Arrant Pedantry

Check out this blog. It has a lot of fascinating posts about “editing, usage, prescriptivism and descriptivism, and other language issues.”

Revising and Editing for Translators

It can happen that we translators sometimes have to work with editors. But before we get to that stage, we have to edit ourselves. Brian Mossop’s book Revising and Editing for Translators is about what it means for a translator to be a proofreader and/or editor him- or herself, and the book explains it all in an easily understood and interesting way.

Sometimes translators hire other translators and have to check their work before the customer gets it, and sometimes a translator is employed by a company to proofread someone else’s translation. But despite translators proofreading our own work (we should do that anyway, but I know not everyone does) before sending it to the customer, we do not know always how to work with someone else’s texts.

Mossop discuss why a proofreader may be needed (there may be errors in the text, for example, or text style is not appropriate for the subject) and the types of proofreaders/editors available (subject-matter reviewers, copy editors, etc.) and various types of proofreading (scanning, spot-checking, etc.). Then he explains what it means to look for and fix typographical errors, grammatical mistakes, idiomatic errors, typos, punctuation mistakes, logic errors, factual errors, problems with the structure, among other things, and how to think about how a writer/translator uses language and style, and how readers influence a text (their background, for example, and why they read the text).

Mossop also provides issues to consider (such as when and where a translation is to be read or what errors a particular translator usually makes), and he gives advice on how to work with the translator whose texts you are proofreading (it is important to explain why changes are being made, rather than simply pointing out that they are necessary, so that the translator learns). So there is useful information in this book, although much of what he discusses is not actually that specific to translation.

The book also includes exercises, questions for discussion, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, so it is particularly suitable for students and new translators. But it is also worth reading for advanced translators. It contains information that is useful for both translators who are proofreading texts translated by others but also for translators who want to be better at editing their own texts.

Charitable Feelings and Translation

Though most of us who translate need to earn a living from our work, there are times when we will take on translation, editing, or writing jobs for no money. Mostly this is when we are feeling charitable and want to donate to an organization and when our donation comes in the form of our time and effort and not tangible money.

For example, I organized and edited the Bryn Mawr College Cookbook, a project that took months. All the proceeds went to my alma mater. I must confess that I was a bit surprised and offended when the college wrote me later that year to urge me to donate money to the school; I did a quick calculation and found that the time I’d spent putting the book together equaled several thousands of dollars worth of donations to the school, and that didn’t even include the time others had donated to the project or the proceeds the school received. Still, I was happy to do it.

But a university is not a charity. I’ve also done writing, editing, and translating for charitable organizations and for individuals, as a way of offering them some professional help that they might otherwise have had to pay for.

During this holiday season, I urge you to do likewise. If you can spare just a little of your time and your talents to help someone or an organization, I am sure that would be much appreciated.

More Metaphors

In the last post, I discussed Translation in Practice, edited by Gill Paul and published by Dalkey Archive Press. The book offered two new metaphors, one for translation and one for editing.

Mahmoud Darwish is quoted giving another metaphor of translation: “The translator is not a ferryman for the meaning of the words but the author of their web of new relations. And he is not the painter of the light part of the meaning, but the watcher of the shadow, and what it suggests.” (5)

And Ros Schwartz describes a metaphor of editing: “A good editor is like a midwife – he or she helps bring forth that perfectly formed translation that is inside you but doesn’t necessarily emerge unaided.” (65)

The Relationship between Translators and Editors

The title of the new book Translation in Practice, edited by Gill Paul and published by Dalkey Archive Press, is a misnomer. It is a very short (70 pages) book that seems – judging by the title and some of the topics mentioned – to want to be an introduction to various issues on translation but actually is mostly on the process of editing and the relationship between translator and editor. It would have been better called The Role of Editors in Translation or The Relationship between Translators and Editors, or something along those lines. A book on that subject would be interesting and worthwhile and if one focuses on that aspect of Translation in Practice, then one gets something out of it.

This books briefly introduces information about issues such as the role of the outside reader, picking a translator, what a sample translation is and if a translator should get paid for it, what it means for two translators to collaborate on a topic, contracts (both in terms of money and also in terms of relationships, such as establishing boundaries between translators and writers), schedules, publicity (though just one paragraph on this), style, particular challenges such as swear words or humor, what it means to be edited, the use of UK vs. US English, and so on. The issues have generally been discussed in more detail in other texts. It also offers ideas that it doesn’t really explain, such as by defining a bad translation as a “flat” one (69), which is a definition that needs more exploration, or by saying that translators should be paid if their work is used in a relay translation (53), which in fact is something that rarely happens, although Translation in Practice doesn’t analyze why that is the case or how to change it.

But the main part of the text, as already mentioned, explores the jobs of and relationship between the translator and the editor. It offers lists of dos and don’ts for translators and editors. For example, translators should “keep careful notes of changes and decisions made in the process of translating” and “carefully recreate the nuances of the original language” (this last point is one of the major difficulties of translation!), but not “take major liberties with the author’s text without reference to both editor and author” (what is a “major liberty”?) or “anglicize a book beyond recognition” (where is the border here?) (57-8). An editor should “approach the text as an original book rather than a translation” (a debatable point, I’d say) and not “rewrite the text in their own voice, changing the vocabulary choices that the translator has made.” (70-1) The book assumes that English is the target language, so it does not look into issues relevant to the publishing industry elsewhere, though the process of working with editors and publishers in other countries would be fascinating to learn about. Still, what it does discuss regarding the editing process in English-language publishing companies is interesting.

One other comment on the Dalkey book is that oddly, a couple of times a translator is quoted but not named or a translation is mentioned but the name of the translator is not provided (such as on pages 2 and 42-3), so the translator remains invisible. Of course, if this person chose to be anonymous, that should be stated. But if not, this shows how far translators still have to go in terms of visibility.

Translation in Practice tries to cover a lot of ground, but not in any great detail. So it is a good overview, but definitely not the final word.

Happy 2010, and a Holiday Peeve

Ah, the holidays! Personally, I'm glad the season is over now, but I hope all you readers had a good time, and that 2010 is wonderful year for you, filled with translation and literature!

As is my custom, I recently donated money to a charity run by a major organization for the holiday season. I received a card in thanks and this card had grammar and punctuation errors! It's enough to make me not want to donate to this organization again. I've also chosen not to go to restaurants whose signs or menus have errors or to shop at stores that use apostrophes incorrectly, and so on.

This is a lesson to all of us who work with language -- we must make sure all our materials (business cards, websites, pamphlets, emails, etc) are impeccable! Otherwise, clients may choose someone else to take on the assignments.

An Editor’s Rant: On Using Foreign Languages in a Text

Today’s post is more of a rant. Why do authors who want to include words or phrases in foreign languages not check that they are using the correct spelling and grammar (unless, of course, there is a reason for using something in the wrong way, such as to show that a character is pretentious but really ignorant)? Why don’t editors check these things?

In recent weeks, I’ve been reading a lot of work in Swedish. In Sweden, it can be considered cool to include English in a poem or short story, or an author may genuinely find that there is something she or he must say in English rather than in Swedish. But often, I find serious mistakes. And to be honest, the author has lost me as soon as I see that she or he (or the editor or publisher) couldn’t be bothered to have an editor check over the text.