Public events for translators are often boring and not interesting. It seems like all are colleagues - translators, but there is often nothing to talk about. Why is it so? And what can be done to make us want to go there again?
Vlad Belousov, member of the Union of translators of Russia, author of text-books and training courses for oil and gas translators and interpreters.
Intrinsically the translation industry is very diverse. Moreover, it is so diverse that in many cases attempts to gather translators at some common event result in discussion of only general problems of translation community, skipping deeper professional issues which can hardly be interesting for all. As a result – these issues are not resolved, but are still up in the air. In my opinion, it is associated with the existing structure of the translation industry, which should have been reformed long ago. Let us try to figure out, how it could be done.
It is unlikely that I, as an oil and gas translator, will have many topics for discussion with medical or legal translators. Well, there it is, we are different because we have different specialties. First of all, it depends upon areas or topics of work, the number of which continues to grow.
Some time ago I tried to analyze what classifications of translation and interpreting exist, so that they could be used as the basis for structuring the translation industry, and in this process I found that there is some chaos even in that issue. In other words, such classifications do exist, but there are many of them, as well as their authors, and in many cases they are at the level of personal definition, there is completely no understanding which classification should be used.
Actually, the simplest classification is known to everybody: there can be translation and interpretation, and interpretation is also divided into consecutive and simultaneous, and also whisper interpreting. There is also another, rather simple classification based on already arranged areas: literary, medical, legal, scientific-technical translation.
However there are other divisions and classifications that I managed to find. Translation can be classified as: interpreting translation (translation of written text performed verbally), translating translation (translation of written text performed in written form), and translating interpretation (translation of speech in written form).
Interpretation is classified as consecutive or paragraph-phrase interpretation, which can be one-way and two-way, simultaneous interpretation, whisper simultaneous interpretation, control simultaneous interpretation, and sight interpretation.
There can be several key types of translation (interpretation): word-by-word, approximate, free, and technical. Further, translation (interpretation) can be classified: by nature of translated texts – literary and informative (special), by nature of translator’s actions – translation and interpretation, by criteria of interpretation time – consecutive and simultaneous, by translation (interpretation) direction – one-way and two-way, by criteria of human participation in the process – machine and traditional, by completeness – complete and incomplete. Incomplete translation (interpretation) is divided into reduced, fragmentary, aspectual, annotative, and abstractive.
Then we can also add classification (interpretation) by industry, for example, in construction, nuclear power engineering, oil and gas production, machine building, etc. And also division by pairs of languages?
Do we really need all of that? I have an impression that authors of such classifications are more interested not in practical application of types of translation (interpretation), but the very fact of dissertation for obtaining an academic degree of a doctor of science or professor. Well, all right, if you need it. Let it be. But maybe it is high time at least to brush all that up and adopt officially? After all, type of translation (interpretation) affects translator’s area of activities, that is specialty, and these specialties are very much different, no matter if we like it or do not.
Do we understand at all, what huge animal we deal with? Is it, in principle, possible to control Titanic? And can such loaded plane take off? In my opinion, it is required to normalize classification of translation (interpretation) types, bring it to a common denominator.
I do not know why public events are arranged for translators taking into account such diversity of activities. I visited some of them but every time left with a feeling of emptiness and disappointment, there was no interesting and valuable information, no made decisions, no any progress forwarded.
But it could be really great and interesting to participate in an event when you are surrounded by actual colleagues in trade, and you always have something to discuss with them! In my opinion it is possible in the only case – when specific type of translation will belong to a specific industry.
As an example, let us use the oil and gas industry in order to define a scheme of industry translation. First of all it is required to develop an industry standard - “oil and gas translation”, defining oil and gas translation as “oil service”, and also demonstrating requirements to oil and gas translation and its providers, including their competence, training and certification.
That could become a pass to the industry for translators and translation companies, and also foundation for development of professional standard “Oil and gas translator”. In other words that could provide for creation of a new profession inside the oil and gas industry. It is also the basis for development of training program and courses to train oil and gas translation specialists.
And further, graduates from institutes with the above-mentioned specialty should be included into National register of oil and gas translators with their localization. That would significantly facilitate life both for oil and gas companies involved in international projects and the very translators, and provide for abrupt improvement of oil and gas translation quality.
In principle, such scheme could be applied in any industry. Does it mean division of translation community into sections and their separation from the translation industry? Possibly only from functional point of view, however advantages of such approach are obvious: quality of industry translation will significantly improve, the market will be cleaned of accidental discredited providers of translation services, and the most important – the existing chaos in the translation community will be stopped. However it is only my personal opinion.
