It’s an age-old argument, and one which I hear voiced far too frequently among translators. But even so, I must admit to being left more than a little slack-jawed with shock at a letter in the most recent issue (as of May 2007) of the Chartered Institute of Linguist‘s journal, The Linguist.
The writer of this letter (who shall remain nameless) requested that fewer academic articles be included as “the majority of readers will not find them particularly relevant to their working or cultural lives”.
WHAT??!! I may not be a majority all on my own, but I certainly take umbrage with this guy claiming to speak on behalf of the majority of my colleagues.
I sincerely hope that this comment does not go unchallenged in the forthcoming issues of The Linguist. I just can’t believe that a profession which is fighting so hard to be recognised (recent chartered status, industry standards, CEN norms, etc) could allow this kind of ignorance to go unchallenged. Needless to say, the editor has already received my Strongly Worded Response 🙂
Translation theory has very relevant applications in translation practice, and it’s important for any practising translator interested in professional development to keep abreast of developments in academia. Whenever I hear someone claim otherwise, I immediately move them several places down my private “does-this-person-know-what-they-are-talking-about” scale. Granted, I may not immediately grasp of significance of a piece of research, or find a day-to-day application for a theory, but key findings do eventually filter through the layers of the profession and have a direct impact on my working life. So an intelligent but easily readable summary of developments in academia is the very least I would expect from a chartered association claiming to represent professionals.
At the recent ITI Conference in London, Dr Jean-Pierre Mailhac very rightly pointed out that this lack of interest in theory and new developments would be most concerning if demonstrated by practitioners in fields such as medicine or law. Do you feel you would get the best treatment from a doctor who didn’t see the connection between theory and practice? So why should translation be any different?
Do we want to be taken as serious language professionals, or don’t we?
Good point Bela. I agree with you that not every desirable quality can be taught, and common sense is definitely one of the most important (yet not-so-common) traits for any profession or job. However when it comes to translator-specific skills and competences, I’ll have to agree to disagree with you on the relevance of theory. I don’t think competence automatically equals qualifications and diplomas either, but that’s probably an entirely different discussion 🙂
Personally, I see the practical application of theory as a key tool in helping me to understand and strengthen my “translator’s instinct”. I guess this may be what you refer to when you say a translator either has it or doesn’t.
You mention the theory in the journal of the Translators Association: personally, I haven’t found the theory there to be of particular interest to me either, but then I think it is aimed at a readership with a very different set of interests to mine. Translation theory covers a very wide spectrum though, so of course not all of it will be relevant to all kinds of translators. I’d recommend you keep trying other journals, books and articles, depending on your interests. There’s some fascinating stuff out there and it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater…
As for the comments, well, unfortunately the anonymity of the internet leads some people to assume they can use the comment feature to be negative, over-critical and not at all nice… I get plenty of emails from readers who prefer not to be posted publicly for this very reason, which is a real shame. Even within the translation community, the practice of “trolling” is very much alive. I think a request for basic manners is perfectly reasonable and if it makes people think twice before posting, then I don’t think that’s a bad thing. So for now, I’m quite happy with my comments policy but thank you for the feedback.
Thanks again for the comments Bela, and hopefully more people will follow your example and be encouraged to post publicly too!
I have been a translator (English->French) for 35 years. I got my first job when I was still at college in Nice, working on my MA in English Lit. For two years I translated articles in the Neurophysiology Lab at the Faculty of Science in Nice. I then worked as a literary translator in Paris for five years: I translated novels by Isaac Bashevis Singer and books by other famous authors, like Peter Ustinov. I have now been a translator of varied publications in London for 20 years. I am a member of the Translators Association (Society of Authors). I receive their journal regularly but very often don’t read it. Theory is of limited interest to me. Over the years, I have been asked to proofread countless translations done by people with diplomas in translation, and quite a few were abominable. In my opinion, you can either do it or you can’t. I believe the qualities required to be a good translator cannot be taught. Aside from a more than thorough knowledge of one’s mother tongue and of the source language, the most important one is common sense, which cannot be taught.
I don’t see many comments on your blog. You’ve got moderation enabled, why do you need to specify a comment policy? You might get more comments if you removed it: it’s slightly off-putting.