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[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 19 – ATA Certification Study Group

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ATA FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos LogoTo make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 19 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

Episode 19: FLD’s ATA Certification Study Group

Andie: This is Andie Ho, your new host of the Continuing Education Series, a podcast we produce as a benefit to the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association, and for anyone interested becoming members. This series strives to offer educational content about the craft of French-to-English and English-to-French translation, and about our division. For today’s episode, it is my pleasure to welcome Emily Moorlach. Emily is an ATA-certified French-to-English translator who began her career in 2016 as the Translation and Interpretation Program Manager and freelance official document translator for a nonprofit organization. In 2019, after a whirlwind trip through 45 cities in Europe, Emily returned to the US, and started her freelance translation business, Langue Vivante LLC. She holds a BA in French and a BS in Accounting from Iowa State University.

Emily also studied at La Sorbonne in Paris and has held positions as a high school French teacher and a luxury travel advisor. I need to hear more about that sometime. Her main specializations include official documents, business communications, tourism, gastronomy, and marketing. Welcome, Emily, to our podcast today.

Emily: Thanks, Andie. It’s awesome to be here.

Andie: So today, we’re going to talk about the FLD’s ATA Exam Certification Study Group. We need a better title for that group, I think, Emily.

Emily: It’s very long,

Andie: So, start from the beginning. How did you get started as the study group’s coordinator?

Emily: Well, I think you know better than anyone, but I’ll let you know for the listeners here. So, I actually started my exam studying journey back in 2019, at the end of 2019, and I reached out to Corinne McKay via email and said: “Hey, do you know anyone else who’s studying for the exam? Can you kind of hook me up with someone?” Because I wanted someone to work with. She actually sent me your email and Beth’s. And I remember just reaching out, and kind of seeing what was available then. And we didn’t have a program like we do now. So, I just kind of started studying on my own. And then, in 2021, in January, you started this, the FLD study group. And I saw that as a great opportunity to really get serious about my studying after having to put it on hold in 2020. I saw 2021 as my year, and this new program was amazing. So, I jumped on and started doing it each month. Doing big passages each month. And I think over time, you saw that I was very serious about the study program and participated each of the months from January through September, before taking the exam myself. And, yeah, then at the end of the year, you asked me to come on as the new coordinator. And, because I had found the group so helpful, and probably because I was a previous teacher and I love the nerdy aspects of studying and constantly improving, I decided to take it over. So, I did that in January 2022, and it’s been great so far.

Andie: So, for those people listening who don’t know what the study group is like, exactly how it operates and what it does, can you describe it for us?

Emily: Yeah, so I have kept kind of the same structure that you instituted in 2021 with sending out a passage, the first business day of each month in each direction. So, French to English and one for English to French. I select those passages on new sites like the New York Times, National Geographic, The MOON, etc. the first business day of each month. I send out the new passage in each direction and participants can decide whether or not they even want to participate that month. If they do, they just translate it on their own time and send me an email by the third Monday of the month to let me know that they have completed it.

Then, I pair them up with another person who has completed it in the same direction, and then they have the rest of the month, which is usually a week or two, to exchange passages via email and kind of give each other feedback either via track changes in Word or phone call, video call, any of the above. Let’s see, then, what else? Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. I send out the passage, then I pair participants up and then they kind of work together in groups of two or three to provide feedback.

Andie: So, you say that you mostly kept the model that I had used while you were a “student” in the group, quote unquote, student participants in the group. Do you foresee making any updates in the future?

Emily: Potentially, yes. I participated in a panel with the Spanish Language Division and also the Slavic Language Division, and they both have some great ideas that they use for their study groups, that I would kind of like to see how they would fit within ours as well. Potentially using Google Docs to compare all of the translations that have been completed for a language pair for that month. I think that would be great to see nine different translations side by side in a spreadsheet as the Spanish Language Division does. So even if you’re paired with a partner and having a deeper conversation one-on-one, you can see how many different ways a word can be translated and it kind of reveals the creativity of our craft. And it helps, yeah, I think, just gain different perspectives on how to approach a text.

Andie: I like it. I wish I had thought of that. So, when you were a participant, how, in what ways was the study group helpful for you as someone looking to take the exam in the future?

Emily: I think it was super helpful just to know that there are other people out there, kind of going through the same thing and finding other colleagues who are as serious about not only studying but actually taking the exam. So, I think that was great to find kind of a group of people to do that with. And I loved the fact that our study group is very low commitment. It’s kind of open-ended, so you can get on our email list, and then you can participate in January and then not participate again until May, if you know, your schedule gets crazy, like we all know it does, being freelance translators. So, it’s really low commitment. I love that. And then, I just loved being able to collaborate with other colleagues and meet people within my language pairing.

Andie: What about the… So, the ATA offers official practice exams that you can spend money on. Did you ever do any of those?

Emily: Yes. Being kind of the nerd, like I said that I am. I did my first one at the end of 2019 when I just wasn’t even a full-time translator yet. Just kind of thinking that was the first step of getting in and getting clients. And I thought, naively, I’ll just take the practice test and then I’ll be ready to go. Well, I took the first one and did fairly decent. I think it’s 17 points you need to be able to pass the exam. I think that’s the maximum, and points are bad. For our listeners out there, who haven’t looked into it yet. You don’t want points. I think I got in the 20ish range, and they said, okay, you could probably pass if you study a little bit more.

Well, then I took the second. There are three in each direction, three French to English and three English to French official practice exams. So, I took the second one just to kind of see where I was at on that, and I didn’t do as well, so that kind of changed my perspective, and I decided to study a little bit longer. So, I think taking at least one official practice exam is really essential to not just jumping into the real thing. And then, if possible, taking two or all three is great because they’re different passages you’ll do differently from one to the other, potentially passing one, potentially failing the next one, and that gives you more data points to know if you’re ready for the real thing.

Andie: Now, you wrote an article for the ATA’s Savvy Newcomer blog, is that correct?

Emily: Yes, I’m a volunteer blog author and editor, so that been fun.

Andie: All right. So, I see you’ve written an article called “Taking and Preparing for ATA Online Certification Exam.” And in that article, you mentioned using DeepL, which is a machine translation, to check your translations. Can you tell us more about this?

Emily: Yeah, I think it’s kind of, some people might think it’s, what would you say, a controversial thing to say because obviously we don’t want to train ourselves to translate like a machine. But in my study journey, I found that not only did I participate in the FLD study group, but I studied outside of the study group on my own. And, not everybody is going to have the time to study as much as you may need to study or have the same schedule to match up and review passages together outside of the study group. And so, when I studied on my own, I wanted a way to kind of see, something to compare my translations. And so, it was a free option. I used the free version.

I think with news articles and different types of text, more technical, more straightforward text, I think machine translation has gotten pretty good. And so, yeah, I would just throw my source text that I translated on my phone into DeepL, and just see what it said. And surprisingly, sometimes it shows better words than I did, especially given the time crunch when you’re sitting there trying to stick within the 90 minutes of what you’re allotted for the passage on the real exam. When studying on my own, I stuck to those same things. And yeah, I found DeepL to be helpful, to just get some sort of feedback when I didn’t have a human to do that with.

Andie: Interesting, that’s not something I would have thought of. Machine translation is very controversial, as you say. I will say that a lot of it comes from human translations. So that’s why sometimes it does choose a good word. That’s my opinion exactly.

Emily: Exactly, I like the feature on DeepL that you can click on a word, and it will show you synonyms and things like that. So, yeah, I think it can be helpful.

Andie: Did you use it to check for style or just meaning or both?

Emily: Kind of both, because every now and then, there would be a meaning situation that I was like, oh, I thought that meant something slightly different. Or word choice. Yeah, a lot of word choice, because I am actually fairly new to the profession. Just started full time in 2020, so, and I actually didn’t have any formal training. I just have my bachelor’s degree in French and as you mentioned, I was a French high school teacher and luxury travel consultant before this. So, yeah, for me it was just a great way to choose my words and see, not really style, but make sure I’m getting everything correct in terms of meaning, too.

Andie: Going back to something you mentioned, you were talking about time management during the exam. Can you talk to us about that a little bit?

Emily: Yeah. One of my study partners that I ended up working with through the study group, Amber Combaud, she mentioned that she was only taking 75 minutes out of the total 90 offered for each passage, to do both her translation and her editing. And I thought that was crazy at first when she said that, I thought, oh my gosh, I’m pushing myself all the way through the 90 minutes and leaving myself about six minutes to do the editing. And that was not working well for me because the editing step, I think, is so crucial, both the bilingual editing to make sure you’ve got everything from the source, but also the monolingual editing for those commas, periods, and things like that, because each one of those can get you a point deduction out of those 17 points.

So, when she mentioned that, I thought, okay, I’m going to make myself a schedule. And so, I actually did make myself a schedule, and it was that I was only using 75 minutes per passage, and then the other 30 minutes of time was kind of at the beginning, choosing which of the three passages to translate on the exam. So, I took some time to do that and then whatever was left over at the end. I also took some time to do some stretching in between passages on the real exam, the three-hour exam. So, I wanted to build in time for stretching, time for restroom breaks, time to just stare at the wall if I needed to give my eyes a break. So, yeah, I made myself a little scheduled.

That is actually in the Savvy article that I wrote, which maybe we can post a link to with this recording. But it detailed everything I plan to do in terms of time management on the actual exam, and that helped me to feel more comfortable and less stressed about time.

Andie: Those are all good tips. Going back to what you said about editing being crucial, I just had to laugh because I always tell my husband, if you read my translation before I go back and edit it would look like I don’t speak French or English.

Emily: Editing is so vital, so important. And one of the other colleagues that I work with in the study group, he also was doing Italian to English and French to English exam preparations. And we found out how important it is to really have a great grasp of the target language, even almost more so than the source language sometimes, because it’s all the grammatical things and the situation and word choice and making it sound good and making it flow. Yeah, the editing stage is super important.

Andie: Now, since I took the exam in 2018, the ATA has come out with an online exam. Did you do the online version?

Emily: I did, yeah.

Andie: Okay, can you tell us about the online version and in person version?

Emily: Yeah, so the online version, I took it in September 2021, so a little less than a year ago. And what’s really exciting is even since then, they’ve now come out with an on-demand version of the online exam. So, you can sign up and take it at a time that works for you, which I think is really great for any of our members who live outside of the US. Because one of my study partners actually ended up having to take the exam. She’s in France, ended up having to take the exam from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., her time, whereas it was 9:00 a.m. to noon for my time on the Pacific Coast here. So, having that on demand version is amazing.

But yeah, in terms of the differences between the online and in person, I would say obviously I didn’t take the in person, but I read up on it and actually contacted Caron Bailey as well as, the certification manager, to kind of ask some questions at one point. And I think what’s really great about the online exam is the fact that you don’t have to pay any travel expenses, whether that just be gas, which is really expensive right now, whether that be gas or hotel or flights. Back, before they offered the online exam, you had to physically go to the location. And for people who live outside of the US, it was even more expensive. So, I love that fact that there’s no travel expense. And another benefit is lack of stress. There’s just not the stress of having to drive anywhere.

Even if you’re in the same city, you’ve got a drive to the exam, find parking, for me, I just like to have everything as smooth and stress-free as possible. So, my closest exam location was going to be an hour away. And so, no hotel, but I’m just driving the hour and thinking, am I going to get in traffic? Or something like that? So, eliminating that was helpful and then being able to do it from the comfort of your own home, your ergonomic desk and chair, you can control, your lighting, your heating, those things are tiny, but for me, as kind of a control freak, I really found comfort in that.

And then the cons, I guess, would be, of the online exam would be just the fact that you have to make sure that your computer has all of the correct configuration prior to the exam, and then the onboarding process for the exam on the day of the exam. You need to be there about 20 minutes early, and sometimes it can take even longer. So, I know that some people get a little bit nervous while they’re kind of going through that onboarding process. Am I going to be late for my exam? But I think knowing that your exam time doesn’t start until you get into the passages themselves is very helpful. So even if your onboarding takes 30 minutes and your ten minutes over from what your start time was supposed to be for the exam, your exam time doesn’t start until you’re in seeing those passages.

So, I think that’s helpful to know. Yeah, I could go on and on.

Andie: Yeah, I feel so like I very much took the old version. I had to drive down into Houston and that was already considered very close to me. I guess ATA has come to the 21st century.

Emily: Yeah, very convenient now with the on demand. I mean, for me, the time was perfect, nine to noon. I couldn’t ask for a better time, but I’m sure that my colleague who did it at night, during dinner time and such, was wishing that they had that even just six months ago.

Andie: So, if you had to do it all over again, or if you were to give advice to someone who is starting to study for the exam now, what would you say?

Emily: I would say, kind of like first steps first, read up about it as much as you can. If you’re going into English, there’s an amazing 61-page guide on into English. What is it called? The Into English [Grading] Standards or something like that. But it’s a guide that’s 61 pages into English grading standards, and that’s a really great document to start kind of seeing what the exam graders are looking for in terms of grammar punctuation, what you should do with acronyms, style guides, things like that. So, any language into English. So, if you’re one of those amazing people who has two source languages or more, the guide is still great because it’s for all languages into English.

So, yeah, starting there, looking at all of the framework for standardized error markings, the explanation of error categories, the flow chart for error point decisions, all of those documents, reading through them so you understand how you will be graded. It is super important, I would say. And then, kind of taking that, the official practice exam, to see where you’re at and get feedback that way is a great next step. They do take sometimes eight weeks to come back. So, like I said, that’s a good early step just to gauge where you’re at before taking the exam and then joining a study group, of course, especially if you’re in our FLD. Now that we have that in place, I think that’s a great thing to do. I would definitely do that again if I were to have to study. But kind of one of the biggest things for me, I had no idea that people study for the exam for so long. Like I mentioned earlier, when I got started on my exam journey in 2019, I thought I’ll take one practice exam and then I’ll be good to go.

I’ll sign up for an exam and in three months I’ll be certified. But really, after participating in several panels, I’ve learned that the study window is basically six months to a year for a lot of people; especially a lot of people who are working full time in the profession and have a lot of clients already, keeping up with studying kind of is an extra thing to do. So, when you start thinking about getting certified, I would say setting aside those six to twelve months is a good idea.

Andie: All right, and then final question: if people want to join your study group, what do they do?

Emily: Yeah, they just email me. So, we can hopefully, maybe, wherever you post the podcast, include my email address as well. But, for those listening, it’s emily [at] langue-vivante [dot] com.

Andie: Alright. And you can also email divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org or if you can find me online somewhere, Andie Ho, A-N-D-I-E H-O, it’s a very unique name, so you’ll find me somehow and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Well, thank you so much, Emily, for sharing your experience and for leading the new study group. You’re doing a great job. I’ve heard great things and we very much appreciate all that you do.

Emily: Thank you for picking me to do it and I have, yeah, I’ve really enjoyed it and interacting with all of the people who are studying and kind of encouraging them on their journey because, yeah, I really enjoy the group as well.

Andie: Well, thank you very much.

Emily: Thank you.

Andie: This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the Continuing Education Series podcast on SoundCloud at soundcloud@soundcloud.com/ata-fld) or on iTunes, by searching for Continuing Education Series in the iTunes store. You can contact the FLD at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org, visit our website at www.ata-divisions.org/fld or get in touch with us on social media.

This is Andie Ho, signing off. Thanks for listening and à bientôt!

Emily Moorlach is an ATA-certified French to English translator who began her career in 2016 as the Translation and Interpretation Program Manager and freelance official document translator for a nonprofit organization. In 2019, after a whirlwind trip through 45 cities in Europe, Emily returned to the U.S. to start her freelance translation business, Langue Vivante LLC. She holds a B.A. in French and a B.S. in Accounting from Iowa State University. Emily also studied at La Sorbonne in Paris and has held positions as a high school French teacher and luxury travel advisor. Her main specializations include official documents, corporate communications, and tourism industry materials. For more information, visit www.langue-vivante.com.

ATA Podcast host Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.

Transcribed by Olga Koloko. She is a French-to-English and English-to-French translator, editor, and transcriptionist who specializes in international development, business communications, marketing, IT, finance, internet policies, and digital rights. She is the founder and CEO of OK Translation and Communications Services LLC. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakoloko/ or check her out on Twitter here: @OlgaKoloko.

FLD Editor

[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 20 – Interview with Edward Gauvin

ATA French Language Division Podcast
The FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos Logo

To make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 20 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

Episode 20 — Interview with Edward Gauvin, FLD’s Distinguished Speaker at ATA63

Andie Ho: This is Andy Ho, host of the continuing education series, a podcast we produce as a benefit for the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association, and those interested in becoming members. This series strives to offer educational content about the craft of French to English and English to French translation, and about our division. In today’s episode, it is my pleasure to welcome Edward Gauvin, our special guest and distinguished speaker for #ATA63, the conference in Los Angeles this fall. Edward is a writer, translator, and independent scholar. His work has been shortlisted and nominated for a multitude of prizes, and he has received grants and fellowships from around the world. Most relevant to the FLD and ATA, he has contributed over 100 translations to various journals, anthologies and collections and translated over 400 graphic novels. He also publishes his own original fiction, some of which he has translated in French. Welcome, Edward! It’s a pleasure having you here today.

Edward Gauvin: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here, Andy, and I’m really looking forward to the October conference.

Andie Ho: So, you have a very wide-ranging career. Can you tell us how you got started and branched out into all those different fields?

Edward Gauvin: Well, I got my start as a translator in the mid-2000s. I had come back from teaching as a lecturer as a freshman and sophomore in college in France. And for some reason, I thought translation was something one could do. I don’t think I had a particularly timely notion of that. I think for some reason I was thinking that you could translate pulp novels and other things that don’t get published in the US. I’m not sure, I had those very outdated notions…

However, I was hanging around Comic Cons. And in the New York Comic Con, I believe it was in 2005 or 2006, the very first one, and there were smaller fairs as well… I was hanging around those and trying to interest editors and publishers in comics/graphic novels that I had liked in France. And so, none of those pitches ever worked. But I think I sort of just got my face in their face, so that was how I wound up with my first few jobs.

Around the same time, in 2005, Words Without Borders published my first short fiction translation by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud. And I wound up working on his stories for the next couple of years, and then putting out my first full-length prose fiction translation in 2010, which is a volume of his selected stories. So, I think my career has pretty much proceeded along those twin tracks right from the beginning and ever since.

Andie Ho: Well, I had never heard of Words Without Borders and so I was looking into your background… Can you tell me more about what they do?

Edward Gauvin: So, when I first published with them in 2005, they’d only been around for two years, and … they were the first—and I would say now still the biggest—periodical that is devoted entirely to international literature in English translation. Now, the translation scene has changed so much and literary translation has become a lot hipper than it used to be. But Words Without Borders was into translation before translation was cool!

But seriously. They recently went through a major site revamp. So that’s been overhauled, and the look has been greatly streamlined. They’re still adding the archives in. But I think they’ve published from almost 150 countries, just as many languages. And I think… I’ve sort of watched from distance as their editorial priorities have shifted over time as well.

Among the founding members were a former editor for foreign literature from Northwestern, another from Norton [W.W. Norton & Co.] and another who worked with Zoetrope, the American fiction magazine. And one of their neatest programs, one of the coolest things that they sort of grew into over the years is something called WWB campus, or Words Without Borders Campus. It actively designs classroom modules and teaching aids for people who want to… It provides educator support and supplemental curricular resources, and it also tries to get even virtual events or in-person events where translators and authors can visit classrooms at any level from college and younger.

I think more recently, a lot of their claim to fame has been publishing as well, authors that have gone into major, major awards, like Elena Ferrante, or Han Kang, or Olga Tokarczuk. These are people who were first featured in their pages before they won Bookers and Nobels and things. So, I think it’s been a really big force for international literature in the US. I think the reason that they went online, they were a little ahead of the curve in that way, but also it has allowed them to keep overhead down in a way that print magazines aren’t able to. This is perhaps of the most interest to people who are looking to get into literary translation. Most of the time, the periodical scene is so small—if you’re talking about lib mags and university journals, etc.—that the onus of clearing rights is pushed onto the translator, which isn’t completely fair. When you’re actually publishing, it’s an editor agent’s job, or a foreign rights department’s job. But Words Without Borders has always taken that onto themselves. And right from the start, they have always paid the translator AND the author. And this isn’t something that a lot of periodicals, even now, can claim.

Andie Ho: Wow, alright! You’re talking about Elena Ferrante and Olga (I don’t know how to say her last name), but we can also go back to, say, Steve Larsen. So, the number that gets quoted a lot is 3%, right, that only 3% of literature gets translated into English. I forget what exactly it is. Do you think that has changed in recent years?

Edward Gauvin: OK, just to clarify… It’s not 3% of the world’s literature that gets translated into English. It’s that of the books published yearly in English every year, only 3% are devoted to translated literature. I am not plugged into BookScan enough to tell you what it is now and Chad Post has started his Three Percent blog post out of Rochester in 2008 or 2009. I will tell you that my sense is that it has fluctuated and it has grown and remains on the side of growth, but that I would be surprised if it has doubled. I would say that it stayed somewhere between three and six—and that’s a completely off-the-cuff thing—if it had doubled, I would be surprised if it had doubled and stayed there for more than a year. Because, as I have mentioned, there are a lot of fluctuations.

And I would say, for me there are a couple different parts to that. Yes, the literary translation scene has massively diversified in terms of the numbers of publishers. But these are mostly small presses, not even imprints of large presses. That’s how art moves forward, really, historically. But I think that there has been a shift in the kinds of things we look to foreign literature for, and there’s still a raging debate as to whether it actually sells. And there are always going to be exceptions that sell extremely well, but then become unfortunately sort of synecdochic of the entire phenomenon, which doesn’t sell as well.

I think I’ve wandered off a little bit at the end, but there’s definitely not progress in the numbers. Far greater than progress in actual numbers is greater cultural awareness. I think that has risen in a way that’s faster than the economic side of things.

Andie Ho: So, in recent years, there’s been a lot of interest in foreign media, with K-pop, Parasite and other Korean movies… I think just a lot more interest in Lupin, the TV series on Netflix… Do you think that there is, in general, some sort of expansion of interest into foreign media that will, in a sense, like “rising tides lift all boats,” that will affect translation of books, or not so much?

Edward Gauvin: I think for me there’s a couple issues all knotted up in there, so please catch me out if I start to prattle on. One is that interest in translated books does not necessarily equate to better pay or living conditions for translators. And so, I think the same thing applies here. The interest in foreign media also may not directly improve the translators’ or subtitlers’ lot. And I think that’s because … people have a very dated idea of what translation is, does, or should do, or can get away with, or the degree to which it can transform something. That’s something that I think about a lot.

I think the other difference is just [that] books are such a small part financially of media as a whole that foreign media becoming more popular or not… Things operate differently at different scales of how much money is involved. I guess this is what I’m trying to get around to. So, for instance, the recent Brad Pit’s Bullet Train is based on a Japanese novel that I remember reading articles about when the Japanese novel was first snatched up (it was probably in Hollywood Reporter or something) by Pitt’s production company. There hasn’t actually been a whole lot of discourse concerning Bullet Train about how the entire cast is now while, pretty much, and that’s fine. That’s one issue. But the other issue I remember reading in Hollywood Reporter, when the novel was first snatched up, [is] that the novel was one of the properties that a newly founded firm in Japan had shopped around, and this firm was dedicated toward getting more Japanese properties sold abroad. Whether it be for remakes or adaptations or anything, they just wanted to push it… And I don’t think of Japan as a country that is massively underrepresented in terms of international media presence. And yet, when you hear the founders of the company speak, they were talking of untold troves of material in Japan that they were sure would interest other people, but not enough people read Japanese to access it. It just wasn’t known. And so, I wonder to some extent how many places feel like that. If Japan, which I think of as having a major media presence already, feels like that, then, how much are other places going to feel like that?

My third sort of related point is that I actually find the subtitling scene really, really, really interesting for its crossover with literary translation and mostly from an underrepresentation of labor point of view. Subtitles have been popping up more and more into the news lately. And every time it does, it really just perks up my ears, because one of my ongoing thoughts of experiments is to see how many other disciplines under some disciplines have some kind of labor or historical or metaphorical overlap with translation. The most recent subtitling story I remember seeing was about Stranger Things, and how the subtitles are really kind of “juicy” and reach for the not obvious adjectives and how that enhanced the experience. And that’s all fascinating to me. How can that happen in translation? The other one, of course, was with the Korean property… I’m going to blank on the name now, the one with the game show where they kill people…

Andie Ho: Squid Game?

Edward Gauvin: Yes, thank you. Well, I did see it and there was a little brouhaha… There was a New York-based Korean American writer who was tweeting about how the subtitles were off, and how there actually turned out to be two sets of subtitles: one for the closed captioning, and one that actually looks more sort of human translated. But I remember one of the things that this person said was, “If you watch the show with this set of subtitles, you’re not getting the same show.” And like, this was sort of the foundation of some kind of notion of betrayal, right? And this is something that I think translators might be working to push, if not entirely overthrow, because for me that’s a given. That’s kind of like “Duh!” That’s where literary translators start right now. Yes, of course, it’s not the same. You shouldn’t think of them as the same. You shouldn’t think that you’re able to get the same out of this transaction. That’s just my bringing it around to translators versus translation again.

Andie Ho: You bring up some really good points about the devaluation, I think, of translators. Do you have the same problem in literary translation, that there is a sense that anybody who speaks a second language can translate it? Is that prevalent in publishing?

Edward Gauvin: I do think a lot of translators—because I’ve heard variations on this—think of editors as having a tin ear, or that editors do think of translators as interchangeable. Or that editors are kind of like this tone-deaf conductor that the translator has to teach how to… Or rather, if the translator’s a conductor, that as a conductor, we have to educate the editor in how to appreciate the difference between one conductor and another.

It’s hard for me to assess literary translations, the attitude of literary translators as a whole. I don’t feel that connected with the scene anymore, and… What I’m judging it on these days is based on things I read, and things I read can be all over the map. Like, sometimes translators will say things that sound the same as what translators said 60 years ago, and other times translators will have fairly progressive views, deeply informed by translation studies or comparative literature or some background in academic theory, so it’s really hard for me to say as a whole what the community thinks. I do think that by and large, it’s moved beyond the issues of authorial fidelity, which is not something the world has moved out from. Because, you know, translators will say one thing at a convention, and then when one of them gets profiled in the New York Times, what emerges in the article at the end of whatever process goes on is pretty tame compared to what goes on at say, a convention or a conference or a round table.

Andie Ho: [Laughter] So, for the real deal, you have to go to a translation conference and see what translators are talking about.

Edward Gauvin: Yes, well, the literature is out there, you know. Do some digging. But even in, like, a literary translation Facebook group, especially if you are getting people who are translating out of English… I would say that how translators feel about what it is they should or shouldn’t do runs a pretty broad gamut. I should also contextualize almost everything I’m saying as coming out of specifically an into-English scene.

Andie Ho: Yeah, which… I don’t want to presuppose anything. Do you feel like the into-English scene translations are sort of watered down a bit, or not watered down … made more palatable for local audiences?

Edward Gauvin: Yeah, well, that actually is the crux of Lawrence Venuti’s original Translator’s Invisibility diatribe, right? I mean, he wasn’t blaming the translators in that case, he was blaming the publishing industry as a whole. But I think the translator’s invisibility as a phrase has kind of gotten dislocated from his originally coinage and is sort of just generally used to apply to… It applies probably more often to lack of cultural capital or lack of actual economical capital. But originally, his argument was rooted in a fairly specific reading of how certain marks of foreignness would get ironed out into a more standardized English. I don’t honestly have the time to read widely enough to assess that right now. I don’t know. Yeah, honestly, I can’t.

I also do think that the old binary that sets up, right, because that’s the other bastardization of Venuti’s idea, is that, “Oh, it’s either about foreignization or about domesticization, and if we’re going to foreignize things, we’re going to leave weird turns of phrase and foreign things in there,” and that’s definitely not what you’re saying. But that’s an easy straw man to attack him, but also to attack schools of translation. A lot of translators also use it. They say, “I don’t foreignize. I’ve never foreignized. Foreignizing is stupid.” But it’s only stupid if you define it very narrowly like that. I do think that binary is maybe also something that needs to be gotten out of…

Maybe this will segue back to comics. For me, with comics, someone asked me that at an event that I did in Pittsburgh at the City of Asylum… and I really fumbled the answer because it was at the end of the night. But… I do think that issues of reception in general have been neglected in translation. Which is to say that in translation, you’re talking about how it’s usually, “Are you close to the author?” or “Are you close to the original language?” or something like that. But are you making something for a specific readership in the US, and what does that entail? And in that case, this is something that comics speaks to very much, right? If I do a French Western, they’re never going to have a “howdy” in. But I’m going to put a howdy in the English version. There’s a way “Westerns” sound. There is a way “noir” sounds. And also, there is a way “noir” sounds, in fact, that is informed both by American pulp writers and French new wave directors who loved American pulp writers, and then American pulp writers who loved French new wave movies. There’s already a dialogue going. There is no purity. So, when I talk about audience reception and expectations deservedly going into the translation, it’s not just the author speaking through you, it’s not the language speaking through you, it’s also the genre speaking through you, the affectations speaking through you and informing your work.

Andie Ho: Fair enough! I don’t want to spoil too much of your sessions, so I’m going to cut you off here. But is there anything else you would like to say for our audiences?

Edward Gauvin: Yeah, I think one of the original questions was just about some practical advice on trying to break into translating comics. This is a question I get a lot from literary translators. People should just remember that comics is still an artist’s medium and not a writer’s, such that if you’re pitching a comic, I think you should be aware that it will be bought primarily on art and perhaps before even stories. Art is going to edge out subject matter, even. So, yeah, I think that’s something people don’t think of, especially as translators, since they’re focused on the words.

Andie Ho: Well, thank you very much for your time today, Edward. I can’t wait to meet you in person in LA.

Edward Gauvin: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it! I hope [the] BA.5 [subvariant] allows it nevertheless to be a safer event for all concerned.

Andie Ho: All fingers, toes, limbs, everything crossed. For sure. Alright, well, thank you very much!

This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the continuing education series podcast on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/ATA/FLD or on iTunes by searching for “continuing education series” in the iTunes store. You can contact the FLD at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org, visit our website at ata-divisions.org/FLD or get in touch with us on social media. This is handy Andy Ho, signing off. Thanks for listening and à bientôt!

Edward Gauvin is a 2021 Guggenheim fellow and award-winning translator. He has received grants and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, the Fulbright program, Ledig House, the Lannan Foundation, the Banff Centre, and the French and Belgian governments. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The Guardian, and World Literature Today. As a translation advocate, he has written widely, spoken at universities and festivals, and taught at the Bread Loaf Translation Conference. The translator of over 400 graphic novels, he is a contributing editor for comics at Words Without Borders.

ATA Podcast host Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.

Transcribed by Isabelle Berquin, PhD, CT. She is an ATA-certified English <> French freelance translator specializing in the life sciences and medicine. A native speaker of French from Belgium, she has a BS in biology and a PhD in cancer biology. Her favorite translation projects are those that allow her to leverage her 20-year experience in biomedical research. She has been living in the USA since 1990. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, going on nature walks, gardening, painting, printmaking, cooking and singing. Find her online here.

FLD Editor

[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 16 – State of the FLD June 2020

Close-up of a microphone against a purple background
ATA FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos Logo

To make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 16 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

Episode 16: State of the FLD June 2020

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: Hello and welcome. This is Cathy-Eitel Nzume, host of the Continuing Education Series, a podcast we produce as a benefit for the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association. This series tries to offer educational content about the craft of French to English and English to French translation and, of course, about our division.

For today’s episode, it is my pleasure to welcome our wonderful administrator, Jenn Mercer, and Andie Ho, our dedicated assistant administrator, for our state of the French Language Division session.

Jenn Mercer: Thanks for having us.

Andie Ho: Thank you for having us.

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: You’re welcome! We have so many things to talk about today, I’m not sure where to start. Jenn, would you like to start off by telling our members about the highlights of the year?

Jenn Mercer: This is not a year that is bursting with highlights, but one big change that I think everyone has heard is that we have a new podcast host. Thanks, Cathy-Eitel; welcome to the team. Otherwise, I think we have all been adjusting to the new normal in many cases. Some of us have less work, some of us are maybe doing a different variety of work. Interpreters are being forced to adjust to either a lot of remote work or going onto the front lines with healthcare workers. Hats off to all of them!

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: Jenn, I recently joined the Discord platform. Can you tell us about FLD’s online presence, social media, websites, and new platforms, such as Discord? As a reminder, this is all managed by the volunteers of our Leadership Council. Can you tell us what the Council has been up to, or can you tell us what are the rules and the purpose of the new platforms? I know these are a lot of questions at the same time, but could you please tell us a little bit about our online presence?

Andie Ho: I’m going to jump in here and talk about our website, and that is at www.ata-divisions.org/FLD/. There you will find information about the Leadership Council, upcoming events, and our blog/newsletter, which is being run by Ben Karl; he is doing a great job at that. We have our Twitter account, which is @ATA_FLD. We have our Facebook group, which is ATA French Language Division. That one you have to be an FLD member for, so if you just click to join the group, you will be let into it once it is confirmed that you are a member. We have our LinkedIn page, and that one is called French Language Division of the American Translators Association. And then we have our listserv, our email list, which has moved. It is now under Groups.io, instead of the Yahoo group that we used to be under. If you are not subscribed, and you would like to subscribe, contact me or Jenn, at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org and we will get you all set up.

Jenn has news about our new social media options.

Jenn Mercer: This is a very isolating time because of the coronavirus. Myself, I work in an office all alone, what would be different? But somehow it still is. Because of that isolation and because it sounded like fun, we started a monthly zoom meeting. We have established a regular schedule now; it’s going to be on the second Thursday of each month. It’s hosted by Eve Bodeux, who is our former French Language Division administrator. You can find information for that on the FLD mailing list, the listserv we mentioned before. It is on Facebook, and you can also find it on our new Discord server. The Zoom meeting is once a month, but Discord is available anytime you feel like chatting. If you are familiar with Slack, Discord is a lot like that, but it is just a smaller, simpler server. You can get an invite link for that in the monthly announcements for our social networking, or, again, you can email divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org and we will get you connected. Both this and the Zoom sessions are FLD member benefits, so just for us. There are rules posted in the Discord chat, but if you are familiar at all with FLD and the ATA, you probably know a lot of these already: be respectful, be professional, and never, ever discuss specific rates in any form.

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: Thank you so much, Jenn. Andie, sadly we are all aware of what is going on around the world right now, namely, the world is facing the challenging COVID-19 virus. Have you been keeping busy during the quarantine?

Andie Ho: Keeping busy hasn’t been the problem, the issue for me has been staying sane! A friend of mine put it really well yesterday. He said, “no matter what your situation is at home, there is some aspect of your life that makes quarantine and the pandemic especially hard for you.” Whether you have kids or you don’t have kids, you are living with someone or you don’t live with someone, somehow you have some sort of exacerbating circumstance. Personally, to be completely honest, I spent March in denial about Covid, and then I spent April hyperventilating. Like many, though not all, translators, and especially interpreters, my business is at an all-time low. But now that I have had some time to collect myself and my thoughts, I have reached the acceptance phase, as I call it, of this crisis. Now I am focusing on improving my business, whether that is through continuing education and webinars, or redesigning my website. I am also thinking about the future, about what things I can do now so that I can pull the trigger on them once the economy comes back and once things become somewhat normal again. I’m not going to lie, the pandemic has been pretty hard on me; but I am an optimist by nature—I continue to hold out hope that we will come out of this better than before. That said, I would be remiss not to mention that we have FLD members and ATA members who have been personally hit by COVID-19, or who have had family members come down with it, and even die from it. I am confident that I speak for everyone when I say that our hearts go to those colleagues of ours. Stay strong, stay healthy everybody.

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: Absolutely, thank you. Our hearts go out to all of the people who have been affected by this disease. Jenn, I have heard from many fellow translators that the corona crisis has also had a big impact on their workload. I know I share the same issue. Can you tell us how it has been for you, how you think it will affect the ATA convention in Boston—any word on that? Do you have any suggestions for our fellow colleagues?

Jenn Mercer: My situation, Andy said it really well. She mentioned she is in the acceptance phase. I started off in the denial phase. I said, lockdown, seriously, how is that different from my normal life? I work from home already…. Until I realized that no one was contacting me. No. One. So, I have absolutely seen a decline. I have started to see some tiny signs of life in different corners than I usually work, but I’m not complaining. I think none of us can really say for sure what things will be like in October. Personally, I have not made plans, I am just waiting to see what happens. I have a couple of quotes from a recent ATA board meeting. I don’t speak for ATA, but these are some things to keep in mind. This is from the treasurer:

Our initial estimates of potential losses for the Boston conference indicate that cancelling at this time would result in the greatest loss; holding an in-person event would result in a smaller loss, and holding a hybrid event would result in the smallest loss. At this time, we assume we will have a loss for all 2020 models.

I think we all feel that deeply. Also:

Although the situation is changing really fast, it has been determined that there will be an online component for the 2020 annual conference.

That is information I have. I think we can all understand that is only some information. As admin, I saw a lot of exciting ideas for the French track coming through. I’m actually starting to hear from people who have received acceptances. It sounds great. I just don’t know what form it will take. Also, of course, we all need to be concerned about our own health and risk factors, as well as, some of us, our finances might not be as robust, and you always have to take a look at your own situation, and your own health, in anything, I think.

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: Thank you. As a reminder of what we have accomplished so far, the Continuing Education Series aired fantastic episodes about legal translation, sustainable development, genealogy, and even a translation slam. As for the upcoming ATA annual conference, we are accepting suggestions from all members and non-members who would like to share their knowledge with the division and other colleagues during the conference. Don’t be scared! No public speaking experience is necessary. If you are interested, please email us at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org. We are interested in all topics, all subjects. Speaking of topics, we have one English to French topic about poorly written source content that needs a guest speaker. If you are interested in discussing terrible source content, or anything else, please get in touch.

Thank you, Jenn. Andie, thank you so much for joining me today. Have a great summer and, hopefully, see you soon in Boston.

Jenn Mercer: Thanks.

Andie Ho: Hope to see you there!

Cathy-Eitel Nzume: This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the Continuing Education Series podcasts on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/ata-fld or on iTunes by searching for Continuing Education Series in the iTunes store. You can contact the FLD at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org. Visit our website at www.ata-divisions.org/fld or get in touch with us on social media. This is Cathy-Eitel Nzume signing off. Thanks for listening, et à bientôt.

ATA Podcast host Cathy-Eitel Nzume is a certified French to English and English to French Court Interpreter, translator, Department of State Certified Linguist and legal professional. She specializes in legal and conference interpreting as well as legal and financial translation. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathyeitelnzume/ or on Twitter at @CathyENzume.

Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.

Jenn Mercer is a certified French to English translator.

Transcribed by Virginia (Ginny) Layton-Leal. She is a French and Spanish to English translator specialized in wellness and evidence-based complimentary medicine, and a French and Spanish medical interpreter with experience in medical examiner and medical weight loss interpreting. She holds a Certificate in Professional Translation and Interpreting (Spanish) from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a BA in Romance Languages (French/Spanish) from Mount Holyoke College. She is a member of ATA and NETA. When Ginny is not working with words, you will find her at an East Coast swing dance.

FLD Editor

[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast – Episode 17 – State of the FLD November 2020

ATA French Language Division Podcast
The FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash

The A Propos Logo

To make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on À Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you’re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 17 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

Episode 17: State of the FLD November 2020

Cathy-Eitel: Bonjour ! Bienvenue chez l’éditeur. This is Cathy-Eitel Nzume, host of the Continuing Education Series, a podcast we produce as a benefit for members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association and those interested in becoming members. This series tries to offer educational content about the craft of French-to-English and English-to-French translation, interpretation, and about our division.

For today’s episode, it is my pleasure to welcome Andie Ho, our newly installed administrator, for our State of the FLD Session. Some of you may be familiar with Andie, as she previously served as FLD Assistant Administrator.

Andie Ho: Hi, Cathy-Eitel. Hello FLD listeners. It’s nice to be on the podcast again. Thank you for the wonderful welcome. I am honored to be the FLD’s new administrator. I’ll be working together with our new assistant administrator, Beth Smith, who many of you already know from being around, and, working together, we’ll attempt to fill the giant shoes that Jen Mercer left behind for us.

Cathy-Eitel: Congratulations, again, Andie! Could you tell us a little bit about you, and what can we expect from the FLD for the upcoming year?

Andie Ho: Well, even though we just had the Annual Conference, we are already working next year’s conference, looking for a distinguished speaker for the FLD. We have to complete the paperwork pretty soon, in January, I believe, so it’s really important that we start looking for somebody now, so if anybody has ideas or suggestions for our distinguished speaker, please let us know. In other news, we hope to kick off the certification exam study group sometime next year since it looks like the ATA exams are going to resume soon. Our current plan is for people to do practice translations at home, and then pair up with a partner and give each other feedback. We will be starting a new round each month, with a new package to translate each month and a new partner to work with, so people can jump on the train any time and join the group, and the practice exams will be available in both language directions, English to French and French to English.

Cathy-Eitel: Thank you, Andie. Now let’s dive into another important topic. So, the 2020 ATA Annual Conference. The Conference was certainly different this year. It went virtual! Nevertheless, I personally think it was a success. Thanks to the organizers, everything went so smoothly, and attendees were still able to learn, network, and have fun. Could you share your thoughts on the 2020 ATA Conference?

Andie Ho: I thought the conference was a wild success, given everything that had to happen to pivot into an online event, turn it suddenly into an online event. I know lots of people were worried that there wouldn’t be opportunities to socialize and network with other people, but the organizers did a fantastic job of making sure we still had opportunities for that. The speakers did a great job, and I definitely want to congratulate the FLD speakers that represented us and made us proud of them. The conference organizers, I know, are actively seeking feedback right now on the conference because, apparently, they expect to have a hybrid version of the conference next year. So, if any of you who attended have opinions, either positive or negative, please email the ATA board, the officers, and let them know what you think.

Cathy-Eitel: Oh, wow. I didn’t know that. A hybrid version will be awesome, but do you have any recommendations for the next conference? What about advice for fellow translators and interpreters as to how to proceed now that the conference is over?

Andie Ho: Well, whether the conference is in-person or online, what you want to do afterwards is make sure you follow up, follow through with the things that you learned in the sessions and follow up with the people you met. Make time to try out the new software you heard about. Check out the new resource you heard about. Reach out and stay in touch with the people that you met. You can do like I have done, which is set yourself a reminder each week or every so often to email the people that you met, say, three months from now, see how they’re doing, or you can work together to brainstorm new business ideas that you came up with at the conference. These are all really important things, because the conference works best if you do something with the information that you got out of it, otherwise, you know, you’re not really getting the full benefit.

Cathy-Eitel: Okay, well, last time we spoke, Covid-19 was sort of at its peak. We are not out of the woods yet, and it’s difficult to meet in person; therefore, I think it is important to find a way to connect virtually. Andie, please, would you remind our fellow FLD members of the various ways to stay in touch or find out about FLD events?

Andie Ho: Oh, wow. FLD has more ways than ever to stay in touch. We are on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and have been for a long time, of course. Also, we still have the website. We have a newsletter and email discussion list, and, of course, this podcast, and we are now on Discord, which is another kind of messaging forum where people can chat. You should have, if you are an FLD member, you should have received an email recently, just last week I believe, detailing all of these different ways to stay in touch, with links, you can find us. And, new and improved, we’ve also started doing monthly Zoom meetups so that people can talk about their challengers or just enjoy each other’s company since we can’t see each other in person right now, but make sure you subscribe to at least one of the communications channels I mentioned so that you hear about the monthly Zoom meetings and get the announcements. We only post the actual link in the closed forum, for instance, listserv or the Facebook group, and that’s to make sure that our meetings don’t get hacked. Unfortunately, that is a thing that happens in this world, but, also, [laughter], yeah. You can also always just reach out to us to get the link. The main thing is that you need to subscribe to at least one method of communication, just so you get the announcements, the dates and times for the monthly Zoom meetups.

Cathy-Eitel: Thank you so much, Andie, for all the reminders. Now, your continuing education series is fantastic episodes about legal translations, sustainable development, genealogy, and even a translation slam. And for the future episodes, we are accepting suggestions from all members and nonmembers who would like to share their knowledge with the division and other colleagues. No public speaking experience necessary. If you are interested, please email us at divisionfld [at] atanet [dot] org. We’re interested in all topics and subjects. Speaking of topics, we have one English-to-French topic about poorly written source content and need a guest speaker. If you’re interested in discussing terrible source content, or anything else, please get in touch.

Andie Ho: Yeah, and I’d like to add to that that the FLD is run by volunteers, so anyone can step up and contribute at any time no matter in how small a way, otherwise, Cathy-Eitel, you and I have to do everything by ourselves.

Cathy-Eitel: Well, Andie, thank you so much for joining me today. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Andie Ho: Thank you Cathy-Eitel. Thank you for having me.

Cathy-Eitel: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Cathy-Eitel Nzume is a certified French to English and English to French Court Interpreter, translator, Department of State Certified Linguist and legal professional. She specializes in legal and conference interpreting as well as legal and financial translation. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathyeitelnzume/ or on Twitter at @CathyENzume.

Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie [at] andiehotranslations [dot] com.

Transcribed by Joan Wallace. She has been a full-time freelance translator for nearly 30 years. She holds ATA certification from French to English and Spanish to English, and also translates from Thai to English. She works primarily in medical and pharmaceutical translation, although she occasionally wanders further afield, including an ongoing collaboration with a historian involving
French-English translation of 19th-century handwritten documents. She is based in Madison, Wisconsin. You can connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/joanwallace.

FLD Editor

FLD Continuing Education Series – Episode 19 – ATA Certification Study Group

ATA French Language Division Podcast
The FLD Podcast – Photo Credit: Unsplash

Welcome to the 19th episode of the French Language Division’s Continuing Education Series. In this episode, podcast host Andie Ho and certified FLD member Emily Moorlach talk about Emily’s experience participating in the FLD’s ATA certification exam study group and her experience taking the online certification exam.

Emily also recently wrote about her experience for the Savvy Newcomer. Check out her post, Taking and Preparing for ATA’s Online Certification Exam.

Did you know the FLD has two study groups, one for French to English and one for English to French, to help its members ace the certification exam? If certification is one of your professional goals, you could participate. These groups are a free benefit for FLD members.

Emily Moorlach is an ATA-certified French to English translator who began her career in 2016 as the Translation and Interpretation Program Manager and freelance official document translator for a non-profit organization. In 2019, after a whirlwind trip through 45 cities in Europe, Emily returned to the U.S. to start her freelance translation business, Langue Vivante LLC. She holds a B.A. in French and a B.S. in Accounting from Iowa State University. Emily also studied at La Sorbonne in Paris and has held positions as a high school French teacher and luxury travel advisor. Her main specializations include official documents, corporate communications, and tourism industry materials. For more information, visit www.langue-vivante.com.

ATA Podcast host Andie Ho is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA’s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator or email her at andie@andiehotranslations.com.

HOW TO LISTEN

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 19 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.

FLD Editor

FLD Continuing Education Series – Episode 18 – ATA Certification

ATA French Language Division Podcast
The FLD Podcast – Photo Credit: Unsplash

Welcome to the 18th episode of the French Language Division’s Continuing Education Series. In today’s episode, podcast host Cathy-Eitel Nzume and certified FLD members Matt Bunczk and Beth Smith share their experiences taking the ATA certification exam.

Matthew Bunczk is an ATA-certified German-to-English and ATA-certified French-to-English translator specializing in business, legal, and financial translations. He is based near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from Ursinus College and a Certificate of Proficiency in Paralegal Studies from Delaware County Community College. His undergraduate studies brought him to Strasbourg, France, various parts of Europe, and Senegal, West Africa. After providing translations to employers on an ad hoc basis starting in 2006, he decided to turn translation into a career and has been translating full-time since 2015. You can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewbunczk.

Beth Smith is an ATA-certified French to English translator living near Houston, Texas. She specializes in advertising and marketing (especially cosmetics and luxury goods), entertainment, and literary translation. You can learn more about her work at www.itranslateFrench.net or check out her Twitter hijinks here: @BethTranslates.

ATA Podcast host Cathy-Eitel Nzume is a certified French to English and English to French Court Interpreter, translator, Department of State Certified Linguist and legal professional. She specializes in legal and conference interpreting as well as legal and financial translation. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathyeitelnzume/ or on Twitter at @CathyENzume.

HOW TO LISTEN

SOUNDCLOUD: You can listen to or download Episode 18 and all previous episodes on Soundcloud here.

ITUNES: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes here. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us!

FLD Editor

Post-édition de traduction automatique : se méfier des apparences


Photo de Ramón Salinero, Unsplash

Par Guillaume Deneufbourg

Le présent article est directement inspiré d’une présentation orale donnée (en anglais) à l’occasion du Congrès annuel de l’American Translators Association, le 25 octobre 2018, à La Nouvelle-Orléans, Louisiane, USA. Le titre original de cette intervention était : « Don’t Trust the Machine : How Neural Persuasive Power Can Mislead Post-editors ».

L’arrivée de la traduction automatique neuronale (NMT) a provoqué en 2017 une mini-onde de choc dans le monde de la traduction professionnelle. Pratiquement du jour au lendemain, les traducteurs ont pris conscience que la machine pouvait, à tout le moins dans certaines combinaisons linguistiques et certains domaines, produire du contenu « utilisable ». Cette évolution a parallèlement alimenté bon nombre de fantasmes et de craintes dans le chef des « consommateurs » et des prestataires de services de traduction.

Dans le giron des associations professionnelles ou sur les réseaux sociaux, les réactions ont été – et sont encore – aussi nombreuses que passionnées. Entre commentaires alarmistes, jugements infondés et exemples confinant à l’absurde tirés de textes de Shakespeare, on constate que les professionnels de la traduction ne sont pas toujours bien informés des tenants et aboutissants de la traduction automatique et de la post-édition et que les avis émis, guidés par l’émotion, pèchent par manque d’information et de données objectives.

L’objectif de la présentation donnée lors du Congrès annuel de l’ATA en novembre 2018 à La Nouvelle-Orléans était de dépasser les attaques ad machinam que lancent les militants anti-MT sans véritable fondement et de mettre le doigt, à travers des données très concrètes, sur les avantages et les dangers du recours à la (post-édition de) traduction automatique dans un contexte professionnel. Ma présentation s’articulait en trois parties, avec une introduction sur la technologie (histoire, évolution, perception des différents acteurs du marché), la présentation des résultats de deux enquêtes menées à l’échelle européenne sur l’utilisation de la technologie, et l’exposé d’une étude de cas réalisée auprès de professionnels et d’étudiants.

Introduction

L’introduction retraçait brièvement l’histoire de la traduction automatique et présentait mon opinion personnelle sur la perception de la technologie par les différents acteurs du marché. J’ai ainsi expliqué, non sans une petite dose d’ironie et d’autodérision, les quatre « profils » que l’on retrouve sur le marché des traducteurs indépendants : 1. les partisans de la politique de l’autruche, adeptes des exemples shakespeariens évoqués plus haut, 2. les fatalistes, persuadés de la mort imminente de leur profession, 3. les fourbes, qui critiquent ouvertement la traduction automatique en public, mais qui l’utilisent en secret dans la quiétude de leur bureau (soit par facilité, soit par obligation), 4. l’utilisateur réfléchi, qui se pose systématiquement la question de la pertinence, en fonction du contexte d’utilisation (profil recommandé).

Il convient aussi de noter que les opinions sont très divergentes en fonction de la position des acteurs sur le marché. Un grand nombre de pratiques existent, allant des arnaques pures et simples des agences low-cost, qui tentent régulièrement de faire passer des textes traduits automatiquement pour des productions humaines, aux agences plus consciencieuses qui essaient de prendre le train en marche sans effrayer leurs précieuses ressources linguistiques, en passant par les étudiants et les formateurs en traduction, dont les pratiques d’apprentissage et d’enseignement sont bouleversées, doucement, mais sûrement, par l’arrivée de la technologie.

Ces constats indiquent qu’il règne une extrême confusion sur le marché, que ce soit parmi ses acteurs (traducteurs, clients, tiers) qu’au sujet du produit lui-même (confusion entre qualité du contenu brut et qualité du contenu post-édité, etc.). De cette confusion découle un grand besoin d’objectiver le débat et de pédagogie.

Quelques statistiques

La deuxième partie consistait à dispenser quelques données objectives sur l’utilisation réelle de la traduction automatique au sein du secteur. Pour ce faire, j’ai présenté les résultats de deux enquêtes menées en 2017 et 2018.

La première, « European Language Industry Survey », menée en 2017 par un ensemble d’organisations (Commission européenne (via le réseau EMT), Elia, GALA, EUATC et FIT Europe), indiquait entre autres que l’année 2017 avait été la toute première année dans l’histoire de la traduction où la proportion de professionnels (agences et traducteurs individuels) affirmant avoir déjà eu recours à la post-édition de traduction automatique avait dépassé la barre symbolique des 50%.

L’autre enquête présentée, menée par la Chambre Belge des Traducteurs et Interprètes en 2018, indiquait une réticence plus marquée des traducteurs individuels face à la technologie, mais avec un « potentiel d’évolution » non négligeable lié à la réponse « I might use it in the future ». Ces deux enquêtes montrent un recours exponentiel à la post-édition de traduction automatique par tous les acteurs du marché. Une tendance qui devrait se poursuivre à l’avenir.

Étude de cas

Après quelques rappels utiles sur les différents niveaux de post-édition (light/full) et une série d’explications sur les méthodologies employées, j’ai exposé les résultats d’une étude de cas menée auprès de 25 étudiants et de 10 professionnels, à qui j’ai présenté un discours de Barack Obama traduit avec le moteur DeepL. Les objectifs étaient : 1. aller au-delà des arguments présentés habituellement par les activistes anti-NMT, 2. analyser la qualité du contenu traduit automatiquement au moyen d’exemples concrets, 3. analyser les stratégies de post-édition employées par les étudiants et les professionnels, 4. analyser les différences d’approche vis-à-vis des deux niveaux de post-édition (Light post-editing : modification du strict nécessaire en évitant toute intervention stylistique ; Full post-editing : intervention maximale pour atteindre un niveau de qualité comparable à une traduction « humaine »).

L’espace qui m’est réservé ici ne me permettant pas de reprendre en détail les exemples présentés lors de la conférence, je me limiterai à l’exposé de deux cas jugés représentatifs.

1er exemple

Le premier exemple illustre bien la fluidité de la production NMT, avec une phrase « brute » qui semble de prime abord plutôt convaincante.

Néanmoins, on se rend compte en deuxième analyse que le passage « transformer ces réalisations en un cadre durable pour le progrès humain » ne veut pas dire grand-chose.

La logique de l’exercice de post-édition voudrait donc de laisser en l’état la phrase – qui reste compréhensible – au niveau Light post-editing (LPE), mais de la modifier au niveau Full post-editing (FPE).

L’étude de cas démontre deux phénomènes intéressants : 1. 80% des professionnels ont modifié cette phrase dès le niveau LPE, ce qui laisse penser que les professionnels, probablement moins familiarisés avec l’exercice, ne peuvent résister à la tentation de corriger une imperfection, même quand ils ne sont pas invités à le faire. À noter, à titre de comparaison, qu’aucun des étudiants n’a modifié ce segment. 2. Au niveau FPE, seuls 8% des étudiants ont modifié ce segment, alors que les objectifs de la tâche l’imposaient, puisque la phrase brute n’était pas conforme aux normes de qualité que l’on pourrait attendre d’une traduction humaine. Ce constat donne à penser que les étudiants ne sont soit pas conscients de la nécessité de modifier le segment et estiment que la traduction est suffisamment bonne, soit qu’ils en ont conscience, mais ne sont pas capables d’améliorer le texte (ou ne prennent pas la peine de le faire, se contentant du niveau produit par la machine (« we are all lazy humans »).

Ces deux tendances reviennent dans l’ensemble des segments concernés par ce cas de figure, où on constate que les étudiants interviennent beaucoup moins sur le texte, aux deux niveaux de post-édition, une attitude relativement bonne dans le cas du LPE, mais qui l’est beaucoup moins dans le cas du FPE.

2e exemple

Le deuxième exemple porte sur un segment contenant une erreur de sens (contre-sens/faux sens). Comme on peut le voir dans l’illustration qui suit, DeepL a traduit la collocation « to deliver justice to the terrorist network » par « pour rendre justice au réseau terroriste ». L’erreur vient du fait que l’expression « rendre justice » en français signifie le contraire de l’original anglais, à savoir « reconnaître les mérites de », « réparer le mal qui a été fait », etc.

L’exercice de post-édition voudrait donc qu’on modifie ici cette phrase dès le niveau Light post-editing, puisqu’il s’agit d’une erreur de sens relativement grave (même si nous sommes conscients que le contexte d’énonciation ne laisse planer aucun doute sur les intentions de Barack Obama). Nous dégageons à nouveau deux phénomènes : 1. Un seul étudiant sur les 25 a pris la peine de modifier cette phrase au niveau LPE, ce qui semble très peu compte tenu des objectifs précités. 2. 20% des professionnels ont laissé cette erreur au niveau Full post-editing (et 28% d’étudiants), ce qui semble élevé compte tenu de la gravité de l’erreur et du niveau d’expertise des post-éditeurs.

Ces deux données nous amènent à penser que les deux profils de traducteurs (étudiants et professionnels) ont été « trompés » par l’apparente fluidité du texte traduit automatiquement et sont ainsi passés à côté de cette erreur grossière.

À noter également que nous avions demandé à un « groupe contrôle » de 5 traducteurs professionnels de traduire un extrait de ce texte sans recourir à la NMT et qu’aucun n’a commis d’erreur de sens sur ce passage (ni d’ailleurs sur l’ensemble de l’extrait). Il semblerait donc que l’apparente fluidité d’une production automatique induise une sorte d’excès de confiance dans le chef des traducteurs, toutes expériences confondues, et favorise donc la présence résiduelle d’erreurs de sens moins visibles.

Conclusions

L’analyse de l’ensemble du texte nous permet de dégager les tendances et constats suivants. Tout d’abord, une différence très faible entre les deux niveaux de post-édition, ce qui indiquerait que les étudiants sont potentiellement de « meilleurs » candidats pour une tâche de LPE, mais qu’ils peinent en revanche à s’élever au niveau Full post-editing.

À l’inverse, les professionnels semblent potentiellement être de « meilleurs » candidats pour une tâche de FPE, mais interviennent de façon excessive lors de l’étape Light post-editing. De façon plus générale, on note ainsi que tous les traducteurs rencontrent des difficultés à faire la distinction entre les deux niveaux de post-édition, chacun à leur échelle. Ils semblent en outre induits en erreur par le pouvoir persuasif de la NMT et se laissent plus facilement tromper par l’apparente fluidité des traductions, même lorsque la machine commet de lourdes erreurs de sens.

Nous émettons également, dans nos conclusions, l’hypothèse d’un rapport généralement inversement proportionnel entre la gravité des erreurs commises par la machine et l’effort cognitif nécessaire pour les corriger.

Ainsi, pour prendre un exemple volontairement caricatural, un contre-sens (gravité élevée) qui serait lié à l’oubli d’une négation pourra se corriger en quelques secondes en ajoutant les mots « ne… pas » à la phrase (effort faible). En revanche, des phrases bancales sur le plan stylistique (gravité faible) nécessiteront le plus souvent une reformulation de l’ensemble de la phrase (effort élevé). Cette tendance pourrait selon nous encourager les post-éditeurs à laisser les phrases en l’état lorsqu’elles sont borderline. Cette hypothèse pourrait faire l’objet d’une prochaine étude de cas.

Conclusions générales

S’agissant des conclusions générales de la présentation, j’ai souhaité insister sur les éléments suivants, en guise de takeaways. 1. Un recours exponentiel sur l’ensemble du secteur à la (post-édition de) traduction automatique, qui a véritablement le vent en poupe ; une tendance qui ne devrait pas faiblir. D’aucuns prédisent ainsi que d’ici 2030, seuls 20% de tout le volume de traduction généré à l’échelle mondiale ne passeront pas par un moteur de traduction automatique. Une prévision que je ne partage pas personnellement et qui peut sembler excessive. 2. Les post-éditeurs de toutes générations ont parfois tendance à faire aveuglément confiance à la machine, sans doute en raison de la fluidité des traductions produites. 3. Une grande confusion subsiste quant à la technologie et à son adoption par le marché, ce qui devrait inciter les traducteurs à faire preuve d’ouverture et de pédagogie vis-à-vis des utilisateurs et des « consommateurs ». Il s’agit selon moi d’un impératif pour éviter des désillusions et des grincements de dents à l’avenir, surtout chez les clients finaux, qui voient la traduction automatique comme le Saint Graal. Bien que la NMT évolue constamment – à l’heure où j’écris ces lignes, deepL ne commet déjà plus certaines des erreurs détectées lors de l’étude de cas – je reste convaincu qu’il demeurera un simple outil d’aide à la traduction, certes très utile dans certaines circonstances, mais dont l’usage doit être réservé à des utilisateurs expérimentés, formés et avertis de ses dangers.

Guillaume Deneufbourg travaille comme traducteur indépendant EN-NL>FR depuis 2002. Titulaire d’un Master en Traduction de l’Université de Mons (Belgique), il l’est aussi d’un Master spécialisé en linguistique appliquée et traductologie (ULB, Bruxelles). Guillaume enseigne la traduction à l’Université de Mons et à l’Université de Lille depuis 2010. Résident en Belgique, à quelques kilomètres de la frontière française, il est membre de l’ATA, de la SFT et de la CBTI. Plus d’infos ici.

FLD Editor

Pleats, Pockets and Problems: the Deceptive Ease of Fashion Translation

by Liza Tripp and Denise Jacobs

After a typical translator’s day working on dense annual reports and ponderous litigation files, fashion translation seems fun enough. What better diversion than immersing yourself in skirts and dresses?

Yet as with all well-executed translation, challenges abound. Sewing terms are technical, precise, and sometimes mysterious. There are endless variations of pleats, pockets, darts, seams, necklines, sleeves, hooks, buttonholes, and lapels. Fabric finishes also vary widely depending on textile manufacturers and whether the items are intended for haute couture or the mass market. Fashion is visual, yet translators are often faced with descriptions of pieces that have no accompanying images.

  • French terms for a variety of pocket styles.
    Photo credit: link
  • English terms for a variety of pocket styles.
    Photo credit: Pinterest

Haute couture and visionary designers often reference historical clothing styles and techniques in their creations. Max Mara even maintains a private historical fashion archive, which serves as a resource for its designers: “Fashion is a culture. Designers don’t create alone,” noted the brand’s creative designer.[i] Sometimes designs make literal references to historical items, in which case translations are best served doing the same. Indeed “les paniers” on a Junya Watanabe dress with zippered duffels at either hip are a fairly literal interpretation of the historical “panniers.”

Watanabe dress with panniers.
Photo Credit: 1stdibs
Historical dress with panniers. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In other cases, historical fashions serve to spur the designer’s creativity in developing entirely new and avant-garde concepts. Consider Margiela’s use of “blouse blanche,” not a blouse at all, but a white lab coat, pointing to the highly skilled French “petites mains” who worked in haute couture ateliers.

White lab coats at Margiela.
Photo credit: Instagram

The fashion house uses the historical term and the piece itself as a jumping off point for a multitude of items in its collections. These designs have included everything from all white clothing (some of them blouses!) to head-to-toe white down comforters worn as coats, right down to the plain white labels inserted in all of its pieces. Indeed, in Margiela’s case, the historical “blouse blanche” has become a way of branding the house itself—simple, exceedingly modern, but deeply connected to the past.

White “duvet” coat at Margiela.
Photo credit: Instagram

To complicate matters further, some terms are “one-offs,” where sometimes a more literal translation is warranted. Pierre Cardin once devised a pair of pantalons à roulettes, or roller pants, with a leg finishing in a roller-skate wheel shape. Recently, there was a description for an “inside-out poodle jacquard” in a review of John Galliano’s latest collection for Maison Margiela, which turned out to be exactly as described.

Pierre Cardin’s “roller pants”
© 1971. Image used with the permission of Jean-Pascal Hesse.
The very literal “inside-out poodle jacquard.”
Photo credit: Instagram

While having a photograph of the garment or accessory is, of course, the ultimate resource, translators are often left in the dark. Technical and fashion dictionaries can be helpful starting points. From there, we have turned to designers’ websites, online videos of fashion shows (time consuming, but elucidating), reliable fashion reviews (Vogue, WWD, New York Times, BoF), blogs and sewing websites found online, as well as museum and auction house catalogues. Reaching out to fashion houses or museums is also an option, time permitting. We were delighted when a museum in Paris even sent us photographs of the back of a garment we simply could not envision for a book translation.

As always, it is essential to conduct online research meticulously, with context, linguistic register, and final audience in mind. When in doubt, we recommend relying heavily on description, so your reader can see the item in question in their mind’s eye. Sometimes leaving a term in French can be an option, a way of naming the object where you otherwise could not. Obviously, this technique should be used judiciously and thoughtfully.

Yet, perhaps due to French’s longstanding role as the lingua franca of fashion, use of French in English is sometimes de rigueur. Indeed, when translating historical books on classic couture or biographies of legendary houses or couturiers, publishers and editors even mandate that certain words should be kept in French. haute couture, atelier, petites mains, flou and tailleur are a few examples.

Nevertheless, as can be expected in fashion, change is always in the air. English suddenly abounds in French, and very much so in fashion reporting. Sometimes the terms are simply borrowed (la fashion week, les shows, le vintage, le it bag) but words cannot always be handily back-translated into English. The word “oversize” in French, for example, often equates not to our English-language conception of oversize, but to descriptions like “roomy,” “relaxed,” or “slouchy.” Perhaps translating fashion texts is so tricky because fashion itself is a language. Miuccia Prada herself has said, “What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language.”[ii] As translators, we present texts that can be read and absorbed in a moment. Yet how we present that language should be a detailed process using mixed research sources and a bevy of translation techniques and styles.

[i] Olsen, Kerry. “In Max Mara’s Archive, Decades of Italian History.” New York Times, September 19, 2018, link.

[ii] Galloni, Alessandra. “Interview: Fashion is how you Present Yourself to the World.” Wall Street Journal. Updated January 18, 2007, link.

Liza Tripp has been a translator of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese into English for over 15 years. Much of her French and Italian work is in the luxury fashion sector. She most recently translated Martin Margiela: 1989–2009 with Denise Jacobs, which was published by Rizzoli in conjunction with a show at the Palais Galliera in Paris. She holds a BA in French translation from Barnard College, an M.Phil. from the Graduate School and University Center of the City of New York, and a French to English Certificate in Translation from NYU SCPS.
Website: www.lizatripp.com

Denise Jacobs is a French to English translator focusing on illustrated books about fashion, jewelry, art, travel, and the French lifestyle. She has an MA and M.Phil. in French literature from Columbia University. In addition to publishing more than 40 books, she has also translated several biographies, documentaries, and television news program segments. Website: www.deniserjacobs.com

FLD Editor

L’Argot et le traducteur/interprète judiciaire

par Hélène Viglieno Conte

Introduction

Les traducteurs et interprètes judiciaires sont confrontés à de multiples niveaux de langue dans le cadre de leur profession : du registre populaire au registre soutenu, en passant par le style familier ou courant. Dans le langage populaire, nous trouvons, entre autres, l’argot. Le présent article concerne l’argot de France, mais il est bon de rappeler qu’il existe autant de langages familiers dans la langue française que de groupes sociaux et régionaux francophones.

L’argot est un thème vaste au lexique plus vaste encore. Cet article aborde les origines et les fonctions de l’argot, les types d’argot contemporains et leur provenance, les principales situations judiciaires dans lesquelles le traducteur/interprète peut être confronté à l’argot et la nécessité et la difficulté de le traduire/interpréter fidèlement. La conclusion de cet article est suivie d’une petite histoire remplie de termes argotiques liés au judiciaire.

Avant de commencer, rappelons la définition du terme « argot » selon le Larousse :

L’argot est l’ensemble des mots particuliers qu’adopte un groupe social qui veut se distinguer et/ou se protéger du reste de la société.

Origine

Le terme argot date des années 1630, le concept lui-même faisant son apparition dès le 13e siècle. Les experts nous apprennent que ce langage a été créé par les malfaiteurs, c’est donc le jargon des bandits. Au 19e siècle, dans ses mémoires, l’inspecteur Rossignol écrivait :

« M. Jacob, lorsqu’il me reçut, me demanda si je parlais l’allemand. À sa place, j’aurais demandé : « Parlez-vous l’argot ? ». La langue verte est en effet la langue que doivent parler tous les inspecteurs de police. Pensez donc ! Tous les jours nous sommes en contact avec des gredins de la pire espèce qui ne disent jamais un mot de vrai français et qui, devant le comptoir des marchands de vin de la dernière catégorie, ne s’abandonnent qu’à ceux qui, familiers avec eux, ont l’air dessalé (malin), et qui s’expriment en leur langage. »

Mémoire de Rossignol

Fonction

Victor Hugo

L’argot a pour fonction première de crypter le discours de celui qui l’emploie. Les locuteurs codent leur message pour ne pas être compris des non-initiés. On retrouve donc la volonté de masquer la langue pour se protéger, comme l’affirme la définition du Larousse.
Victor Hugo — écrivain, poète, historien et philosophe français du 19e siècle — a minutieusement étudié l’argot de son époque en tant que lexique, mais également en tant que phénomène sociolinguistique. Il fut le premier écrivain à avoir la témérité de faire parler l’argot par ses personnages, ce langage étant exécré par la bonne société de son temps. Dans son formidable roman Les misérables paru en 1862, il consacre un long paragraphe au sujet et l’on ne peut que constater le lien étroit qu’il fait entre l’argot et le crime :

« Qu’est-ce que l’argot à proprement dit ? L’argot est la langue de la misère. Il y a, à l’extrémité de tous les abaissements et de toutes les infortunes, une dernière misère qui se révolte et qui se décide à entrer en lutte […] ; lutte affreuse où […] elle attaque l’ordre social à coups d’épingle par le vice et à coup de massue par le crime. Pour les besoins de cette lutte, la misère a inventé une langue de combat qui est l’argot. L’argot n’est autre chose qu’un vestiaire où la langue, ayant quelque mauvaise action à faire, se déguise. […] La voilà prête à entrer en scène et à donner au crime la réplique […]. Elle ne marche plus, elle clopine ; elle boite sur la béquille de la Cour des miracles, béquille métamorphosable en massue ; elle se nomme truanderie. […] Elle est apte à tous les rôles désormais, faite louche par le faussaire, vert-de-grisée par l’empoisonneur, charbonnée de la suie de l’incendiaire ; et le meurtrier lui met son rouge. »

Voici un exemple de la manière dont la langue se déguisait au 19e siècle : « Le grinche a r’piqué au truc en filant une pelure, mais les marchands d’lacets l’ont fabriqué. Il a été gerbé aux durs. » Pour déchiffrer cet obscur message, il faut le décortiquer terme par terme : grinche (voleur), repiquer au truc (récidiver), filer une pelure (dérober un manteau), les marchands de lacets (les gendarmes), fabriquer (piéger), gerber (condamner), les durs (les travaux forcés). Ainsi, sa traduction en français courant serait « Le voleur a récidivé en dérobant un manteau, mais les gendarmes l’ont piégé. Il a été condamné aux travaux forcés. »

L’argot d’aujourd’hui

À notre époque, on pourrait dire qu’il existe deux types d’argot. Il y a tout d’abord l’argot qui a conservé sa fonction cryptique, celui utilisé par les malfaiteurs et autres personnages de la pègre pour ne pas être compris des forces de l’ordre. D’ailleurs, dès qu’un terme argotique à fonction cryptique est déchiffré par la police, il devient obsolète ; c’est pour cela qu’il se renouvelle très vite. De nos jours, l’argot a également une fonction identitaire très prononcée. Il est façonné par des groupes sociaux qui cherchent à se différencier des autres locuteurs. La langue étant un aspect intimement lié à l’identité d’un peuple, l’argot en tant que lexique revêt une fonction identitaire particulière pour ceux qui l’emploient. Il s’agit du langage des jeunes des banlieues et des milieux défavorisés (on fait le parallèle avec Victor Hugo qui qualifiait l’argot de langue de la misère.) L’argot d’aujourd’hui est inspiré du sentiment d’exclusion ressenti par ces jeunes qui, en créant leur propre langage hermétique, peuvent à leur tour exclure ceux qui appartiennent à la société des inclus. L’argot dont la fonction est identitaire se renouvelle moins vite que celui dont la fonction est cryptique, mais il se renouvelle néanmoins, surtout lorsque l’un de ses termes se retrouve assimilé au français courant et perd donc sa nature hermétique.

Provenance

Les termes argotiques que l’on entend ou que l’on emploie aujourd’hui ont diverses provenances. Certains sont tirés du vieil argot, comme le terme feignasse déjà utilisé au 19e siècle. D’autres encore proviennent de l’immigration ; l’histoire de la France étant telle que son argot est fortement influencé par les peuples qui y ont immigré ou qu’elle a colonisés. Par exemple, le terme caïd veut dire chef en arabe, tandis que chouraver signifie voler en tzigane. Il y a également un argot propre aux régions ; un terme argotique utilisé dans un lieu géographique ne le sera pas nécessairement dans un autre. On dira barouf dans la région de Marseille alors qu’ailleurs on se contentera peut-être de dire raffut, c’est à dire tapage (bruit). Il est intéressant de noter également qu’un même terme peut avoir un sens différent selon la région dans laquelle il est employé. Quand une personne du nord-est de la France dit « J’ai les boules », elle exprime qu’elle a les chocottes (c.-à-d. peur). Alors que lorsqu’un Provençal l’utilise, il veut dire qu’il est dèg (dégoûté) ou vénère (énervé)… pas content, quoi !

De nombreux termes argotiques sont issus du verlan, un procédé qui consiste à inverser les syllabes ou encore les lettres d’un mot. On peut verlaniser des termes de français courants comme louche (chelou), fou (ouf), femme (meuf), lourd (relou), fête (teuf), pourri (ripou), etc. On peut également verlaniser des termes argotiques comme mec (kum), tronche (chetron) ou choper (pécho). Et pour bien compliquer les choses, il existe aussi des cas de double verlan : Beur (Arabe) qui a fini par donner Rebeu et meuf (femme) qui s’est transformé en feumeu. Comme nous l’avons lu dans l’introduction, le lexique de l’argot est non seulement extrêmement vaste, mais aussi en constante évolution. Il existe notamment 3 termes qui possèdent plus de 1 000 équivalents argotiques, à savoir, le mot femme (belette, caille, chnek, fatma, fatou, feum, gonzesse, greluche, grosse, loute, meuf, nana, poule, etc.), le mot argent (artiche, biff, bifton, caillasse, flouze, fraîche, fric, galette, gengen, genhar, keusse, khalis, lové, maille, naimo, neutu, oseille, patate, pépette, pèze, etc.) et enfin, l’expression faire l’amour (pour la plupart d’ailleurs vulgaires : baiser, prendre à la hussarde, chevaucher sans selle, farcir, tirer un coup, limer, ramoner, tirer sa crampe, bouillaver, etc.). On pourrait presque dire que ces trois termes rassemblent les principales préoccupations de l’humanité. 😉

Situations judiciaires

Les situations judiciaires dans lesquelles l’interprète ou le traducteur sera confronté à l’argot sont nombreuses. En fait, dès qu’un témoin « lambda » (c’est à dire une personne qui ne témoigne pas en qualité d’expert) est impliqué, nous risquons de rencontrer ce lexique. Voici les principales situations qui concernent l’interprète et le traducteur judiciaires :

  1. Les interrogatoires de police. Par exemple, un suspect qui dira : “J’veux pas aller au chtar ; j’vais balancer.” (Je ne veux pas aller en prison. Je vais parler/dénoncer.”)
  2. Les dépositions. Aux États-Unis, on enregistre les déclarations d’un témoin faites sous serment, lesquelles serviront d’éléments de preuve avant et pendant le procès. C’est bien sûr un cadre plus formel que l’interrogatoire de police, mais encore une fois, selon le témoin qui dépose, des termes argotiques sont parfois employés.
  3. Les entretiens entre un avocat et son client.
  4. Les mises sur écoute sont certainement les situations où les locuteurs seront le plus susceptibles d’utiliser de l’argot s’ils redoutent d’être espionnés. C’est l’exemple par excellence de l’argot à fonction cryptique. Ces situations concernent évidemment le traducteur qui après en avoir fait la transcription devra les traduire.
  5. Enfin, les témoignages au cours d’un procès sont également l’une des situations judiciaires où l’argot peut survenir. C’est d’ailleurs la situation la plus cruciale et la plus difficile — même si elles le sont toutes — dans laquelle l’interprète est tenu de comprendre et d’interpréter fidèlement l’argot. Nous y reviendrons.

Nécessité de traduire/interpréter fidèlement

Le traducteur/interprète judiciaire est un intermédiaire neutre entre plusieurs intervenants. Lorsqu’il transfère un message d’une langue à l’autre, il est tenu de préserver fidèlement le registre utilisé par le locuteur, aussi familier ou même vulgaire qu’il puisse être. À titre de référence, citons les codes de déontologie de l’ATA et de NAJIT :

  • It would be inappropriate to clean up objectionable language in the target language. (American Translators Association)

  • The register, style and tone of the source language should be conserved.
    (National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators)

Pourquoi est-il nécessaire — et même essentiel — de préserver le registre de langue employé par un locuteur, tout particulièrement pendant que l’on interprète un témoignage au cours d’un procès ? Réponse : les jurés. Les jurés sont chargés de prononcer un verdict au terme du procès et, pour ce faire, ils s’appuient sur les différents éléments — et donc les témoignages — qui leur sont présentés pendant les audiences. Aux États-Unis, lorsqu’un interprète est présent, le juge ordonne aux jurés de ne pas prendre en compte le message source (même s’ils le comprennent), mais uniquement l’interprétation qui leur est fournie.

The Bilingual Courtroom

Dans le livre The Bilingual Courtroom : Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process (Susan Berk-Seligson) on apprend que, d’après les études expérimentales menées, un témoin qui s’exprime poliment et correctement est davantage crédible aux yeux d’un jury qu’un témoin qui utilise un registre de langue très familier (dont l’argot). Effectivement, les jurés sont des personnes comme tout un chacun, avec des systèmes de croyances et des préjugés. C’est pourquoi, un témoin qui dit : « Ché pas…. Il m’a dit d’aller chercher les valoches. Fallait qu’on s’casse vite. » aura un autre impact en termes de crédibilité que celui qui dit : « Je ne sais pas, madame. Il m’a dit d’aller chercher les valises. Il fallait qu’on parte vite. »

L’interprète judiciaire est un puissant filtre par lequel passent les paroles du témoin. Il a donc une grande influence sur la manière dont le témoignage en question sera perçu. Si l’interprète judiciaire a la tâche d’assurer une présence linguistique à l’accusé et à certains témoins, rappelons que son rôle premier est de participer à une administration équitable de la Justice. Il n’est là ni pour avantager ni pour désavantager le locuteur et doit veiller à être aussi transparent et fidèle au message source que possible. Il est essentiel qu’un témoin ou qu’un accusé dont le message passe par un interprète soit sur le même pied d’égalité que celui qui s’exprime dans la langue natale des jurés ; ce « pied d’égalité » étant un concept clé. Un interprète qui élève ou abaisse le niveau de langue d’un témoin altère la perception qui se serait formée dans l’esprit des jurés sans la présence d’un interprète, avantageant ou désavantageant ainsi le témoin et influençant l’issue du procès.

Difficulté de traduire/interpréter fidèlement

Cette mission peut parfois sembler impossible, car le lexique de l’argot est vaste, méconnu et en constante évolution. De plus, il ne possède pas nécessairement d’équivalents d’une langue à l’autre (ex. : valoche) et il est parfois issu d’une culture propre (ex. : la veuve = la guillotine, the hot seat = the electric chair). Et lorsqu’un équivalent existe, on constate parfois que son registre n’est pas assez familier ou l’est trop.

Pour contourner ces obstacles, le traducteur a l’avantage de pouvoir faire des recherches, mais dans de nombreux cas (ex. mises sur écoute), il ne peut pas demander des éclaircissements au locuteur. Tandis que l’interprète peut poser des questions directement au locuteur, mais n’a pas le luxe de faire des recherches. C’est pourquoi les interprètes et les traducteurs judiciaires doivent constamment se familiariser avec le lexique argotique (en regardant des séries/films policiers ou documentaires judiciaires, en lisant des polards, en écoutant des émissions de radio, etc.). Pour rester avertis, ils doivent en faire un exercice régulier.

Pour surmonter l’absence d’un équivalent, une petite acrobatie mentale peut se révéler utile. En effet, il faut parfois transférer la familiarité d’un terme dans la langue source sur un autre terme dans la langue cible : « Il m’a dit d’aller chercher les valoches » devient « He told me to go grab the bags ». L’interprète, qui n’a pas le luxe du temps comme le traducteur, doit parfois recourir à un procédé plus simple pour abaisser le registre lorsqu’il ne connaît pas l’équivalent (ou que ce dernier ne lui vient pas à l’esprit). Ainsi, il pourra utiliser certaines expressions anglaise telles que darn, goddamn, freaking ou fucking et, inversement, des expressions françaises comme foutue ou putain de… Attention ! Ce procédé est à utiliser avec grande prudence pour ne pas faire tort au message source.

Conclusion

Pendant notre excursion dans le monde de l’argot, nous avons constaté que ses origines sont directement reliées au monde du crime et que — l’un n’allant pas sans l’autre — ce langage participe donc du domaine judiciaire. En raison de son lexique extrêmement vaste, parfois méconnu et en constante évolution, l’argot présente un défi conséquent au traducteur ou interprète judiciaire qui, d’un point de vue déontologique, est tenu de le reproduire aussi fidèlement que possible dans la langue cible, tout particulièrement en situation de procès afin de ne pas influencer l’issue des audiences. Pour ce faire, le traducteur/interprète judiciaire fera appel à divers procédés pour garantir l’exactitude de sa traduction ou de son interprétation. Une bonne dose de curiosité, l’envie d’apprendre et le respect de la déontologie sont tout autant de qualités professionnelles dont le traducteur ou l’interprète judiciaire peut difficilement se passer lorsqu’il est confronté au défi de l’argot.

Bonus

Petit conte moderne à déchiffrer :

« L’était une fois un proxo qui f’sait tapiner les greluches de son tiécar. Y s’prenait pour un caïd avec son brelic ; zarma il avait même dézingué une tepu qui avait essayé de l’carotter. Mais y s’est fait lanceba aux schmitts par un poukav, alors y s’est carapaté. Y s’est planqué pour pas s’faire gauler. L’a quand même plongé : les condés l’ont filoché et y s’est fait coffrer. On lui a mis les gourmettes et y sont partis à KFC. Z’ont trouvé d’la beuh et du keukra sur lui. Y zavaient assez d’biscuit pour l’envoyer aux assiettes et l’foutre au gnouf. »

[Traduction en français courant : Il était une fois un proxénète qui prostituait les filles de son quartier. Il se prenait pour un chef avec son pistolet ; soi-disant il avait même tué une prostituée/pute qui avait essayé de l’arnaquer. Mais il s’est fait dénoncer à la police par un indicateur, alors il a fui. Il s’est caché pour ne pas se faire prendre. Il est quand même allé en prison : les policiers l’ont pris en filature et il s’est fait arrêter. On lui a mis les menottes et ils sont partis au commissariat. Ils ont trouvé de l’herbe et du crack sur lui. Ils avaient assez de preuves pour l’envoyer en cour d’assises et l’incarcérer.]

Hélène Viglieno Conte est une traductrice certifiée par l’American Translators Association (ATA) dans la combinaison de langues anglais>français. Elle intègre la profession en 2006 et se spécialise dans les domaines judiciaires, médicaux et techniques. Elle est également interprète judiciaire certifiée par les Cours suprêmes de l’Ohio, du Kentucky et de l’Indiana. Hélène fait actuellement partie de la petite équipe de traducteurs AN>FR minutieusement sélectionnés qui collaborent avec le Département d’État des États-Unis. Active dans la profession au niveau local, elle occupe le poste de présidente de la Northeast Ohio Translators Association, un chapitre de l’ATA. Originaire du Sud de la France, Hélène vit aux États-Unis depuis plus de 20 ans et réside actuellement dans le nord-est de l’Ohio.

www.translation-interpreting.com

FLD Editor

Volunteering My Translation Skills In a Local French School

 

Photo Credit: Element5 Digital via Unspash

By Andie Ho

A few years ago, I began lending my translation skills to a local, volunteer-run school that holds Saturday French classes for K-12 students. The classes are aimed at both francophone children of French expats in the Houston area to help them maintain their French while living in the U.S. as well as students learning French as a foreign language.

My role as the school’s official translator came about gradually. Through a separate organization for French expats, I became friendly with several of the school’s board members. One day, one of them called me and asked if I’d be willing to do a short volunteer translation for the school. I replied that I’d be happy to help. Since then, I have been receiving sporadic translation requests, on the order of a handful of times a year. The texts are easy enough and frequently repetitive and mostly consist of job postings and either translating or proofreading the English version of the quarterly newsletter. The staff are gracious and respectful of my time, and the deadlines are usually long compared to my paid work, so helping out is never a burden.

Though I initially agreed to volunteer for purely selfless reasons, one side benefit of being involved with the local expat community has been the opportunity to advertise my services. As a translator for the school, I am considered a staff member and attend school celebrations for events like la Galette des rois and la rentrée. At these gatherings, I meet many French expats and am usually introduced to an auditorium full of people not just as the school’s translator, but as a professional translator in my own right. As a result, I have had people approach me for my language skills.

My experience has also made me rethink how I network. A number of years ago, I attended a networking event where I received the name of a prospective client, a French expat who had started a small business in Houston helping other French expats settle in the U.S. She was reportedly often in need of translations for her clients. I contacted her several times by email and phone, citing our mutual acquaintance and hoping to speak with her, but I never heard back. A couple of years later, when I began volunteering for the school, I discovered the same woman was one of the school’s board members. She didn’t remember my attempts to contact her, but we became well acquainted, and just last month, she referred me to a friend in need of a translation for his business. People prefer to do business with people they know—and from what I understand, that goes double for the French. Volunteering has allowed me to serve a good cause while simultaneously giving me a foot in door to the sizable French expat community in the fourth largest city in the United States.

I no longer attend networking events where I’m not likely to ever cross paths with the people I meet there again. In fact, anything that bills itself as a networking event generally tends to be unfruitful for me. Instead, I focus on recurring activities where I see the same people over and over and have an opportunity to build relationships, an approach that happens to suit my personality. After all, it’s much more pleasant to make a friend and then have her call you for a translation than it is to try to foist your services on a stranger.

On a personal level, I believe that everyone should strive to make the world a better place in whatever way they can, and volunteer work is certainly a major way for people to do their part. If you’re able to draw professional gains at the same time, then all the better.

Andie Ho is a Houston-based, ATA-certified French to English translator. She specializes in the areas of food and cosmetics. Find her at www.andiehotranslations.com or follow her on Twitter at @JHawkTranslator.

Editor’s Note: Have you had a positive experience volunteering? Please share it with us! Also, did you know that volunteering your translation services is a great way to earn continuing education credits for your ATA certification? Keep track of the time you spend volunteering and include it on your CE points report.