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Socio-linguistic responsibilities of translators as professionals Paper delivered at the 15th Congress of the International Federation of Translators (FIT) in Mons, Belgium, August 1999. I maintain that no group of craftsmen, whether they practice their craft with their hands or with their minds, can call itself a profession until its individual practitioners take responsibility for the tools of their trade, for the immediate and eventual results of their efforts, as well as for their own conduct, individually and jointly, in pursuing their craft. The translation industry, as a group of craftsmen working with words to transform one text from one culture into another text in another cultural context, cannot exempt itself from this premise if it wishes to rise towards the level of a profession. And I suggest that as the translation industry functions today it cannot be considered a profession and in many ways not even professional. Individual translators may be able to claim a professional status through their behaviour and self-control, but the industry as a whole cannot. Organisations might add the word professional to their name, without in that way gaining any part of it. Discussions of quality abound, focusing most often on quantifiable segments of production and delivery, avoiding the really difficult bits about the product itself and the qualifications of its producers. I know this differs to some extent from country to country. I know I am generalising grossly. But on the whole, translators are a self-centred lot, quarrelling more with each other about money and customers, competition and preferences, than about what might be defined as that which translation truly is concerned with, namely communication and cultural transference. It is not possible to launch a discussion of professionalism in translation without first seeking to define terms. For without a basic understanding of what I mean by professionalism, all my thoughts on its existence or absence, on its creation or maintenance, on its past, present or future will be meaningless. I recognise that my specific premise is disputable, but at least by defining terms, we can agree on a point of departure. Firstly then, I want to state that by translation, I do not mean interpretation. I know that a fairly significant number of translators also interpret, but both the aim and the process differ greatly. Throughout his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbons instructs modern man as to the clear differences between the two processes and differentiates between their political and historical dangers. (1) Indeed, he points out that while interpreters do their jobs in the context of immediacy, often in ancient times also serving as secretaries of missions and frequently as tradesmen, translators do their work over time and often not as part of the original event. He also clearly states that much of what we today know and revere of ancient Greek and Roman culture and history comes from the pens of Saracen and Frankish translators, but not from the tongues of interpreters. Without the translations, we would be poorer today. Without the interpreters, the societies of that time would have functioned poorly, if at all. Much of the same can be said of today's societies, in spite of the Internet and the pervasive intrusions of the media. An interpreter, then, is an immediate, oral transformer of the thoughts of one person and one culture into the context of another - a translator does much the same thing, but in writing and at a remove in time. An interpreter must be physically present to carry out his or her job, while a translator is by definition physically absent from the point of cultural transference. Since the responsibility of an interpreter is to ensure that the principals being served understand fully and correctly what is being said at the moment it is being said, the interpreter's responsibility ceases when the job is done and is clearly immediately personally definable, meaning that the communication is adapted to the principals present. A translator's responsibility, on the other hand, continues after the primary job is done in as much as the result remains to be read, interpreted and used by many, often totally unknown persons. In that way, a translator's effort is not easily personally definable, though with some exceptions such as in translating letters, memoirs, biographies and the like. Literacy is not a prerequisite in an interpreting situation - neither the interpreter nor the principals need to know how to read. Illiteracy, on the other hand, defeats all translation, focused as that task is on the written word. * immediate * is done immediately personally definable TRANSLATION * at a remove in time Figure 1. Differences between interpreters and translators. Secondly, I am well aware that translators share much with the many users of written language, such as authors and poets, journalists and rhetoricians, plus many others whose bread is earned by the shaping of thoughts into words and sentences. And I would say that the same strictures of responsibility that I will define below in regards to language are as applicable to these language producers as they are to translators. But obviously translators differ in one important way - we do not shape our own words. We shape and transform someone else's. We may indeed succeed in creating what I would call 'secondary originals', translations that are so superb that they stand on their own as linguistic works of art. But however good these translations are, they are still transformations of someone else's words. Indeed, that difference seems to create an attitude towards words in many translators quite apart from the one held by most authors. The divergence is necessitated by task, for we cannot insert 'our' words, we can at best clothe the translation decently (2). We must somehow find the words the author would have chosen had he been able to write in 'our' language, discovering some way to walk in his or her moccasins. This is obviously easier in technical translations than in cultural texts or in literature, but the problem persists in all translation. I raise this point not because it is interesting, which it is, but because it adds yet another facet to the definition of the translation process, specifically to the question of personal definability. An interpreter has the 'luxury' of being with the person whose words are being transformed, of seeing them, sensing them, imbibing their essence, if you will. A translator seldom has that possibility and must somehow distil all that from word choice, word order and historical context. It is a hermeneutic skill we must learn, one we often learn too well. For after a while, we actually seem to need the ghost of an author at our shoulder to pre-create the thoughts for us before we can re-create them ourselves. In some ways our own creative processes seem to become dependent on a form of pre-digestion and regurgitation. Perhaps this is the reason why over the years many an author has turned to translation and succeeded well, while comparably few have gone the other way. Thirdly, having thus provided a basic definition of translation, I need to delimit and define what I mean by professional. Remember please that in order for this discussion to stay within reasonable time limits, I have had to generalise. I recognise that there are exceptions to some of what I propose below, both within and across various boundaries. Profession and professional are among those words which are the same or nearly the same in all European languages shaped after the Roman incursion. The words have also been transmitted around the world through the linguistic missionising activities of these same Europeans. Their root is found in the Latin word professus meaning 'to have declared publicly', referring specifically to taking the vows of a religion.(3) By the 1500s, the English meaning had shifted away from this narrow, religious context, adding the sense of “declaring oneself expert or proficient in some activity. (4) Another difference had arisen as well between declaring oneself a professional, or expert at some activity, and being part of a 'profession'. The direction here was dictated by the fact that what were accepted as professions by the early 1600s or before, were fields where literate clerics had once dominated or even monopolised the work, namely divinity, law and medicine. The military was added, in part one can suppose because of the Crusades, and dentistry gained the appellation once we stopped using blacksmiths to pull our teeth. A certain relaxation has occurred, especially in the use of the word professional, but the word profession seems to have stayed tied to the fields listed above. This is why it offends an English-listening ear to say that a striker or left fielder are 'by profession' football or baseball players, but it does not offend to call them professional practitioners. In other words, they can well be expert at their chosen activity, without for that reason that activity becoming a profession. Some attempts have been made to upgrade all fields requiring an academic degree to the level of 'profession', but the efforts have met with mixed success. For that reason, it continues to seem odd to call engineering a profession and academics themselves have seemingly not aspired to the appellation. The latter don't even call themselves professional - it seems somehow a tautology in their minds and perhaps in ours as well. In seeking to define the concept 'profession' it becomes necessary to return again to lexical sources, paraphrasing in this case the Oxford and other dictionaries. It seems reasonable to say that a profession is a body of men and women who, after similar training and apprenticeship, have dedicated their lives to the practice of a particular discipline or activity and who in much act as a closed body to police and promote the standards, tools and practices of their chosen territory.(5) Certain expectations are defined, both inside the group and by the society in which they serve. But it is interesting that they are all seen as 'serving', theirs is considered a 'calling' and all four of the professions that have been thus accepted, have their own internally defined, but in much externally accepted 'code of behaviour'. To this six-part lexical definition I would like to add a seventh parameter, namely that the members of a profession take responsibility for the immediate and eventual results of their profession . Perhaps by adding this last social parameter, I am asking ordinary practitioners to become extra-ordinary, but then why not. 1 similar training and apprenticeship Figure 2. Seven-part definition of a profession (S. Borei). Before testing the translation industry as defined above against the definition of a profession offered for your consideration, I want to expand somewhat on the implications inherent in this definition. At the outset I would like to exclude the military from our consideration, not because it doesn't meet the various parts of the definition above in every particular, but because it is the only destructive profession and as such does not take responsibility for “the immediate and eventual results of pursuing their craft” in human terms. The other reason is that in most countries today, military personnel are subservient to the political will and as such carry out their profession only when and how ordered to. This is especially true of the results from their actions. Their possibility for affecting the results is severely limited, if not removed altogether. But I would beg your indulgence by letting me escape from the minefield of the military and move on to the other professions. As I would ask your understanding of the fact that in the abstract presented for this paper I stated that I would seek to throw historic light on “how these professions have dealt with the inherent problems and promises” of being professional. I won't. I have neither had the time to do the necessary research nor would I have the time to present the results here if I had them in hand. More important, I wonder now how useful such a survey would be in shaping our future behaviour as translators or even our possible future as a 'profession'. So I will make no apology for thus not having 'done my homework', but will press on to practical considerations, hopefully to your satisfaction. The general definition of a profession points to a similarity in training and apprenticeship, a lifelong dedication or calling and a closed or restricted body of practitioners. I would say that none of these need further explanation and that no-one will disagree that the professions share these characteristics in all countries, if not over national boundaries. If we were to set these in the order they happen in an individual, then the 'call' would come first and did in history. Healers existed before schools of medicine did, as did priests and lawyers precede their training institutes and corporative structures. After many years, the training crystallised for each, first through apprenticeships and then through formalised training followed by apprenticeships. With time, this training became the point of entry into the territory commanded by the practitioners, indeed for medicine and law the only entry to what has become essentially closed corporations. The need for codes of behaviour became essential, not only for the body to remain restricted and hence lucrative, but in order ensure that the practitioners acted in ways that promoted public welfare and obviated the need for outside interference. The same was true of developing standards and uniform practices - in other words, 'do it yourselves before it is done unto you'. Obviously this closed-door policy has become more and more transparent over the years, but we all know it exists, in part because we have all complained about lawyers and doctors protecting each other. The concept of policing and promoting the tools of each trade is obvious on its face, but less so in actual practice. This is partly so because many of the 'tools' for existing professions are words, procedures, relationships and mannerisms, rather than the hammers and tongs of carpenters and blacksmiths. But tools they are and especially in medicine the professionals are actively involved in the development and testing of the tools used. It can even be seen as somewhat of a cosy super-industry involving 'tool' and drug companies with doctors, but this is yet another minefield I'd like to avoid. It is when we come taking responsibility for immediate and eventual results, that things get interesting, for here we can look not only at the immediate effects of what each practitioner does - pleading cases, healing and operating, preaching and counselling. But we can also study how their professions as a whole deal with the consequences, scarcity or over-abundance of their services both locally and internationally, as well as with the problems their own attempts at remaining exclusive and obscure create in their societies. All these professions have national and international programs for helping bring their services to the underprivileged and poor. Attempts are made by doctors and lawyers to simplify their language where it touches the public, the Plain English movement being one such, simplified scriptures another. Doctors have programs designed to help in areas where natural or man-made catastrophes have occurred and most religious denominations have charitable efforts to alleviate hunger and other needs. It took a long time for the religious groups to get past the exclusivity part of their profession and accept native practitioners. As late as in the 1930s my grandfather had problems with the Swedish Missionary Society about his desire to train and consecrate Chinese priests to continue his mission in Changsha. But even that has changed and now all professions admit the need for native practitioners, who in turn form exclusive professions within their countries. Just as the four professions deal with the effects of their work in different, if somewhat similar ways, they have had varying success in dealing with modernisation. The legal and medical professions have little problems in continuing to justify their existence and their status. One can argue that the former has problems with the legal ramifications of the Internet and computers in general, while the latter has severe ethical problems with genetic manipulation and living wills. But both professions will meet these challenges, if for no other reason than to prevent outsiders from doing so. The military, as I said above, are still exclusive, still closed, still bound by an internal code of behaviour, but in most contemporary societies they have lost control of their profession to the politicians. They will survive, but dependent. The divines in our midst have a much more severe problem as a profession. Their methods for meeting modern needs vary in efficacy and direction, but they do offer solutions. However, in the west, they do not seem to be succeeding in preserving the exclusivity of their calling. They have in much lost the unity of their profession, in part by abdicating certain social parts of their calling to others and in part through severe in-fighting. The result is that anyone can become a priest, anyone can learn and propagate theology, anyone can start a church or a denomination. Except for major positions like the Pope's and for individuals like Bishop Tutu, the moral weight of the profession of divinity has devolved to local levels and on personal auras. Though strong elsewhere, the profession of divinity seems to have lost its territory in the affluent west. That fact is not important here, but the process is instructive. Having thus defined my terms and my parameters, it is time for me to return to the intended focus of this discussion and to apply all this to translation as an industry. And let me take the title of this paper as the filter for this discussion - the socio-linguistic responsibilities of translators as professionals. I have been careful not to speak of translation as a profession, for I do not believe we can achieve that position. I do, however, think that we can stake out translation as a territory, our territory, and to bring it much closer to a professional status than that it now commands. We can as an industry become professionals, accepted in our own eyes and in the mind of the general public. I must of course attempt to differentiate between a member of a profession and a professional individual. The easiest way to do this is to take the definition of a profession outlined above and to describe translation in relation to it. In this way, I can also point to what can be done and to what is beyond our immediate scope. A profession Translation industry Figure 3. Application of the seven-part definition to translation as an industry. 1. Similar training and apprenticeship While this may be a strength in terms of the skills brought to the work, it is clearly a weakness should we wish to become more professional. Still, there is an increased interest in training translators and we must take a stronger interest in what such training includes. For it is in that initial training that the concept of a translation territory is shaped and internalised. (6) It is in that period that the putative member of the professional corps joins up and accepts the codes and responsibilities, whatever we may define them to be. Most of the current basic training in translation has been initiated and run by institutions of higher learning, entirely without formal involvement by professional associations. While this has natural explanations in a field that currently is as scattered as the translation industry is, it must be seen as a problem. As is correct, academic institutions create and run academic courses of study. They are notoriously poor at the practical aspects, especially in taking the time individuals need to learn rudiments by actual application. It was for this reason, that the four professions created their various apprenticeship sequences. There are exceptions, of course, but on the whole this is true - the industry has few clear ways of passing along the discipline of translation, the practical ways of upholding standards and quality. I suggest that one of the responsibilities of the industry organisations must be to take a stronger part in both the basic training and the 'apprenticing' of new translators. It is a question of survival, of inculcating a sense of the group, of its tools and its joint responsibilities. Continuing education we already do, in much through various conferences like this one. But here too, we must ensure that what is done becomes more practical and applicable, less seductively theoretical. 2. Lifelong dedication (calling) Put in the territorial way, translation wasn't a territory one sought. Indeed, it wasn't a territory at all. It was a place that happened to be along the way to or within another territory. If we wish it to be otherwise, we must redefine the industry, borrowing from the definition of the professions in doing so. 3. A closed or restricted body of practitioners 4. Police and promote standards, tools and practices The reason and perhaps the excuse is simple - we have no unified ranks to police, nor have we the mandate from either our members or the society to do so. The professions discussed so far, including dentistry, are in effect guilds under the old system. You have to be a member to practice them. To become and stay a member you must pass and maintain certain standards. Your guild can exclude you if you do not and once excluded, you are prevented from practising your craft. I would not recommend so tight a structure for translation and translators, nor do I think such a recommendation could be implemented. But we must become more involved in this work both individually and collectively, more pro-active in the development of industry-wide standards and practices or they will be imposed on us. Indeed, they already are and fight as we might, those standards others are developing will soon reshape our work whether we will it or not. Unless of course, we wrest the initiative from their hands. What is true for quantifiable standards and practices is not so true for the tools of our trade, both for hardware and software. It is especially true of that ultimate software that forms the basis for all that we do, namely language. As to the computers and other related items, I think we can well leave development of those items to others, provided we insist on and give input along the way. The same is true of dictionaries and lexicons. Development of various translation programs should, and does involve us deeply. When it comes to our various languages, we have much to do and much to think about. And we are divided about our roles and responsibilities, for those who translate literature do not consider themselves a part of the translation industry. But they are, at least in this aspect. Their need for a literate society is maybe even stronger than ours. Much of what we translate either must or ought to be read - what they translate will only be read if people have the habit and the skills of reading for pleasure. In other words, all translators have a need and, to my mind, a responsibility for ensuring that the societies in which and to which they work are and remain literate. In a video-mad world, this is no small job, but an essential one if the translation industry is to survive at all. I cannot say this often enough - literacy is essential to our survival as translators, illiteracy or semi-literacy is our worst enemy. We who make our livings from language cannot only enjoy in its riches for ourselves. We must equally suffer its poverties and try to bring about change. We must work to preserve language in society and in its inhabitants. Our territory is language, is working with language, and while we share that territory with authors and rhetoricians, our need differs in that we need them for our work. They do not need us. One of our tasks must be to ensure that linguistic richness flourishes and to make certain the skills relating to it are strong in our societies. Individually and collectively we must leave our garrets and cells, going out into the market place and defending our necessity. 5. Internally defined, externally accepted code of behaviour We have had several problem situations in the Swedish association, similar to ones I have heard about in other countries. And in the end, we can only persuade, talk, arbitrate, nag - if the parties want otherwise, we others do not exist. Indeed, it would seem to be a societal duty to help remove rotten eggs from our membership, as well as from the general translation corps. It would also seem to be of personal benefit in that it would raise the stature of each individual translator, both within him or herself and in the eyes of the customers. But there is a great and understandable fear of such processes, one I would not wish to diminish or ridicule. I would want such codes with their enforcement mechanisms to grow naturally out of the joint work outlined elsewhere in this paper. In that way no small group develops the code - it grows from the common weal and is accepted by all. 6. A defined and defended 'territory' 7. Responsibility for immediate and eventual results For the last, the immediate, we can and most often do take responsibility, if to varying degrees. If I translate a tourist brochure, I am surely responsible for producing a correct, logical and possibly selling text. But I have no responsibility for the number of tourists who come along as a result of my text. On the other hand, if I translate a text that describes how to make a poisonous decoct of hemlock, knowing that my principal intends to publish it on the Internet, I wonder what my responsibility is. My text may be a wonder of clarity and exactness, satisfying every possible standard my industry has set up. But can I ignore the possible eventual results of such a translation? Perhaps that situation is obvious, but there are many, more subtle ones in between, including wrong translations that cause injury or death. To the best of my knowledge, no code of ethics has touched on those aspects well. Perhaps none dares to. But until we do, until we act as professionals with a wide-ranging sense of responsibility for what we do, we will continue to be seen as bit-players, instead of gaining the respect we want and ought to strive for. Social responsibilities Linguistic responsibilities Figure 4. Possible social and linguistic responsibilities Conclusion As has become clear from this discussion, I do not believe that translation can become a profession. This in spite of the fact that our work derives just as strongly from the literate monks and clerics of both early and late periods. Put in market terms, the medical, legal, military and divinity professions define the field of professionalism and will in all likelihood remain the only professions in the world, though perhaps not the oldest. But in theory their example defines the goal and we can come a long way towards a more professional industry and a more respected one by emulating their progress. Still, there is much we cannot borrow of what makes those professional groups what they are. But we can improve our standards, tools and practices. We can take a greater responsibility in our immediate and greater societies for the languages we need and use in our work. We can involve ourselves actively in ensuring that our associations develop the requisite ethical and behavioural codes that will raise us and our industry higher. Much of this work will be done through better initial training, stronger peer pressure for upgrading and continuing education, as well as better communication among ourselves, with our customers and the general public. The work will take time and money, both of which are scarce commodities in our field. But it is obvious from what has happened in other fields, that if the translation industry does not pull itself up professionally, some government agency will. We either do it ourselves, or it will be done to us. The choice is ours. 1. Edward Gibbon. The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. (published Sven H. E. Borei |