication. In translation it has several meanings: it is used more often in technical translation to mean adjusting a final translated version to suit a particular target readership – for example, adjusting a technical explanation of how a dialysis machine works to make it a set of instructions for a patient user. It is usually done monolingually in the target language. In some cases, more common in the community sector, an adjustment of this kind may be asked of a translator; there would then be negotiation of a new version of the source text to be translated. Editing can also cover activities such as formatting for a particular publication shape (e.g. cutting length, adjusting layout to diagrams, etc.). And more recently post-editing covers the practice of a human translator working on text produced by machine translation, which would involve both revision (in the sense above) and editing.

MM

Proofreading involves checking for errors such as typesetting, format or logic, and will usually be done monolingually. Translators may be asked to do a proofread of their own or another’s finished translation; if asked to check against a source document in the other language, this is no longer proofreading, though some agencies (and even translators) do mix this up.

MM

QA or Quality Assurance is a catch-all term that can cover any of the above; any work done on a translation draft is a quality assurance activity. Organizationally, however, ‘QA’ is undertaken by the translation agency or client that has commissioned the work. Minimally it means looking at the final format of a translation and its conformity to any in-house design rules; maximally it can encompass the whole process here described.

Mossop’s substantial studies have outlined the principles of revision for professional translation (Mossop 2007a, 2007b) and others have also contributed to trying to sort out definitional issues (Brunette 2000; Lee 2006; Yousif 2009; Drugan 2013), while there have been several significant research articles that have in various ways looked at the operation of revisers working in real professional translation situations (Seguinot 2000; Chakhachiro 2005;



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Künzli 2007; Martin 2007; Ko 2011). Some have looked specifically at client expectations in the context of back-translation used as a revision method (Lines 2006), while others look at revision more briefly in the context of running a translation business (Samuelsson-Brown 2010). The GREVIS group in Canada has been established to comprehensively look at revision issues (Brunette et al. 2005). Many of the problems identified and strategies outlined in this literature are universal and would apply to any translation process with quality control mechanisms; however, in the community context there are a number of additional factors that may influence the process and which must lead to often more complex relations between clients, agencies, translators and revisers. We look here specifically at: MM

Handling inexperienced revisers

MM

Community feedback and the revision process

MM

Local and international language issues

MM

Responsibilities of agencies, commissioners, translators and revisers

MM

Specific issues in revision (back-translation, majority language monolinguals looking at translations)

MM

The changing status of revision and revisers

7.2  Handling inexperienced revisers Some of the factors that characterize the community translation sector generally and which have been alluded to throughout this book will affect revision, specifically the range of languages that need to be covered and the necessity to employ translators without certification or training in a large number of languages. Lack of professionalism of translators, however measured, will also affect any revision process in those languages, and requirements of revision may be unfamiliar to non-professional translators. It is readily acknowledged that many agencies and clients – not only in the community sector – fail to provide any instructions on how to go about revising (Ko 2011: 127). Mossop’s work arises from and is most relevant to large translation bureaucracies of the Canadian or EU kind and focuses more on in-house revisers; but even the smallest agency working in the public service or community sector will need to provide a revision process at some time for some texts from independent or contract revisers, as mostly they will work with translation tasks in many different languages

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and not have in-house capacity for revision. For revisers in emerging languages or without professional training, briefing on the revising task is critical and will take time and resources on the part of the agency/client/ commissioner: MM

A reviser must get at least as much briefing as the original translator: What is the purpose of the translation? Who will be its readers? (As noted elsewhere, such information is sometimes not given or left implicit in community sector translation requests.)

MM

Briefing must cover any aspects of the translation highlighted by the client to which particular attention must be paid.

MM

Agencies/commissioners may have particular instructions for formatting, style or in-house design, if relevant.

MM

It may be very useful for the agency to explain all the processes of undertaking and finalizing the translation – often an eight- or ten-step process from initial reception of the text – and where the revision fits into this (Samuelsson-Brown 2010). The reviser must know if their work will go back to the translator, who else will be reading the translation, and so on.

Then, it would be most helpful if the agency also had some checklist of its own of standard things that a reviser must look for. It may be useful to divide this into two categories: obligatory items in the translation, and the balancing act required in revising the overall text. While this may seem to some extent an artificial distinction, it is important for understanding acceptable variability in translation and what cannot be variable. For Lederer (2007) this distinction between obligatory and non-obligatory items was the basis of her interpretative theory of translation, but there is a very practical and professionally relevant side to maintaining this distinction for inexperienced revisers.

7.2.1  The obligatory items Translations will usually have obligatory items that need exact equivalence in the target text: dates, numbers, addresses and contact details, names (including institutional names), exact names of processes; these must be looked for and clearly accounted for by the reviser. This also includes items that are left in the original language (quite often institutional names and contact details) but which, like other obligatory details, through wordprocessing errors or cut-and-paste gremlins may not be maintained as they should by the translator. Quite often translators and revisers will slip into



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error here as they will concentrate on the more difficult parts of the text and believe these details will look after themselves; checking these items is tiring and isolating, and can lead to lack of concentration. In some cases formatting of a particular kind is also obligatory and needs to be revised. If a reviser has little experience, these requirements must be spelt out in detail, so they can be used more or less as a checklist. In some cases, depending on the language and script, some of these obligatory items may also be picked up by monolingual quality control personnel at the agency or commissioner; this is discussed further below.

7.2.2  The balancing act Yet beyond clearly obligatory items, translations can have quite wide variations in expression and style which are acceptable, and rather than ignoring this or leaving it up to individual subjectivity, a method for the reviser needs to be suggested on how to deal with the balancing act of revising what needs to be revised and leaving alone that which does not need change – a method that must go beyond any easily available checklist. Briefing inexperienced revisers here cannot avoid laying down the basic principles of revising, well recounted in the available literature, as in Mossop’s injunction: ‘Do not ask whether a sentence can be improved but whether it needs to be improved’ (2007a: 182). But briefing must go beyond simple injunctions: Mossop’s ‘Revision Parameters’ discussed below give further guidance, but Kunzli’s (2007) categories of revision and shortcomings in revision are perhaps the clearest guide to the balancing act, where he identifies the following categories of revision outcomes: MM

Justified change

MM

Hyper-revision (unnecessary change)

MM

Over-revision (introduce new errors)

MM

Under-revision (don’t detect errors)

Explicit reference to this or similar categories is essential as part of the briefing for inexperienced revisers, so they have some language, some distinctions that can help them navigate through the translation draft. One of the most effective ways to bring this home is to use a pro-forma which identifies each individual piece in the text that the reviser can identify, comment on and provide an alternative to. Many such pro-formas are used by individual revisers or agencies, with common elements such as the following:

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Reviser No., place

Translator Translator’s version

Why problematic

Suggested alternative

Accept

Reject

Variation

(Most usefully, this pro-forma is returned by the reviser with a marked-up copy of the translation draft indicating the items marked by number or other means on the draft. See also Ko 2011: 131.) The pro-forma acts as a discipline upon both the reviser and the translator. For the reviser, given that for any sizeable translation the pro-forma will extend to many pages if the reviser is too picky in hyper-revision, it takes time to fill in for every item, raising the question: does this particular item need to be changed or not? It avoids vagueness or generalities that often arise where a reviser presents only a list of their own comments. And for the translator, it necessitates a response to each item. The final column ‘Variation’ is important as it encourages the very useful outcome where a reviser believes a change needs to be made and proposes an alternative, but the translator is also not satisfied with the reviser’s alternative; however, the attention drawn to this item may result in a new solution from the translator – one of the most creative outcomes of the revision process. (While individual ways of operation may vary, many find such a pro-forma is more useful than the ‘Track changes’ facility in Word and other programmes, which can become highly visually confusing if there are numerous suggested changes and comments. By contrast, ‘Compare documents’ functions are highly useful.) Furthermore, at the risk of teaching something that is already known, it may be useful for an agency or a commissioner in briefing a translator to stress that the revision should begin by reading the translation through without reference to the source text. This puts the reviser in the shoes of the reader, and concentrates attention to how well the message/information is getting through, where there may be obscurities, where there may be problems of logic. This stage reflects exactly the obligation of any translator to read the entire source text through before beginning a translation. After that, the reviser works by constantly alternating between the source language text and the translation draft. One issue that can arise in addition



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to any concerns over the translation is a concern over aspects of the source text: as discussed earlier in this book, one of the problems of many source texts, particularly in the public sector, is that they have been written with the host community in mind and usually contain implicit assumptions about institutions, processes, obligations, and so on. Or a text may simply be very badly or ambiguously written. While we have stressed that translators must have the confidence and initiative to point out problems in the source text to the commissioners, the reviser is in a good position to judge if any apparent problem in a translation is an issue of the translation itself or of the adequacy of the source text; reference back to the client is then appropriate, and can be made directly in addition to any entries in the pro-forma. Any ethical agency or commissioner would then refer this back to the original author; the necessity for the translator to have the confidence to do this has been stressed earlier.

7.3  Community feedback and the revision process The important steps to brief and prepare revisers who may not be experienced professional translators are, however, only one part of the revision process in community translation. While we have stressed the universal nature of many issues in revision, there are a number of additional factors that affect the revision process in community settings: the most important of these are the many other ways in which community feedback may contribute to, or intervene in, the revision process.

7.3.1  Community feedback – unorganized One method of attempted quality control by clients who may be unfamiliar with the translation process or not have trust in it is to have any translation read by a bilingual who is trusted by the client – such a client reader here may vary greatly, from someone who ‘works in the office’ or a family friend, to a bilingual specifically employed in the client’s institution, for example a bilingual health worker, or an interpreter or a resource person of some kind. They are not (overwhelmingly) translators themselves, but constitute one of the greatest potential sources of feedback on a translation, with highly variable competence in the language and in translation, highly varied understanding of the source text and/or target text and highly varying accounts of what intended readers will or will not understand.

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While it is common for professional translators to be wary of, or even annoyed by, persons without apparent translation qualifications making any comments on their translations, a watchful rather than dismissive approach needs to be taken, as in some cases such readers may indeed have something to contribute, and relations with the client or agency commissioning the translation may be at stake. A three-part strategy is called for: i

It is useful for the translator to know if the translation will be commented on by anyone else related to the client – this is an issue that can ideally be sorted out at contract stage, and ideally by the agency (if the translation is coming through an agency) or at initial contact with the client. However, this is certainly not always done by agencies, but it should be anticipated if a translator has a direct commission from a client, when all other issues relating to the contract are being negotiated. In good cases clients or commissioners will indicate that the submitted translation will be read by such client readers.

ii When the feedback from such client readers comes, the translator

is well advised to have it in a format which is useful. This is why anticipation is so crucial; if there is to be such a client reader, it is useful if they can give feedback in a similar format to that which any professional reviser can give – on a pro-forma if possible, as described above. The most useless feedback consists of vague generalizations: ‘the translation is bad/wrong/full of mistakes’, ‘the translation will not be understood’; or nitpickingly detailed but without explanation: ‘the translation of “entitlement” is wrong’; or personally idiosyncratic: ‘I have never heard of “x”’. iii If, however, in the worst-case scenario such feedback cannot be

anticipated and arrives without notice, the translator needs to assess it carefully. It should be reiterated that such client readers may well have a good understanding of the issues. For example, they may be very close to a particular target group who will be the eventual readers of the text and be sensitive to the languages this target group may understand. Or they may be expressing and demonstrating complete ignorance of a language – either language! The translator needs to ask: – Is this an idiolect or other language problem? (For example, in the

case of polycentric languages in particular, where a term or style used may differ by country or region using that language, or in dialects, as described elsewhere in this book.)



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– Is this client reader well placed to give feedback? – What relation does this person have to the target readership?

The negotiations from this point are best undertaken if the translator has direct contact with the client reader, but there may be a personal or institutional reluctance to allow this. Then the translator negotiates with the client or agency to clarify their reasons for their translation choices, and politely but firmly discusses appropriate changes. One particular issue that can arise from a client reader, particularly if they are from the organization requesting the translation with a good understanding of the organization’s working, is that in the process of giving feedback on the translation they add new information and want this to be part of the translation. Ko provides a striking example of this when undertaking a translation in the education sector: Original English: Students can enrol in Extended, Standard or Express courses Original translation: As above Client reader’s version: The following three programs have different requirements for English language competence and thresholds. Please visit the website for information. Client’s decision: ‘Use the checker’s version. This is what I mean.’ (Ko 2011: 131) As Ko ruefully reflects: ‘As translators we would be inclined to ask here: if this is what the client meant, why didn’t he/she say it in the first place?’ (Ko 2011: 131). In this kind of situation, the client reader’s version will always prevail.

7.3.2  Community feedback – organized The case of feedback from community readers may in certain cases be formalized, with great benefit to translators, revisers and commissioners through the use of organized community feedback, trying to gain some representative voice of a target readership, best exemplified through the use of focus groups recruited from the relevant community. In some cases commissioning authorities may be required to conduct such focus groups to ensure community feedback as part of access and equity provisions; in other cases focus groups can be suggested by translators or revisers if there is palpable concern in the commissioning authority over the appropriateness of the translation.

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The purpose of a focus group is to give a sounding board to a translator and reviser as to how well the translation is likely to be received and understood, with an emphasis on giving feedback on appropriateness of expression and comprehensibility. In principle, the focus group should reflect in some ways the likely readership of the intended translations.

7.3.3 Recruitment Organization of a focus group may be relatively easy where there are large communities speaking a particular language and with a wide variety of occupations and considerable linguistic vitality, meaning that members can be drawn from across a range of backgrounds. It is important in the recruiting process to take into account any significant variations in the language that can affect understanding of texts by the target community. For example, in the case of a translation into Chinese, it would be important to draw focus group members from a variety of Chinese-speaking backgrounds; they should not all be from mainland China, nor all from Taiwan or Hong Kong or the South-East Asian diaspora, but from a range of these backgrounds. Likewise, for Arabic there need to be focus group members from a variety of Middle Eastern and North African countries, and likewise from respective countries for English, Spanish, Portuguese and Swahili, among other polycentric languages. A crucial point in recruitment is that persons recruited to a focus group may in some instances have higher literacy and bilingual skills than the intended audience of the translation and this is virtually unavoidable in this process. It is therefore useful to have, if possible, members of the language community that have a lot to do with a diversity of community members, for example an ethnic worker or aide or community worker of some kind who will be more familiar with the educational, comprehension and literacy levels in the respective community. For large projects, it may be possible to recruit directly from the target group, including, where relevant, people with a low socio-educational level, in a pilot translation reception exercise. The commissioning authority or relevant translation agencies may or may not have extensive community contacts themselves; often translators and revisers will need to make suggestions as to suitable focus group members and methods of recruitment. A final point on recruitment relates to remuneration. There will be great variation here. Often community leaders or community organizers will be used to doing this work pro bono, either as part of their paid roles or voluntary activities. As the translation is meant to be of relevance to the particular community, it may be tempting to ask all participants to do this ‘for the good



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of the community’. We suggest, however, that participation in such a focus group needs to be seen as work, and remunerated as such. Local circumstance will prescribe what suitable remuneration should be. For translation project managers, an important point is that running focus groups involves a cost; participants should be paid and so should the translator and reviser for their time. Translations that entail a focus group will cost more.

7.3.4  Conduct of the focus group There are several ways in which focus groups can be run. At one end, some authorities have used an arm’s length methodology, with a community facilitator conducting the focus group, with translator and reviser absent, and then submitting a report which will eventually go back to the translator and/or reviser. While the purpose here may be to ensure objectivity and independence in making comments, this does lead to a very complex process: the discussions of the group need to be recorded, and then either sent back to the translator/reviser or, in even more complex cases, transmitted back to the relevant authority, institution or author if they want to see what comments have been made, before going to the translator/reviser. This is a time-consuming and costly process. The better alternative in most cases is to have the translator and reviser present at the focus group meeting, to receive direct feedback and be able to explain and justify the text and consider and debate suggestions for change in a dynamic and interactive context. This does mean there will generally be no reporting back to the relevant authority/client. In either case, the focus group needs to have clear instructions as to their role, focusing on readability and comprehensibility of the draft translation rather than a detailed checking of the translation against source text sentence by sentence, which is the work of the reviser. Focus group members are often not given the source text, but only the draft translation, though they may from time to time ask about an original term in the source text. Such organized community input need not wait for the revision process or focus groups. A translator will at times need to be quite proactive in gaining community expertise of a different kind: a nice example is translating the names of cuts of meat from a host country butcher to a readership in another language (either for export or for local consumption); cuts of meat have considerable cultural specificity, and finding this information from a local butcher of the relevant target background, a cooking group or a restaurant owner may well be a necessary course of action. Again, such equivalences may be difficult to find from standard sources, and a reviser would need to have similar certainty of target terminology in checking this work.

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Beyond this discussion of organized focus groups, of course, is the prospect of crowdsourced revision. As with crowdsourced translation, previously referred to, it will only be an exceptional text that would garner enough interest for community members to contribute to a serious revision process, and although a commissioner or agency may consider adding this process to their repertoire, there is as yet little visible movement in this direction. Moreover, for the revision process, it is arguable that unfettered use of crowdsourcing and the possibility of capture by one part of a crowd may result in threatening guarantees of quality that commissioners make by using trusted revisers who are aware of, among other things, community and linguistic diversity.

7.4  Local and international language issues In community settings, who the target reader will be and what understanding they will have of the translated text can sometimes be a very local issue, where other resources a translator or reviser may find (e.g. finding parallel texts through the Internet or in publications) may or may not be relevant in particular cases. There may be significant divergences from parallel texts in the language of a homeland and local languages, which over time become increasingly influenced by the language of the host society (e.g. Di Biase 1987), and these local variations will often not feature on international sites; local sites may well be more useful as a guide (print or Internet) but may have little material relevant to the texts being translated. To this extent, unless the translator or reviser themself is very much plugged into the target reader group, the client reader may be able to insist on the correctness of their versions. This issue of local language use is a ubiquitous one in community translation and has been commented on repeatedly in this book. Below, some specific examples may show how local language needs need to be catered for in the revision stage as well. In health: While technical medical terminology is fairly uniform across all languages, there is enormous variation in individuals’ understanding of their health, body and medical proceedings, and considerable variation in the organization of health services and their overall ambit in various countries. Both translator and reviser need to be aware of likely understandings of medical terminology by the readership, and how best to approach subjects that may be difficult or even taboo (not only sexuality but also how certain illnesses or states of health are described). Even more so, when aspects of the local health delivery system are described, texts often make assumptions about how much a reader may know about the health system, ranging from issues of payment/insurance to organizational and professional medical



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structures or what a patient is implicitly expected to do in certain circumstances during treatment; both translator and reviser need to judge the extent to which more explanatory translations, unpacking assumptions, are appropriate. How far such different understandings of the health system extend is nicely illustrated by a local story of a woman presenting with a late pregnancy issue at a large urban hospital. When confronted by health staff totally puzzled as to why she had not seen a doctor or had any health checks at all during her pregnancy, the woman explained: ‘But I didn’t know being pregnant was a medical condition!’ In welfare and social services: Welfare systems will be far more localized and country-specific than even health systems. Issues of social security, superannuation and social insurance, compensation and welfare/legal distinctions will often be unfamiliar. A simple example may be the increasing euphemization, abstraction and nominalization of welfare institutional names: departments of ‘human services’ are now more common in English-speaking countries, rather than the older ‘welfare department’ or even ‘health department’ (and what would not count as ‘human services’?). In other cases euphemization has been introduced to ensure neutrality of treatment and often neutrality of social respect: the notion of ‘sex workers’, for example, may not be easily replicated in other languages whose speakers and readers have seen such occupations described – if at all – in far from neutral terms. In many such cases, translation revision is not only a matter of language and textual appropriateness, but also a matter of institutional ethos: moral and legal obligations. Similar principles of local need apply in many other areas, which cannot here be spelt out in detail: the legal system, the education system (which can present particular problems if neither translator nor reviser have themselves had an education in the host society, but need to translate documents relating to it) but also in different business practices and commercial activities. These very institutional or population-specific cases may also hint at a danger of contracting revisers outside the relevant host country; the local institutional setting, as much as the local level of language understood, may be quite unknown to revisers from some homelands, whatever linguistic excellence they may bring to the task. If a reviser is from another country, the translator needs to communicate effectively with them about local language, names and institutions.

7.4.1  Issues in parallel texts and the creation of new terminology and discourse As already briefly alluded to, minority languages have much more restricted linguistic resources in terminology and also in parallel texts. The greater

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availability of parallel texts through the Internet has been a boon to translators and revisers, but this has been in the largest languages, and for minority languages this has particular ramifications for the checking process: both translators and revisers will often turn to parallel texts to some extent for terminology, but often also to render or revise the appropriate discourse style in the target language. But very often the relevant discourse and text types in the host language are not available in minority languages, as mentioned above in context-specific areas such as welfare/social services, health systems, education, local government or legal resources, or even in such specific areas as traffic safety or banking. The translator is very much in a situation where they may well be inventing new discourse styles and terminology in minority languages for such contexts, and the reviser’s task can be not so much to simply compare source to target text for errors or infelicities, but to follow along in a course of invention and be able to judge appropriateness or even suggest new and better directions of inventiveness. The load for revisers in this regard differs substantially from the work of revisers working on technical texts with substantial linguistic resources in well-resourced international languages.

7.5  Responsibilities of agencies, commissioners, translators and revisers Quality is an issue for all participants in the translation process, yet, as the instances above indicate, one that can be marked by confusion and uncertainty on the part of any of the parties. To begin to overcome this confusion, Mossop’s categorization of revision issues provides us with not just a checklist, but also a dynamic template identifying where the various parties have a responsibility for the final quality of the translation. He poses a set of ‘Revision Parameters’ (Mossop 2007a: 124) that list the following issues for revisers: MM

Problems of meaning transfer (Accuracy, Completeness)

MM

Problems of content (Logic, Facts)

MM

Problems of language and style (Smoothness, Tailoring, Sub-language, Idiom, Mechanics)

MM

Problems of physical presentation (Layout, Typography, Organization)

Significantly, Mossop argues that in the case of revision, there is no place for the classic issue in translation of how to balance the interests of the source



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text, client and future reader; he argues that ‘revisers do not act like a second translator. Instead, the reviser favours future readers of the text’ (Mossop 2007a: 113). And looking at the various parties in the translation process – translator, reviser, agency, focus group – we can see the outlines of a division of labour for revision: MM

Accuracy and completeness, as well as issues of logic and facts, are clearly the responsibility of the reviser and their feedback to the translator.

MM

Community feedback, whether unorganized or organized, will generally help the reviser take the revision process towards favouring the (imputed) reader, but will usually involve the agency/ commissioner in organizing this.

MM

Layout, typography and organization of the final text rest with the agency or translator and any helpful commentary will come from the reviser.

The necessary interaction of the reviser, the translator and the commissioner is illustrated by the issue Mossop identifies as ‘logic’, combined with the injunction to favour the future reader. This also goes to the heart of many of the text types that typify the public service sector, NGO or community area. It can happen that what seems like a perfectly acceptable translation in other regards is, however, noted by the reviser as needing correction on account of a logical flaw or its likely effect on the target readership: for example, a source text may talk about a government or NGO programme of some kind but there are unusual jumps in a text, or different parts of it are written in a very different voice, or parts seem dated. This can especially happen in compilations of documents that have been gathered from various sources – for example, a directory of services for pensioners, or a compilation of resources for housing or healthcare. While generally government departments will be scrupulous in giving up-to-the-minute correct information (or, rather less usefully, endlessly inserting cautions that this information was only accurate at the time of publishing and needs to be checked against the current situation …), such information may often be reproduced far into the future by other institutions or organizations or by a different arm of government service, for example NGOs delivering aspects of government programmes. So, for example, there may be details of a particular programme (e.g. for housing or healthcare), but the reviser notes that the programme is said to terminate at some past date – it may no longer be operative; what may have happened is that the text is an old one, submitted or sourced properly at

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the time, but with the passage of time the information giving a specific date has been superseded or updated elsewhere but not in this text. Of course, this should have been picked up by the translator, but it is remarkable, in the authors’ experience, how often a translator will not pick up an issue of logic such as this, in many cases due to an understanding of the translator’s role as limited to translating the original text as it stands. Or again, a public sector or NGO text, especially if it is a compilation or directory, may have distinctly different voices in the text, and some may be very bureaucratic or obscure and challenge any reader (even in the original language). In such cases the text may still be perfectly translatable, but the question is whether it is likely to be understood by the intended readership. This problem may arise because when a text had been requested, the particular institution may have sent along, say, the minutes of a meeting or an internal working document which covers the issues but was intended only for institutional workers, not clients or the general public and certainly not those with little knowledge of the majority language. The reviser is the last chance to alert the agency/client that this text will not be understood. Presuming that a communicative translation is desired, the reviser is faced with the issue not of correct translation but of optimal receptiveness. The rather curmudgeonly Samuelsson-Brown only gives one example of his pointing out to a client severely problematic aspects of a source text, and he comments that the client did not give a word of thanks when this was noted and the source text was saved (Samuelsson-Brown 2010: 121). It is important to state that such a response from clients is not the rule: many are extremely grateful for having inconsistencies pointed out, as the text may have been authored in a variety of ways, not all of them controlled or properly edited. It should also be mentioned that in these cases the translator who comments on a source text when asked for a quotation can often distinguish themself thus; in the experience of the authors, there have been occasions when a translator or agency is given the contract for a competitive bid as ‘you guys were the only ones to comment on the text’. A reviser can also bring themself to greater notice of an agency or client by commenting on a source text if the translator has not done so. The effectiveness of the reviser’s role, however, is not only dependent upon revisers themselves but, as we have already mentioned, the total network of relationships in which the reviser works.

7.5.1  Relations between an agency and revisers What is important here is not just the division of labour between various parties but the communication between them. The agency must



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MM

be willing to provide adequate briefings to both translator and reviser;

MM

recognize any lack of experience or uncertainly on the part of the reviser;

MM

be receptive to the translator’s and/or reviser’s concerns about aspects of the source text, and not simply try to deflect the problem, or enjoin the translator and reviser to ‘do the best you can’, or reiterate deadlines (all responses that many translators and revisers in the public/community sector can attest to, but not only in those sectors); the quality of the translation is at stake; and

MM

recognize the worth of revision and pay the reviser accordingly (revision rates vary as much as translation rates; a common rate for revision is around a third of a translation rate; better agencies/clients pay around half).

This does bring us back again, of course, to the question of the quality of the agencies and intermediaries that translators and revisers must work through in this sector, as discussed elsewhere in this book.

7.5.2  Relations between a translator and reviser Just as revisers can benefit from proper briefing and guidelines on how to revise texts, so too translators need to have the ability to respond to revisers’ comments appropriately. If translators seem reluctant to take on the comments from a reviser, which can be seen, for example, in responses to the reviser’s pro-formas, the agency needs to ask why and attempt to see how both translator and reviser understand their role and their relationship to each other. This is a particular challenge for a project manager who may have to perform a more educative function than is usual for them. Equally problematic is a situation where a reviser under-revises, being reluctant to make critical comments of a translation: this can initially baffle translation project managers, as it may be a playing out of a social hierarchy and deference between a translator and reviser – a very culture-specific factor that is most apparent in small, relatively newly arrived language groups where the most prominent translator available in a locale has high social standing (either for knowing the host language well, or any other social reason) and a reviser may be of somewhat less social status, or be a comparatively less experienced translator. It may be the case that in this situation the reviser defers to the greater status of the translator and under-revises; the agency or client may pick this up when it is later found that even quite obvious errors have been let through. It must be stressed to the reviser that they are to provide an independent revision. There may be various points of view about whether the translator and reviser

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should be anonymous to each other (to supposedly ensure independence), but in small communities a translator may be known instantly by their work, even if never explicitly identified (and the pros and cons of using distant and independent revisers have been discussed above). In this case, if there seem to be seriously incompatible views of items in the translation, discussion between reviser and translator is called for and can usually resolve such issues, whereby the issue of independence becomes irrelevant. This phenomenon of deference is also known in a similar garb even in technical translation, and is by no means confined to emerging languages alone. In cases where the reviser knows and trusts the translator to the extent that the translator’s version will be largely accepted at face value, this trust may mean that some doubts a reviser may have are not followed up, especially if it would involve extra research or time on the part of the reviser (Künzli 2007: 50–2), or if they feel the translator has greater subjectknowledge than they possess themselves. Chakhachiro comments that such a relationship can affect the reviser’s willingness to revise particular macro elements in the translation: ‘A translator’s seniority may tempt revisers to overlook pertinent – especially stylistic – mismatches in the translation’ (Chakhachiro 2005: 236).

7.6  Other issues in revision: Back-translation; majority language monolinguals looking at translations Two final issues can be briefly covered here, each of which brings particular issues for revision in the community context.

7.6.1  Issues in back-translation Back-translations traditionally have had a poor reputation among translation theorists and practitioners, and are often the source of translation humour. As Collins (2005: 19) quipped, ‘[m]entioning the term “back translation” among translators can have the same effect as raking your fingernails across a blackboard’. However, recent developments have brought a new life, new methodologies and a new dependence upon back-translation, which is now sometimes used in such contexts as international medical research, where patient behaviour and feedback is important for diagnostic or therapeutic reasons, and where commissioners believe a back-translation process will result in a more exact equivalence in the final text – usually a questionnaire



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or testing tool instrument of some kind (Lines 2006). Here, a back-translation methodology is seen as the most reliable revision process. As research is also increasingly pursued within countries on their increasingly diverse populations, translation and bilingual data collection are becoming a larger field in immigrant and indigenous language situations (Grunwald and Goldfarb 2006). For some of the emerging languages, but even sometimes for betterresourced languages, particular issues may arise where there may be adequate translators to go from the major host language into the other language (i.e. the language of the minority group), but there may be fewer translators of that language that can idiomatically provide back-translations into the host language. Generally, few speakers of the majority language will have learnt the smaller minority languages, so that the back-translation task will sometimes need to be undertaken by translators for whom back-translation is into their weaker language. Small et al. (1999) eloquently attest to the problems that can arise where mistakes can be made in the back-translation as much as in the forward translation, and point out that the brief methodological descriptions of the supposed ‘gold standard’ of back-translation in international medical research does not serve well for languages of small immigrant communities. These translators again require support, and in the context of backtranslation this support, argues Ozolins (2009), must come from the authors or commissioners of the instrument to be translated. Some back-translation methodologies assume that translation and back-translation must be done at arm’s length from the researchers, on the model of double-blind testing, to supposedly bring about the situation where, after any number of turns of translation and back-translation, an equivalence is found on all items. Rather, it is argued, involvement of the research team should be encouraged all along (including usefully providing a briefing to the forward translators about what they are looking for), and particularly in the final stage of the process, where the instrument authors or commissioners can engage with both forward and back-translators to ensure their intentions have been adequately captured in the translations, back-translations and final texts. It should be noted that currently back-translation methodology tends to be used in particularly sensitive cases only, such as health or psychology questionnaires, but as social research increasingly involves minority language speakers, this area of translation and the need for back-translation may see a steady growth.

7.6.2  Monolinguals in the host language looking at translations In translations from the majority language into minority languages, particularly in longer texts, a monolingual in the host language with no knowledge

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of the minority language can still often be extremely perceptive in checking aspects of a translation. This is different from proofreading in the language of the translation, but rather a form of ‘monolingual checking’ to find macro features of the translation that do or do not conform to the source text; it can be carried out by a translation project manager or a client. Format, length of segments and embedded necessary items from the source text are the three areas that are most commonly identified in this procedure. Such indicators as length of a text are one issue many monolingual revisers pick up, but this in itself is usually not a fault: many translations will be slightly longer than the original, particularly if some concepts or procedures need to be given an explanatory translation, or institutional or social assumptions need to be made explicit. More useful is where they can pick up aspects such as dot points, embedded terms or hyperlinks. Given the prevalence of dot points and numerous short paragraphs in many public sector texts and particularly instructional or informative texts – for an administrative procedure of any kind, or advice on one’s rights or entitlements – the sheer number of dot points and short segments is often a challenge and may not be picked up by a reviser. Equally important, the number of hyperlinks on texts prepared for the Internet, and their working and interrelationships, are becoming increasingly salient as more translation is done directly for Internet texts. Embedded terms from the majority language (such as names of institutions or programmes, or contact details) can also usefully be monitored via this method. It need hardly be stressed that the agency will have to wear any negative feedback obtained from clients if such checks are not carried out.

Conclusion: The changing status of revision and revisers We have argued in this chapter that revision is a crucial, demanding and often professionally revealing aspect of the translation process, despite some apparent confusion over terminology and processes. And we would argue that revision will become even more significant and visible in the translation process as greater need for quality in translation, as well as technological changes, will affect the whole translation industry. How revealing revision can be is shown in the practice of many agencies, when considering whether to engage a new translator, to give them in the first instance a revision job rather than a translation, to see how they perform. While this may show the agency’s hierarchy of thinking (revision is less important than translation itself and poor performance there may not be as damaging), it also shows



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that asking a new practitioner to do a revision task is a very good test of their translator skills – indeed, this may be a better test of anyone’s professional translation credentials than a trial translation, especially if they come with some certification or training in translation which already attests to their translation competence. The revision exercise can show the extent to which this practitioner is aware of the purposes of the translation, shows consideration for the target readership, has a sense of the importance of detail and knows when enough revision is enough – all aspects that are vitally important in professional translation, but only some of which are normally assessed in standard translation tests or examinations. For the practitioner who comes with no translation qualifications at all, a revision task can be revealing as to their overall translation readiness. A final point that must be made is that the whole field of revision is itself changing, in ways that may affect agencies and revisers who work in the public service/community sector and bring new work methods. Two changes in particular are worth noting. First, to some extent revision has been ‘brought in from the cold’ and is now formally recognized in translation quality processes through the adoption of quality parameters such as the EN 15038 European Standards for Translation Quality, now widely subscribed to by many agencies working in EU-related areas. In the USA the ASTM15 Standard covers much the same ground and there is now work towards an ISO standard. Here, revision is an obligatory part of the translation quality process. Some of these same agencies will work in the public service/ community sector and may apply the same standards to work there. Even in countries outside the EU or USA where community translation is still undertaken by relatively small independent agencies well outside any formal quality frameworks or by individual practitioners, the necessity to specify processes and give some more formal recognition of quality parameters may become more apparent as public sector clients and others want to ensure more consistency in translation outcomes, much as they have led to certification demands in community/public service interpreting. The second change facing revisers is technological, on many fronts. Increasing use of machine translation, computer-assisted translation and translation memory systems is now heavily influencing areas of high-volume technical, intergovernmental and commercial translation, and will steadily if sporadically influence translators who work in the community sectors (and increasing numbers of translators will, of course, work across the various sectors). In the past, many programmes did not cater for a wide variety of languages and were confined to the larger international languages, but recent changes here mean that even in smaller African or Asian or indigenous languages, technological translation aids of many kinds can increasingly be used. In what is usually much smaller-volume community sector work, not all

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translation memory or machine translation programmes yet justify their cost, but some individual practitioners already utilize such aids and their use will only spread. This poses new issues for revision whereby increasing technological competence and familiarity with various programmes will become a prerequisite to work in this field. For revision, a very specific technological change that brings new challenges is that of post-editing machine translation output, now again widely used for technical and bureaucratic intergovernmental translation, but also employed in website translation across a whole gamut of texts. In some cases this will present a fantastic jump for languages that only devised writing systems in the twentieth century, to now having access to an automatic translation facility, but the supply of competent post-editors will be a critical factor (Drugan 2013; Robert 2013). Closely linked to this is the issue of localization, a form of revision that makes particular demands of both conformity to technological imperatives and awareness of reader and user capacities and understanding (Garcia 2009). As the boundaries between community translation and other translation sectors blur, and practitioners from a huge spread of languages work in processes that used to be exclusive to a few elite international languages, the importance of revision and revisers will only continue to increase.

8 Community translation resources

8.1  Further reading Lesch, H. M. (2012), Gemeenskapsvertaling in Suid-Afrika: Die konteks van die ontvanger as normeringsbeginsel [Community translation in South Africa: The context of the receiver as a norm governing principle] (Stellenbosch: SunMedia)

P

ublished in Afrikaans, this book is based on Lesch’s doctoral thesis, which offers a valuable resource on community translation, as seen in and from the South African context. The study advocates a reader-oriented, functional approach to community translation and a visible role for community translators. Lesch argues that in multilingual and multicultural societies there are heterogeneous target audiences and varying levels of literacy, and that community translation should therefore aim to achieve understanding and effective communication. A translated text which fails to achieve this would be no more than a symbolic gesture towards the target community. As the author himself describes it, the study is an attempt to address the power imbalances in the community communication situations by recognizing the important role of the community of readers, especially those he describes as ‘language impoverished’. This should be understood in the historical, demographic and political context of South Africa, especially the systematic disempowerment of black people during apartheid and the democratization process following the release of Nelson Mandela. Lesch argues that, given the demographic and sociolinguistic reality of South Africa, community translators and interpreters should adopt a visible role and have an impact in their society. Community members, in their turn, should be made aware of their language rights as part of the democratization process. Rather than

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elitist and symbolic translation, the author defends translation which has a practical value for language users. Written from the perspective of the local South African context, the book addresses the following issues, among others: MM

The need for community translation (Chapter 2)

MM

The practice of community translation (Chapter 3)

MM

A theoretical framework for community translation (Chapter 4)

MM

A methodological model for community translation (Chapter 5)

Taibi, M. (2011), ‘Public Service Translation’, in K. Malmkjaer and K. Windle (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 214–27 Using ‘public service translation’ as an alternative name for ‘community translation’, this book chapter provides an overview of this field of translation, its characteristics, relevant research and the situation of service provision and training, with examples from Australia, Spain, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Taibi presents community translation as an activity that ‘serves the purpose of ensuring the rights of all individuals and communities to public information and services and thus to social, economic and political participation’ (p. 226). Like Lesch (1999, 2004, 2012), he argues that the social, educational and cultural differences between mainstream users of public service texts and minority users of community translations require community translators to engage in cultural adaptation and linguistic and textual accommodation to ensure communication effectiveness. The author laments that, due to budget constraints and the low social status of minority groups, community translation services are not widely provided and, when they are available, quality and effectiveness are not always ensured. In relation to this, the book chapter also points out the shortfall in training programmes and quality assurance bodies. As far as training is concerned, Taibi suggests that existing generalist translation programmes are a starting point but it would be more desirable to offer specific training programmes which are relevant to community translation and which cater for locally needed languages. Fraser, J. (1993), ‘Public Accounts: Using Verbal Protocols to Investigate Community Translation’, Applied Linguistics 14 (4): 325–43 This paper reports one of the few empirical studies conducted on community translation. In this study Fraser elicited verbal accounts from twelve community translators to identify the distinctive features of translating for



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ethnic minority groups and the translation strategies these translators used. The participants were invited in particular to comment on the strategies they used to translate culture-specific and institutional terms. Fraser found that the community translators adopted a sociocultural, functional, reader-oriented approach, gearing their translations towards the needs of the communities for which they worked. This approach to community translation allowed them to use translation strategies selectively, to ensure not only transfer of information from the mainstream culture to minority ethnic groups, but also empowerment of the latter. Fraser, J. (1999), ‘The Discourse of Official Texts and How it Can Impede Public Service Translators’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20 (3): 194–208 In this paper Fraser reports the findings of a case study with an experienced community translator as the sole participant. The translator produced a thinkaloud protocol while dealing with a functionally and stylistically complex public service text. Fraser’s analysis of the textual features of the source text and of the insights provided by her participant reveals that public service texts may have an implicit function that is inconsistent with its explicit nature. It also shows tensions between faithful translation, functional equivalence and clear and effective communication, with community translators sometimes giving priority to clarity and understanding over faithful reflection of the pragmatic point of the official body producing the original text and commissioning the translation. The author concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of poor or less transparent drafting of public service texts and of the clarification process often involved in community translation. Burns, A. and Kim, M. (2011), ‘Community Accessibility of Health Information and the Consequent Impact for Translation into Community Languages’, Translation and Interpreting 3 (1): 58–75 This paper relates to Fraser’s (1999) in the sense that it deals with the manner in which public service information (in this case in healthcare settings) is written (and translated). The paper reports the findings of a research project on accessibility (comprehensibility) of healthcare information and the implications text drafting has for community translators and community members. The study uses two healthcare texts, their respective revised (and more accessible) versions, and the Chinese and Korean translations of both the original and the improved versions to verify the reactions of the audience. Through analysis of the original English texts, the authors identify areas for improvement in terms of effectiveness and accessibility. The responses of

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their participants show that the revised versions were considered more accessible and comprehensible than the originals, not only in English but also in the languages they were translated into (Chinese and Korean). Di Biase, B. (1987), ‘Translating for the Community’, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics Series S 4: 52–65 This is one of the earliest contributions to the literature on community translation. In this paper Di Biase writes from the perspective of the Italian community in Australia to argue that for community translators to do an appropriate and effective job, they need to take into consideration the sociocultural characteristics and constraints of the target community, the interactions that take place between this community and the mainstream society, as well as any impact these interactions may have on the language and background knowledge of the minority community. As quoted earlier, Di Biase notes that the sociocultural context of the target language (community language) is located – physically and culturally – within that of the mainstream society. Campbell, S. (2005), ‘English Translation and Linguistic Hegemony in the Global Era’, in G. M. Anderman, and M. Rogers (eds), In and Out of English: For Better, for Worse (Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters), 27–38 The relevance of this book chapter to community translation stems from the fact that it addresses the imbalance between English and other (community) languages in terms of status and level of development in terminology and text types. Campbell questions the notion that in translation between English and another language, English is but a source or target language which has parity with other languages. Rather, the author argues, English enjoys an advantageous position and translation between it and other languages usually involves dealing with a power imbalance and language imparity. As examples, Campbell discusses language imbalance in terms of terminology and/or text-type development between Lao and English in the context of international cooperation, and between English and minority languages in the context of community translation in Australia. This imbalance has implications for community translation practice and training, which are influenced by ‘the power imbalance between the mainstream and immigrant communities, and by the imbalance between English and the minority languages’ (pp. 32–3). In his discussion of the position and role of English as a global language, the author also questions the assumptions that translation into English should only be undertaken by a native speaker, and that Standard English is invariably straightforward. As pointed out earlier in this book, in the context of



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community translation in particular, diversity of language backgrounds is quite common, not only among community members but also among the translators who work with them; community translators are often native speakers of languages other than the mainstream language. Shaw, A. and Ahmed, M. (2004), ‘Translating Genetics Leaflets into Languages Other than English: Lessons from an Assessment of Urdu Materials’, Journal of Genetic Counseling 13 (4): 321–42 The authors of this paper acknowledge that written resources (including translations) are useful in genetic counselling (and healthcare in general), especially if the language used in them is clear and simple. In the case of translations, they suggest, the effectiveness of the materials made available depends partly on the clarity of the source text, on the literacy of the target audience and on the translation approach used. Shaw and Ahmed assessed the accuracy, cultural sensitivity and accessibility of some Urdu translations of genetics leaflets available in the British context. They identified a number of inaccuracies resulting from, among other reasons, literal translation or inadequate explanation of technical terms. They found that the translations were less accessible because of the use of unfamiliar or difficult words or because the translators thought it was outside their role to rephrase the original text in more natural and accessible Urdu. They also found that some translations were not felicitous in terms of cultural sensitivity (e.g. in relation to consanguineous marriages in the Pakistani community). They conclude with a number of recommendations, including the following: MM

That there should be collaboration between bilingual healthcare experts and translators.

MM

That drafters of original texts should use jargon-free language and explain technical terms clearly in plain language.

MM

That translators should have the prerogative to improve the source text when necessary (see Chapter 3 on this point).

MM

That translated materials need to be piloted with the target audience (see Chapter 7 on this point).

Cornelius, E. (2010), ‘Plain Language as Alternative Textualisation’, Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 28 (2): 171–83 In this paper Cornelius addresses the use of plain language as a form of intra-language translation intended to ensure access of the wider public to legal information. She writes from the South African context, where English,

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a minority language in demographic terms, is the dominant language in society and in public service communication. She welcomes post-apartheid initiatives aiming to provide information to ordinary citizens about their rights and obligations in plain language, but laments that, with a few exceptions, plain language resources are made available in the dominant language only. As this paper demonstrates, even information that is supposed to be in plain English and therefore facilitate understanding is not sufficiently accessible, especially for marginalized and relatively less literate layers of society. Cornelius undertook a lexico-grammatical analysis of a booklet meaningfully entitled Equality for All to verify the extent to which the supposedly simplified text is understandable for non-native speakers of English whose legal knowledge is limited. She found a number of linguistic and textual features that impede understanding (e.g. excessively long sentences, nominalizations, specialized terminology, archaic deictics, etc.). She concludes that ‘[t]he use of inaccessible language leads to exclusion and marginalisation on different levels. In doing so, the “consolidation of democracy” […] is not served’ (p. 180). Burke, J. (2012), ‘Language as a Resource for Improving Health: Using Swahili-Based Concepts in Responding to Infant HIV’, The Australasian Review of African Studies 33 (2): 141–57 This paper is not on community translation but it provides insights that may be useful for policymakers, public services, mediators and community translators working in a multicultural context or with minority groups. Burke’s study, which was conducted in Tanzania, uses Swahili words and concepts to build a framework for understanding how the social and cultural context may influence infant-feeding decisions and the reception of preventive healthcare information, in particular about infant HIV. Burke shows that language and cultural understandings are essential for successful interventions and communication about healthcare. She argues that adopting the perspectives of the target communities and explaining key concepts in their own language (variety) are essential for culturally relevant healthcare interventions. She suggests that in the Tanzanian context ‘[c]ore concepts such as shame (aibu), capacity (uwezo), safety (salama) and openness (uwazi) could be used to frame counselling and community conversations because they have more resonance with Swahili-speakers than concepts such as stigma, income, risk and disclosure’ (p. 154). This is related to some of the points made in this book, especially about language imparity in Chapter 1, sociocultural challenges in Chapter 2 and translation strategies in the community context in Chapter 3. In a statement that applies, among others, to both the writers and translators of public service information and guidelines, Burke alerts ‘people



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designing public health guidelines to the need to pay careful attention to the language used in communities so as to formulate messages grounded in people’s concerns and experiences’ (p. 152). The rest of the publications are included below in aggregate form under several headings.

8.1.1  Translating official documents – guidelines and recommendations Mayoral Asensio (2003) offers a 150-page book entitled Translating Official Documents, in which he covers the features of official translation and the professional practice in different parts of the world. As Mayoral Asensio notes, official translation ‘overlaps with fields such as oral translation, legal translation, court translating and interpreting, and community interpreting’ (p. 1). As we have shown in this book, translation of official documents also overlaps with community translation. Mayoral Asensio himself alludes to the social dimension of official translation when he asserts: ‘Work as an official translator makes you feel socially useful’ (p. 2). The author discusses a number of issues that are relevant to community translation, including the social context, the translator’s loyalties, cultural differences, legibility and understandability: see Mayoral Asencio, R. (2003), Translating Official Documents (Manchester: St Jerome). While a huge proportion of translation agencies and companies declare their expertise in translation of official documents, explanations of how these translations should be systematically undertaken are far fewer. For an example of a useful explanation, though very much part of a marketing strategy, see the company Translated: http://www.translated.net/en/ sworn-certified-official-translation. The best single guide to translation of official documents is from the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters [NZSTI], the NZSTI Guidelines for the Translation of Official and Legal Documents (2005), which sets out the steps to follow through all stages of translation and presentation. This is available online at http://www.nzsti.org/assets/uploads/files/translationguidelines.pdf. The NZ effort has inspired their neighbours, the Australian Institute of Translators and Interpreters [AUSIT], to develop their own version, explicitly based on the NZ model: Translation of Official and Legal Documents (2014), available at www.ausit.org/Publications. A growing phenomenon in community translation is the use of extract or template translations: see Lambert-Tierrafria, S. (2007), ‘Templating as a Strategy for Translating Official Documents from Spanish to English’, Meta 52 (2): 215–26.

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The growth of translation of official documents often encounters the issue of translating the names of institutions: see Humbley, J. (2006), ‘La traduction des noms d’institutions’ [Translation of Names of Institutions], Meta 51 (4): 671–89. The task of the ‘sworn translator’ often involves dilemmas of taking a literal approach to the source text but endeavouring to produce a communicative and informative target text: see Aubert, F. H. (2005), ‘Dilemas da literalidade na tradução juramentada’ [Dilemmas of Literalness in Sworn Translation], Trabalhos em Lingüística Aplicada 44 (2): 247–63.

8.1.2  Community translation and radical language diversity – technological approaches The huge variety of language now represented among immigrant and indigenous populations and the impracticalities of having enough resources to meet translation demand has taken several in the direction of technology, and particularly machine translation, to try to meet information demands. A perceptive commentary on this is Lynne Bowker’s article in the excellent Linguistica Anverpiensis collection, which has explored crowdsourcing and technological advances in translation, including community translation. Bowker carefully delineates where recipients are happy to have raw or minimally postedited translations in some information areas, while ‘maximally post-edited machine translation output is a minimum requirement when translation is intended as a means of cultural preservation and promotion’: Bowker, L. (2009), ‘Can Machine Translation Meet the Need of Official Language Minority Communities in Canada? A Recipient Evaluation’, Linguistica Antverpiensia 8: 123–55. The same collection has a number of other articles on technology in translation and the link between technology and crowdsourcing. An earlier approach also in Canada has addressed the Inuit language Inuktitut: Collis, D. R. F. (1992), ‘The Use of Distributed Language Translation in Language Management’, Language Problems and Language Planning 16 (1): 53–71. For localization projects, see Garcia, I. (2009), ‘Translating and Revising for Localisation. What do we know? What do we need to know?’, Perspectives. Studies in Translatology 16 (1–2): 49–60.

8.1.3  Community translation and language planning One of the broader issues that community translation has raised where indigenous languages are concerned is the importance of providing explicit



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language planning in the form of corpus planning, to enable development of previously largely oral languages. This issue has arisen from attempts to provide translation of significant public documents in a number of national contexts. Interestingly, though this arises from contemporary concerns with translation, it reflects one of the oldest functions of translation historically, going back to the era of classical languages: that translations and the search for new vocabulary could enhance and develop vernacular languages. In the case of Scottish Gaelic, see McLeod, M. (2000), ‘Official Gaelic: Problems in the Translation of Public Documents’, Scottish Language 19: 100–16. In South Africa, numerous authors have looked at this issue, including Madiba, M. (2004), ‘Parallel Corpora as Tools for Developing the Indigenous Languages of South Africa, with Special Reference to Venda’, Language Matters 35 (1): 133–47. Significantly, Kim Wallmach and Alet Kruger in South Africa have contested the notion that translation into African languages is impossible because indigenous languages lack terminology; they argue that: If one views translation as a mirror image of the original, then it is true that this exactness cannot be achieved in the African languages – but the same goes for European languages. Linguistic and cultural differences between languages make it necessary to broaden the notion of translation to a more functional approach which includes adaptation and reformulation. Wallmach, K. and Kruger, A. (1999), ‘Putting a Sock On It’: A Contrastive Analysis of Problem-solving Translation Strategies Between African and European Languages’, South African Journal of African Languages 19 (4): 276–89. In newly independent East Timor, the Tetun (Tetum) language was adopted as an official language, requiring corpus development in many sectors: see, for instance, Williams-Van Klinken, C. (2004), ‘Developing Electoral Terminology for a New Official Language: Tetun in East Timor’, Current Issues in Language Planning 5 (2): 142–50.

8.1.4  Revision of translations There is a steadily growing body of literature and online resources for understanding the revision process. While our chapter on Revision mentions the main literature, it is worth keeping track of the following resources:

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The GREVIS Project at the University of Montreal, particularly the work of Louise Brunette and Chantal Gagnon (in English and French) (e.g. https:// www.webdepot.umontreal.ca/Usagers/gagnonch/MonDepotPublic) Several articles have addressed conceptual and empirical issues in revision. See the following for example: Robert, I. (2008), ‘Translation Revision Procedures: An Explorative Study’, in P. Boulogne (ed.), Translation and Its Others. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in Translation Studies 2007 (Leuven, Belgium: University of Leuven). Robert, I. S. and Van Waes, L. (2014), ‘Selecting a Translation Revision Procedure: Do Common Sense and Statistics Agree?’, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22 (3): 304–20. Yi-yi Shih, C. (2006), ‘Revision from Translators’ Point of View: An Interview Study’, Target 18 (2): 295–312. And for the pedagogy of revision: Hine, Jr., J. T. (2003), ‘Teaching Text Revision in a Multilingual Environment’, in B. J. Baer and G. S. Koby (eds), Beyond the Ivory Tower. Rethinking Translation Pedagogy (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins), 135–56.

8.2  Websites and translated resources The following are examples of websites from different countries which provide community resources, both in the national language and local community languages. Information provided in the official language of the country in question can be very useful in terms of cultural and institutional knowledge, which is essential to translation in general and community translation in particular. Translated information may be used in a number of ways: a It can be used as supporting references for students and practitioners

who need to translate related texts. This is by no means to suggest that published translations are to be considered as model translations. As we have indicated earlier (e.g. Chapter 7), quality standards vary from one country, institution or translator to another. b It may be used as a teaching and learning resource to engage



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students in evaluation of translation context, translation strategies and translation practices. c It can be used as actual community translation but in a different

country, subject to copyright restrictions, if any. Availability on the Internet can lead to greater cost-effectiveness, as resources generated in one country or community may be shared with others. Community translations are generally quite local, but there are a number of leaflets (e.g. general information about tuberculosis, Ebola, etc.) that may be reusable in different national and local contexts. d It may constitute rich and useful data for researchers interested in

surveying international trends in language policy and community translation, studying common text types and genres in the community translation sector, comparing translation approaches among community translators or evaluating translation effectiveness through surveys with the target communities or other methods, to name just a few research directions. Department of Human Services, Australia (http://www.humanservices. gov.au/customer/information-in-your-language/#a3) In addition to general and institutional information for individuals, businesses, community organizations, public service professionals, and so on, the website offers multilingual information about areas falling within the portfolio of Human Services (social security benefits, training, employment, families, pensions, disability, youth and students, emergency services, income management, social work services, etc.). The information is available in an impressive number of languages and language varieties, including Amharic, Arabic, Assyrian, Bengali, Bosnian, Burmese, Chin (Haka), Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dinka, Dutch, Faili, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hazaragi, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Karen, Khmer, Kirundi, Korean, Kurdish, Kurmanji, Lao, Latvian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Rohingya, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Tigrinya, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese. The multilingual resources include not only written texts, but also audio and audiovisual materials. New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Service, Australia (http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au) The NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service provides a number of

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services relating to communication with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Among these services, MHCS manages healthcare translations and provides advice to healthcare professionals, researchers and organizations working with or interested in reaching CALD communities. Its website features, among other things, multilingual print and audiovisual resources, community profiles, policies and guidelines. The following is an example of the guidelines available: NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service (2014), ‘Guidelines for the production of multilingual resources’. Available online: http://www. mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/services/translation/pdf/updateguidelines.pdf [accessed 10 December 2014] The guidelines provided by the New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Service (Australia) include useful tips and checklists that are intended to assist commissioners and producers of multilingual resources at different stages of the production process. For instance, planning steps include a recommendation that healthcare authorities and services need to consider ‘the most appropriate way to convey the information, especially if there are possibly culturally sensitive or controversial issues involved in that health resource’. This leads to another recommendation relating to collaboration and consultation with multicultural health offices, the Community Relations Commission or community organizations working with the target audience. The guidelines also address aspects such as funding, design, content, selection of target languages and language appropriateness: The languages selected for translation need to reflect the community requirements of the intended audience. This does not always mean that all resources should be translated into all of the major languages. Consideration needs to be given to the particular relevance of the information to various language communities, as well as the English language proficiency of the specific target groups. Ontario Ministry of Labour, Canada (http://www.labour.gov.on.ca) This website allows you to search for resources by language. Languages available include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Croatian, Dari, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish and others. Resources are related to labour and, among other topics, cover employee protection, worker rights, health and safety at work, workplace pains and strains, and so on. In My Language, Ontario, Canada (http://english.inmylanguage.org) Under the motto ‘Information you need, in the language you want’, this



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website offers information on immigration, education, housing, work, health and legal advice in languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil and Urdu. Multilingual Health Education, Canada (http://www.multilingual-healtheducation.net) According to the background information available on the website, the Multicultural Change in Health Services Delivery Project concluded that there was a need for coordination of efforts to respond to translation needs in a more effective manner. Translated healthcare resources were collected from the twenty-two healthcare organizations participating in the project. The review of the materials revealed ‘critical translation errors’ as well as duplicated translation work undertaken or commissioned by different organizations. Subsequently, the project ‘Translated Materials in Health Care – a Demonstration Project’ was launched to improve standards and procedures for the translation of healthcare resources. As part of this endeavour, the Multilingual Health Education website disseminates information and advice on healthcare and domestic violence in a number of languages, including French, Farsi (Persian), Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Punjabi and Tagalog. The website also includes external links to other Canadian and international healthcare resources. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada (http://www.camh.ca) The centre is the largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital in Canada. Its services and activities include clinical care, research, policy development and awareness and education relating to mental health and addiction. Its website offers information in different languages about issues such as mental health, stress, alcohol or gambling. In addition to English, resources are available in French, Amharic, Chinese, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Serbian, Somali, Spanish and Urdu, among other languages (see direct link http://www.camh.ca/en/hospital/health_information/Pages/information_in_other_languages.aspx#aloneincanada). Elections Canada, Canada (http://www.elections.ca) Elections Canada (the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer) ‘is an independent, non-partisan agency that reports directly to Parliament’. Its mission consists of ‘[e]nsuring that Canadians can exercise their democratic rights to vote and be a candidate’. In January 2015, the website above was announcing that Elections Canada was planning to make available a voter information guide in twenty-nine heritage languages: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Cambodian, Cantonese, Croatian, Farsi (Persian), German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese,

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Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog (Filipino), Tamil, Turkish and Ukrainian. GovHK, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Hong Kong (www.gov.hk/en/theme/multilanguage/mlp/index.htm) GovHK is an initiative launched in 2007 to make information more accessible to the community. It is a quite comprehensive portal providing information mainly in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and English, but it also features the Multi-language Platform, which offers links to information about different areas of government and different aspects of community life in seven languages other than Chinese and English (Hindi, Indonesian, Nepali, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu and Vietnamese). The information and links are organized by user groups (e.g. residents, businesses, non-residents, etc.). The areas covered include general information about Hong Kong, immigration, public housing, taxes, employment, education, healthcare, etc. Nagano Prefectural Government, Japan (http://www.pref.nagano.lg.jp/ government/index.html) As Carroll (2011) notes, the website of Nagano Prefecture (Japan) offers information and advice on daily life as well as a guide for newcomers to the local community in a number of languages (Chinese, English, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog and Thai). Some other prefectures also provide multilingual information. Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, South Africa (http://www.justice.gov.za/brochure/brochure_list.html) The website of the South African Department of Justice and Constitutional Development includes a number of brochures on different legal and social issues, including, for example, children’s rights, cyber bullying and sexting, harmful religious practices and domestic violence. Only a few of these are available in languages other than English (Afrikaans, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga and Zulu). Madrid Autonomous Region, Spain (http://www.madrid.org) The website of the local government of the capital of Spain offers a number of resources, including a First Steps Guide for newly arrived immigrants, which aims to inform this group, in their own language, about institutional systems, administrative processes, as well as the resources available. The website also includes healthcare leaflets which have been translated into several languages (e.g. Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, English, French and Romanian), as well as basic bilingual dictionaries and pictionaries intended to encourage inter-community interaction and mutual knowledge.



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Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Unites States of America (http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ ByAudience/default.htm) Resources available include healthcare-related consumer information for different audiences and ‘minority health resources’ for both consumers and health professionals. The website also features translated FDA publications in languages such as Arabic, Bengali, Cambodian, Chamorro, Chinese, French Creole, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Marshalese, Polish, Tagalog, Taglish, Tongan, Urdu and Vietnamese. National Asian Pacific Centre on Aging, United States of America (www. napca.org) The National Asian Pacific Centre advocates on behalf of aging Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). Its website provides general information and healthcare resources for aged persons in English and other languages relevant to these communities (e.g. Chinese, Khmer, Korean, Samoan, Tagalog, Tongan and Vietnamese). US Government, United States of America (www.usa.gov) This website offers information in English and Spanish on various topics, including local and national institutions and representatives, social benefits, consumer protection, public safety, food safety, education, employment, environment, travel, official documents, immigration and asylum. Department of Homeland Security, United States of America (www. uscis.gov) Information provided on this website includes immigration, citizenship, work, family and adoption, among other topics. Like the previous website, this resource is available both in English and Spanish, given the significant presence of Hispanic heritage Americans and migrants. In addition, it offers a ‘Welcome to the United States’ guide in other languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Tagalog, Urdu and Vietnamese. The guide covers information and advice areas such as the history and institutions of the United States, rights and responsibilities of citizens and residents, settlement, social security, childcare, education and language learning, safety and national public holidays.

Concluding remarks

T

his book has looked at the development of community translation and the ideas and practices that have underpinned it. By definition, this category of translation is a language service intended to empower communities of minority language speakers – be they citizens, temporary residents or newly arrived migrants – by making information available and communication possible in a multilingual written form. Given the raison d’être of community translation (empowerment) and the communicative situations where it is needed (e.g. public service discourse, power asymmetries, language imparity, sociocultural differences, diversity of readerships within the same community), we have argued that community translators need to undertake their assignments with a functionalist approach, coupled with critical awareness of the sociological context and dimensions of the community translation practice, especially the social impact of their translations and translation decisions. Looking forward, we also see that community translation is at a significant new stage of development, both in relation to the communities that are served and technological developments affecting the translation field as a whole. The guiding principle of community translation has been that of translation for local communities, or more precisely communities that for one reason or another (historical and geographical considerations, national language policies, migration, temporary residence) find themselves as a linguistic minority in their homeland or host country. A key understanding of community translation is that it has always focused on the ‘local’ – that is, providing translation largely for local language communities that are part of a larger society that speaks a different majority language. However, technological change in particular is now redefining many aspects of the ‘local’, and community translation is likely to reflect the substantial changes in what constitutes the local community, as well as developments in translation technology. First, the sense of a community such as an immigrant community being relatively isolated in its host society, with possibly limited relations with its homeland, is now undergoing a sea change. Both easier communication and

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easier travel now mean that an immigrant community may not ‘leave’ its home country in the same way as previously, rarely to return and with usually fading links to homeland social contacts. One universally observable feature in that older isolated setting was that the local community, if not constantly replenished, continued to use language as it was at the time of leaving their homeland, and we have commented on the necessity for community translators to take this into account. Determining the linguistic (and educational) level of the target reader has always been a crucial consideration, at the level of lexical choice, as well as the level of assumed understanding of local names, institutions and processes, and even eventually in relation to syntactic norms. An intriguing question is whether the arrival of rapid and potentially continuous communication with homeland sources via the Internet, and communication with other ‘local’ communities throughout the world, will have an effect on languages and tend to maintain homeland language norms, with the result that there will be less differentiation of ‘local’ language use by the immigrant groups. If this tendency does become apparent, we may get a phenomenon in translation of ‘de-localization’, where there will need to be less emphasis on adjusting language norms to suit target readers in any locale. A second factor that may increase this trend is the phenomenon of much greater travel by immigrant groups backwards and forwards from homeland to host society. During the Cold War local language communities affected by this were essentially ‘frozen’, having relatively little contact with homeland and homeland language norms, and thus facilitating retention of older language norms. This has certainly changed since the end of the Cold War for those communities; however new conflicts in other parts of the world also mean that new situations are being created where return to homeland is problematic, for political and security reasons. Seemingly never-ending conflicts in parts of Africa or Asia in particular make it possible that there will continue to be communities with little contact with homelands, or even that homeland language norms will be unstable under conditions of such conflict. At the most extreme, some of the savagery directed towards particular ethnic and ethno-linguistic groups could result in groups being forced to leave en masse, resulting in a situation where, for a certain language group, there is no longer a ‘homeland’. Will these groups then, via communication means, maintain language norms through groups in exile scattered throughout the world? Uncertain language norms may present translators in these languages with new challenges. On the technological side, the arrival of substantial translation technology will affect community translators as with translation in general, but again in specific ways. Use of machine translation has now become widespread



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in many areas for public authorities wanting to give information about services but not having the means or management to commission translations of all essential information for minority speakers. A concern here is that, in some cases, readers are not told they are receiving machine translation. Yet the constant changes that are made to official websites makes updating translator-made translations a continually difficult task. We will see greater integration of different forms of technology in areas of community translation, making greater demands on translation project management as well as translation. One question here is whether computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools in terms of terminology banks or TRADOS-type matching systems will be more widely applied in community translation, or whether such texts will tend to remain stubbornly idiosyncratic and not yield to CAT as technical translation has done. It is not difficult to identify areas where the useful application of translation technology can make routine communication easier – for example, having a multilingual machine-translation-based appointment notification system, say, in a hospital or social security setting, where times, dates, nature of appointment, and so on, can be made available safely in many languages because of the direct one-to-one machine translation of such basic information. This may alleviate the need for on-site or telephone interpreting in such brief instances where it may be difficult to secure the services of an interpreter. As in other areas of translation, it is important to see technological innovations as an adjunct and, in many cases, useful supplement to the work of human community translators. This brief overview of the challenges and opportunities for community translation attests to this being a fascinating and rewarding area of practice into the future. Another fascinating and rewarding area of practice is the development required in community translation itself – as a language service, professional practice, teaching area and research domain. We have seen that this area of translation is still in its infancy and that, for a number of reasons, it has not received the attention it deserves. Policymaking, training, professional certification and research are all areas that need further commitment and development. To all these aspects, the academic and research community is able to make a significant contribution. Quoting Kim (2009) again, who, in a different context, calls for ‘a people-centered theory of translation’, we can conclude by calling for more focus on people and (minority) communities in translation (and interpreting) theory, practice, research, training and policies.

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Index of Authors Ahmed, M. 153 Al-Mahdia, H. 105 Al-Shafie, H. A. 101–2 Al-Sharif, H. A. 101–2 Al-Sharif, M. A. 100–3 Almeida e Pinho, J. 114 Amigo Extremera 38 Appelbaum, P.S. 44–8 Aubert, F. H. 168 AUSIT 55, 155 Austin Independent School District 122–3 Baker, M. 34, 56–9, 62–3 Balakrishanan, R. 96 Bandia, P. 8 Barsky, R. F. 52, 73 Bass, S. 124 Bassnett, S. 33–4 Bavington, C. 124 Beauchamp, T. L. 44 Berg, J. W. 44–8 Bowker, L. 156 Brody, J. 33 Brunette, L. 107, 128–9, 158 Bühler, K. 59 Burke, J. 15–16, 154 Burns, A. 18, 48–9, 74, 151 Campbell, S. 13–14, 75, 152 Cardwell, M. 30 Carroll, T. 23, 162 Catford, J. C. 56–7, 64 Chakhachiro, R. 128, 144 Chan, N. 21 Chesterman, A. 53–5, 57, 59, 63–4, 66, 68, 70 Claremont Graduate University 83 Cluver, A. 65 Clyne, M. 41–2

Collins, M. 144 Collis, D. R. F. 156 Collombat, I. 57 Comech, A. 80 Community Relations Commission 22, 27, 160 Cornelius, E. 153–4 Cronin, M. 19 Darbelnet, J. 56–7 De Palma, D. 124–5 Department of Immigration and Citizenship (Australia) 22 De Praetere, I. 107 Di Biase, B. 3, 18, 68, 98, 138, 152 Di Salvio, D. 80 Djité, P. 12 Drugan, J. 108, 110, 127–8, 148 Dunne, K. 108, 124 Erasmus, M. 20 European Commission 88, 118–19 Faden, R. R. 44 Fawcett, P. 57 Fraser, J. 17–18, 22, 66, 72, 75, 150–1 Fukari, A. 63 Gagnon, C. 158 Gambier, Y. 98 Garcia, I. 10, 148, 156 Gawn, P. 14, 27 General Directorate of Civil Defence (Saudi Arabia) 103–4 Gentile, A. 11 Gentzler, E. 70 Goldfarb, N. M. 145 Goodenough, W. 30 Gouadec, D. 8–9, 11 Grice, H. P. 53

182

Index of Authors

Grunwald, D. 145 Hague, D. 107, 116, 121 Hale, S. 11, 17, 73 Halliday, M. A. K. 57–8, 108 Hariri, O. S. 100, 102 Hatim, B. 33–5, 37–8, 40–1, 57–8, 70 Hinds, J. 41 Hine Jr., J. T. 158 Holz-Mänttäri, J. 61, 70 House, J. 107–9, 112 Humbley, J. 156 Industry Canada 21 Inghilleri, M. 75 Johnstone, B. 38 Jones, R. H. 31–2, 36

Malmkjaer, K. 150 Martin, T. 129 Mason, I. 33, 57–8, 70 Mayoral Asensio, R. 18, 78–80, 82, 85–6, 155 Mishler, E.G. 39, 52 Mossop, B. 127–9, 131, 140–1 Munday, J. 56, 64 National Disability Services 113 Nida, E. 33–4, 108 Niska, H. 7, 11 Nord, C. 56, 59–61, 89–90 NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service 159–60 NZSTI [New Zealand Society for Translators and Interpreters] 86, 93, 155

Kaplan, R. B. 41 Károly, K. 56 Katan, D. 29–31, 34, 36, 38 Kelly, D. 17, 23, 98 Kelly, N. 124–5 Khidr, I. 101, 103 Kim, M. 18, 48–9, 74, 151 Kim, S. H. 64, 167 Kingscott, G. 62 Kirkpatrick, A. 41 Klaudy, K. 56 Ko, L. 69, 129, 132, 135 Koskinen, K. 36, 38 Kruger, A. 2, 157 Künzli, A. 129, 144

O’Hagan, M. 8–10 Orhan, O. 96 Orsted, J. 108 Øverås, L. 56 Ozolins, U. 11, 145

Lambert-Tierrafria, S. 155 Lauscher, S. 108 Lederer, M. 130 Lee, H. 128 Lesch, H. M. 10, 12–13, 18, 65, 74, 110–13, 118, 149–50 Lines, C. 129, 145

Rahman, Z. H. 19 Ray, R. 124–5 Redfield, R. 39 Reiss, C. 59–61, 70 Rice, P. L. 178 Robert, A. M. 148 Robert, I. 158 Roberts, R. 17, 57

McKay, C. 78, 90 McLeod, M. 157 McRae, K. 21 Madiba, M. 157 Madrid Land Registry 92 Maier, C. 108

Pacific International Translations 86 PACTE 24 Petersen, M. 107 Petzell, M. 16 Pöchhacker, F. 17, 32–3 Prunč, E. 63 Pym, A. 9–10, 61–3, 75 Qadi, A. 18, 23, 103, 106

Samuelsson-Brown, G. 108, 121, 124, 129–30, 142 Saudi Ministry of Hajj 100 Scollon, R. 31–2, 36 Scollon, S. W. 31–2, 36



Index of Authors

Scottish Consumer Council 23, 69, 74 Seguinot, C. 128 Shaw, A. 153 Simon, S. 38 Small, R. 145 Snell-Hornby, M. 14, 33, 57, 63 Sussex Interpreting Services 112–13, 119–20 Taibi, M. 7, 11, 17–18, 22–4, 39, 48–9, 65, 74, 106, 150 Telegraph, The 19 Toury, G. 56, 109 Translated 80, 155 Tylor, E. B. 30 Tymoczko, M. 35–8, 64 UNESCO 49 United Nations High Commission for Refugees 50, 95–6 University of Alcalá 25

Valero-Garcés, C. 18 Van der Berg, S. 12 Venuti, L. 35, 90 Vermeer, H. J. 33, 60–1, 70 Vinay, J. P. 56–7 Vineberg, R. 21 Wallmach, K. 2, 157 Williams-Van Klinken, C. 157 Windle, K. 150 Winig, B. D. 20–1 Wolf, M. 63 www.sabarimala.org 96 Yi-yi Shih, C. 158 Yousif, E. 128 Yu, R. 68, 74 Źrałka, E. 89, 92

183

Index of Subjects accessibility 8, 9, 10, 18, 49, 101, 151, 153 adaptation 2, 4, 56, 60–1, 69–71, 109, 150, 157 Afghanistan 100 Afrikaans 20, 110–11, 118 Algeria 99 Arabic, Arab World 2, 15, 16, 22, 25, 31, 35, 41–2, 48–51, 96, 99–104, 109, 117, 136 Argentina 80 argumentation 34–5, 37, 41 asylum seekers see refugees audiovisual 18, 23, 60, 71, 97, 99, 101, 118 Australia 10, 14–15, 22, 25, 27, 41–2, 68, 87, 95, 113–14, 150, 152, 155, 159–60 Bangladesh 19, 100 briefing 61, 71–2, 75–6, 115, 120–2, 130–3, 143 Burundi 15 Canada 14, 21–2, 26, 71, 80, 97, 129, 156, 160–1 checking of translations see revision China 41, 136 Chinese 2, 18, 22, 25, 41–2, 68, 117, 136, 151 Clinton’s Executive Order (13166) 20 Congo, Democratic Republic of 15 consent forms, translation of 25, 43–50, 170, 172–3 crowd sourcing of translation and translation quality 10, 124–5, 138, 156 cultural factors in translation 2–5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17–19, 21–3, 25, Ch. 2 passim 29–52, 53, 58, 60,

62–5, 67–70, 72–6, 80, 83, 87, 97–100, 105, 109, 112–13, 116, 120, 122, 137, 149–61, 165 Diglossia 48 education system, examples of translation for 2, 4, 9, 12, 14, 16, 22, 42, 77–8, 82–3, 86, 91, 98, 103, 122–3, 125, 135, 139–40, 160–3 education, of translators see training of translators educational background of readers of translation 12–14, 30, 38, 40, 48–9, 100–1, 109–10, 116, 136, 150, 166 ethical issues in translation 5, 18, 43–5, 52, 53, 55, 58, 62–3, 72–6, 84–6, 90, 93, 99, 117, 133 Ethiopia 95 European Commission 88 extract translation 5, 82, 85–9,157 Hajj 97–106 health, translation needs in 1–2, 9, 12, 18, 21–2, 25–6, 44–9, 92, 97–8, 100, 102–4, 106, 109, 113, 119, 124–5, 133, 138–41, 145, 151, 153–5, 159–63 see also consent forms, translation of Hong Kong 136, 161–2 immigrants/migrants 1, 3, 12–13, 15, 18–19, 21–2, 25, 48–9, 58, 68, 71, 73, 75, 77 83–4, 90, 97, 114, 118, 145, 152, 156, 162–3, 165–6 India 41–2, 96, 99

186

Index of Subjects

indigenous languages 1–3, 20, 97, 118, 145, 147, 156–7 Indonesia 99 International Conference on Community Translation 7, 27 Iran 95, 100 Iraq 50–1, 99 Italy 31, 80 Jordan 96, 98 Kenya 15, 95 Laos 14 Lebanon/Lebanese 15, 95–6, 98 Literacy 12, 16, 48–9, 101, 118, 136, 149, 153 Malaysia 100 Mexico 67 minority 1, 4–5, 9–11, 13–15, 18–23, 26–7, 43, 53, 66, 69, 73–5, 97–8, 125, 139–40, 145, 150–2, 154, 156, 165, 167 Morocco 99 Nigeria 100 norms 42, 53–6, 166 Pakistan 42, 82, 87, 95, 100, 153 pedagogy see training of translators official documents, translation of 4–5, 18, 25, 50, Ch. 4 passim 77– 94, 118, 155–6, 163, 171, 175, 180 Oman 99 orality 49 policymaking 21, 23, 27, 105–6, 167 power/empowerment 7, 9–13, 17, 19–20, 26–7, 36, 42–3, 52–3, 57, 65–8, 70–1, 73–4, 76, 102, 149, 151–2, 165 pro-forma 131–4, 143 project management of translations 2, 6, 107–8, 115–16, 121–2, 124, 167 proofreading see revision

quality in translation 2, 5–6, 12, 14, 18–19, 22–3, 26–7, 39, 69, 85, 96, 102–6, Ch. 6 passim 107–26, Ch. 7 passim 127–48, 150, 154, 158 Radio Australia 41 recruitment 18, 23, 100, 103, 106, 117–20, 136–7 refugees/asylum seekers 5, 12–13, 15, 18–19, 21–2, 49–52, 68, 73, 83, 95–7, 163 research 17–18, 26–7, 63, 89, 102, 106 revision 6, 120, Ch.7 passim 127–48, 157–8 role 63–5, 70, 72–6, 142, 149, 153 Russia 100 Saudi Arabia 97, 99–100, 102, 105, 159 Singapore 14 Skopos 5–6, 60–4, 81, 90–1, 110, 112 Social Security, translation needs in 2, 14, 25, 92, 118–19, 124, 139, 159, 163, 167 see also welfare sociological turn 63–4 South Africa 12, 15, 20, 96, 110, 118, 119, 13 6, 149–50, 153, 157, 162, 171–2 Spain 15, 25, 49, 68, 71, 92, 150, 162 Spanish 2, 15, 22, 25, 41, 45, 48, 66–7, 71, 92, 117, 125, 136 Sudan 99, 118 Swahili 14–16, 101, 154 Sweden/Swedish 31, 97 Taiwan 136 Tanzania 15, 154 temporary communities, 1, 5, 10, 18, 22, 77, 83, Ch. 5 passim 95–106, 165 Thailand 14 training of translators 2, 4–6, 17–18, 23–7, 29, 32, 67, 84, 78, 98, 105–6, 116–19, 121, 127, 129–30, 147, 160, 162, 167–8 transcreation 49, 70 Turkey 96–7, 100



Index of Subjects

Umm Al–Qura University 102 Umrah 99–101 United Kingdom/Britain 15, 19, 23, 66, 80, 100 United States of America 15, 20, 80, 122, 147, 163 University of Alcalá 25 University of Montreal 158

187

University of Western Sydney 7, 25 welfare, translation needs in 1, 9, 21, 68, 92, 96, 119, 139–40 see also Social Security, translation needs in Yemen 99