page_title: Translation
section_title: Interpreting
hierarchical_section_title: Translation / Translators / Interpreting
caption_attribution_description: Español: Tenochtitlan. Tierra del nopal. Entrada de Hernan Cortes, la cual se verifico el 8 de Noviembre de 1519 English: Tenochtitlan, Entrance of Hernan Cortes. Cortez and La Malinche meet Moctezuma II. , November 8, 1519 The imasge is from the "Lienzo de Tlaxcala", created by the Tlaxcalans to remind the Spanish of their loyalty to Castile and the importance of Tlaxcala during the Conquest. The text mixes European and native styles and includes anachronisms, such as the European-style chairs included in this image.
context_page_description: Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source language text by means of an equivalent target language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction between translating and interpreting; under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of writing within a language community.
  A translator always risks inadvertently introducing source language words, grammar, or syntax into the target language rendering. On the other hand, such "spill-overs" have sometimes imported useful source language calques and loanwords that have enriched target languages. Translators, including early translators of sacred texts, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated.
  Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated "language localization".
context_section_description: Interpreting, or "interpretation," is the facilitation of oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between two, or among three or more, speakers who are not speaking, or signing, the same language. The term "interpreting," rather than "interpretation," is preferentially used for this activity by Anglophone translators, to avoid confusion with other meanings of the word "interpretation." Unlike English, many languages do not employ two separate words to denote the activities of written and live-communication (oral or sign-language) translators. Even English does not always make the distinction, frequently using "translating" as a synonym for "interpreting."
  Interpreters have sometimes played crucial roles in history. A prime example is La Malinche, also known as Malintzin, Malinalli and Doña Marina, an early-16th-century Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast. As a child she had been sold or given to Maya slave-traders from Xicalango, and thus had become bilingual. Subsequently, given along with other women to the invading Spaniards, she became instrumental in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, acting as interpreter, adviser, intermediary and lover to Hernán Cortés.
  Nearly three centuries later, in the United States, a comparable role as interpreter was played for the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–6 by Sacagawea. As a child, the Lemhi Shoshone woman had been kidnapped by Hidatsa Indians and thus had become bilingual. Sacagawea facilitated the expedition's traverse of the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean.
  In the United States today, interpreting as a line of work has become increasingly professionalized in recent decades, and there is now a variety of professional associations and certifications available to provide resources on ethics and practices and ensure trustworthy, quality interpretation services.
  However, many US companies and organizations remain unaware of the importance of turning to professional or experienced interpreters rather than asking their bilingual colleagues or community members to interpret. Turning to bilingual individuals who are not experienced interpreters can lead to unreliable or unethical interpreting practices, and it can place an unwanted burden on those individuals, whether it be professionally or emotionally.
caption: Hernán Cortés and La Malinche meet Moctezuma II in Tenochtitlan, 8 November 1519.
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