Talk:Translation/Archive 1

message: * Wikipedia Translation — project to aid translation of articles in foreign Wikipedias into English. Sign up at it: "... How little we really know of how much we fail."   
Apogr 19:01, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia and translation

message: see also translation memory, comment.
Good editing job done!
thank you:
originator apogr
insert: localisation has been with us for a long time. It refelects the basic fact that translation is done under a number of constraints, some of which are difficult to resolve. Remember that the titles of movie films, the tranlation of poems, etc. are all examples of localisation, whereas the translation of software components, including on-screen instructions, user manuals, program specifications, etc., pose new constraints due to the economy on space of writing in the source language and the cut on the occurence of repeated phrases. 
In contrast to the original defintion and wording of the concept of translation above, I am more inclined to describe this activity at the highest level of abstraction as an activity akin to copying, an other important and universal operation, with the difference that here the resulting copy deemed to be equivalent to the original has no resemblance to the original, yet believed to be equivalent for use in lieu of the source (primarily text) on the agreement by people that have sufficient insigth into and undersatnding of the universes of both languages.
Apogr 09:31, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  comment 

message: I found "fan translation" listed under the "see also" under "Translation of religious texts".  I suspect that was a mistake, perhaps an artifact of an earlier version of the page.
I wasn't sure where to put it, though, so I just stuck it under the main "see also" heading, since, as far as I know, no one really considers video games to be "religious texts" (although, come to think of it, I know some people who might appreciate the irony).  --Aranel ("Sarah") 17:13, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  placement of reference to [[fan translation]] 

message: I have removed the following links as they are in my opinion redundant (be bold!).  My reasons are listed.  If you think the reasoning is invalid or irrelevant then by all means re-instate the link, but I would appreciate if you could justify it here...  --HappyDog 01:55, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Links

message: Is there any need of listing all translation and interpreting associations, even from non-English speaking countries? If that's the case, then look at this link!  
Regards --Adriano 19:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation associations 

message: This article really needs to be split into translation and translator. Right now, both topics are handled here. Scriberius 16:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed! --Cultural Freedom talk 07:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Separation

message: I'm not sure that the oft-repeated definitions are adequate — ie. that both refer to a transfer of meaning between two languages, but translation refers to written forms and interpreting to spoken forms. It seems to me that the essence of the difference is time, not mode. Interpreting is delivered "live", while translators have the time to deliberate, consult, revise, etc.
I'll give a couple of examples to illustrate: a team of translators have a 1-minute recording of a speech, and are given one day to produce an equivalent recording in another language. This may happen between two sign languages which have no written form. It seems to me that this is best understood as translation, not interpreting. Conversely, an interpreter may be simultaneously interpreting a video-recorded presentation, when a few words of text momentarily appear on-screen, which the interpreter interprets.
There are a number of other scenarios that make me question the above definition (written vs. spoken/signed). I had a go at distinguishing interpreting and translation on the interpreting article, if anyone wants to have a look. Anyone aware of academic discussion of these issues? It would be good to tighten the definitions here. ntennis 04:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a sign interpreter explained it to me, sign translation and sign interpretation are two different things. Sign-interpreting is live. He defined sign-translating as going from "fixed text to fixed text" (that has a nice, official-sounding ring to it), eg, a written English text to a videotaped signing performance (or vice-versa). Likewise, working off a tape in one language to produce a written text is translation, not interpreting. As a rule of thumb, if you have a chance to hide your mistakes, it's translating. adamrice 20:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation vs. interpreting 

message: I would like to know how to translate a page in Wikipedia, from English to another language, say, the 'Redox' article. If I create a new page, named Redox, it already exists and I don't know where to specify the language in which I write. Could somebody give me an advice? Thank you.
:First, looking at the "redox" article, it already exists in many other languages. If the language you want to translate it into is already there, have a look at it and see if you can improve it with new information from the English article. If it's a language not listed there--for example, Norwegian--it's possible the article really does exist at no.wikipedia.org, but hasn't been linked from the English yet. Look for it on the target-language wikipedia site and then link to it in the English Redox article. If it really does not exist, then go to the target-language site and create a new article there. Link it back to the English Redox article, and edit the English Redox article to link to it (and, if you are ambitious, the French one, the German one, etc). When editing a Wikipedia article, links to the equivalent article in other-language wikipedias always appear at the very end, in the form en:Redox (links to English) or de:Redoxreaktion (links to German). Also, please sign your comments with four tildes, like this: ~~~~. adamrice 20:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Translating from English in Wikipedia

message: Why does "target language" redirect to translation?  Studying or speaking in a second language doesn't always necessarily have to do with translation.  The two are hardly synonymous. Roehl Sybing 21:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just tried to find an article on target language and was re-directed here. I do not make the connection. Perhaps target is a technical term for translators, but target language is also the L2 or other language being learnt by a group of learners. A bad re-direct I think is.219.166.179.99 08:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Target language: redirect 

message: I feel the "decode/re-encode" paradigm is a wee bit too jargonny. Could these terms be replaced with understand and retell? Decode is actually problematic since there is no neutral medium outside of language (the code) to decode the text into before re-coding into another language. Maxschmelling 20:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur.  Why don't you give it a try?  User:nihil novi, 8 July 2007.
Trying to come up with an alternative, I thought, why is this section there at all. It seems to belong more rightly to the machine translation section (where it also appears). In fact, the 'misconceptions' section higher on the page lists thinking it is possible to simply decode and encode as a translation misconception. Would the Translation entry suffer without the "process"?Maxschmelling 23:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

text: You're right.  The "The process" section may be deleted with no loss of substantive information, and with a positive gain in clarity.  Nihil novi 04:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I went ahead and removed "The process". A stub entitled "Translation Process" still exists and is referenced in the article on machine translation. Translation is still awfully long, but I think it's better/clearer now.Maxschmelling 23:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Process 

message: I have reverted the recent massive imports of spam related to "EN-15038:2006."  Nihil novi 18:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my remarks under "Measuring success," above.  Nihil novi 00:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added a new section on quality standards for translations, removing the link spam. I'm not quite as familiar with the situation in English-speaking countries as I should be, I guess, so I'd welcome new sections on other relevant standards I missed.--Margit Brause 13:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "EN-15038:2006"-spam revert

message: I propose that the issues of Measuring Translation Success, Translation Problems, and Translation Quality Standards should be structured under a new article called Translation Quality. This is based on the scientific consensus on Translators' Liabilities.
So, I've gone ahead and deleted these sections in this article, in the absence of any comprehensible and qualified arguments.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.180.224.113 (talk) 06:42, August 30, 2007 (UTC) 
:A subsection on Translation Quality is probably a good idea. I do think that the Fidelity vs Transparency conversation belongs in the article. It is a separate issue. It has a long academic history and so I have put that text back in, but with a less provocative title. One hopes. Maxschmelling 23:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Rationally" is the operative word.  172.176.208.17 (his latest numerical incarnation) has demonstrated over the past several weeks that he is irrational and impervious to rational argument.  He is running amok and making a hash of "Translation," without any regard for the efforts and views of others.  He clearly will have to be banned, or the article protected from anonymous editors.  How does one go about this?  Nihil novi 19:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My IP service provider changes the IP address automatically. I am protected by data protection law. I also have the opportunity to use TOR (anonymity network), which further protects and shields my surf behavior against stalkers. You need to indulge in the content presented, and not in formatting issues.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.174.137.54 (talk) 04:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Article: [[Translation Quality]] 

message: * duty of care
* purpose and use of the translation
* Requirements management
* data protection  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurominuteman (talk • contribs) 07:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Administrative duties 

message: Professional competences (EN-15038:2006 Standards Chapter 3.2: "The Translation Service Provider shall have a documented procedure in place for selecting people (recruitment) with the requisite skills and qualifications for translation projects. Translators shall have the professional competences as specified in 3.2.2. Revisers and reviewers shall have the professional competences as specified in 3.2.3 and 3.2.4 respectively.").  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurominuteman (talk • contribs) 01:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support duties 

message: "For the most part, the concepts of "fidelity" and "transparency" remain strong in Western traditions."
This statement needs substantial conclusive citation, because it conflicts with the following legal ruling of 1990.
* Jody Byrne, "Caveat Translator: Understanding the Legal Consequences of Errors in Professional Translation," JoSTrans, The Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 07 - January 2007 "There are various definitions for duty of care but perhaps the most relevant to our purposes here as translators comes from the case of Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] which dealt with the liability of a firm of auditors to potential investors. In this case the auditors were engaged as information providers, a role which, it can be argued, is quite similar to that of translators. In dealing with the case, the judge developed a four-part definition for duty of care which consists of the following:
* the information is provided for a purpose (Final Cause)
* this purpose is made known at the time of commissioning
* the information provider knows that the information will be provided to the recipient in order to be used for the specified purpose
* it is known that the information is likely to be used without independent inquiry or verification for the stated purpose"
The four-part definition for "duty of care", which stresses "purpose and use (final cause)", clearly overrules the concepts "fidelity and transparency (efficient cause)" in front of a legal court. This is valid jurisdiction since 1990.
So it is actually no wonder that translation quality service standards adopted this approach too.
The concepts "fidelity and transparency" will continue to significantly weaken because legal, risk, and quality support are missing.
This is up-to-date and conclusive. Stop drawing people to believe the illusion that a factual liability risk is not existent. This is not professional, it is a breach of "duty for care". The nonsense activities here were "gross negligent" from a legal view up to now. The "quick and dirty" way has become obsolete.
Eurominuteman 15:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fidelity vs Transparency 

message: This chapter needs to be added too:
5.1 Final cause
* From the viewpoint of Aristotle
The final cause is that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and activities. The final cause or telos is the purpose or end that something is supposed to serve, or it is that from which and that to which the change is. This also covers modern ideas of mental causation involving such psychological causes as volition, need, motivation, or motives, rational, irrational, ethical, all that gives purpose to behavior.
* From a legal viewpoint
Jody Byrne "There are various definitions for duty of care but perhaps the most relevant to our purposes here as translators comes from the case of Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] which dealt with the liability of a firm of auditors to potential investors. In this case the auditors were engaged as information providers, a role which, it can be argued, is quite similar to that of translators. In dealing with the case, the judge developed a four-part definition for duty of care which consists of the following:
* the information is provided for a purpose (Final Cause)
* this purpose is made known at the time of commissioning
* the information provider knows that the information will be provided to the recipient in order to be used for the specified purpose
* it is known that the information is likely to be used without independent inquiry or verification for the stated purpose"
* From a risk & quality standard viewpoint
For the above reason, risk & quality standards, like EN-15038:2006, now thus specify the implementation of "Purpose and Use of the Translation (Final Cause)" among all roles of a translation project (translator, reviewer, revisor, proofreader) in order to align role attention to the Final Cause for quality improvement.
* From an organizational design viewpoint
This approach also has the advantage of enhancing cooperation, thus impacting the success of larger collaboratively-structured translation tasks (even Mass collaboration).
"Happiness comes from 'fidelity to a worthy purpose' (Helen Keller)". It is like getting everybody back on track, and outpacing self-purpose.
5.2 Efficient cause
* From the viewpoint of Aristotle
The efficient cause is that from which the change or the ending of the change first starts. It identifies 'what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed' and so suggests all sorts of agents, nonliving or living, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest. Representing the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the modern definitions of "cause" as either the agent or agency or particular events or states of affairs.
As the goal of translation is to ensure that the source text and target text communicate the same message, while taking into account the constraints placed on the translator (such as the Aristotle causality principle Final Cause), a successful translation (under the Aristotle causality principle Efficient Cause) can be judged within the scope of the following topics:
* Fidelity vs transparency
See Translation in the obsolete higher-ranked version downplaying risks and liabilities. Risks and liabilities must be added as high-priority:
Jody Byrne "Translators can be found liable under both contract law and under tort law"
* Equivalenz
See Translation in the obsolete higher-ranked version downplaying risks and liabilities. Risks and liabilities must be added as high-priority:
Jody Byrne "At the very heart of translation studies is the issue of translation quality. Yet, while there are numerous methods for assessing the quality of translations, little is known about what happens when a translator produces a bad translation. Translation error, as a whole, can have significant consequences for both translator and client."
* Literary translation
See Translation in the obsolete higher-ranked version downplaying risks and liabilities. Risks and liabilities must be added as high-priority:
Jody Byrne "Even literal translation, which is considerably more sophisticated than word for word translation, cannot satisfactorily cope with every translation eventuality. So by accepting that translation involves some form of intellectual addition to or processing of the information in the source text, whether by adding, removing, clarifying, interpreting, rephrasing, recontextualising or recasting information for the target audience, we are in effect accepting a role for translators which is subject to a greater degree of liability than a mere conduit of information."
Eurominuteman 15:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final Cause vrs Efficient Cause 

message: ::I will continue to revert if you continue to add this stuff in.  You have not listened to a single argument besides your own on this talk page.  Your prose is unreadable to native English speakers, and the content you keep adding is far too specialized to belong on a general encyclopedia page.  Man It's So Loud In Here 17:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto.  Eurominuteman should be banned permanently from "Translation" and probably from Wikipedia.  Nihil novi 17:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reverse burden-of-proof contributions seem to still be pending. Why does literary translation conceptions take so much space here, even though it is only about 5% of the volume translated? Where are the conceptions governing the 95%? --Eurominuteman 22:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandals Refuse to Resolve Edit War

message: You fake your way out of your burden-of-proof. (It's So Loud In Here, Nihil novi etc.)
You have no material to compete with this above evidence, not a single link of validation 
has been presented. Vandals prevent the updating of valid information.
Your deletion and revert spree has no valid grounds.
You have the obligation to prove your claims, else you will need to accept the restructuring
and the updating of valid new information.
itskoolman 05:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandals Prevent Update of Verified and Applicable Information