I have to admit that most of the requests come from customers that are new to translation. They no doubt feel this is an obvious way to test the quality of our work.

We all know that sample translations are not the best way to evaluate quality; typically, they don’t follow standard translation processes and, in many ways, they break all best practices. As an industry, it’s time we work together to educate our customers. In the end, it will benefit everyone, saving time and money.

So what do I mean by breaking all the rules? There are best practices that we all follow to give our customers the highest quality translations. Most sample translations don’t allow us to follow best practices. Here’s why:

• Terminology. Best practice is to obtain a current glossary (if it exists) or develop one from scratch and submit it for the customer’s review and approval before beginning the actual translation. For sample translations, a glossary is not normally provided, nor is there time to create and receive feedback and approval.

• Style Guide. Our customers typically provide us with style guides as part of best practice. Even if they only have the English style guide, it’s a place to start and we can help develop the style guides for each additional language. A style guide is rarely, if ever, provided for a sample translation.

• Training. Product training is very important to translators, especially if it’s software, hardware, or a medical device that’s being translated. The companies that receive the highest quality translations from their language service providers invest in training. Sample translations never have associated training.

• Questions. Over the course of a normal translation process, translators ask questions about content. Customers provide answers by clarifying terms, meaning, intent, etc., and translators then implement the answers. They don’t guess about intended meaning, but they take the feedback and implement it. During the sample translation process, Q&A is rare; therefore, translators are left to guess, hoping that they guess right.

• SMEs/Resources. To provide the highest quality translations, we all work to find translators who are SMEs in certain areas, whether it’s medical, financial, or IT. These expert resources are in high demand and booked well in advance of projects to insure the right resources are working with the right customers. Sample translations assume that the best resources are available “on-demand.” The idea that these resources can be removed from other paid projects to address a sample that requires quick turnaround breaks all best practice rules.

• Scale. A 1000-word sample gives absolutely no indication of an LSP’s ability to perform under real-life conditions. Most projects are orders of magnitude greater than 1000 words and require far more than one translator to complete the project. In addition, scope changes and volume fluctuations are a daily occurrence.
  
  Under sample translation conditions there is no way to extrapolate how the LSP would perform if the volume increased by an order of 100, if three more languages were added to the mix, if two projects had to be executed in parallel, etc. And, of course, there is no measure of the value that professional project management brings to a project, especially to the large multilingual projects.

• Cost. The cost of providing sample translations can be high, depending on the amount of content and the number of languages. The translation industry already operates on thin margins, and adding this component to the RFP process can really escalate the cost in acquiring new business.

So what’s the solution? We need to go back and understand why customers are asking for sample translations in the first place. Chances are, they are asking because they think that’s the logical thing to do when evaluating a translation supplier, and they just don’t know any better. No one has educated them otherwise. If we assume that their real goal is to judge a translation supplier’s quality in a particular domain, then why not offer samples of our work from similar customers (with the customer’s permission of course)?

By using materials already translated in our customer’s domain that comply with our company’s best practices, we can meet the customer’s goal in reviewing a sample of our work. The customer can then decide if our translation quality is up to par. By educating our customers on sample translations, we can still meet their needs by providing true representations of our work, without incurring unnecessary costs.

Proverbs are extracts of life experiences, and they can explain much of life. Below are some proverbs taken to explain some aspects of the translation process:

(1) A barber learns to shave by shaving fools

Just like the case in every profession, novices should be given their first opportunities by handling petite translation cases. On the one hand, a translation trainer may begin with his/her trainees by using fabricated texts. Unlike authentic texts that may be written by big shots in the different areas, literary and non-literary fabricated texts which may be written by the trainer himself lend themselves easily for translation. On the other hand, junior translators are supposed to do translations at any rate and cost for whoever wants a translation. A word of warning is necessary here: the translation should be carried out only after ensuring fully that no serious damages will be inflicted upon the client.

(2) A burnt child dreads the fire

Translation trainers should be very much careful not to upset, reproach, or punish their trainees. By being not mindful of this pedagogical and psychological axiom, trainers will negatively affect their trainees by turning them more and more introvert and passive in the translation classroom. First lessons should be of the encouraging sort, and students must be rewarded on their achievements whatever the degree of success may be.

(3) A chip of the old block

It has very often been observed that the family has a role in the making and shaping of translators. Just as the genes are responsible for passing a particular quality onto the child from its parents, memes are also responsible for transferring aspects of cultural evolution. The meme consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind of the family, or more, to another (the child). Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Most important of these in our special case are the ideas, thoughts, habits and practices of translation. These memes get more and more refined with the passage of time. It is worth pointing out that during what was called the golden era of translation, culminating in the House of Wisdom, family translators played a great role in the development of Arab and Islamic civilization. This can have relevance to private and government translation agencies by discovering and trying to promote the talents of those children.

(4) A clean carpet often hides a dirty board

To err is human, Pope says. And translations are full of errors of different sorts. They pass unnoticed because the language of translation is semi perfect. But these errors never escape an eagle-eyed critic who is well-trained and proficient in the two languages. So, unless the translator is very much trusted and tried, do not let yourself be cheated on by surfacely decorated, embellished and ornamented translation. Translation frauds like “This book is translated by a committee of university professors”, seen on some books translated into Arabic, must be expected and dealt with properly by not buying the book. Finally, all that glitters is not gold.

(5) A hungry stomach has no ears

Whether on the level of individuals or nations, it is uneasy to alleviate or tame the hunger for translations. It has been noticed that translations at such times found their way easily into the target cultures. But they go through a very complicated process of acculturation and examination when the hunger for knowledge and translation no longer exists. To use Venuti’s terms, foreignizing is expected at the first phase, while domesticating is done at the second phase.

(6) Beggars must not be choosers

Let those unindependent translators whose needs for money are much greater than anything else understand that they cannot choose their material for translation. They can only have the right to choose when they become independent or senior translators, in case they work for a translation agency or bureau.

(7) Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow

Novice translators must translate immediately at any cost and result and not to put off things for tomorrow. It very often happens that such translators do not practice translation in the hope that their translations may become better at some time in the future. They are definitely right in this, but on condition that they practice today.

(8) By others’ faults wise men learn

Translation trainees can learn translating by two things: practicing translation and studying parallel texts and translation critiques. We have already talked about the urgency of translating, and the second thing that should be emphasized here is parallel texts in which STs and TTs are put together in one book or two books. Parallel texts have the advantages of teaching trainees the meanings of words, the structuring of sentences and expressions and the methods of translating. These texts are now fashionable, and one can easily find poetry collections and novels that provide original texts with their translations. In addition to this, it is of maximum importance that trainees follow and read translations critiques to see and understand the advantages and disadvantages in translated materials. Such critiques offer invaluable explanations and alternatives, and trainees can learn a lot from the ups and downs of other translators.

(9) Cut your coat according to your cloth

It is no use for novices to try in their formative years to translate tough names and subjects. While tough authors tend to employ the highest of their competencies, tough subjects uneasily lend themselves to interpretation and translation. Both tough authors and subjects need time to decipher their codes.

(10) Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill

During the learning and training period, junior translators do need to make a mountain out of a molehill. They have the right to brag to their colleagues and friends about what they are learning and doing. This is part of the human nature, and has always been observed in the behaviour of skillful and distinguished people.

(11) Every sin carries its own punishment

Yes. But while small sins are inexplicable and unforgiven, and deserve the appropriate punishment, big sins committed in the translation of complex units and structures are excusable and pardoned. The problem is that some trainees commit different sorts of sins, and there may be a time when the trainer, reviser and or teacher is unable to distinguish between big and small errors. So trainees are advised to avoid committing the small sins!

(12) If you want a thing well done, do it yourself

Senior translators who have established themselves in the market must not entrust their tasks to junior translators, especially when the translation material and client are serious and important.

(13) It is easy to despise what you cannot get

Destruction is easier than building, and criticism is easier than production. Finding faults with other people’s work has been noted to be carried out in great cases and situations at relative ease and speed. However, critics, revisers and translation trainers who are unable to display options and alternatives are in matter of fact mere quibblers. They surely deserve the charge of being jealous of the success of other people.

(14) Jack of all trades and master of none

Any aspiring translator who aims at recognition and success in his or her work must specialize in one area or two.

(15) Little and often fill the purse

Junior translators must practice and learn at gradual and steady paces. They must not take one big dose on one day and stop for a month. Gradualness also means carrying out translations piece by piece. This will ensure accuracy, organization and relaxation.

(16) One is never too old to learn

This is an instruction for all, junior and senior translators alike. There is always something new to learn, or old to be remembered. Translation conferences, workshops and forums offer a great deal to learn from them. There is also the opportunity to learn and share new ideas and thoughts with other people.

(17) Prevention is better than cure

Advance preparation and practice will surely save translators from any translation difficulties and challenges they may face.

I have translated or edited a number of cookbooks and while such work is a lot of fun (and can make you hungry, especially if there are accompanying pictures), there are certain challenges involved. Here, I want to mention the top four difficulties and possible solutions.

1) Availability of ingredients

Despite the growing popularity of cooking these days and the new trendiness of certain ethnic ingredients, the fact remains that not all items are available in all countries (and in some cases, they are only available at exorbitant costs). For example, a couple of years ago, I was the project manager for the translation to Swedish of two cookbooks that were written in Australia. Naturally, the recipes included many ingredients that were specific to Australia or to Asian countries much closer to Australia than to Sweden. Some of these ingredients were not possible to find in Sweden, so the publisher suggested simply substituting them, without any notice to the target reader. I disagreed with this approach. Substitution can definitely be an appropriate solution in some cases, but if it is used regularly throughout an entire cookbook, it seems to me that the recipes are being changed much more than a translation warrants. Therefore, my suggestion was to include the original ingredients and a list of possible substitutes. As I reminded the publisher, food trends change so rapidly that what once was only available in just one country can suddenly be available all around the world, and if we don't want the translations to date too quickly, we have to be aware of this fact. The final translations of these books included a glossary of terms and suggestions for possible substitutions.

Here, I must also point out that it is not enough for a translator to simply think, "This recipe calls for lobster, but that is too expensive and not so easily available, so I'll write shrimp instead." For recipes, translators ought to stick as closely to the original as possible and if ideas for substitutions are being offered, the translator must explain why. Also, the translator or another person connected to the project should try to cook recipes both in their original form and in the version with substitutions, to make sure that the tastes, appearances, smells, and other salient features are preserved.

2) Cuts of meat

Related somewhat to challenge 1), cuts of meat are not necessarily the same in different countries. Translators who are not "foodies" themselves or those who, like me, do not eat meat, must be aware of this fact. Here, asking experts and using reference materials is a great help. There are cuts of meat charts that are easily found on Google or you can get acquainted with chefs or others interested in food and ask for their advice. Many translators either do not think about asking for help or they get nervous about doing so. In my experience, however, experts are glad to help, and some professional translators build up a "little black book" of experts to call when they need advice on botanical, architectural, culinary, or any other matters. I'll give an example of this below. In any case, do not make assumptions about cuts of meat being the same, even if the terminology is the same or similar. Always check on this or a recipe might not turn out well.

3) Measurements

Cups or grams? Tablespoons or ounces? As is well known, there are different measurement systems around the world and it is not enough to, say, go tohttp://www.onlineconversion.com/, type in the numbers from the source text and write down what the website has offered you. If you did that, 2 cups would be 4.7317 dl, and when have you ever seen a recipe that calls for 4.7317 dl flour? In cases where measurements have to be changed, there are two major possible strategies. The first is that the publisher simply retains the measurements and then offers a conversion table at the back of the book. This can be quite irritating for a reader, however, because then she or he has to keep flipping from the recipe to the table. If the cookbook is more of the coffee table type, however, which is to say one that people read and look at, but don't really plan to cook from, this solution is fine. But for a cookbook that is meant for real use, it is just not practical. In this situation, new measurements based on the target culture's system must be used. This can be done either via complete replacement or replacement and retention. Complete replacement means that either the translator or another expert tests all the recipes and shifts the measurements so that instead of 4.7317 dl flour, the recipe calls for 5 dl flour. The translator must be careful here to ensure that all the new measurements make sense in the context of the recipe and that all have been converted. A recipe may not work if even one measurement is off, especially for baked goods. Replacement and retention is a combination strategy that means both changing the recipe so it reads 5 dl flour and also keeping 2 cups flour in parenthesis. This can, however, confuse readers, so it is a rare book that will use this strategy.

4) Implements, pots, and pans

As with ingredients, some countries have different implements, pots, pans, and other essential cooking items, or they may use drastically different words for a similar tool. For example, I was working on translating a cookbook from Swedish to English and was stuck on one word that kept appearing in recipes. It referred to a specific kitchen tool that does not exist in English (and, frankly, is one of those tools that don't need to exist either): a "potatissticka," or a "potato stick," which you use to check if the potatoes you are boiling are ready. I always use a fork myself, but I thought I should make sure that there really was no such item in English-speaking nations. First, I asked some other people I know who like to cook; no one had anything like it. Then, I went to a store that sold only kitchen tools and cookbooks. I said to the woman behind the counter, "I'm sure this sounds a little odd, but I'm a translator working on a cookbook and I wonder if you can help me with something." She confirmed that there is no "potato stick" in English-speaking countries, but that people use cake testers, skewers, forks, toothpicks, or meat thermometers instead. In this case, I was able to rewrite the sentence, but for other implements, there may actually be a proper word for it. It is important to find out, so ask an expert when you are not sure.

In summary, I am suggesting 1) that you have sources (whether chefs, other translators, people who enjoy cooking, shop-owners, or anyone else) who can offer ideas, 2) that you not be afraid of recommending substitutions, where appropriate, 3) that you be willing to test and compare original recipes and your translations, and 4) that you include glossaries, translators' notes, substitution lists, or other extratextual material where necessary.

I hope that this advice will offer you a recipe for success when it comes to translating cookbooks!

Making translators more visible is a laudable aim and one that clearly resonates in the literary world. However, when we consider news translation, the translator’s visibility is a completely different matter, and Venuti’s foreignization hypothesis ceases to hold any value. In news translation, the dominant strategy is absolute domestication, as material is shaped in order to be consumed by the target audience, so has to be tailored to suit their needs and expectations. Debates about formal and stylistic equivalence that have featured so prominently in literary translation cease to matter in a mode of translation that is primarily concerned with the transmission of information, though ideological shifts remain fundamentally important in all types of translation, as will be discussed more fully later.

Research into the strategies of news translation is still relatively underdeveloped, but already there is interest worldwide in examining the processes of exchange and transfer in the media. For in addition to the international news agencies, global TV channels now transmit news bulletins to millions of people and there is an expectation that news will be broadcast day and night, with regular updates throughout a twenty-four-hour period. The phrase ‘breaking news’ has entered everyday language and news channels use this to heighten expectations and create a sense of anticipation. Regular updates with breaking news are now essential in an age of blogs and internet chat rooms.

If we take the situation of news reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, though the journalists embedded with the troops file their stories at speed, they may still be pre-empted by bloggers who go directly online with their version of events and bypass intermediary organizations such as agencies, translators or journalistic and television bureaus. Speed in transmitting information is vitally important in a highly competitive new market.

Christina Schäffner is an expert in translation and discourse analysis, specializing in the analysis of political discourse. She draws attention to the absence of research into the phenomenon of translation in political text analysis, pointing out that it is through translation that information is made available across linguistic borders and that frequently reactions in one country to statements made in another country ‘are actually reactions to the information as it was provided in translation’ (Schäffner, 2004: 120). Stressing the importance of understanding this, she poses a series of questions about how translators are trained, how they select material, which particular ideological constraints affect translation and what causal conditions seem to give rise to certain types of translation. In short, she highlights gaps in our knowledge about the translation of political discourse, gaps that are just as wide in our understanding of the translation of global news. Research in translation studies into issues of language and power has mainly been applied to discussions of literary texts, but clearly such issues are fundamentally important in the analysis of other discourses also, particularly in the translation of news. What research in this field is starting to show is that translation is one element in a complex set of processes whereby information is transposed from one language into another and then edited, rewritten, shaped and repackaged in a new context, to such a degree that any clear distinction between source and target ceases to be meaningful. This is in total contrast to more established research into translation practice, particularly in the field of literary translation, where discussion is always in some way focused around the idea of the binary distinction between source and target texts. Research into news translation poses questions about the very existence of a source and hence challenges established definitions of translation itself.

One of the greatest fallacies when discussing technical translation is to somehow lump it together with scientific translation, or worse still, to use the two terms interchangeably. Throughout the literature on translation, in the frequently brief references to technical translation we see the expression scientific and technical translation, where, out of convenience perhaps, authors see no problem in treating these two siblings as conjoined twins or even as the same person. This fundamental error serves only to confuse the issue because scientific and technical translation are not the same and as such, cannot be compared equally. Despite the obvious connection between the two, i.e. they both deal with information based, to varying degrees, on the work of scientists, scientific translation is quite distinct from technical translation. Certainly, they both contain specialized terminology and, on the surface, deal with complicated scientific subject matter (to an extent) but it is all too easy to overestimate these apparent similarities at the expense of other, more compelling, differences.

One of the easiest ways of disambiguating the matter is to look at the words themselves: scientific and technical. Scientific relates to science which is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as “knowledge ascertained by observation and experiment, critically tested, systematized and brought under general principles” (Chambers 1992). Technical relates to technology which is defined as by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”. Thus we can say that scientific translation relates to pure science in all of its theoretical, esoteric and cerebral glory while technical translation relates to how scientific knowledge is actually put to practical use, dirty fingernails and all. The differentiation between scientific and technical translation is also acknowledged by the information sciences. Pinchuck (1977:13) points out that even in libraries, pure sciences are classified under 5 while applied sciences, i.e. technological material, are shelved in their own place under 6.

Scientific and technical translation, therefore, is a generic term which is used to refer to pure science, applied scientific research and technology. But it is not just the subject matter that distinguishes scientific from technical translation. Technical translation (and technical communication, which will be covered later on) can be characterized at a basic level on the basis of:

1. Subject matter

2. Type of language

3. Purpose

So we can, for example, translate a scientific paper which deals with the concept of electromotive force and the effects of currents passed through conductors, complete with formulae, hypotheses, discussions and calculations or we can translate an installation guide for an electrical motor. Both texts are based on the fact that if you pass an electrical current through a piece of wire, a magnetic field is created which exerts a force acting at right-angles to the wire. The difference is the way in which the knowledge is used and presented. And this is a fundamental difference between scientific and technical translation and one which also affects the type of language used in the texts.

In our scientific paper on electromotive force, the goal is to discuss, explain, justify, impress, convey, convert and possibly entertain. An author will use the full extent of the language, within specific conventions and norms, to present the information in an interesting, serious and impressive way. In some cases, these texts even border on the literary, using the same devices and strategies as a short-story writer or novelist. Scientific language can be quite formal (think of journal papers) and will often have considerable range, just like a literary text. Such texts will also see the use of various rhetorical strategies, Greek and Latin terms and expressions as well as various affixes and compound terms.

An installation guide, on the other hand, is written to help someone do something. The aim here is to convey the information an engineer needs in order to install, connect and commission the motor. Consequently, the language used will reflect this: simple, unambiguous, concise, and, for want of a better word, unremarkable. The aim here is not to entertain the reader.

People generally do not settle down with a glass of wine to spend the evening reading installation guides for fun. Pinchuck refers to technical language as “workshop language”3, which is somewhere between scientific and general language. It is less regulated, less literary and even colloquial on occasion but always strictly functional.

Scientific texts will be conceptually more difficult and will be more abstract than other types of text. They will, however, have more standardized terms which are easier to look up and they are likely to be better written than texts on other levels. Technology-based texts will be more concrete, will contain less information in more space, they will be more colloquial and will feature concepts which are easier to understand. In addition to this, there will be products and processes in the external world which can be referred to. In other words, technical texts can rely on world or background knowledge to a greater extent. (Pinchuck 1977:218-219).

The Macmillan English Dictionary (Rundell, 2002), lists the three following senses of ‘fidelity’:

(1) The attitude or behaviour of someone who is willing to have sex only with their husband, wife or partner;

(2) Loyalty to a person, organization or principle;

(3) The degree to which something is an accurate copy or translation of something else.

Fidelity – in the third sense – is not a notion that immediately springs to mind when discussing screen translation. In dubbing and subtitling, what counts more than anything else is the transfer of speech acts, not necessarily the exact elements that make up the original speech acts: ‘We should remember that the audience reaction to a funny line is far more important than any literal fidelity to the original sense’ (Whitman, 2001: 149). Still, with drama and similar genres, fidelity in translation is often considered worth striving at – provided that speech acts are successfully recreated in the process.

In comparison with feature films, whether dubbed or subtitled, documentaries stand out by typically retaining their culture-specific references in translation. Referring to the fate of Brazilian documentaries in Europe, Franco (2001: 177) observes that ‘a greater degree of exoticism or foreignization is almost inevitable in translated documentaries’.

However, the most ‘exotic’ elements in a film up for translation may not be those that establish the foreign universe in which many (Anglo-American) productions are set. In discussing the Italian translation of internationally popular Disney cartoons, Di Giovanni concludes that: difficulty in translation does not generally lie in the rendering of cultural otherness [e.g. the ‘exotic’ setting of Aladdin] but rather in adapting those American expressions, idioms and references which are designed to act as balancing elements but whose primary role is to ensure a smooth and pleasant reception by the American and English speaking viewers. (Di Giovanni, 2003: 217)

In most polysemiotic media only the verbal content may be altered in translation. The continual presence of the other semiotic channels (the image and the international music and effects track) in the translation means that on the axis ranging from strictly verbatim rendition of the original (verbal) text to free, target-culture recreation of the text, for example, so-called localization, translations of commercial film and TV productions would be expected to stay near the source-oriented pole. This source-orientation should be especially pronounced in subtitling, as no part of the original work is replaced, and subtitles are added to the original and presented in sync with the dialogue.

The underlying notion of translation – whether we deal with printed literature, feature films or nonfictional texts – is based on the assumption that ‘it is possible to map aspects of one language onto aspects of the other’ (Malmkjær, 1999: 17). In this interlingual ‘mapping’ process, one would tend to consider culture-based and other verbal obstacles in source texts nothing but minor hurdles easily overcome on the road toward the target text – no matter the semiotic structure of the text in question. Much along these lines, when talking about film translation, Whitman (2001: 144) states that ‘there is no such thing as “untranslatability”, a term I hear all too often when collaborating with directors and translators working on dubbed versions of American movies’. In her view, the way to secure success in translation is through linking the message of the original dialogue to the minds of the foreign audience: ‘Translation means being aware of the intent of the original as well as the target audience’s common pool of allusions’ (Whitman, 2001: 147).

However, if intended target audiences have little knowledge or interest in the foreign setting of an otherwise interesting film, there is still a way out. Instead of dubbing or subtitling the foreign production – neither method seems to go down well with US audiences – one may ‘translate’ the entire work; that is, produce an English-language remake of the original film. Especially with French films, this method has been resorted to frequently (Wehn, 2001; Weissbrod, 2004). Even Danish films are sometimes remade for the American market, like Ole Bornedal’s Nattevagten (1994) – remade in the United States as Night watch (1997) – and Susanne Bier’s Den eneste ene (1999), which was remade in 2002 in the UK, titled

The One and Only. Both Danish films won critical and public acclaim in Denmark and abroad, whereas both remakes were fl ops in the English speaking world, artistically as well as commercially (Internet Movie Database).

The problems of preserving the original spirit and appeal in remakes bring us back to the issue of fidelity.