Translation, the the only relaible bridge putting different culture in constant contact.

The 5 most pernicious myths promoted by substandard translation and interpretation companies:

Myth # 1: You can verify the accuracy of a translation by doing a back translation.

It is a common misconception that the quality of a translation can be judged by having a second translator translate a translated text back into its source language. In fact, the opposite is true; the worse the translation, the closer the back translation will adhere to the original. The reason for this is that a bad translation normally follows very closely the wording of the original, but not the meaning. The best examples of this are the word-for-word translations produced by the different online machine translation tools, such as Babel Fish.



Myth # 2: The best translations are done by certified translators.

Contrary to the claims made by countless "certified translators" who advertise on the web and the yellow pages, in the United States there is no such thing as a "certified translator," as there is no official certification program for translators in this country. Next time someone claims to be a "certified translator," ask who certified him.



Myth # 3: A certified translation is a guarantee of quality and accuracy.

In the US, a certified translation is one where the translator has signed an oath before a notary public certifying the accuracy and correctness of the translation, as well as the fact that he is qualified to make such a certification.

Since in the US, there are no restrictions as to who can or cannot claim to be a translator, anyone willing to swear that he or she is qualified to translate into and from any language pair can certify a translation.



Myth # 4: You need to make sure that the translator is from the same country where you'll be sending the translation, so that it will be in the correct dialect.

What constitutes a dialect and what to do about it is one of the most misunderstood concepts in translation, perhaps second only to the "native speaker" syndrome (the pernicious idea, promoted by some language schools, that being a native speaker qualifies a person to translate).

Every major language has regional and class variations, but more importantly, every language also has clear standards and guidelines for correct and incorrect grammar and usage.

Although there may be times when it is appropriate to write in a regional or class dialect (targeted advertising comes to mind), business communications (and this includes technical writings, contracts, legislation, financial statements, etc.) must always be written in standard language.



Myth # 5: For the best quality, make sure that only native speakers do the translations.

Being a native speaker of a foreign language does not make a person a translator, any more than being a native speaker of English makes a person a writer. There are three reasons for this:

A person's knowledge of language is a function of their general and specialized education. A person with a deficient education will have a deficient knowledge of language.

The native language, which is the first language learned by a person, may or may not be the person’s dominant language or language of primary competence. Native speakers can have a grossly inadequate knowledge of their native language, particularly when they have been brought up and educated in a country where a language other than their native language is spoken.

Even if the native speaker has a good education in his or her native language, that does not qualify a person to translate, as language competence is only one of the prerequisites for translating competence.

ISO 2603: Fixed Booths for Simultaneous Interpretation

General characteristics and equipment

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.

Draft International Standards adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for voting. Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75% of the member bodies casting a vote.

Publication as an International Standard requires approval by at least 75% of the national bodies casting a vote.

International Standard ISO 2603 was prepared by ISO/TC43, Acoustics, Subcommittee SC2, Building acoustics.

This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO 2603:1983).

ISO 2603 was first issued in 1974; it was revised in 1983 and extended in scope to cover facilities for more than six languages. It is based on facilities built since then and evaluated by the Technical Committee of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and the Joint Service Interpretation-Conferences (JSIC) of the European Commission (EU). The present edition aims to bring the text into line with modern practice and technology as well as to clarify and simplify it for the user.

Annex A of this International Standard is for information only.

Introduction

Interpreters' booths are designed to meet three requirements:

a) acoustic separation between different languages spoken simultaneously, without mutual interference between languages interpreted or with the speaker in the hall;

b) efficient two-way communication between the booths and the conference hall;

c) a comfortable working environment enabling interpreters to maintain the intense effort of concentration required by their work.

Existing facilities, built in compliance with ISO 2603-1983 are still acceptable.

In addition to architects, project engineers, suppliers, etc., it is essential to consult conference interpreters experienced in technical consultancy, from the earliest stages of planning.

1. Scope

This International Standard lays down basic specifications to be considered when initial plans are prepared for building or renovating built-in booths for simultaneous interpretation in new or existing buildings.

It is applicable to all types of built-in booths with built-in or portable equipment.

NOTE 1: Mobile booths for simultaneous interpretation are specified in ISO 4043,

In designing new buildings, booths should be optimally integrated into the structure so that the conference room and the booths constitute a well-balanced unit. Design should also provide daylight for the conference hall and booths.

The requirements of clauses 4 and 5 apply to booths with built-in equipment, as defined in 3.1, and booths with portable equipment, as defined in 3.2.

The dimensional requirements apply equally to semi-permanent booths, as defined in 3.3, for which all other requirements should apply as far as is possible.

In addition to structural and design specifications, this International Standard specifies those components of typical conference facilities, which form the interpreters working environment.

NOTE 2: Clause 12 gives indications concerning the use of public address systems in conjunction with simultaneous interpretation systems.

2. Normative references

The following standards contain provisions which, through reference in this text, constitute provisions of this International Standard. At the time of publication, the editions indicated were valid. All standards are subject to revision, and parties to agreements based on this International Standard are encouraged to investigate the possibility of applying the most recent editions of the standards indicated below. Members of IEC and ISO maintain registers of currently valid International Standards.

ISO 140-4:1998, Acoustics - Measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements - Part 4: Field measurements of airborne sound insulation between rooms.

ISO 3382:1997, Acoustics - Measurement of the reverberation time of rooms with reference to other acoustical parameters.

IEC 60914:1988, - Conference Systems - Electrical and audio requirements.

3. Definitions

For the purposes of this International Standard, the following definitions apply:

3.1 booth with built-in equipment: booth intended for simultaneous interpretation containing built-in interpretation equipment

3.2 booth with portable equipment: booth intended for simultaneous interpretation, but not containing built-in interpretation equipment (see 3.4)

3.3 semi-permanent booth: booth not structurally integrated or which is intended to be moved within the building.

3.4 interpreter's control panel: panel containing all controls for listening and speaking.

NOTE The panel is normally a built-in fixture in the booth; if mounted on its own free-standing box, it is known as a console (the usual form for portable equipment).

4. Structural and design requirements for booths

4.1 Siting in relation to the building

Booths shall be located away from any outside sources of disturbance, such as: kitchens, public passages, halls, etc. (see 4.4).

4.2 Siting in relation to the conference hall

4.2.1 General

Booths shall be located at the back and/or sides of the hall, making sure there is good visual contact between all booths and with the control booth. They shall be raised no further above the floor of the hall than is necessary for a clear view (see 4.7) of all proceedings in the hall, i.e. all participants, lecturers, the chairman, etc., as well as all visual aids (projection screen, etc.). The view from the booths into the hall shall not be obstructed by persons standing. Thus, the booth floor should be at least 1,00 m above the hall floor assuming a level floor. Steep viewing angles shall be avoided (particularly with regard to projection screens). In larger halls the furthest distance from booth to rostrum, projection screen, etc. shall not exceed 30 m (see 4.6).

The booths shall be grouped to facilitate visual contact (see 4.7) as well as cabling between them.

4.2.2 Sound control booth

The sound control booth shall be placed close to the interpreters' booths to facilitate access and visual communication between them and provide the operator with a clear view of all proceedings, speakers, projection screen, etc. The operator shall have safe, quick and easy access both to the booths and to the hall.

4.3 Doors

Doors shall provide satisfactory acoustic insulation (see 4.8) and operate silently. They shall not interconnect booths through side-walls. An observation port-hole (no less than 0,20 m x 0,22 m) in the booth door and/or a light outside the door, indicating an active microphone within, are recommended.

Assigned languages and channels should be indicated on or adjacent to doors.

Curtains or baffles shall not be used instead of doors.

4.4 Access

The booths shall have easy access through a separate entrance from outside the hall, to avoid the interpreters disturbing the meeting when coming and going. The access corridor to the booths shall be at least 1,50 m wide to allow for safe and quick passage. Stairs, if any, shall be safe and easy to negotiate, bearing in mind emergencies, disabled persons, the need for quick distribution of documents (often on trolleys) and the transport of equipment. Emergency exits shall be readily accessible and escape routes clearly marked. There shall be rapid access from the booths to the hall.

4.5 Size of booths

4.5.1 General

Each booth shall be wide enough to accommodate the required number of interpreters seated comfortably side by side, each with sufficient table space to work conveniently on several documents spread alongside each other. The booth shall be high and deep enough to provide sufficient volume of air to enable adequate temperature control and draught-free air renewal (see 4.9) as well as sufficient space for the occupants to enter and leave without disturbing one another.

4.5.2 Minimum dimensions (see figure 1)

The size of a booth is governed by the need to provide sufficient work space and air volume per interpreter. The minimum number of interpreters per booth being two, the following minimum dimensions are required:

- width : 2,50 m

- depth : 2,40 m

- height : 2,30 m

NOTE 1 Where feasible, additional height can be an advantage for draught and temperature control.

For conference halls with up to six booths, one or more should be 3,20 m wide (to cover the need for the continuous presence of three interpreters).

For conference halls with more than 6 booths, all booths shall be at least 3,20 m wide.

NOTE 2 There is a growing trend for conferences using six or more languages. For a number of languages, this means at least three interpreters working on a booth; hence the need for so many booths to be at least 3,20 wide.

To avoid resonance effects, the three dimensions of the booth should be different from one another and, to avoid standing waves, the two side walls should not be exactly parallel.

4.6 Visibility

A direct view of the entire conference room, including the projection screen, is essential (see 4.2.1). In very large halls, where the rostrum or projection screen is more than 30 m away, visual support may be used, either in the form of one or more enlarged video display screens, or of video/data display panels in or immediately outside the booth.

4.7 Windows

Front windows shall be across the full width of the booth. The height of the pane shall be at least 1,20 m from the working surface upwards. Its lower edge shall be level with the working surface of the table, or lower (see figure 1).

Side windows, of at least the same height, shall be provided and shall extend from the front window for a length of 1,10 m along the partition between booths.

To ensure an unobstructed maximum range of view from the booths, vertical supports shall be avoided.

Front and side windows shall consist of untinted anti-glare glass satisfying the sound insulation requirements (see 4.8 and ISO 140-4). Panes shall be mounted in such a way as to avoid vibration, glare from hall lighting and mirror effects from inside the booth.

NOTE In the present state of glass technology, good results are obtained by using one vertical pane of laminated glass of adequate thickness in combination with work-lighting in the form of overhead spotlights.

Depending on the type of work lighting used (see 5.2), front panes may have to be slightly inclined.

4.8 Acoustics

The booths shall open onto an area not normally used by delegates, members of staff or the public. It shall not be adjacent to any noise source. Floors and walls in booths and corridors hall in any case be covered with sound-absorbent material.

NOTE Fabric, of sufficient thickness, on walls and perforated ceiling panels (see note in 4.9) have produced good results. It is recommended to use material with a weighted absorption coefficient (according ISO 11654) of a w < 0,6.

Where flooring is hollow, care should be taken to prevent sounding-box effects from footsteps.

Particular attention shall be given to sound-proofing:

- between the interpreters' booths;

- between the interpreters' booths and the control booth;

- between the booths and the conference hall.

The following values shall apply (including air ducts, cable ducts, etc.):

- hall/booth : R'w = 48 dB

- booth/booth : R'w = 43 dB

- booth/corridor : R'w = 41 dB

R'w is defined in ISO 717-1; for measurement see ISO 140-4.

Air ducts (see 4.9) shall be properly sound-proofed to prevent noise transmission from booth to booth. The A-weighted sound pressure level generated by the air-conditioning system (see 4.9), lighting (see 5.2) and other sound sources shall not exceed 35 dB.

Reverberation time (see ISO 3382) inside the booth shall be between 0,3 s and 0,5 s measured in the octave bands from 125 Hz to 4000 Hz (booth unoccupied).

4.9 Air conditioning

As booths are occupied throughout the day, adequate ventilation is required.

The air supply should be 100% fresh (i.e. not recycled). The air-conditioning system shall be independent from that of the rest of the building and of the conference hall.

Air renewal shall be seven times per hour and the carbon dioxide concentration shall not exceed 0,1 %. The temperature shall be controllable between 18°C and 22°C by means of an individual regulator in each booth. Relative humidity shall be between 45% and 65%.

Air velocity shall not exceed 0,2 m/s. Air inlets and outlets shall be placed in such a way that interpreters are not exposed to draughts.

NOTE Good results have been obtained by introducing the air through a perforated ceiling and extracting it through vents at the rear of the booth, in the floor or the rear wall.

Air ducts shall not transmit sound from booth to booth or from other sources (see 4.8). They shall not pass through walls separating booths. To comply with acoustic requirements, noise-generating appliances such as expansion chambers, fireshutters, etc. shall be located outside the booths.

4.10 Cable ducts

Ducts suitable for looping control cables and associated connectors from booth to booth shall be provided. After insertion of cables, the openings shall maintain the sound insulation values of the walls they cross.

Access to ducts should be made easy and should not require the use of special tools.

5. Booth interior

5.1 General

Booth surfaces shall be non-reflecting, fire-resistant and non-toxic. They shall be appropriately sound absorbent (see 4.8) and shall neither attract nor harbour dust (pile carpeting on walls should be avoided) and be easy to clean.

5.2 Lighting

The lighting in the booth shall be independent of that in the hall, as the latter may have to be darkened for the projection of films or slides.

The booths shall be provided with two different lighting systems: one for work and the other for general purposes.

The work light source, which shall be non-fluorescent, is that lighting the working surface. Other lighting is required for various general purposes, for which a switch should be available by the booth door. Dimmer switches, for both systems, should be within reach of the interpreter working. No light source shall cause reflections on booth windows. Both systems, including dimmers and transformers shall be free of magnetic interference and audible noise.

The working surface available to each interpreter (see 4.5.1 and 5.4) shall have an individual adjustable compact table lamp or overhead light source of a least 300 lx, connected to a low voltage circuit. Its switch, within easy reach of the interpreter, should give continuous intensity control over a range from 100 lx to 350 lx, or else provide two levels: one, in the range between 100 lx and 200 lx and the other, between 300 lx and 350 lx (all values to be achieved at working surface level).

Table lamps and the range of tilt of their reflectors shall be so designed as to avoid glare in adjacent working positions or into the hall. The combined work-lighting shall provide coverage of the required intensity over the whole working surface of the booth. All light sources shall generate as little heat as possible and be of a suitable colour.

Lighting systems, including dimmers, shall cause no inductive electrical interference in neighbouring microphone circuits. Switches should be mechanically silent.

Where overhead work-lighting is provided, it shall be so positioned as to avoid shadows being cast by the working interpreter, on the working surface: on documents, equipment, fixtures, etc..

A spare mains outlet with two sockets shall be provided on each side wall. Connections for data transmission are desirable.

5.3 Colours

The colour scheme in the booth shall be appropriate for the restricted working space. Matt finishes should be used for all surfaces and equipment in the booth.

5.4 Working surface and document storage

See figure 1.

The working surface shall be firm enough for use as a writing table and for studying documents, reference books, etc..

It shall be horizontal and covered with shock-absorbent material to deaden noise that would otherwise be picked up by the microphones. The underneath surface shall have a smooth finish.

The characteristics of the working surface shall be as follows:

a) position: at the front of the booth across the full width, affording the seated interpreter an unobstructed view of the proceedings in the hall, care being taken to avoid transmission of vibration through booth walls;

b) height: 0,73 m _ 0,01 m from the floor level of the booth;

c) useable depth (i.e. clear of equipment, fixtures, etc.): 0,45 m in relation to the interpreters' angle of vision into the hall;

d) leg room: minimum depth 0,45 m, minimum height 0,66 m and should not be obstructed by working surface supports.

Document storage:

- shelving or trays for documents should not be placed under the working surface, but should be located towards the rear of the booth, within easy reach of the interpreter;

- light-weight trolleys for documents are recommended.

5.5 Seating

For each interpreter and technician, there shall be a comfortable chair with the following characteristics:

- five legs;

- adjustable height;

- adjustable back-rest;

- arm-rests;

- castors producing no perceptible noise;

- upholstery of heat-dissipating material.

Independent, movable foot-rests should be available.

6. Facilities for interpreters

6.1 Toilets

Separate toilets should be available within easy reach of the booths.

6.2 Interpreters' room

It is desirable to provide an interpreter's room near the booths, which interpreters and operators may use when not on immediate duty. It shall be sufficiently large to accommodate at least as many persons as there are working positions in the booths. It should have a private entrance and daylight.

It is preferable to divide this room into two areas serving the following purposes:

a) study of documents and posting of notices;

b) relaxation and stand-by.

The following equipment and furnishings are required:

- easy chairs, chairs and tables;

- cloakroom or coat-rack;

- telephone (inside and local outside lines);

- notice board (for posting assignments, etc.);

- individual pigeon-holes, or space to deposit personal belongings, documents, etc.

A separate outlet for a data modem is recommended. A photocopy machine should be available nearby.

7. Sound equipment in the interpreters' booths

7.1. General

The full specifications (numerical data included) for this purpose are given in IEC 60914. The following outline is given as a general indication, but equipment used should always comply with the latest version of IEC 60914.

7.2 Frequency response

The overall system (comprising microphone input at the speaker's position, amplifier stages, level controls, output terminals and interpreters' control panel for headphones), shall correctly reproduce audio-frequencies between 125 Hz and 12500 Hz. A gradual roll-off at the lower end of the frequency response is recommended in order to improve speech intelligibility.

7.3 Amplitude non-linearity

The system shall be free of perceptible distortion.

7.4 Noise and hum

Noise and hum shall not noticeably affect speech intelligibility.

7.5 Cross-talk between channels

Cross-talk from other channels (at the terminals for the interpreter's headphones) is to be avoided.

7.6 Level control

Level control of the floor channel should be manual. When automatic level control is used, compressor-limiters shall conform to IEC 60914.

8. Interpreters' control panel/console (see 3.4)

8.1 General

There shall be one control panel/console for each interpreter, containing individual controls for listening and speaking, including the relevant indicators. However, where there is no alternative, dual control consoles may be used by no more than two interpreters per booth, each interpreter having a full set of controls.

The control panel (see 3.4) may be on a free-standing console, but is normally fitted into the working surface at a convenient ergonomic angle (see IEC 60914) without obstructing the view of the room. It should be mounted in the interpreter's direct line of vision into the hall, leaving at least 0,45 m clear to the edge of the table in front of the interpreter (see 5.4), so as not to encroach on the available work space.

NOTE 1 If consoles are installed for permanent use, they should be sunk appropriately in the working surface.

Control panel/console dimensions shall be: (width x height x depth):

- maximum: 0,40 m x 0,15 m x 0,21 m;

- minimum: 0,30 m x 0,05 m x 0,125 m.

NOTE 2 For fitted control panels, the height above the working surface should not exceed 0,10 m.

The surface of the control panel shall be matt and non-reflecting.

Indicator lights shall be confined to active functions (microphone "ON", channel selected, channel occupied, etc.) and shall be in the immediate vicinity of the corresponding controls. The microphone "ON" light shall be evident to anyone present in the booth, without disturbing the occupants. In addition, a ring-shaped luminant on the microphone itself is recommended.

8.2 Controls

The status of all selector controls and switches shall be clearly recognisable.

On each control panel, controls shall be arranged according to ergonomic criteria into distinct areas as follows:

a) the listening area containing:

- an incoming channel selection device,

- a preselector for relay listening,

- a volume control,

- a separate tone controls for treble and bass;

b) the monitoring area, containing:

- monitoring loudspeaker with volume control and channel selector (if requested);

c) the microphone area, containing:

- an "ON/OFF" switch, with associated indicator light (automatically reverting the channel to the speaker (floor channel) in the "OFF" position),

- a muting device, whereby the channel is not returned to the floor channel, but which switches off the microphone indicator light;

d) the outgoing channel selection area, containing:

- the outgoing channel selection device and relevant displays and indicators;

e) the call facility area (optional), containing:

- call channel key to chairman/lecturer/control booth (optional),

- an incoming call facility (flashing indicator lights),

- call-line key.

Where a "system-ready" indicator is provided, it should be unobtrusive.

9. Functions of controls

9.1 Incoming channel selection device

Incoming channel selectors shall enable direct selection of any channel, without delay. These shall cause no mechanical or electrical noise. No short-circuiting shall occur between two channels when operating these controls.

9.2 Incoming channel pre-selection device

Incoming channel pre-selection shall be provided for at least one incoming language channel and the original channel.

Interpretation systems with more than eight language channels (plus one floor channel) shall provide for pre-selection of at least two incoming channels and the original channel.

9.3 Volume control

For adjusting listening levels, potentiometers with logarithmic progression shall be used which are audibly effective throughout their full range. Potentiometers shall be of high quality.

A hearing-damage warning, incorporated in the volume control is strongly recommended.

9.4 Tone controls

A stepless bass control shall be provided to attenuate lower frequencies. A stepless treble control shall also be provided to enhance higher frequencies. Bass and treble controls should be independent of each other throughout their respective ranges.

9.5 Headphone/headset terminals

For each interpreter work position, one headphone/headset connector socket is required, to the left of each work position, suitably fitted under the free-edge of the working surface, so that connector leads/cables to the control panel/console pass under the table and do not get in the way of the working interpreter or trail on the floor.

NOTE For the left-handed, it us useful to provide a second socket to the right of at least one work position per booth.

Where portable equipment is to be used (see 3.2), the connector lead/cable should be fitted with a plug to connect with the headphone/headset socket in the console.

9.6 Monitor loudspeakers

The function of the monitor loudspeaker(s) is to allow interpreter(s) to remove their headphones temporarily and continue to follow proceedings or to hear a channel different from that received on the headphones while the booth is silent.

This loudspeaker shall normally reproduce the floor channel and shall be muted automatically as soon as one of the microphones in that booth is activated; it shall have its own volume control and channel selector, if included, which should be independent of the incoming channel selector for the headphones.

9.7 Microphone controls

A control switch and a red indicator light shall be provided. The indicator light shall be more visible than any other indicator and evident to anyone present in the booth. If more than one microphone is activated in the same booth or on the same outgoing channel, the indicator light of the microphones concerned should flash, or interlocking should be used.

The status of the switch should be clearly recognisable by touch.

A self-releasing muting key to cut out the booth channel only, without switching back to the floor channel, shall be provided to allow the interpreter to cough or to clear his/her throat. Pressing of this key shall extinguish the "microphone ON" indicator light.

Switching the microphone ON or OFF shall make no mechanical or electrical noise perceptible by the delegates.

When the interpreter's microphone is OFF, the floor channel shall be automatically linked to the outgoing channel concerned.

9.8 Outgoing channel selection device

In addition to the assigned channel, each control panel shall have provision for selecting at least two other outgoing channels, independently of other panels in the same booth. The channel selected shall be clearly indicated, close to the selector, giving channel numbers and languages in intelligible form, i.e. alphanumerically.

Depending on practice, it should be possible to interlock outgoing channels, in order to prevent microphones in different booths from being connected to the same channel.

As a warning that another microphone is active on a given channel, when a second one is activated on the same channel, the "microphone ON" indicators should flash on the control panels/consoles concerned.

9.9 Call channel (to chairman/lecturer/control booth)

In the event of breakdown (for example a delegate starting to speak without a microphone or other emergency), interpreters should be able to warn the chairman and/or lecturer and technician discreetly via a special audio-link.

Where this link is operated from the control panel, a special key shall activate it, regardless of the microphone switch position.

9.10 Call-line key (messenger)

Provision should be made for a key by which a light or bell may be activated to call for documents, etc., from the usher.

9.11 Colour code for indicator lights

The following colours shall be used for indicator lights or light-emitting diodes (LEDs):



Colour
Function

red microphone ON
red outgoing channel engaged (busy/live)
yellow/amber/green for all other functions

No luminant should be used for indicating "microphone OFF" status

10. Interpreters' headphones

One set of headphones per interpreter shall be provided. Headphones shall have the following characteristics:

a) two earphones per set. Health requirements should be borne in mind when choosing the material and shape of headphones (earphones with earpieces inserted into the ear, or which fully enclose the ear are not acceptable). Where foam padding is provided, for hygienic reasons, it should be replaceable and the headphones wearable without it.

b) frequency range: 125 Hz - 12500 Hz;

c) mass: < 100 g for headphones, < 200 g for headsets, excluding the cable and connector;

d) ear contact pressure : < 2,5 N;

e) headband: adjustable in length and sufficiently flexible to adapt to individual ear pressure requirements. It should not provoke perspiration;

f) connection to the socket at table edge by a lead approximately 1,50 m long and terminating in a non-locking plug (see 9.5).

NOTE Where free-standing consoles are used, the lead length should be adapted accordingly (see 9.5).

11. Booth microphones

There shall be one microphone for each interpreter. The directional characteristics of microphones shall be such that the interpreter can speak into it at a convenient distance while in a comfortable position. Microphones shall be mounted so as to avoid transmission of noises of mechanical origin. Headset combinations may be used, but do not suit all interpreters.

12. The use of public address systems in conjunction with simultaneous interpretation systems

Acoustic feedback and echoes in the hall may impair simultaneous interpretation and, in extreme cases, block the memory processes and/or damage hearing.

Moreover, part of each audience depends on headphone reception, which may be drowned by loudspeakers when operated at their normal level. Indeed some public address systems, which are not compatible, will cause interference. Therefore, every precaution shall be taken both, in the design and the volume control of the public address system, to avoid echo and feed-back from loudspeakers to microphones in the hall.

When the use of speech reinforcement cannot be avoided (for example, the majority of participants listening to conference proceedings in the original language), public address systems should be operated at their lowest level.

In order to provide for effective control in such situations, simultaneous (multi-channel) systems and public address (single channel) systems should:

- be fed from a single microphone system;

- have separate volume controls allowing individual level adjustment for each system, independently, so that lowering the public address level does not reduce the signal strength available to interpreters.

Level controls of the two systems should be located close to each other to enable both levels to be monitored in the same room, preferably by the same operator.

Annex A

(informative)

Bibliography

[1] ISO 717-1:1996, Acoustics - Rating of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements - Part 1: Airborne sound insulation.

[2] ISO 4043:1998, Mobile booths for simultaneous interpretation - General characteristics and equipment.

[3] ISO 11654:1997, Acoustics - Sound absorbers for use in buildings - Rating of sound absorption.

Globalization and the Politics of Translation Studies

by:Anthony Pym


Intercultural Studies Group
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Tarragona, Spain


Paper delivered to the conference Translation and Globalization (Canadian Association of Translation
Studies) in Halifax, Canada, 29 May 2003. Possibly for publication in Meta. Pre-print version 2.2. August 2003. To download this paper in pdf. format, click on the link below:


Abstract:



Globalization can be seen as a consequence of technologies reducing the costs of communication. This
reduction has led both to the rise of English as the international lingua franca and to an increase in the
global demand for translations. The simultaneous movement on both fronts is explained by the divergent
communication strategies informing the production and distribution of information, where translation can
only be expected to remain significant in the latter. The fundamental change in the resulting
communication patterns is the emergence of one-to-many document production processes, which are
displacing the traditional source-target models still used in Translation Studies. Translation Studies might
nevertheless retain a set of problematic political principles that could constitute its own identity with
respect to globalization. Such principles would be expressed in the national and regional organization of
the discipline, in the defense of minority cultures, and in a general stake in cultural alterity. The possible
existence of such principles is here examined on the basis of three instances where the Translation Studies might address globalization in political terms: the weakness of the discipline in dominant monocultures, the possible development of an international association of Translation Studies, and the rejection of the nationalist boycotts of scholars.



Here we shall attempt to model globalization as an economic process with certain
consequences for the social role of translation. Those consequences will then be
seen as affecting the political organization of Translation Studies as a scholarly
discipline. That general process is held to have certain elements of irreversibility thanks
to its grounding in technological change. Translators will mostly have to come to terms
with those elements, as will everyone else. There are, however, political processes that
build on globalization but should not be identified with it. Those processes also have
consequences for translation but are not to be considered inevitable. Some of them can
be resisted or influenced by the use or non-use of translation. Those political processes
can thus be indirectly affected by a scholarly Translation Studies, which might thus
develop its own politics with respect to globalization. This means that Translation
Studies should seek to understand and explain the effects of globalization, without
pretending to resist them all. At the same time, it should attempt to influence the more
negative political processes within its reach, developing its political agenda and
cultivating its own political organization. In this, the dialectics play out between the
technological and the political, between the things we must live with and the things we
should try to change. Only with this double vision should we attempt to take a position
with respect to globalization.

The Technological Globalization, for our present purposes, results from a progressive reduction in the costs of communication and transport. The term can mean many other things as well; the
current theories cover everything from the state of markets to the condition of the soul;
but for us, here, globalization will be no more than a set of things that can happen when
distance becomes easier to conquer. Let us model those things; let us try to connect
them with translation and its study.



Here is one model. As technology improves, we can move things further and more
efficiently, just as we can potentially communicate more efficiently and over greater
stretches of time and space. What is reduced on both these levels might be called the
transaction costs, understood as the total effort necessary just to get the objects moved
or the communication under way. Different technologies structure these costs in
different ways. Sometimes apparently slight changes can have large-scale effects. The
technological move from parchment to paper, for example, cheapened rewriting
processes, enabling multiple revisions, greater teamwork and wider distribution. Not by
chance, the arrival of paper coincided with the significant translation activities in
Baghdad in the ninth and tenth centuries, and with those in Hispania in the twelfth and
thirteenth (see Pym 2000a). Similarly, the printing press enabled much wider
distribution, at the same time as it required the fixing of a definitive text. This led to
spelling conventions and the standardization of national languages, while the ideally
definitive text promoted greater awareness of individualist discourse (the style of the
author), with corresponding calls for individualist translators. The age of print was also
that of national languages and the individual translator. And what now of our electronic
means of communication? They are mostly cheaper still, allowing transaction costs to
be structured in quite different ways. At some point, let us suppose, those costs become
so low and dispersed that they no longer coincide with anything like the borders of a
nation state. One might then start to talk about electronically based globalization. The
general process, the reducing of transaction costs, is nevertheless the one that has been
continuing for centuries.



What consequences might that extended process have for translation, upto and
including our electronic age? With cursory glances at recent history, a certain chain of
reasoning can be linked as follows:


• As transport and communication become cheaper, more things are moved and
communicated over greater distances. This hypothesis is in accordance with the
assumed benefits of trade and the unhappy supposition that people tend to do
everything that technology makes it possible for them to do. As precarious as the
hypothesis might be in human terms, the statistics for global transport and
communications do indicate an accelerating rise.



• There is thus more communication. This is not only because it is easier to
communicate but also because there are more moving things about which to
communicate, more possible communication partners to talk to, more
possibilities for communication about the resulting communication, and indeed
more technology to talk about in the first place. Did we ever imagine, prior to
email and mobile phones, that so much needed to be said?



• The quantitative rise in communication is first within the borders of cultures and
languages (since there is less resistance from cultural and linguistic differences),
then progressively across those borders.



• When communication regularly crosses the borders of languages and cultures, it
tends to wash away those same borders. Thus were the local patois and fiefdoms
swamped by the vernaculars and nation states. Thus, also, are the nation states
and their languages transformed into parts of greater regions. And so, too, have
the regions formed into intercontinental markets with a growing lingua franca.
The end of that process would be communication on a truly planetary scale.
Prior to that point, however, globalization is not global; it is a convenient
misnomer for an incomplete development.



• Globalization thus creates the need for common languages, therefore the need
for fewer languages, and now the need for just one lingua franca, English.

• As the borders are washed away, so too is the need for translation. We will soon
all speak English all the time, so the whole translation profession is doomed to
extinction. Translation Studies will lose its object, and we might as well face up
to the fact. Such are the consequences of technology.



There is a lot wrong with that model, and not just because its conclusion is sad. The
model can be used to reduce globalization to cultural homogenization, to McDonalds
and Coca Cola and Microsoft ruling the world, as is done often enough. Globalization
quickly becomes a process to be resisted, as if there were an enemy somewhere
constantly pulling the strings, as if there were always causal strings to be pulled, as if
we faced a for-or-against situation of some kind, as if there were no technology at the
base of change. In need of opposition, some would occasionally try to read the model in
reverse, courageously hoping the evils of globalization can be countered by politically
promoting languages, by increasing the number of translations, or simply by translating
differently (cf. the “call to action” in Venuti 1995). The tide advances, Canut retreats; so
if Canut advances, the tide will retreat? Here are a handful of reasons why those simple
cause-and-effect models fail:


􀂃 Despite the tragic decline in the number of the world’s living languages, the number
of translations would so far seem to have increased with similar drama. Yes,
increased. For statistics, see the Index Translationum since 1932 (under the auspices
of UNESCO since 1948, computerized since 1979), publishers’ data reported in
Ganne and Minon (1992), snippets of the same in Venuti (1995, 1998), yearly
reports from the European Commission’s Translation Service, estimates made by
the American Translators Association and French official registers (cf. Gouadec
2002: 1), regular LISA reports on the growth of the localization sector in recent
years, and the number of languages and varieties allowed for in your word processing
program.



1 The statistics might all be considered partisan and
fragmentary, yet they all indicate a constant rise in the numbers of translations
carried out in the world. We are aware of no numbers that intimate a fall. This rise
would be alongside (not opposed to) the growth of international English.
Globalization would seem to promote both the lingua franca and the demand for
translations. If we cannot explain this apparent paradox, then perhaps we are not
grasping globalization. Our acts of political resistance are likely to be well meant,
well reasoned, politically correct, and poorly aimed.



1 One might also cite the spectacular growth in the number of translator-training institutions during the
1990s. One hesitates, however, to relate this rise directly to growth in the labor market for translators. In
many situations, translator training has grown for reasons more convincingly associated with the
dominance of international English, notably in order to employ teachers of languages other than English
(cf. Pym 2000a for the case of Spain).


􀂃 The real and tragic decline in the number and diversity of the world’s living
languages probably has more to do with urbanization. The same technologies that
restructure transaction costs also bring people in from plains and down from
mountains, in a way that is not easily reversible by means of mere communication.


􀂃 Globalization, in our technological sense, mostly affects the discourses where the
technology for cross-cultural transport and communication is actually used. Many
parts of our lives are not subject to it in any radical way; our loves, hates and dreams
often proceed virtually untouched, as do local and national politics, for example.
Globalization is by no means the only narrative in town. As Brian Mossop correctly
pointed out at the Halifax conference, state-financed translations across Canada’s
official bilingualism are affected by technology and transaction costs, yet they by no
means conform to general models of globalization. Other histories are also working
themselves out. Globalization is not global, nor need it be.


􀂃 Those discourses that are affected quite probably change much more than the simple
quantities would suggest. The production of technology and global services moves
the very places from which discourses are initiated and elaborated. And that, above
all, is what we have to try to understand and explain.


These objections should produce a slightly more complex view. Globalization is
neither the friend nor the foe of translation. It is quite simply changing many of the
situations in which translation is called upon to operate. And it is doing so on a
technological level that involves elements of irreversibility. Translation scholars should
be able to grasp and respond to that process.


How is it that the numbers of translations might increase at the same time as the use
of English triumphs and many languages are forced into twilight? This is what I have
elsewhere termed the “diversity paradox”. By rights, the rise of the lingua franca should
be reducing cultural diversity, whereas the use of translation should be maintaining the
same diversity. So how can the two processes occur at the same time? How exactly
could globalization lead both to an international lingua franca and to a rise in the market
for translations?


The answer to this must lie in the increasing differences between the economic
categories of production and distribution.


The effect of globalization on production can broadly be seen as an extension of
Ricardan trade, creating centers of international specialization. Portugal was (and still
is) good at producing wine; Britain was better (at that time) at manufacturing cloth, so it
was theoretically preferable for each to specialize and for systematic trade to result.
Globalization, promoting quantitative increase in international trade, should allow
further specialization of this kind, and thus greater regional diversity. Any neo-classical
economist will tell you that international trade promotes specialization, not global
homogeneity. There is much evidence in support of that view. We tend not to complain
about globalization when our port comes from Porto, our scotch from Scotland, our
films from Hollywood or Bollywood or Cairo, our suits from Italy, our software
programs from the west coast of the United States, or indeed our software localization
from Ireland. Regional specialization is not hard to find; it would be much harder to
argue that globalization allows everything to be produced everywhere.


This diversity-through-trade argument should probably help us explain why
translation is still very necessary. Products have to be moved from the specialized
places in which they are produced; their information thus has to cross linguistic and
cultural borders; documents have to be translated.


Much as Ricardan economics was good for the early nineteenth century, it requires
adaptation before it can say much about our own situation. Let us suggest three
modifications:


􀂃 The main point to add is quite obvious. The regional diversity gained on the level of
trade is progressively lost on the level of distribution. One consequence of
specialized production is greater homogeneity in consumption. Economists tend to
privilege production (as indeed do linguists); cultural critics are usually more
worried about the globalization of distribution. The main point is that the regional
configurations of the two levels are now remarkably different. How does this
concern translation? For a start, the cultural distances between the points of
production and consumption have been stretched to extremes, requiring enormous
amounts of communication, some of which is translational.


􀂃 The second point should also be easy enough. Few of the classical theories
envisaged the places of production and consumption as being anything other than
nation states or regions, where internal cultural diversity would not disturb the boxes
where the statistics sat. As our few anecdotal examples should indicate, that is no
longer the case. Production is usually specialized on a scale smaller than the nation
state (except for small states like the Caribbean island of Grenada, which is the
world’s second largest exporter of nutmeg). We tend to talk about a productive
focus defined by local geographies or, in the case of technological production, the
human and financial resources networked in cities. Production is eminently local,
often surprisingly so. It develops centers of specialization in the very face of
political calls for decentralization, and despite the technological possibilities for a
more international networking of the relations of production. In the age of
globalization, production is certainly not global in any homogenizing sense. People
still need to see each other from time to time, to inhabit the same air, to partake of a
localized production culture. What does this have to do with translation? Well, for
instance, why is it that the translators working exclusively by internet struggle to
find clients and must fight to keep them? Why do translators themselves form
companies where they can meet with each other face to face? Indeed, in the age of
electronic communication we have the largest centralized translation bureau in the
world, in Brussels-Luxembourg (admittedly split in shameless lip-service to
decentralization, and with a wide dispersed fringe of freelancers). Such nodes tend
to be located near the centers of production (in the case of Brussels let us allow that
political decisions are produced). In all of this, the human values of contact have
much to say, particularly in view of the key role played by trust in the translator’s
interpersonal relations. Yet there is still more.


􀂃 Perhaps the main modification to be made to Ricardan diversity-through-trade is
that language and communication technologies must now be seen as integral parts of
the means of production. When the wine had to flow to Britain and the cloth had to
unfold in Portugal, some kind of English-Portuguese translation was theoretically
needed for the contact situation. The language interface was a minor transaction cost
that had to be covered by the benefits of trade. However, once we are actually
producing language and communication (as does the Brussels eurocracy, for
example), language and communication technologies start to configure the very
places of production. Such places need not correspond to the presumed primacy of
nation states, regions, or anything other than the relations of production themselves.
For Ricardan economics, port wine is produced in Portugal because that is where
they do it for the least expenditure of labor. On the other hand, much computer
programming tends to be done in technical varieties of English because that is the
language most adapted to the task, no matter where the actual production is carried
out. In the latter case, which is the kind of globalization most in tune with an
electronic age, language and communication help form the place of production.
People become increasingly able to participate in relations of production
independently of the cultures and languages that they previously had, and
independently of the culture and language operative in the country where they work.
The move from the first model (language and communication as additional trade
costs) to the second (language and communication as forming relations of
production) may be of little importance in many fields. Yet it assumes radical
proportions in the domains of production most affected by technology, particularly
communications technology. After all, those are the fields where the decrease in
transaction costs has most impact.


The important point about the revised model, the one where language and
communication actually enter the relations of production, is that the configuration of
production can be radically different from the tendency to homogenization operative on
the level of distribution.


Only that revised model can really explain the prolonged vitality of translation. Only
that model can see languages as playing one role in production and quite another in
distribution. To put it in a reductive nutshell, the lingua franca plays its global role as a
factor of production, whereas translation plays its marketing role as a tool of
distribution. On this view, translation into the languages of production should be
fundamentally different, in general, from translation from those languages. And that
asymmetry is so basic and so powerful that little resistance seems called for.
To tell the same story again:


Let us suppose that the economies of globalization centralize production in the fields
most affected by technology. In those fields, knowledge is increasingly produced and
circulated in the lingua franca. We know that major multinationals use English as their
default language, even when they have been set up in Germany or Finland. The
technical discourses thus produced in English circulate among the productive locales in
English, reaching the knowledge community wherever it may exist, without need of
translation. In this respect, international English would be operating like the
international Latin of the medieval period, facilitating numerous exchanges and
potentially democratizing the production of knowledge. If you want to do science, you
learn English, just as all scholars once had to learn Latin. This is not necessarily a bad
thing. Nor, obviously, is it an entirely new phenomenon.


Within those spheres of production, translation tends to play a marginal role. For
example, scholars with weak English may seek to have their papers published in that
language and will require translation accordingly. Yet even that role is diminishing. The
translator working from, say, Catalan into English would now more probably be called
upon to revise the Catalan scientist’s draft already written in English. To do so is simply
more efficient, given that the specialist is more in command of the technical discourse
in English than is the generalist translator. Thanks to the same logic, we find that the
English section of the European Commission’s Translation Service is becoming a group
of scribes, official rewriters, rather than translators in any strict language-meetslanguage
sense.


The picture is quite different if we now consider the linguistic demands operative in
the distribution of products. Globalization moves things, trade increases, and
innumerable products reach consumers who do not share the language and culture of the
producers. Here we find that translation is not only increasing, but that it is changing its
key concepts. In the industries most given to marketing in local languages, the reigning
concept tends to be “localization” (loosely seen as translation plus cultural adaptation).
More important than the names, however, are a few key changes in discursive
production:


􀂃 Whereas translation is still thought of in terms of language-meets-language
situations, where is it meaningful to talk about “source” and “target”, globalized
distribution operates on the basis of one-to-many, which is a fundamentally different
geometry. We find centralized production of the one “internationalized” text or
product, which is then more efficiently “localized” (translated and adapted) to a
wide range of consumer environments (“locales”).


􀂃 In the one-to-many scenario, time becomes an essential feature of discursive success
conditions. This can be seen in the ideals of the simultaneous shipment of new
products, where a translation may be correct but is not operative if it arrives late. It
is also a feature of translation services in multilingual bureaucracies.


􀂃 The sheer size of most one-to-many communication projects means there is an
increase in the hierarchical control and standardization of translation. “Localization”
ideally means translation plus adaptation, but these two aspects are increasingly
separated. The various memory programs and localization tools restrict the
translator’s decisions, returning us to the paradigm of phrase-level equivalence, and
leaving adaptation to specialists in marketing.


The basic geometry of the one-into-many by no means covers all translation
situations. It nevertheless successfully accounts for the diversity paradox, in ways that
translation between source and target cannot. In the fields most subject to globalization,
translation into English is thus significantly different, in its power relations if nothing
else, from localization from English. This is a major change that Translation Studies has
been very late in perceiving; our discipline is still largely reluctant to convert it into
properly theoretical concepts.


The discourse of localization has come from the industry itself, most notably from
the fields of software, marketing and international information services. Translation
Studies has tended not to see those changes, even though the importance of one-tomany
geometries has been recognized for quite some time (cf. Lambert 1989). This is
perhaps because our sights have more traditionally been set on the prestigious
international organizations where translation is thought of in more traditional ways.
Entities like the United Nations and the European Union depend on translation for their
very functioning, and do so according to a model of ideally symmetrical rights for
official languages. In that world, the language-meets-language model is still supposed to
work, even when the technologies and economies say otherwise. The legal fictions of
those organizations are also extremely convenient for many of the ideologies that
circulate in Translation Studies, most notably for the binary models we use for the act of
translation itself. Nor are the models limited to just a few high-profile organizations.
There are more than 5,000 intergovernmental organizations operative in today’s world
(see the annual Yearbook of International Organizations); most of them adopt some
kind of bilingual or multilingual policy, if only to please the governments they depend
on. (Note, though, that there are almost five times as many international nongovernmental
organizations, whose main preference is for the relative efficiencies of
monolingualism.)


This situation suggests that Translation Studies has some kind of intuitive interest in
certain models of translation and not in others. Perhaps more exactly, Translation
Studies has a certain allegiance to situations and organizations in which translation
reigns supreme, without subordination to lingua francas, language learning, or tight
budgetary constraints on communications. This makes a certain sense, since we are
talking about people who do choose to study translation rather than economics or
general communication (this paper is obviously written from the perspective of the
latter). It also makes a kind of intuitive sense when we witness the relative ease with
which the cross-cultural ethical ideals of a Berman or a Venuti, for example, are
accepted within the research community as being beyond reproach. Few feel any need
to calculate their ideals in economic terms, to relate them to technological history, or
even to question the facile their assumptions of source vs. target.


Our purpose here is not to pull apart that political correctness, nor to propose our
own. We are instead intrigued by the possibility that, perhaps without knowing it, and
despite all our internal divisions, the very idea of Translation Studies presupposes
adherence to certain fundamental principles. Those would be the principles that are
easily accepted when formulated; they would be the ones considered too evident to
challenge. Such principles would surely be the basis for some kind of political identity.
They could also constitute a fundamental reason for our general failure to conceptualize
the consequences of globalization, particularly the one-to-many geometry and the ways
in which the patterns of production and distribution have diverged. Translation Studies
struggles to perceive the contexts in which its own politics are developed.


The Political


Let us suppose, for the sake of an argument, that there are people who work in the
overlaps of cultures. This does not mean these people are somehow without culture, nor
that they are in any way universal, nor at an ideal mid-point, nor immobile, without
allegiances, nor any such pap. These are simply people whose professions require that
they know and operate in more than one culture at once. Further, the people we are
particularly interested in know and operate on exchanges between cultures. These are
the people who move things across language boundaries, who negotiate treaties, who
produce our transnational news and entertainment, who surround our lives with a
million products received in cultures different to the ones they were produced in. Such
would be the people of professional intercultures: translators, diplomats, traders,
negotiators, technicians manipulating complex codes, when and wherever products and
their texts cross cultural boundaries.


Such people exist. You and I might even be among their number, as might our
multilingual students. The question here is not just who we are, but what we stand for
and how we should act. Those aspects can scarcely be separated.
What does it mean to act politically? On the face it, the phrase would involve actions
influencing relations between people, particularly the loyalties and alliances that form
power and direct its flows. The political pronoun is certainly “we”, variously inclusive
or exclusive. To act politically, in the intercultural field, could thus mean siding with
one culture or the other, or with one aspect of a culture against another, to some degree
or another, for one reason or another. I have suggested elsewhere that there are ethical
ways of thinking about such acts, without assuming allegiance by birthright or pay-role.
It is enough for the intercultural subject to seek long-term cooperation between cultures,
or to start reasoning from there (cf. Pym 2000b). Although sweepingly general, this
precept is not adequate to all occasions. How, for instance, should it be applied to
problems where what is at stake is the identity of Translation Studies, the constitution of
our own intercultural “we”?


Where, for example, do “we” stand with respect to globalization? Our research
community, perhaps a few hundred people, possibly with several hundred more looking
on, is surely too small to seek comparison. Our professional intercultures only loosely
resemble those in which production is now specialized; our key productive locations are
only in some cases next to centers of capitalist production. Thanks in part to academic
distance, we do not particularly follow the orders or either production or distribution.
That is certainly one of the reasons why we fail to keep abreast of the way those
systems are developing. It is perhaps also why we tend to maintain allegiance to the
ideals of former models, believing in translation even when production systems have no
great need of it. At the same time, that academic distance might also be why we risk
having little of currency to say, or too little power for our voice to be heard.
One can only test those hypotheses on the basis of concrete situations. Here we will
briefly consider three cases in which our politics meet globalization, and the ways in
which our political configuration might respond.


Empires


Translation Studies tends to be proportionally strong in the smaller cultures where
translation plays a quantitatively significant role (here we are thinking of cases like
Belgium, Holland, Israel, Finland, Catalonia, Galicia, Quebec). This is no rule, but it
helps explain why our perspectives often concern the defense of minority cultures, the
use of general models of cultural alterity, and a certain intuitive focus on distribution
rather than production (cf. the target-side epistemologies of Descriptive Translation
Studies). A worrying correlative of this is the relative weakness of Translation Studies
in the larger monolingual countries where political power tends to accrue, most notably
in the United States. We might thus venture that Translation Studies tends to form its
intercultures in situations where alterity is already operative as a feature of distribution.
That would be where its politics develop. That is also the place from where one looks at
production systems, at the centralized intercultures where English reigns, and feigns to
find the enemy of translation.


As we have argued, that vision is short-sighted. It confuses the technological with the
political. What it tends to see, instead of globalization, is politics of a hyperpower that
has unusually limited awareness of cultural minorities, supranational organizations, or
virtually any of the things that translation might stand for. More specifically, in recent
months the United States of George W. Bush has virtually done away with any pretense
to international law. Treaties have been revoked, wars have been initiated on the
weakest of excuses, international human-rights conventions are violated on a daily
basis, international courts are seen as fine ideas only for as long as no US citizen will be
subject to them. Translation serves the institutions that are thus being flouted. When
right is decided unilaterally, without need for consultation or negotiation, or when the
consultations and negotiations are simply ignored because they do not reach the right
conclusion, then the need for translation is obviated and our object of study will indeed
serve no purpose. This is what is to be resisted. But it is not to be mapped onto the
inevitabilities of globalization.


To be even more blunt: In our small academic political acts, we have before us at
least two possible models of postmodern empire. One, in Europe, incorporates
translation into its very principles. The other, in the United States, ignores many of the
virtues to which translation might hope to contribute. The first kind of empire gains
admirable flexibility and stability, just as its weak identity makes it unsuited to any riskridden
action in the world. The second kind of empire has the unity and force needed for
action, yet sadly misunderstands the diversity of human cultures.


What should Translation Studies be doing in such a situation? Within Europe, much
work is needed to improve efficiencies and to find ways to combine translation with the
use of lingua francas, transcending the jealousies of the nation states. Our key task,
however, should be with respect to the more powerful empire, the United States. In that
latter context, translation has remained virtually excluded from the agenda of critical
studies; it is a straggler in the league of cultural studies; it is attached as an adjunct to
training in interpreting or occasionally as an application of literary studies; there is
lamentably little connection with anything like the global configuration of cultures;
much as all scholars in the humanities have an opinion on translation; very few
approach it an as object of study. Sincere praise should be given to the Americans who
have fought against this tendency: Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Lawrence Venuti, Douglas
Robinson, Edwin Gentzler, Maria Tymoczko, to name a few of the most prominent. Yet
they remain isolated voices, in what seems a sea of indifference and incomprehension.
They should not, I hope, be isolated as merely American voices. The search for a greater
voice within the institutions of the United States should be a task for our wider identity,
not just for the repetition of national divisions.


What is to be done? Publish and speak in the United States, no matter where you are
from.


An association


Perhaps the clearest sign of our décalage with respect to globalization is the extent to
which Translation Studies remains organized along national lines. Our academic
discipline has generally ridden on the back of translator-training institutions, either
directly or indirectly, and those institutions mostly operate within national education
systems. Even beyond the concerns of translator training, however, the political
organization of Translation Studies has largely been oriented along national lines. The
Canadian Association of Translation Studies might be an example of this, as could
similar associations in the United States, Brazil and Japan (for interpreting). There are
also associations that run across national boundaries, as in the European Society for
Translation Studies and the Iberian association that brings together Spain and Portugal.
But why should all these associations have remained geopolitically national or regional?
One could argue that the problems of translation are fundamentally different in
different geopolitical contexts. The official bilingualism of Canada creates a highly
specific field that wholly justifies a certain approach to translation, along with a certain
restriction to French and English. In Europe, the future of translation is undoubtedly
marked by the language practices (there is no communication policy) of the European
Union, which creates a series of quite different problems. The justification for the
Iberian association is a little harder to fathom, although it might legitimately spring
from a sense of being excluded by other European discourses on translation. The
education systems are still organized along national lines; national governments still
have language and communication policies that we might be able to inform; there are
still national and regional subsidies to apply for. There is thus still a level at which
certain translation problems, particularly with respect to professional status, require a
nationally based approach. If one looks hard enough, one can find reasons for a certain
political organization along geo-political lines. Indeed, I would personally like to see
more work along more local lines, with what anthropologists call local knowledge, and
a little less adulation of the international stars of Translation Studies
On the other hand, despite those very good reasons for organizing Translation
Studies on a regional basis, the actual studies produced tend not to reflect any particular
geopolitical bias. Publications like Meta, TTR, or Target are different not because of
where they are printed but because of the academic preferences of individuals. Some
journals want to be closer to practice, others more empirical, and still others cherish the
legacy of linguistics. The same authors tend to appear in all; much the same
methodologies are used, regardless of the regional context. No matter how much the
actual problems of translation might depend on national contexts, the problems of
Translation Studies would seem to be rather more global.


This is as it should be. As professional associations, we tend to come together not
because we are similar in any iconic or legalistic way (with regard to race, language,
citizenship or whatever) but precisely because we are of diverse provenance, each
bringing different expertise and experience with regard to languages, cultures, and
research methodologies. That is what intercultures are all about. We need those
differences not just because of our declared status as an interdiscipline but more
especially by virtue of the nature of translation itself, which assumes knowledge of a
cultural other. As an academic discipline, we are given to straddling cultural borders,
engaging our dialogues beyond the national, constructing our own particular forms
interculturality. Further, thanks to our academic non-conformity with globalization,
those general principles have no reason to be restricted to the centers of production. Our
intercultures could and should embrace interested scholars from all cultures, no matter
how small or far-flung, or rather, particularly from those that work in minority
situations and struggle against geophysical distance. For those reasons, our professional
associations should be operating at a global level, in addition to the work they do at the
national and regional levels.


There is no excuse for the absence of a truly international association of Translation
Studies. This could be achieved either by federating the existing national and regional
associations or, more laboriously and divisively, by starting a new association to which
individuals can subscribe directly.


What is to be done? Found a viable international association.


A boycott


Here is another political act that worries me. I am asked to sign a petition calling for the
boycott of “research and cultural” links with citizens of a particular country. That
country has acted illegally, inhumanely, atrociously, as far as I can tell. So too has the
country I was born in. And even worse is the colonial record of the country whose
passport I now carry. The petition asks me to identify researchers and artists with the
state they work within. To act politically would be to make this identification, in the
hope that they will then pressure that state from within, or something like that.
Unfortunately, not signing the petition is denied status as a political act; no one has
invited me to sign a document expressing solidarity with all those who condemn their
state’s actions. This one-sidedness is the first reason for considering the act a problem.
How many alternatives does the political act give us?


Here is yet another political act that worries me. The editor of the journal The
Translator has dismissed members from the editorial board because of the country their
universities are in, using the same general reasoning as above. In this case, though, the
one-sidedness is not as much a problem, since there has been much discussion of the act
within Translation Studies.


Here we see that the national principle can be used not only to organize Translation
Studies, as has so far been the case in our organizations, but also to exclude some
translation scholars (indeed, to boycott a peace activist). This is nationalism in reverse,
escalated to strict totalitarianism (the nation-state is everything). It runs counter to the
interests of Translation Studies on almost every level imaginable. It divides the
international research community; it does so with respect to issues that do not concern
translation; it cannot lead to any increased cooperation between cultures.
Such historical tests are nevertheless instructive. They sometimes allow us to
discover the principles that we did not know we had. The almost general rejection of
that nationalist exclusion should be seen as a reaction not just against something that is
felt to be wrong, but as an affirmation of what is instinctively right: the international
community of scholars working together to solve the problems of their field. Thus
might we have discovered that our professional relations are more important than our
passports or personal opinions about foreign states. We should have found that the
interdiscipline requires dialogue across real difference, rather than the imposition of
political certitude. In short, we should be led to some kind of untheorized awareness of
our status as an interculture, as a community that operates beyond the primary
allegiances of birthright, employment, or party politics.


To be sure, awareness of those fundamental principles has been obscured by the
inept way in which this debate was initiated, with arguments fit more for the glassyeyed
convictions of an English pub. The issue, for me, was long clouded by barrages of
insulting email from various pressure groups, demonstrating the power of manipulated
opinion. It has more recently been complicated by occasional insults being thrown at the
intellectual community for its failure to support the boycott. The disparaging tone of
those asides indicates not only real and justified despair, but a severe misunderstanding
of how an intercultural community of scholars works. In the western tradition, our
interculturality dates at least from the mobile intellectuals of the twelfth century, when
study already required a year abroad and Latin enabled communication between ideas of
very different provenance. That tradition borrowed from the Islamic system of colleges,
dating from the eighth century; it has consistently survived attempts to locate
intellectuals at national courts or to have universities work exclusively for nation states.
Our academic distance has been very hard-won in political terms. Our institutions are
considerably older and wider than most nation states. They will certainly outlive the
outrageous injustices of our day. They are not easily dismissed. Their own particular
interculturality is worth preserving.


That kind of intellectual community carries the weight of history, if nothing else.
Thanks to its principles, there can be no excuse for the collective exclusion of scholars
simply by virtue of their national affiliation. Further, there are good arguments,
embedded in the very nature of an intercultural community of scholars, for collectively
excluding those who seek to impose such measures.


Our own globalization requires at least that ethical stance. There is a final irony,
however, in the more recent avatar of the debate. Those who would apply an exclusive
nationalism are now, in a classical fuite en avant, initiating moves for an International
Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies. Their model would be based on
individual membership, effectively setting up a structure parallel to the existing national
and regional associations. What becomes of that initiative remains to be seen. It
certainly aims to fill a very real gap, encouraging Translation Studies in countries where
the discipline is incipient or still weak. However, there are various ways of building
Babel, and nationalist exclusion is not the best of them, not even when concealed within
a very necessary gesture to global inclusion.


At the Halifax conference I proposed that our politics required our own
institutionalized globalization, and that the alternatives should be explored. The neatest
solution would be for the existing associations and societies to join, en bloc, the
incipient international association. Failing that, one should test the possibilities of a
federation, along the lines of the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs or the
International Comparative Literature Association. Or we could do nothing, and let
people vote with their subscription dues. Any action should, however, embrace an
inclusive globalization of our intellectual efforts, if indeed we can formulate the
principles worth defending.


References


Ganne, Valérie, and Marc Minon (1992): “Géographies de la traduction”, Françoise
Barret-Ducrocq, ed., Traduire l’Europe, Paris, Payot, pp. 55-95.
Gouadec, Daniel (2002): Profession: Traducteur. Paris: La Maison du Dictionnaire.
Lambert, José (1989): “La traduction, les langues et la communication de masse. Les
ambiguïtés du discours international”, Target1(2), pp. 215-237.
Pym, Anthony (2000a): Negotiating the Frontier: Translators and Intercultures in
Hispanic History, Manchester, St Jerome Publishing.
Pym, Anthony (2000b): “On Cooperation”, Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models
in Translation Studies I: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, Maeve Olohan, ed.
Manchester, St Jerome Publishing, pp. 181-192
Ricardo, David (1821): On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, third
edition (first published 1817), London, John Murray.
Venuti, Lawrence (1995): The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation,
London and New York, Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence (1998): The Scandals of Translation, London and New York,
Routledge.

Glossary of terms used by translators and interpreters

A language

The interpreter’s dominant language, into which he or she is competent to interpret professionally. Usually, but not always, this is the interpreter’s native language.



Accreditation

A formal process for evaluating the competence of a translator, which may include examinations, a review of education and experience, etc., conducted by a professional association, such as the American Translators Association.



Accredited translator

A translator who has received accreditation from a professional association, such as the American Translators Association.



Acoustic insulation

A measure of the amount of noise transmitted from a conference room to an interpretation booth, from an interpretation booth to a conference room, and from one interpretation booth to another adjacent booth.

The difference in sound pressure levels between an interpretation booth and the room where it is set up, or between two adjacent booths. The sound pressure levels are measured in octave bands, both in the booths and the room.



Active languages

(1) The language or languages into which an interpreter is competent to interpret professionally.

(2) The term is also used in meetings & conventions to mean the target languages into which interpreting is provided. For example, in a convention where all presentations are to be given in English and interpretation is provided into Spanish, French, and Russian, these three would be the active languages, while English would be the passive language.



Advertising translator

Although there are translators and companies that specialize in translating advertisements, the practice is not recommended. Advertising should not be translated, but rather adapted to the target language.



Audience

Strictly speaking, in a meeting or convention, it refers to the listeners, or end users of an interpretation. However, it is commonly also used to refer to the readership, or end users, of a translation.



Audiovisual company

A company that provides audiovisual equipment for meetings, conventions, and special events. Some of these companies may also rent interpretation equipment as a sideline. Since their main business is not interpretation, they neither have the expertise required to design the best simultaneous interpretation configuration, nor the best equipment for every job.



B language

Language other than the interpreter's dominant language, in which he or she has native language competence and into which he or she is competent to interpret professionally. An interpreter may have one or more B languages.



Back translation

A translation of a translation. It is a common misconception that the quality of a translation can be judged by having a second translator translate a translated text back into its source language. In fact, the opposite is true; the worse the translation, the closer the back translation will adhere to the original. The reason for this is that a bad translation normally follows very closely the wording of the original, but not the meaning. The best examples of this are the word-for-word translations produced by the different online machine translation tools, such as Babel Fish.



Background information

Documentation relating to the subject matter of the source text for a translation (articles, books, manuals, etc. written on the subject), or the topic of discussion for an interpretation (copies of speeches from previous or similar conferences, etc.) Translators and interpreters need to make use of a great deal of background information in order to produce acceptable work.



Bid

The translation of a bid is a complex process and must be managed as a multipart translation. Bids are typically made up of a technical bid (which requires a technical translator), a financial bid (financial translator), as well as a contract and pertinent legislation (legal translator).



Booth

Interpretation booths are divided into fixed, which are built into some conference rooms, and mobile, which are set up and dismantled wherever needed, typically in hotels and convention centers. There can be huge differences in the quality of mobile booths. While some companies do have booths that comply with ISO 4043, often what passes for a booth is nothing more than a flimsy shield that affords almost no sound insulation.



Broker

A translation or interpretation broker is a person that is not a qualified translator or interpreter and acts as middleman between freelancers, interpretation equipment companies, and clients. Usually, they "source out" freelance translators and interpreters from the many online directories and pay bottom dollar for their services, while charging the client as much as, or more than, a reputable translation company would.



C language

The source languages from which an interpreter is competent to interpret professionally. Interpreters may have several C languages.



Certified court interpreter

A person who has passed an examination to assess competency to interpret during court proceedings. In the US, although the requirements for certification of court interpreters vary according to the jurisdiction, they generally do not demand a high level of competence.

Not to be confused with a legal interpreter, who is a highly qualified simultaneous interpreter with knowledge of comparative law and the legal systems of civil law countries and common law countries.

See also Federally Certified Court Interpreters.



Certified interpreter

In the US, there is no national interpreter certification program (other than for Federally Certified Court Interpreters), although various agencies attempt certification procedures, with varying degrees of success.



Certified translation

In the US, a certified translation is one where the translator has signed an oath before a notary public certifying the accuracy and correctness of the translation, as well as the fact that he is qualified to make such a certification.

Since in the US, there are no restrictions as to who can or cannot be a translator, anyone willing to swear that he or she is qualified to translate into and from a language pair can certify a translation.



Certified translator

There is no such thing, contrary to the claims made by countless "certified translators" who advertise on the web and the yellow pages, as there is no official certification program for translators in the US. Next time someone claims to be a "certified translator," ask who certified him.



Civil law countries

Countries where all law is created by the enactment of legislatures, as opposed to England and the United States (common law countries), where case law and precedents are an integral part of the legal system.

It takes a highly skilled legal translator to translate legal documents from a civil law country into the language of a common law country and vice versa, since many of the legal concepts do not have exact parallels.



Common law countries

England and the United States, where case law and precedents are an integral part of the legal system, as opposed to civil law countries.

It takes a highly skilled legal translator to translate legal documents from a civil law country into the language of a common law country and vice versa, since many of the legal concepts do not have exact parallels.



Computer Translation

Another term for machine translation. For more on this topic, see How Well Does Computer Translation Work?



Computer-aided translation

Another term for computer-assisted translation.



Computer-assisted translation

Translation using software that manages dictionaries and user-defined glossaries. When the program encounters previously translated words and phrases, it suggests a translation and the translator decides whether to accept or reject it.



Conference interpretation

Interpretation (oral translation of a speech) during a conference or convention. Although most conference interpretation is simultaneous interpretation, the two terms are not synonymous. Sometimes conferences may also involve consecutive interpretation.



Conference interpreter

An interpreter trained, knowledgeable, and experienced in conference interpretation.



Conference translator

A person who translates written text intended for use during a conference, or generated during a conference (such as conference proceedings, etc.) Sometimes the term is erroneously applied to a conference interpreter.



Confidentiality

For translators and interpreters, professional confidentiality is absolute. It goes into effect the moment the translator or interpreter is given access to the client's information and remains in effect until his or her death. It applies in all cases, with no exceptions. Some countries have laws granting client-translator and client-interpreter confidentiality the same status as is enjoyed by physicians and lawyers.



Consecutive interpretation

Oral translation of speech into another language, after the speaker speaks. The interpreter takes notes while the speaker talks and then delivers the interpretation while the speaker is silent. No equipment is used. Often used in business meetings, negotiations, and press conferences.



Consecutive interpreter

An interpreter who listens while the speaker speaks and then interprets while the speaker pauses. The interpreter providing consecutive interpretation sits, either at the same table as the speaker, or at separate table, and speaks, either into the same microphone, or a separate microphone, so that everyone in the room can hear. The interpreter may take notes while he or she listens.



Consecutive interpreting

The process of orally translating speech into another language, after the speaker speaks. The interpreter listens and takes notes while the speaker talks and then delivers the interpretation while the speaker is silent. No equipment is used. Often used in business meetings, negotiations, and press conferences.



Content

Language conveys meaning through both, form and content, and they must both be transferred into parallel and equivalent language in order to produce a translation.



Convention interpreter

A term sometimes erroneously used to refer to conference interpreters. One of the Red Flags & Warning Bells that your supplier is not as knowledgeable as he ought to be.



Convention translator

A term sometimes erroneously used to refer to conference translators, or even conference interpreters. One of the Red Flags & Warning Bells that your supplier is not as knowledgeable as he ought to be.



Court interpretation

The process of providing interpretation in a court setting or during court-related proceedings, such as depositions.



Court interpreter

Interpreter who provides interpretation in a court setting or during court-related proceedings, such as depositions. Court interpreters usually work for county, state, and federal courts, but may also work for attorneys.

Not to be confused with legal interpreters, who typically provide interpretation for continuing legal education and bar association conferences, and have a much higher level of competence.