Module 1

Introduction and Objectives

Welcome to the Specialised Translation unit. Together with its sister unit,
Community Translation, Specialised Translation is directed at helping you to
understand, and hopefully achieve, the basic professional level required of translators
in Australia. So first lets look at what translators have to do, and why.
If you think about the information you need to live and prosper in your country of
origin, youll readily see that the information sources are almost innumerable. In order
to navigate through the maze of everyday life, you need to process and understand
information of many types in order to make informed decisions. You deal regularly
with areas such as finance, insurance, investments, superannuation, occupational
health and safety, aging and aged care, contracts, wills, computers and technology,
purchases of cars and homes, building permits and licenses, domestic consumer items
and appliances, pet care and veterinary attention, crime, violence, policing The list
can be as long as you care to make it!
Although Australia is only a small country in population terms, it has an amazingly
diverse society. There are people from all over the world who have been encouraged
to come here over the years through successive Governments immigration policies.
Obviously, these migrants come from dozens of different countries, and for most of
them English is not their first language. In order to participate in Australian society
where the sole official language is English - the society that has invited them needs to
provide them with the information they need to live complete and integrated lives in
their new home country.
This diversity of languages and topics in a small population makes translation (and
interpreting) in Australia a special case with few parallels in the world (except Canada
perhaps). The profession is administered in a special way here too, under the system
known by most as NAATI.
As some of you may already know, to become an officially recognised translator in
Australia you need to pass the examination set by an organisation called NAATI the
National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. Basically, in the
1970s the Australian Government realised it was going to need translators and
interpreters quickly to cope with new arrivals of non-English speaking people, and so
a decision was made to use a general testing procedure to find people amongst the
bilingual population who had the special skills required to translate and interpret.
This gave rise to the NAATI examination system; it is still in place today and remains
the principal means of accessing the translation or interpreting profession. There are
five levels under this system, from language aides right up to senior advanced
practitioners. However, the benchmark level required for professional practice is the
NAATI Professional Level, formerly known as Level 3. This is the level most
working translators have, and most probably the one your translation tutors and
trainers have too.
Lets see what the professional translator test involves in NAATIs own words:
This is the first professional level and represents the minimum level of
competence for professional translating. Translators at this level are
capable of translating articles of either general or specialised subjects at
a reasonable speed. Subject areas may include law, health, government
policy, banking, commerce, and science. Translators working at this
level must be able to produce a written version in the target language
and convey with reasonable accuracy the sense of what is written in the
source language.
Three passages of approximately 250 words each in length, in different
styles and subject areas, should be selected for each language direction.
The candidate will be required to select and translate only two passages
for each language direction.
The time allowed its 2 hours for each language direction plus 20 minutes
reading time.
You can see from the examples of topics how this requirement echoes our earlier
comments on the diversity of information processing we need to function within
society. You will also have noted the key expressions reasonable accuracy and of
course reasonable speed. If a candidate fails to understand the speed/accuracy
equation and indeed, what is actually meant by accuracy in translation, then failure
in the examination is assured no matter how bilingual that candidate is!
At UWS, the twin subjects of Community Translation (which echoes NAATIs
general topics) and Specialised Translation provide insider knowledge and practice
aimed at helping you achieve the NAATI professional standard. More than anything,
this involves learning habits and techniques of good practice that you can use in the
lead-up to the examination and, should you pass, beyond, amongst the ranks of other
professional translators.
In Specialised Translation, your tutors are here to provide you with English and
language-specific texts and constructive feedback on your work, to help you start
pushing that speed/accuracy equation into professional-type values. For those of you
who arent interested in NAATI you can gain an insight into the demands placed on a
professional translator, while for those who perhaps already have their NAATI, you
can find ways of improving your speed to produce better quality output in less time!
Just remember, however, that the real active party here is YOU. To be a translator,
you have to program your head with attitudes, techniques and language knowledge.
This means practice, and lots of it. If you assume that passing your NAATI exam
means learning some magic tricks to harness your existing bilingual knowledge, then
stop right there! Youre wasting everyones time most especially your own!
However, if youre ready to learn to teach yourself, and take responsibility for your
failures and keep trying, then read on. Persistence is the key, and it brings with it the
reward of eventually being able to take credit for your successes!
Defining Specialised Translation
Proceeding from the description of the NAATI examination, we can start to consider
the kinds of texts we will be dealing with and how to define them. We have already
looked at the expressions regarding reasonable speed and accuracy, and observed
that they hold the key to performance. The term article is just as important however,
because it tells us where we are most likely to find the texts involved. (This is
important because we can use this knowledge to get the right practice and assess our
results). According to the Oxford dictionary, an article is (amongst other meanings):
A non-fictional essay, esp. one included with others in a newspaper,
magazine, journal, etc.
[Oxford Australian Dictionary (1999). Oxford: Oxford University Press.]

Here we have more key terms journal, newspaper, magazine that help us narrow
our focus, but we can already see the pattern. What we are really talking about here is
readership that is, who actually consumes these texts. As translators, its not enough
to just understand what has been written in the strictly informational sense. You must
also be aware of who the text has been aimed at aimed at, PLUS the relationship it is
meant to establish between the text writer and the readership.
Just for interests sake, use your dictionary to find definitions of newspaper, magazine,
and journal to help you decide on kind of readership involved. By the way, looking
up definitions of words we think we know well is a very good habit to get into, and
may bring some surprises!
In general (or community) texts, the essential relationship between writer and reader is
non-specialist to non-specialist that is, the writer expresses comprehensible
concepts at a language complexity that is accessible for the general public. (Those
who are reading closely will have observed already that these ideas of
comprehensibility and accessibility involve fundamental assumptions about the
educational level of the average reader).
In the specialised texts we will be dealing with (these legal, medical, or scientific texts
that we find in articles) the relationship between writer and reader is from specialist
to non-specialist. This relationship makes the goals of comprehensibility and
accessibility a little trickier; some more work may be required from the reader, but the
writer also needs to work hard to avoid lapses into jargon. Also implicit in this
relationship is the hierarchy of experience, the authority, privilege and exclusivity that
specialised knowledge confers.
For this reason, many specialised texts for general consumption are written by
technical writers who are capable of both quickly learning the essentials of the
specialised field or topic, and writing clearly for the certain public.
In a way, this is what the translator has to do: understand the essentials of the topic to
make informed choices of terminology (using the right meaning to choose the right
word amongst various possibilities and use the right grammar and syntactical
constructions (right meaning appropriate to the circumstances/readership - more on
this later).
As we keep stating in translation courses, all these requirements mean that word-for-
word translating is almost never going to work.
Specialised Translation more than words
The most basic definition of translation is this: Translation involves taking written
information in one language and rewriting it in another.
This seems blatantly obvious, but the trick here is knowing what information means
in its fullest sense. In our specialised texts, the information at face value (like the facts
about skin cancer) is not the only message: there are also all the underlying subtleties
of the writers position and attitude (conscious or unconscious) with respect to the
reader that also need to be accurately and appropriately conveyed that is, suited to
the new target readership that occupies its own socio-cultural niche in the target
language society.
These are the kinds of idea we will be exploring over the next few weeks in
Specialised Translation. You should be thinking about these issues of language use
and writer-reader relationship right now in your first tutorial exercises. Remember
that translator competence comes from hours of informed, largely self-directed
practice. This is your opportunity to establish a direction that will ensure profitable
study practices for years to come.
Use the 9 steps
Dont squander this opportunity by putting off all your tasks until the last minute. Do
them as best as you can each week, and reflect on what youre doing. Read
newspapers, journals and magazines in both your languages, to get a feel for the kinds
of grammatical and syntactical structures used. As you progress each week, review,
update and refine your earlier work on the basis of your new knowledge.
Keep in mind as you do so that you are aiming at tipping that speed/accuracy equation
in your favour and it wont be easy at first, because youll find your ideas about
accuracy expanding! To help you along we have a series of 9 steps to follow. Youll
find these attached. Use these tips as your pre-flight routine before launching into
a translation, and youll find that all those problems you were seeing will start to
diminish as you make decisions and take control.