A strict definition of translation tells us that the translator of a text isn’t supposed to add any content to it, or to subtract from it. In a Japanese-to-English job, everything in the original J should be in the target E—no more and no less.
This strict definition is the required approach in some types of work. If you’re working on a contract or some other legal document, or even a piece of business correspondence in some cases, your text could be brought into legal proceedings at some point. Will the lawyers be able to point to each term and phrase in the target text and indicate what it matches in the source? Word-for-word translations are what let them do so.
In the areas where I work, this usually isn’t the best approach, though. The translator’s job is sometimes closer to that of a copywriter—someone who writes a text with a certain goal in mind. This advertisement needs to make the reader want to buy our brand of beer, or think that we’re operating our business in an eco-friendly manner. This essay needs to convince the reader that our political position is the correct one, or that the other country’s view is mistaken. When you’re writing toward goals like these, you think more about the impact of the words you use in the target text. What do the readers need? What is their level of background knowledge? How will they react to what you write? Is their reaction what the writer of the source text, or your client, wants to see?
When I do a translation for a Japanese politician, the pendulum can swing to either extreme. This weekend I stayed up late translating on Friday night and did some editing on Saturday of part of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s Friday afternoon press conference (Japanese; for English go over here). For this client (the Kantei) we stick very closely to the Japanese—sentence order, phrasings within those sentences, you name it. In previous translations I’ve worked on for the Kantei (here’s one) we’ve resorted to [bracketing the information] that’s begrudgingly admitted to be necessary for comprehension. Example:
J: 第二次補正予算、そして平成２２年度予算の早期成立に全力を尽くします。
E: We will make every effort to secure the early passage of the second supplementary budget [of fiscal 2009] and the fiscal 2010 budget.
In a translation for Japan Echo magazine, I’d toss that “2009″ in before the supplementary budget without a second thought, but “Heisei 21″ wasn’t in the prime minister’s original words, so there you have it.
The English text I give a politician client might be something else, though, like a speech he’ll give before an English-speaking audience. It’s rare for that speech to look exactly like the source text provided to me. A Japanese speaker knows that Japanese listeners will understand certain concepts he covers without explanation. This isn’t the case with the English-speaking listeners, though. As I’m translating this document I think hard about the original words, of course, but I also consider the people who will hear what I’m writing. If the Japanese pol is talking about the upcoming upper house contest, and says something like 前回のきびしい選挙結果, will the listeners’ needs be met by “the brutal results of the last election”? In some cases, yes: maybe the speaker already laid down the background for this statement, or maybe the speech will be given before a bunch of scholars of Japanese politics who are up to speed on all of this. In other cases, I need to help them more: “the results for the previous election for the House of Councillors, held in July 2007, in which the ruling LDP suffered a serious setback.”
Not all those words were in the original text. But an informed Japanese listener would understand all that unspoken information—and for a speech, it’s often the translator’s job to make sure that the English listeners will come away with the same level of understanding.
Long story short: Translation choices get made depending on more than just the words in the source document. Take that, Google Translate!
(Edit: I just posted a quick follow-up to this one right here.)
(Edit 2: Added the English version of the prime minister’s press conference, which just went up. This time the client’s editor was content to make his own changes instead of sending the MS back to us for revisions, whew.)
by sigma1
30 Mar 2010 at 06:00
I am very happy I found this site – these are the kinds of translation issues I am personally very interested in! Well done on the output of Japan Echo – I am avid reader because of the great access to articles that would otherwise not be available in the English academic and media world.
(Btw Sakura is very cute too – I think she maybe about the same age as my little boy
by Durf
30 Mar 2010 at 14:24
Thanks for the comment and the kind words about our magazine. I’ve stuck your site’s RSS feed into my reader and added you on Twitter. よろしく！
by Ryan
06 Apr 2010 at 15:49
Not sure why, but I’ve never come across your site before. Glad I did though, as this article is extremely interesting.
The reasons for that for me however are clear: I own and manage a successful translation and interpretation company and this is one of the fundamental questions that I try to get my translators and interpreters to answer when they come on board with us.
Indeed, the problem arises when translating to the target language: should embellishments be added to the target language that would permit the reader to fully understand the context of the piece? Well, for me, that is simply the difference between translation and interpretation.
The way that we look at it then is this: translation is simply the act of verbatim copying, i.e. lifting the words of the source language (be those written and/or spoken) and placing them into the grammatical context of the target language.
Interpretation then, is exactly that, an interpretation of the source, with either parts embellished or omitted, in order to further enhance the reader or listener’s knowledge of the subject. For me however, the only time that either of these actions can occur is when there is irrefutable evidence to suggest that the target reader/listener will not understand the context or the meaning of what they are being told, unless those additions or omissions were to occur. If they were to understand without, then don’t make any alterations.
The only way that you will ever know whether they would understand without context added/omitted is to know your client as best as possible, and that unfortunately, is sometimes easier said than done, and indeed, a totally different ball game…
頑張って！
by Durf
06 Apr 2010 at 16:14
Hi Ryan, thanks for stopping by and chiming in.
It’s worth pointing out that I’m an in-house translator/editor at a publishing house, which means that my employer is the client for much of my work. I have an in-house style guide and a shelf full of back issues that tell me exactly how I should approach certain kinds of material when I’m translating them for our magazine.
I think when you’re translating for publication, as in a book or magazine, you’re generally going to drift toward the “embellishment” side (not so sure about that word actually; it’s not so much extraneous decoration as making the details that are implicitly understood by Japanese readers explicit for English readers). If you’re doing a legal document or a patent, though, you’re going to be doing something more like word-for-word work.
And “interpretation” is a tricky word to use since it can be hard to tell whether you’re talking about 解釈 or 通訳 in some cases!