Pretending to be a translator

What is a translator? Who is a translator? Many of us who have been calling ourselves translators for years originally had no plans to enter that particular profession, and may even have done numerous translations for pay before beginning to describe ourselves as translators. Is there a significant difference between "translating" and "being a translator"? How does one become a translator? This is a question often asked in on-line translator discussion groups. Usually the asker possesses significant foreign-language skills, has lived (or is living) abroad, and has heard that translating might be a potential job opportunity.

The easiest answer is: experience. A translator has professional experience; a novice doesn't. As a result, a translator talks like a translator; a novice doesn't. A translator has certain professional assumptions about how the work is done that infuse everything s/he says; because a novice doesn't yet have those assumptions, s/he often says things that sound silly to translators, like "I can't afford to buy my own computer, but I have a friend who'll let me work on hers any time I want." (In the middle of the night? When she's throwing a party? Does she have a recent version of major word-processing software, a late-model fax/modem, and an e-mail account?) And this answer would be almost entirely true. Translators sound like translators because they have experience in the job. The problem with the answer is that it doesn't allow for the novice-to-translator transition: to get translation experience, you have to sound credible enough (professional enough) on the phone for an agency or client to entrust a job to you. How do you do that without translation experience? One solution: enter a translator training program. One of the greatest offerings that such programs provide students is a sense of what it means to be a professional. Unfortunately, this is not always taught in class, and has to be picked up by paying attention to how the teachers talk about the profession, how they present themselves as professionals. Some programs offer internships that smooth the transition into the profession. Even then, however, the individual translator-novice has to make the transition in his or her own head, own speech, own life. Even with guidance from teachers and/or working professionals in the field, at some point the student/intern must begin to present himself or herself as a professional - and that always involves a certain amount of pretense:

"Can you e-mail it to us as an.rtf attachment by Friday?"

"Yes, sure, no problem. Maybe even by Thursday."

You've never sent an attachment before, you don't know what.rtf stands for (rich text format), but you've got until Friday to find out. Today, Tuesday, you don't say "What's an attachment?" You promise to e-mail it to them as an.rtf attachment, and immediately rush out to find someone to teach you how to do it.

"What's your rate?"

"It depends on the difficulty of the text. Could you fax it to me first, so I can look it over? I'll call you right back."

It's your first real job and you suddenly realize you have no idea how much people charge for this work. You've got a half hour or so before the agency or client begins growing impatient, waiting for your phone call; you wait for the fax to arrive and then get on the phone and call a translator you know to ask about rates. When you call back, you sound professional.

Of course, this scenario requires that you know that it is standard practice to fax source texts to translators, and for translators to have a chance to look them over before agreeing to do the job. If you don't know that, you have no way of stalling for time, and have to say, "Uh, well, I don't know. What do you usually pay?" This isn't necessarily a disastrous thing to say; agencies depend on freelancers for their livelihood, and part of that job involves helping new translators get started. Especially if you can translate in a relatively exotic language combination in which it is difficult to find topnotch professionals, the agency may be quite patient with your inexperience. And most agencies — even direct clients — are ethical enough not to quote you some absurdly low rate and thus take advantage of your ignorance. But if your language combination is one of the most common, and they've only called you because their six regular freelancers in that combination are all busy, this is your chance to break in; and sounding like a rank beginner is not an effective way to do that.

So you pretend to be an experienced translator. To put it somewhat simplistically, you become a translator by pretending to be one already. It should be obvious that the more knowledge you have about how the profession works, the easier it will be to pretend successfully; hence the importance of studying the profession, researching it, whether in classrooms or by reading books and articles. And every time you pretend successfully, that very success will give you increased knowledge that will make the "pretense" or abductive leap easier the next time. Note, however, that the need to "pretend" to be a translator in some sense never really goes away. Even the most experienced translators frequently have to make snap decisions based on inadequate knowledge; no one ever knows enough to act with full professional competence in every situation.

The main difference between an experienced translator and a novice may ultimately be, in fact, that the experienced translator has a better sense of when it is all right to admit ignorance — when saying "1 don't know, let me check into that," or even "I don't know, what do you think?", is not only acceptable without loss of face, but a sign of professionalism.

Translate the following sentences paying attention to modality paying special attention to the construction “modal verb + have done” and Infinitival constructions and complexes (in italics):

1. When father gave me the money and tried to talk me out of the thought of marriage, I would not listen.

2. She offended people right and left, made silly mistakes and wouldn’t let herself be told.

3. “What’s happened to sister Agatha?” I asked my nurse when she came in. — “ Can’t say, ” —“ Won’t say,” I said. No answer. “ We can as well stay here for the night.” — “We could. ”

4. “You are so careless. You might have broken the cup. ”

5. When Mini unleashed her frustration in a rage, demanding an explanation for the way she was being treated, the woman paid no heed, and might well have been deaf and mute.

6. She must not expect to do two jobs well, to be a good mother and a good novelist.

7. Somebody had to be controlled more or less; and I pulled myself together.

8. It was to be expected that something would happen to Sir George. But who could have guessed what?

9. I do not claim I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only claim I know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.

10. “Why do you live in the woods if you belong to the squadron?” the chaplain inquired curiously. “ I have to live in the woods”, the captain replied crabbily, as though the chaplain ought to know.

11. “It’s my fault — it’s my fault!” Doris suddenly sobbed out. “ I shouldn’t have loved you; I oughtn’t to have let you love me.”

12. Lyn Siddon’s case should — and must — increase the gathering momentum for reform.

13. When I was in concentration camp, I resolved that, if I was to live through the horrors of that experience, I would never again shed one tear of regret for whatever Fate gave me.

14. When it has seemed that drinking is becoming too much of a habit I have given it up for a few months — if only to check that one can. One can.

15. Mrs. June Makin woke early to find two burglars carrying her TV set from her home.

16. New steps to fight pollution of rivers have been announced in Wales and Scotland.

17. The boy, believed to have been kidnapped, came home after missing for two days.

18. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization was said to be concerned that many countries had been turning to bread where it had not previously figured in their diet.

19. I woke one morning to find myself famous.

20. Each time the door opened Martin looked round, only to see the Mounteneyes enter, then the Puchweins.

21. The light died down to leave the room darker than before.

22. Yesterday’s Cabinet was the first of a series which are concentrating on deciding the amount of money to be allocated to the various Government departments for the financial year starting in April.

23. When I returned to Berlin, in the autumn of 1932, I duly rang Bernhard up, only to be told that he was away, on business, in Hamburg. (Ch. Isherwood)

24. She was still I felt my anger leave me, to be replaced by an absorbing depression. (А. Мыто)

25. Dozing in his chair, he woke up, stiff and cold, to find himself drained dry, as it were, of every emotion. (A. Huxley)

26. Dick burst into the room, to be received with a hug which nearly cracked his ribs, as Torpenhow dragged him into the light and spoke of twenty different things in the same breath. (R. Kipling)

27. I arrived in town and had a most affecting interview with my mother who only recovered from her swoon at my return to go into hysterics at the beautiful shawls I had brought her. (E. Bulwer-Lytton)

28. British officials have pronounced the IRA dead before, only to have it come back to haunt them. (“Nsw.”)

29. I once travelled over miles of snow-covered roads in search of an isolated farmhouse only to be greeted by a pack of wolfhounds waiting to devour me if I opened my car door. (“IHT”)

30. Since the October War of 1973, Hosni Mubarak has been Anwar Sadat’s most loyal follower. For years he sat in obscurity at his President’s side, quietly taking notes. Henry Kissinger once assumed he was a junior aide, only to learn later that he was the Vice President of Egypt. (“Nsw.”)

31. Susan sought for something nasty to say to Reg. (A. Wilson)

32. “That’s all right,” Wilbourne said. “Two many people have already seen the telegram for it to be private. ” (W. Faulkner)

33. I have treasured the painting ever since. For it to be stolen from me was an extreme shock as it was of great sentimental value. (“G.”) also feel tempted to say that novelists are the only group of people who should write a column. Their interests are large, if shallow, their habits are sufficiently unreliable for them to find something new to say quite often, and in most other respects they are more columnistic than the columnists. (N. Mailer)

34. Community, church and civic organizations offer opportunities for Americans to transcend personal interests in order to see the shining dream of freedom and hope for all America’s people become a complete, unabridged reality. (“IHT” Jan. 8, 91)

35. You went suddenly after lunch, leaving one of your most offensive letters behind with the butler to be handed to me after your departure. (O. Wilde)

36. “Oh, she’s upset all right,” the Judge said with a certain contentment. “But Verena’s not a woman to come down with anything an aspirin could not fix.” (T. Capote)

37. The Chairman of Nottingham Trades Council is to ask his council to vigorously protest that public money is used to condition British people to accept the idea of war through “almost Goebbels-type propaganda.” (“VS,” Oct. 81)

38. Authorities in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state are seeking new uses for the secret bomb shelters built after the Cuban missile crisis. The bunkers, intended for government officials, are air-conditioned and large enough for 120 people to live in. (“IHT,” Jan. 14,93)

39. From the outside, the squat flat-roofed buildings of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology are nothing much to look at. (“G.,” Oct. 1,91)

40. They squat and somehow live on the roofs of their destroyed homes, but in some place there aren’t any roofs to squat on. (“G.,” Sept. 20, 91)

41. “In any event the system of governance in Europe is going to have to change to accommodate the new realities if we are to keep faith with our democracies,” one senior EC Commissioner commented in the European parliament in Strasbourg yesterday. (“G.,” April 8,92)

42. Driving over she passed by Zapf’s Used Books and was alarmed to find a pile of charred rubble where the bookstore only a week ago stood. (T. Pynchon)

43. In those days art critics in London with a knowledge of Australian art were hard to come by. (“T.,” May24,93)

44. In his forthcoming book “The Intellectuals and the Masses”, John Carley, Professor of English at Oxford, makes a devastating case that throughout this century the intellectual elite — people like Forster, Lawrence, Pound, Virginia Woolf, Wyndham Lewis — entertained such a profound fear and revulsion against the masses that they created a culture to exclude them. (“G.”)

Дата добавления: 2015-07-10