I need everybody's helpe, about translation?

Question

I'm doing the master in translation field, the proffessor asked me to prepare a research paper, which talk about the following;
1- problems that face translators
2- issues of translation
3- any thing that talks about translators and problems of translation
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pls help as much you you can,
thanks in advance

Answer 1

Well,

Isn't it a little awkward for a Master's level student to be asking the folks on YA to do his work?

Before you gain your MA in a translation field, you may want to clean up the obvious grammatical mistakes in your question.

Just a thought.

Answer 2

1.One big problem is not having a grasp of the subject matter in any language and therefore not being able to use the correct technical terms which the reader will understand.

2. Being treated as a machine, and given piles of text to turn over as fast as the fingers can type, with no time for thinking it through.

3. Being in a market where the work goes to the lowest bidder, so that in an effort to keep body and soul together one is forced to translate at speed and pay less and less attention to quality.

4. As translators work to tight deadlines, there is no provision for being ill during a job. That is an ultimate nightmare scenario for a translator: what if one is unable to keep going?

5. A high level of intelligence and general knowledge is required of the translator which the interest of the work does not always sustain.

6. Translating is a very lonely and isolated job. It is hard to know whether or not one is maintaining one's standards. There is not too much positive feedback, although people are quick to criticise, sometimes from a standpoint of ignorance. Sometimes having one's work edited can be helpful, but it also presents problems. The person doing the editing has to justify his/her existence and will sometimes prove hypercritical and pick unnecessary holes in the work.

7. Sometimes when there is much chopping and changing of translators, there is inconsistency in quality and approach. A translator has to jump into the middle of the action, not knowing what has gone on before and being unfamiliar with the terms used by other translator. The result is a mess.

8. There is little respect for or recognition of the profession of translator. This is possibly because some people who call themselves translators are not professionally qualified. On the other hand, where there is regulation of the profession this can sometimes lead to abuse and people who have been competent translators for many years find themselves having to satisfy all kinds of unreasonable demands on the part of the regulatory authority concerned. It is also very difficult to assess competence. The fact that a translator can turn out a good translation of a text relating to electrical engineering does not necessarily make that translator a competent legal translator.

9. It is easy for translators to remain unpaid for their work. I know of a case where an offshoot of possibly the most famous an international organisation in the world persuaded a translator of vast experience and a high level of competence to spend several weeks turning out a translation, only to come back and complain that it wasn't completely in line with the house rules. The translator then spent further valuable time editing her own work to satisfy the organisation, only to find that they refused to pay on the grounds that they were dissatisfied with the work. This was not an assessment which could be justified by any objective standards, but the translator in question could hardly sue, as the forum for disputes was New York and the expense of pursuing the organisation for payment would have been colossal. It seems incredible that public bodies can behave like this, but anything goes when one is strapped for cash.

10. During times of economic recess, translations are among the first thing people cut down on. Despite rumours to the effect that translators are well paid, the freelance translator has a lean time, having to meet big overheads in terms of equipment, professional indemnity insurance and utility bills while less and less money is coming in. There is, moreover, no stability as far as income is concerned -- it is a world of feast or famine. Retirement is another problem -- can a translator ever afford to retire?

Answer 3

Look up Claude Piron
The sites below have a wealth of information from this former UN translator and psychologist.