By Alexandra de Vries, DLD Blog Editor
It has been over 5 months since the last ATA conference in Washington, which means we are almost at the halfway mark for our next conference in New Orleans. For those who missed it, ATA announced the conference hotel venue and reservations can now be made at www.atanet.org/conf/2018/hotel. Most years, the rooms in the conference hotel sell out so book early.
To get you in the mood for the next conference (or to reminisce about the last one), I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight one of our excellent DLD sessions from Washington. We Dutchies have such a beautiful word for this: nagenieten or post-enjoyment. In fact, now that I think about it, we seem to have a number of words around enjoyment that are all about making the moment last. In addition to nagenieten and napret, we also have voorgenieten or voorpret (when you already have fun looking forward to something fun). So with this post we will do a little bit of both.
In Washington, Neil Gouw presented an interesting and thought-provoking session entitled: Undocumented Immigrants or Illegal Immigrants? How Do Political Preferences Influence Your Translations?
Translators work with words and every word represents a choice, whether we are aware of it or not. Most experienced translators probably don’t stop to think about their reasons for choosing every specific word. If we did, we would never meet those deadlines! We acquire our vocabulary over time, through learning, interacting, studying, reading (especially reading), research etc… And we all have a certain style or perhaps preferences for certain words or expressions. But do we ever stop to think how this could affect our translations. How our choice of words (or not choosing a certain word) can change a meaning, influence our readers, and even reflect a political belief or value judgment.
Look for example at words like illegal immigrant versus undocumented immigrant or alien; tax evasion versus tax avoidance; death tax versus inheritance tax; late-term abortion versus partial birth abortion. Some Dutch examples include allochtoon versus buitenlanders or Nederlanders met een migratieachtergrond; wit versus blank. Some terms are very politically motivated or charged. The media often plays a role in bringing certain terms to the public’s awareness. Take the example of referring to the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare. The term became so ingrained that in a recent survey 35% of Americans thought those two things were completely different!
Other terms change over time and reflect societal changes. A good example are terms associated with disability. People with a disability were once referred to as handicapped, later as disabled. But now we believe that a disability doesn’t make someone disabled, it is just one aspect and the more accepted term has become “person with a disability”. In Dutch, the term allochtoon is an example of this. Even though the word simply means “someone from another country”, it is typically used to refer to visible minority immigrants. But not all visible minorities; it is mainly used for non-Western, non-white immigrants and over time has acquired a negative connotation. Hence the search for other terms, such as inwoners met een migratieachtergrond (residents with a migration background), which is the current term used by the Dutch Bureau for Statistics.
In the meantime, codes of ethics for translators and interpreters state that we must be truthful and neutral in our rendition. For example, the International Federation of Translators states:” Every translation shall be faithful and render exactly the idea and form of the original – this fidelity constitutes both a moral and legal obligation for the translator”.
ATA’s Code of Ethics and Professional Practice states: “Faithful, accurate and impartial translation or interpretation conveys the message as the author or speaker intended with the same emotional impact on the audience…Impartial translation and interpreting requires the translator or interpreter to adopt a mantle of neutrality”. But that also means if we want to remain truthful, “it would also be inappropriate to ‘clean up’ objectionable language in the target language.”
As with so many other things in life, the first step is awareness; becoming aware that we all have biases, opinions and beliefs. To go a bit further into this issue and give you some more food for thought, I followed up with Neil after the workshop.
- Q: Can you tell us a bit about your professional translation experience?
Neil: My name is Neil Gouw, and I’m the in-house translator at the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). ACM is a government agency in The Hague, the Netherlands, similar to the Federal Trade Commission in the US and the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK. I’ve worked at ACM for over 9 years now. And I’m also a part-time instructor at ITV Hogeschool in Utrecht.
- Q: What made you choose this topic?
Neil: ACM is one of the largest regulators in the Netherlands, so this means I pretty much work in a political environment. Moreover, I love politics. I’m a political-news junkie. And I do not shy away from political discussions with friends and co-workers.
That got me thinking: as an individual, I have my own political beliefs, my own opinions, and my own worldview. Yet, as a translator, I’m supposed to be impartial, objective and neutral. At least, that’s what the ATA, NGTV, and the court (if you’re a sworn translator or interpreter) want you to be. So, when I work, do I just turn off my political beliefs? Is there a switch that can do that? How can I make sure I am impartial, or am I impartial just because I say I am? So I wondered: are we as translators aware of our own biases?
In one of my classes at ITV, a student of mine refused to translate the CDA, one of the political parties in the Netherlands, as ‘Christian Democratic party.’ In that particular translation, she chose ‘conservative’ or ‘right-of-center,’ which was fine in the text, but her reasoning did set off some alarms. She argued that another party (the Christian Union party) was the only one that was still truly Christian Democratic (in her view), and that the CDA was no longer Christian Democratic. To most Dutch, that sounds a bit odd, since the name of the party itself, CDA, literally translates as Christian Democratic Appeal.
That was a clear example of a translator letting their own personal beliefs influence their translation choices. But I only found out about that because I ask my students to hand in reports with their translations. Had I not asked for a report, I would never have known her reasoning.
But in our professional lives, we do not hand in reports with our translations. Our clients cannot see the arguments behind our translation choices, unless they specifically ask for them. What if we were to ask ourselves first why we made certain choices, would that help us produce translations that are more impartial? That was the main reason for my session at the ATA conference in Washington, DC: to ask ourselves that question in order to help us become even better translators.
- Q: As you explained, translators are always very careful about choosing their words. Do you think it is possible to leave out our own bias?
Neil: I think that, as we found out during the session as well, it can be very challenging to do so. If we disregard the situations where you actually have to use certain biased terms, because the client wants you to, then we are left with situations where you as a translator have a choice. And that can be scary if you are aware of that choice lying in front of you. If you are not, then you are most likely to use the term that is familiar to you, which is probably biased, one way or another. That in itself is not a problem. As I’ve said, I think that we as human beings are naturally biased in many ways. However, if somehow we became aware of those biases, like having to write them down in a translation report, we could take a step back, and think: as an individual, I have these biases because of x, y and z. As a translator, I want to be impartial and objective, so are the terms that I normally use as an individual still the most appropriate in this situation?
What was so interesting in the session was that, as each of us were talking about their own interpretations of the terms that I put up on the screen, you could tell that no two interpretations were exactly the same. Each of us had slightly different ideas and opinions about those terms, which, at least I hope it did, helped everyone see a broader interpretation of those terms. If you are aware of other interpretations of certain terms, will you be able to make better translation choices? Even if those interpretations are at odds with your own personal beliefs? Will you as a translator be able to accept those opposing interpretations?
- Q: In your experience, have you come across any examples of “rebel” translators trying to put their own spin on a translation?
Neil: In my example of that ‘rebel’ student, I was only able to find out because I ask students to write down their translation process. You will never find out if translators deliberately put their own spin on translations if you do not know their reasoning behind their translation choices. But more importantly, if there are translators out there who consciously want to impose their own beliefs onto their work, then it would be best for them to find another profession I think. The more interesting question, however, is when translators want to be objective and neutral, but are unable to spot their own biases or ‘rebellious’ tendencies in themselves. As a thought experiment, you could have several translators translate the same text, and then afterwards ask them about their political beliefs. Obviously, there are dozens of pitfalls in this oversimplified example, but under the right circumstances, it could be an interesting scientific experiment.
- Q: Any recommendations for translators when it comes to checking their own translations for biases?
Neil: I truly believe that, if you become aware of other interpretations or opinions of certain terms, you can make better translation choices. In the current climate of fake news, partisan politics, and social-media bubbles, it can be quite difficult to seek out opposing ideas, to learn more about them, and then, the hardest part I think, to accept them as alternative interpretations. As an individual, you certainly don’t have to agree with them, but as a translator, I think, we need to be open to other interpretations.
Some practical tips perhaps: read other newspapers or tune in to other stations or channels once in a while. If you always read The Guardian or the Volkskrant, try The Times or NRC for example. Mix it up between MSNBC and Fox News. Or if you do research for a particular translation, try to find out about the opposing side as well. If you happen to translate for an animal-rights organization, find out about the organizations they are targeting, for example the livestock industry or the cosmetic industry. Again, it’s not about changing your own beliefs, but more about learning other ideas, and, by extension, more terms.