Coursework: Translating for Business
- BusinessCourseworkGames IndustryPortfolio
Intro
My Masters in Translation Studies was useful in a variety of areas, from the conceptual level of what translation is and its effect, to the practical level of how translation is carried out and what tools are available. The course was made in such a way—combining both the theoretical and practical aspects—that it eased the student from the layman’s appreciation of translation to the professional’s. Indeed, even after having studied languages, culture and translation for years beforehand and already having some work experience with translation, my attitude to the art changed significantly throughout the course of my postgraduate studies.
Games Sector
The documents I chose to translate for this coursework were press releases written by “game”, the German Games Industry Association (not to be confused with the UK retailer GAME). Because it made things clearer, I used their German nickname throughout the work and will continue to here: game-Verband (see www.game.de).
I chose these press releases for two reasons. First, my goals at the start of my postgraduate course leaned more toward game localisation (these have since been tempered with a certain degree of pragmatism that pushes me towards gaining skills and experience for financial stability first before going for more creative ambitions), and second, that they were readily available to translate (I would have loved to find a German game with no English translation but with only so much time to find suitable texts, I got what I got. Which, considering that they required me to research Germany’s game’s market as a whole, was quite a lot more than I expected!)
The game-Verband was also quite useful as a target for this exercise as the English blogs that they did release were sporadic, didn’t cover the most important events and news and (if I were to be snobbish) were not of the best quality. So it was not unimaginable that, should they ever decide to make a stronger push towards connecting with the English-speaking side of the market (which is no small side with the gaming and computer tech industries across Europe), that they would want to update and refresh their public-facing pages.
After all, press-releases, although great for sharing news, are typically tools of promotion—to investors, other businesses and to shape one’s public reputation. Similar, let’s say, to a public portfolio… *cough*
Business Translation
The point of this first piece of coursework was, in a way, to show that we understood what being a professional translator meant. The module was aptly titled “Translating for Business” and aimed to familiarise us with how companies and clients might approach and interact with us.
So alongside the chosen texts, we were required to create an imaginary job to complete including a brief (general instructions), the translations themselves, and a commentary, which was to discuss just how we responded to the brief and how the client’s requirements (as well as the situational ones) affected the translation decision making process.
We were also meant to point out any areas where we would question the brief. That might be, for instance, how English SEO would require creating a new keyword list instead of translating the old one and what kind of English is then required—in this case, I would imagine targeting international English-speakers, as the press-releases would be promoting to other investors within the same economic bloc that might then use English as an all-round pivot language.
The end-answer of course is to—if you do come across issues in the brief or during translation—query the client. It is ultimately their decision, regardless on what your expertise is telling you and, really, you don’t have 18 months to teach them why they’re wrong. Good clients will be willing to listen to the experts and bad clients are hopefully paying you enough that you can just shrug and go “I’ve done my due diligence and that’s all that is required of me.”
Detour
Of course, odd requests and cultural cock-ups are one thing, breaches of ethics are another. Although this wasn’t a concern during my actual coursework, one example from this module still resonates with me: an individual hires a translator to translate and certify a nursing degree certificate so that the client can apply for a job at a local hospital. On the surface, the degree is a nursing degree certificate, so where’s the problem?
The problem is that the degree was awarded in another country with vastly different pass requirements—not only does it take 3 years less to complete (out of six), it also doesn’t include the years in placement nor cover the entire curriculum that the UK version of the certificate does. This is not to degrade the qualified individual but to say that the hospital expects a candidate with particular skills and experience that the client doesn’t have.
The translator is now put in a difficult position. To say nothing is to be complicit in a lie, intentional or otherwise, which could not only harm their professional reputation but also bring with it legal consequences. Likewise, informing the client and letting them decide what to do with the translation is irresponsible (whereas before—where personal gain was the only potential victim—it was an acceptable response).
In this case, the translator should add a translator’s note comparing the two courses, perhaps even suggesting the extra qualifications that would support the degree and make it appropriate for the job, and then informing the client of this information. That way, everyone is informed and there is no way to lie without tampering with the translation (even if your client isn’t overjoyed that they can’t yet get the job they wanted).
This goes to show that translation isn’t as simple as words. There can be a whole lot of cultural and social norms to navigate and a web of loyalties to untangle when conveying a message from one situation to another.
Back to Business
Another reason press-releases were a good choice was because of the mix of text-types that they contain. For those not familiar, there are a bunch of different text types which can be categorised as parts or as a whole and essentially reflect the motivations behind writing that particular document or section. For instance, is it written to provide information, convey emotion or inspire action?
As already mentioned, a press-release is often used as a tool to promote, leaning towards that “inspire action” even if only in the abstract. So a large part of my coursework was discussing promotional translation (I strongly recommend Ira Torresi’s (2014) Translating and Advertising Promotional Texts which serves me even now as inspiration).
Particularly, I focussed on “boost” (using emotion to connect to your audience) as well as the text’s level of familiarity to the audience (again, seeking that connection—different cultures respond differently to different levels of familiarity). These factors change quite a bit between the meat of the press-release, the factual graphics they included and the more casual quotations, and translating those shifts meant paying close attention to what an English-speaking audience would respond to and what was intended (in the case of the quotations) by the original speaker.
Imagine…
You ever seen someone working on or repairing a manual watch? They always have a contraption on their face or workbench with a bountiful array of lenses in order to see the fiddly cogs and springs that they’re working with. Sometimes I imagine translation to be a lot like that, needing different lenses at different strengths depending on the task and the nuances of the individual challenges you’ll meet within that task.
Conclusion
Looking back on these translations, I wince a little bit—like any writer, a year after the fact, they’re able to pick apart their old works to absolute shreds. Hopefully that means I’ve grown some as a translator since then (it’s amazing to think that it’s been over two years since I wrote that first essay) and now that I’m no longer writing for marks, I can be a bit more of a wordsmith now.
Although my ability with English is one thing, I still maintain that German is weird. Navigating clubbed together compound nouns and wildly abstract idioms will never not be a challenge. May I be forced to face many of them.
(If you would like to torture yourself with this particular essay, you can access the PDF here).
Image credit: moi
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