ITI Conference 2011

Archive for the ‘Abstracts’ Category

SDL, the company behind the ever popular SDL Trados Studio translation environment tool, has taken two slots in our software presentation room at the conference. They will use these sessions to tell delegates about the “Single Document Translation Process” and to answer delegates’ questions.

The slots reserved for SDL are:

• Saturday, 1400-1500
• Sunday, 1030-1130

Spaces at the presentation will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, but don’t worry if you don’t get in – SDL  is also exhibiting at the conference and the SDL Trados guys will be more than happy to take you through the software on their stand.

Information about SDL

www.translationzone.com

ITI is offering current or immediate past MA/MSc students the opportunity to present a poster session at the Institute’s 25^th anniversary conference in Birmingham, 7-8 May 2011.

The poster session may be based on work you have done in connection with your translation and/or interpreting course, dissertation or project or on an aspect of translation and/or interpreting work that particularly interests you.

The aim of the poster sessions is to enable practising translators and interpreters to learn about ongoing research and study as part of MA/MSc courses and to give grant recipients an opportunity to meet and network with practising and established translators and interpreters.

The conference is being held at the NEC Galleries, Birmingham, which offers good road, rail and air connections.

If you would like to present your poster, please send an e-mail to education@iti.org.uk with:

Your name, university, and university department

Year of study

Title of your poster session and a short outline of the content (max 300 words)

Your daytime telephone number, email and postal address

Final date for submissions: 15 February 2011

We will select a maximum of four dissertations. We would like to include both translation and interpreting topics.

If you are selected to take part, you will be required to:

• produce and set up a poster display illustrating your research (for tips, Google ‘poster session’ or see http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/speaking/poster/ )
• be available to discuss it with conference participants
• give an 8-minute presentation in a conference session organised for this purpose
• write a short article for ITI Bulletin.

You will receive £100 towards your travel, materials and expenses, and free registration for the conference day when you are presenting.

The platform presentation is scheduled for the pre-lunch session on Sunday, 8 May 2010.

More information on the 2011 Conference is available at:

http://www.iti-conference.org.uk/conference-2011/

ITI Education & Training Committee

Being able to find and check (often obscure) terminology and locate background information on the Internet is an essential skill for a translator. Google, Yahoo and other search engines have a number of features to allow searchers to define their searches in order to achieve better results and thereby speed up the process of translating. This may involve broadening the search to capture a wider range of information or narrowing it down to eliminate as much non-relevant material as possible.

This presentation will explore some of the less-used features of the major search engines to demonstrate some inventive ways to find translation- and language-related information on the Internet. We will be looking, for example, at how to search for something within a specific website or how to search the KudoZ glossaries on simultaneously for a particular term.

Note-taking: an evaluation of skills transfer between conference interpreting and public service interpreting

There is a wealth of research and several well-known publications on note-taking for conference interpreting.  Research in this field is almost as old as the discipline itself and the area of consecutive interpreting in the conference arena is extensively covered. As far as research or publications on note-taking for public service interpreters is concerned, however, there is very little available. Existing conference interpreter documentation does not, in its current form, deal with the topic areas relevant to public service interpreting or the techniques which may be applicable to public service interpreter note-taking.

Kirsty Heimerl-Moggan’s research analyses the underlying ideas and systems used in note-taking for conference interpreting and their applicability, once adapted, to public service interpreter needs. She will be reporting on her studies into adapted public service interpreter note-taking and considering student performance pre- and post the adapted-note-taking study. Her research focuses on public service interpreting students, conference interpreting students and those combining both careers paths.

Kirsty will be drawing on her observations and analysis of her conference and public service interpreting students over the last 12 years.

Kirsty and Jerome’s workshop follows on from the presentation on note-taking and will be a fun interactive session for anyone who would like to find out more about this useful skill or would like to improve their existing knowledge.

An essential skill for any interpreter is the retention of information. A great deal of emphasis in interpreter training is placed on memory skills enhancement and such skills are deemed the most appropriate in the interpretation of short interventions. Note-taking, however, can be a very useful additional skill especially when interventions are longer, require retention of specific details or are difficult to follow.

Although every interpreter’s note-taking is very individual, there are some underlying notions which help any interpreter develop their individual set of notes.

During this session the presenters will give an introduction to these skills and participants will then have the opportunity to start developing their own set of symbols on specific topics on the basis of the information provided.

This session will look at the various difficulties encountered when legislation crops up in non-legal and legal contexts. Questions might include 1) how do I translate legislation that has not been translated before; 2) how do I deal with legislation that has been translated before, but I disagree with the translation; and 3) how do I deal with a source text that makes reference to a specific aspect of legislation (a nuance or ambiguity) that is not present in the target language version of that legislation? The session will be led by Richard Delaney.

Translators are human

This is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

What implications does this realisation have, or should it have, for the way we approach our work? How can we counteract our human failings and exploit our human advantages to the full? This is not just a matter of: “We make mistakes, translation memory perpetuates them”. It extends far beyond core translating skills to include communication with clients, agencies, colleagues and others, the need for continuous upgrading in the sense of life-long learning, problems with organising and mobilising knowledge, and many other fields. It can even affect our attitude to our profession and its status: Do we hide behind our computers, phones and e-mail, or do we take a proactive stance in our dealings with the outside world?

Taking a fresh and wide-ranging look at what makes human translators their own worst enemy, this talk seeks to provide practical and pragmatic solutions to a number of familiar everyday problems by raising awareness of how the problems arise in the first place. This session is presented by Terry Oliver.

In the world of professional translation getting an MA is something akin to getting a first driving license – you may know the theory but you are not yet a proficient practitioner.

Sarah Griffin-Mason, Vice-Chair of the ITI Education and Training Committee will provide a low-down on some of the available post-MA translator training that can help you gain the competitive edge and compete professionally in a burgeoning market-place.

This session will discuss many types of valuable training available to language providers from sources including on-line translator forums, commercial providers, the ITI and other professional associations. The aim is to provide you with:

• an overview of the types of training available
• suggestions for complementary skills for portfolio working – teaching, revising, editing, writing
• suggestions on how to improve your writing, productivity and list of contacts.

There will be a short discussion session aimed mainly at freelancers seeking guidance in uncharted waters.

Emotional Intelligence is generally defined as a set of competencies demonstrating the ability one has to recognize his or her behaviours, moods, and impulses, and to manage them best according to the situation at hand.

Typically, “emotional intelligence” is considered to involve emotional empathy, attention to -and discrimination of- one’s emotions; accurate recognition of others’ moods; response with appropriate emotions and behaviours in various life situations, especially to stress and difficult situations; and possession of good social skills and communication skills.

Arguably, competent translators and interpreters also need to possess these skills in order to mediate effectively between cultures, to understand a client’s needs and expectations, and to communicate someone’s message in a successful way. Being able to recognize what other people feel, and finding ways to handle and transfer these perspectives seems absolutely necessary for successful translation and interpreting performances in today’s globalized and competitive market.

So what place should be given to emotional intelligence in the translator’s/interpreter’s workplace, if any? And how can translator and interpreter professionals learn to behave in more emotionally intelligent ways in this competitive and increasingly technological industry, where face to face interactions are becoming a thing of the past?

This session will be interactive, enabling delegates to participate in the discussion and share experiences.  It is presented by Séverine Hubscher-Davidson.

With Yvonne Fowler, Aston University, Birmingham UK

Using video conferencing technology to process bail applications directly from prison is now an everyday occurrence: and for defendants in the UK it is mandatory. Another initiative, the Virtual Court Pilot Project, will almost certainly mean that, in the very near future, most defendants will be “offered the opportunity” to “attend” a court hearing immediately after charge and be sentenced whilst still at the Police Station.

References to interpreters are completely absent from the promotional literature. One government document states that “a Virtual Court Hearing is just like any other first hearing that takes place at a magistrates’ court” and “the timeliness of the process and the resource savings offered by the technology improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system in working together to put on effective first hearings – without any loss of quality”.

So is it really true to say that video conferenced court hearings are just like any other or that there is no loss of quality? Those promoting the use of video conferencing technology in court have failed to take account of the fact that a large number of defendants coming before the courts have ways of communicating which differ from the norm, for example, sign language users and non-English speakers. Few, if any, researchers have looked at the differences between face-to-face interpreted court hearings and video conferenced ones.

Building upon a pilot study, and making use of Bhatia’s Move Structure to provide a micro-analysis of the linguistic styles of a typical prison video link hearing, I use a combination of audio recordings, ethnographic observation and interviews to show that this technology alters communication in ways which are not immediately apparent, even to the interpreter. There are also differences in procedure and other factors requiring adjustment by the interpreter and the court if non-English speaking defendants are not to be disadvantaged.

In the very near future, more and more court hearings (perhaps including trials) will be heard through video link. Interpreters must be equipped to cope with the demand that the technology places upon them. What is at stake is nothing less than justice for  limited-English speaking defendants.

This workshop is designed for aspiring and practising court interpreters. It will use anonymised transcripts of real hearings to demonstrate the differences between working with defendants face to face and remotely and will attempt to raise the awareness of participants of such issues as the role of the interpreter in the video link court, the need for assertiveness in setting out the parameters of the interpreter’s professional duty, the power relationships in the courtroom and how these affect the interpreter, and, last but not least, the interpreting techniques that are required for dealing with the new technology.

Using the Internet as a place of work, Ana Iaria

The life of the professional translator has changed so much in the last few years that it would be almost unrecognizable for a translator who would wake up from a coma. Gone are the days of working alone at home or at the back of the garden, hunched over a typewriter or a word processor. The Internet is here to stay and be part of our lives. We now work and live on the Internet.

This presentation aims to show how it is possible to work from anywhere in the world, either using a portable or a desktop computer and how to make the most of what the Internet has to offer – as well as the Web 2.0, a concept that is slowly inching its way in our lives. It will be based on my own personal experience of spending months abroad visiting family or attending courses and conferences and how the online tools allow me, or anyone else for that matter, be anywhere in the world without losing touch with their clients – just paying attention to time zones.

Tools that make this a reality will be presented, together with the latest releases in terms of software and hardware for translators on the go. As technology advances, we have to be able to adapt if we want to stay in contact with increasingly demanding requirements to be a translator.

This workshop will be led by Madeleine Lenker of the LRC at University of Limerick, Ireland

Localisation concerns the translation of digital content, software and their appropriate presentation to end users in different locales. Localisation is important because having software, a website or other content in several languages, and meeting several sets of cultural expectations is an important international marketing advantage. In the non-commercial sector, where information equality is deemed important, localisation also enables information access for less well off locales. These requirements have led to demands for increased localisation activities and acts as a prompt to study how the localisation process can be optimised. To do this, a standardised localisation process first needs to be made explicit. Hence, new approaches need to be found to cope with this increasing volume while maintaining and improving quality.

Sophisticated TEnTs (Translation Environment Tools) offer for example a complete translation workflow online. This kind of technology allows several people to work on the same project simultaneously. Data is also stored online and cannot get lost in a local computer crash. However, it should be noted that while these tools to create workflows exist, standard, state-of-the-art workflows do not seem to exist and consequently, companies are left to their own devices to recreate best practices in this regard.

Considering the cultural differences that can arise when the localisation effort is distributed globally (differences between headquarters and local offices and the different languages) this seemingly important factor could become even more critical, exacerbating the need for such a workflow. Steps such as those required to build trust and communication, in such contexts may be required.

Rosner (MultiLingual, 2009, pp.26–27) surveyed practitioners to find out which was more important: people, technology or processes within localisation. The results indicated that the people and processes are the most important factors. Interestingly, none of the respondents thought that technology was the most important factor. Thus, participants said if you have the right people and the right process in place, even bad technology will not stop you from achieving the goal. This is interesting given the investment in tools and technology in this area and the lack of standardisation with respect to a state-of-the-art localisation process/workflow that explicitly incorporates, and thus organises, people within that process.

It is important to combine people, technology and processes to answer nowadays and future localisation needs. The first step is to define the process (for instance what to localise, resources and budget). This leads to the project enactment/kick off. This, in turn, leads to a decision on how to proceed: either using an ERP tool (for accounting, invoicing, project management) or using a translation management system (TMS). If an ERP tool is used, it will provide a more holistic solution giving, for example, better monitoring of the depreciation and appreciation of company assets. If the ERP solution is chosen then a connection should be made to TEnTs to process and speed up the localisation further which will also lead to a faster time to market for the end product. The defined process ends with the delivery and the invoicing of the localised content. The overall process is monitored in case of faults, delays or cancellations.

Another element entitled ‘Personnel monitoring and feedback’ is added. Personnel are a key issue and their involvement should be present throughout the whole workflow. Feedback refers to both communicating the feedback and subsequent training.

Having a good process, the technology to execute it and the right people in place allows to cope with increasing volume while maintaining and improving quality.

Workshop led by Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza and Betti Moser.

We often hear that translation is a solitary profession, and that translators sometimes spend all their working hours alone in their office with no face-to-face interaction with their clients. However, this does not mean that a freelance translator is an island. Quite the opposite: whether we work for agencies, direct clients or a combination of the two, there are always a number of people we have to deal with, from project managers or client contacts to colleagues, proofreaders and accountants.

These human interactions that reach beyond the horizon of our own office can also cause problems at some point, and it can be difficult to know how to deal with these on our own. Sharing our approaches to responding to such situations with other colleagues will enable us to be better prepared for them.

In this workshop, we will present participants with some real-life scenarios that we will discuss, with the aim of giving delegates a better idea of how to conduct ourselves in tricky business situations.

Examples of scenarios to be discussed could include:

• Dealing with large projects that are shared with other translators
• Taking criticism gracefully
• Client insists on using terminology you know is wrong
• Recognising dubious job offers or scams
• Client cancels the job midway
• Situation changes after negotiating rates and deadlines
• Being asked to do test translations
• Realising that you underestimated how long a job would take
• Negotiating rates

At ITI’s millennium conference, Janet Fraser and Michael Gold presented the findings of a major survey of freelance translators, looking at such aspects of their professional life as the number of clients they had, the terms of business they used, how they managed their client-base, and their reasons for working freelance, as well as the benefits and disadvantages of working for themselves and their perceptions of their career. The research, which we also wrote up in two well-cited academic journal articles, showed that translators make particularly successful ‘portfolio workers’ for a variety of reasons, including a specialist skills profile, a flexible working regime and strong professional networks. In particular, while translators do not always choose freelancing as their preferred career option, the vast majority come to appreciate the value of such arrangements over the security of an in-house position.

The fast-moving world of professional translation has undergone many changes since 2000, not least against the backdrop of rampant globalisation, recession and the double-edged sword of technological advances. Pauline Uyterwijk has reported for the Bulletin on translators’ confidence in their workflow and income during the credit crunch, but we feel it is time to revisit some of the broader issues our survey respondents and interviewees identified 10 years ago and to illustrate in particular how translators sustain a successful career in straitened economic times.

Over the next six months, we therefore plan a further questionnaire survey and hope to re-interview as many of the original interviewees as we can to update the snapshot we took of the profession at the dawn of the 21st century. In particular, we want to explore how the recession has affected their business, what strategies they have adopted to survive the downturn, and how they have expanded their professional horizons in terms of parallel activities, subject specialisms, language range, client-base, software tools or market niche. The research will also consider the impact of such developments as Chartered Linguist status.

Our paper will present the broad findings of our research and, we hope, be of interest both to established practitioners looking to expand their professional horizons and to newcomers to the profession seeking guidance on carving out a successful and rewarding career.

You can participate in the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JLXH8LQ.

Maw, Ah’m Oan The Telly! Lessons from a Week in the Public Eye, by Jonathan Downie.

Despite their vital work in industry, commerce, politics and the legal system, the work of translators and interpreters is rarely the focus of media attention and when it is, it is often for all the wrong reasons. February 2010 saw an exception to this general rule. Following a widely publicised recruitment process, Today Translations appointed their first Glaswegian interpreter and decided to celebrate the occasion by calling in an experienced journalist and PR expert to try to attract a little bit of media attention.

Noone could have predicted just how many media outlets would become intrigued enough to push for their little piece of the action. From a saunter around a bingo hall in the East End of Glasgow, the story would lead to a spot on prime time television on ITV and even an interview with Canada’s leading radio station.

This presentation will take the audience through the sheer craziness of that week. While live TV and plush studios might seem a world away from the everyday realities of our working lives, I intend to show that the lessons learned in that week are applicable to life after the fifteen minutes of fame are over.

Our prospective clients have the same key question as journalists: “what is so different about you?” Before anyone will actually hire us, they want to know why we are any different to the thousands of other professionals who work in our languages and in our fields of expertise.

Those who have easy answers to this question then need to deal with the issue of how to present themselves. With the pressure to write SEO perfect websites, blog like a genius and tweet like a celebrity, translators and interpreters can often find themselves confused about what clients actually want to see.

Even once this problem is resolved, the story is not finished as many professionals can find themselves dealing with the issue of criticism. Not everyone was pleased that Glaswegian seemed to need interpreters and even more seemed annoyed that this was deemed newsworthy. For people seeing a measure of success in any field, dealing with critics will always be a key skill to learn.

This presentation will therefore offer light relief and thought-provoking questions that will be helpful for both new translators and those who are more experienced in the profession. Both groups will be encouraged to seek out their own unique selling point, present it in a way that is natural to them and deal positively with criticism from both clients and other professionals.

Transcreation

Workshop led by Percy Balemans

We have all heard of advertising campaigns gone wrong because they were not adapted for the target audience: slogans which, when translated, turned out to mean something completely different and seriously damaged the product’s or brand’s reputation. To avoid these mistakes, advertising copy should be transcreated rather than translated, to make sure it is specifically written for the target audience.

This workshop provides some background on how transcreation works and offers participants a chance to give it a try themselves.

Content

Introduction:

• What is transcreation?
• What types of texts are transcreated?
• What are the typical target audiences?
• Which skills does a good transcreator need to have?
• Which clients offer transcreation jobs?
• Which source material does the transcreator need?
• What are the typical deliverables?
• How do you go about creating a transcreation?
• Examples of transcreation jobs

Exercise:

During the exercise, participants will work in groups to translate a slogan into their target language. Slogans will be available in the following source languages: English, Dutch, German and French.

Learning objectives

How does transcreation differ from “regular” translation: how does it work, which skills are required and what do you have to keep in mind when accepting a transcreation job.

Workshop schedule

Introduction: approx. 15 minutes

Exercise: approx. 15 minutes

Discuss exercise results: approx. 15 minutes

Speaker

This workshop will be led by Percy Balemans, a Dutch translator who says she “chose to become a translator because I enjoy being creative with language and juggling with words in order to convey the same message in a different language and against a different cultural background.”

Percy’s biography is located here, but in the you can also find out all about her on her own website, www.pb-translations.com