Language-based material is not the only type of material that comes up for translation: graphic images, alphanumerical data, videographic material or pictograms, computer code or other types of code, sound, noise, signs, colours and signals, may also have to be “translated” into other codes or languages. The translator may for instance have to inform the client that a colour which is a symbol of happiness and optimism in European cultures is a symbol of death in certain Far-Eastern cultures, and that it may be worth changing the graphic chart for the documentation accordingly. The list of materials that the translator maybe called on to “translate” is endless.

Translation aims at allowing effective communication – and trade – to take place by overcoming potentially insurmountable obstacles of a linguistic, symbolic, or physical nature: the language barrier, ignorance of a code system (pictograms) or physical impairments such as blindness or deafness (which is where sign language interpreting comes in because, contrary to popular belief, sign languages differ from one country to the next and have to be ‘translated’). Translation is vital for the dissemination of goods, products, services, concepts, ideas, values, etc.

Whether the source document is an on-line software help system or the electrical wiring diagram used by a technician working in cramped conditions under a bark-stripping machine or a die-press, the end-product that the translator delivers, i.e. the translation, must meet a number of requirements, both in the message conveyed and the way it is conveyed.

It must comply with the client’s aims and objectives: the translation must be effective in allowing the work provider or client to achieve his aims of increasing sales, winning over readers, entertaining readers, facilitating use of machines, improving his corporate image, or having some criminal extradited, etc.

The user’s needs or requirements, or even specifications, if such is the case. The translation must also be effective in allowing its users to obtain whatever they are supposed to be getting through it. As a case in point, a translated instructions manual or user guide should at least enable the user to perform whatever operations have to be performed and to do this efficiently and safely. This means cuts and additions may have to be made: an unwieldy 500 page maintenance manual would not, for instance, be much use to a maintenance engineer working in cramped conditions.

plus, at all times,

The usage, standards and conventions applicable: the grammar, spelling, terminology, phraseology, style, modes of reasoning, value systems, etc. must be those of the community concerned – be it the community of all people speaking a given language or the group of people working on a particular project in a particular corporation or organisation.

The ‘products’ or ‘concepts’ being transferred across cultures must be acceptable or made acceptable within the context of the target culture and grasped by those they are supposed to reach and influence. Transfer is therefore cultural in nature first – which means appropriate adaptations of contents, organisation, and mode of thinking may have to be made by the translator. The latter must therefore understand exactly what message has to be carried over to whom before organising the content of his own message and expressing it in the appropriate code (that code being most generally, but not exclusively, a language-based code).

The visible substitution of linguistic or non-linguistic signs and codes comes second to the deeper and less visible substitution of thought processes, discourse structure, presentation techniques and rationales, modes of analysis of objects or concepts or interpretation and subliminal suggestion – which means the translator must have a perfect knowledge of the thought processes, mental habits or mores of the target group or community.

Find Translation Jobs online. Get the list of translation companies ready to give you Translators Jobs. Receive Translation Work from direct clients.

Looking for translation jobs? Visit http://www.translationjobspro.com – where you\’ll find translation jobs for all language pairs.

Author Bio: Find Translation Jobs online. Get the list of translation companies ready to give you Translators Jobs. Receive Translation Work from direct clients.

Category: Jobs
Keywords: translation, jobs