Sobre la traducción

Se trata de una actividad, la de los traductores, silenciosa, tenaz, que procura ser meticulosa y organizada, que se realiza en la sombra, pero que no por ello es menos importante en su finalidad y en sus consecuencias: hacer que los ciudadanos, los dirigentes, los jueces, los funcionarios, los agentes sociales y económicos de Europa se comprendan entre sí y comprendan las reglas del juego en esta nueva Babel, sin que tengan que renunciar a su propia voz.

     

       Dempster (2005), citado por Borja (2005)

European Union - a bit of humour

We are now on Module 7 (out of 8) of the MA in Legal Translation at City University in London. This week we are learning about EU Law.

We are all saddened by the news of the MA no longer running as of next year; this will be the last year this course will be running at City University. We will be submitting our dissertations in October 2013 and we will have our graduation in 2014. 

I feel lucky to have been part of this challenging course and I am happy to say I have learnt a lot from it. It’s been a very positive experience and I have met lots of interesting people, all as in love with legal translation as I am. It’ll be sad to say goodbye, but hopefully, we will all keep in touch and keep collaborating to make sure we maintain the standards of our profession. Collaboration enriches professional growth and development. 

Sad news aside, here are a few pictures and of course, a bit of humour! I hope you like it: 

Choosing the right legal translator

I recently read a blog entry by one of my colleagues at the MA in Legal Translation (City University, London), Rob Lunn (“Legal Translators have more fun”): http://legalspaintrans.com/legal-translation/legal-translators-have-more-fun-part-1-unique-legal-systems/

Lunn explains how challenging legal translation is and how “legal translators need to have a good grounding in the legal systems they translate to and from”. Most theorists seem to agree on the fact that legal translation “is complex, and it requires special skills, knowledge and experience on the part of the translator”.  “It has been described as the ultimate linguistic challenge, combining the inventiveness of literary translation with the terminological precision of technical translation (Cairns and McKeon 1995, Gémar 1995, Pelage 2000, all cited in Harvey 2002)”. Cao (2007, p3).

I couldn’t agree more with these well-established observations, but yet, we find there are plenty of individuals out there who call themselves “legal translators” who do not understand the importance of having a specific background in language and law training and the adequate experience before deciding to take on a legal translation.  

I am often overwhelmed with the amount of people who use translation forums such as WordReference or ProZ to ask questions which often indicate that they do not have the knowledge or background to be dealing with the document which they are translating, which makes me think they should not be translating that specific document in the first place. The worst thing a translator can do, from my point of view, is use a forum to ask about a specific term or concept. The same way they should not just use a bilingual dictionary “and go with whatever synonym looks best without fully grasping what the terms mean” (Lunn: 2013)

In this blog entry, I would like to make clients aware of the importance of choosing the right legal translator for their work.

I would urge clients to do a little bit of research on the translator they are about to hire, the same way you would not go to a doctor without checking his credentials first. I believe it is essential to check the translators’ qualifications and experience in the legal translation field before engaging their services.

The translators’ qualifications and experience in the field of legal translation are an important issue to consider. Legal translation, as mentioned earlier, is a complex and challenging topic and potential clients should make sure translators dealing with your documents know what they are dealing with and have the necessary expertise to look for differences in the two legal systems, ambiguities, terminological issues, false cognates, etc. 

Preferably, you should choose a translator whose mother tongue is the target language. If you need to translate a document from English into Spanish for example, the best result will be obtained if you choose a translator whose first language is Spanish. There could be, of course, exceptions of translators who, even though have Spanish as their first language, have been living in the UK for a long time and have become bilingual and have an excellent knowledge of both the Spanish and British legal systems and would, therefore, be fit to translate from or into either language.

The client could also check whether the translator is part of a professional body (such as the Chartered Institute of Linguists or ITI) or is registered with a professional organism (i.e. a Consulate or an Embassy for example).

I have come across many language teachers who speak two or three languages who take on legal translation work, on the wrong assumption that just by speaking both languages, they will not encounter any problems when translating. Far from it, they end up having to desperately ask other professional translators for help with the translation of different terms and concepts and you come to realize that it is precisely their lack of knowledge in the legal systems which make them not able to translate legal documents.

Good luck when choosing the right translator for your job!