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Translating Division
About Us | TransNet | News/Reports | Events | Management Committee
Translating Division
The Translating Division is the largest of the four Divisions of the Institute, with some 2700 members. They range from full-time translators, well-known in their field, through to freelance translators who are usually also engaged in other vocations, to those who have fairly recently qualified or who are still completing their studies.
The purpose of the Division is to help its membership to attain greater proficiency in the art of translating, and to advise Council on matters of national and international concern to translators. In order to fulfil this purpose, the Division acts through its elected Management Committee of unpaid volunteers to provide activities and services for its members. The Committee encourages active participation and suggestions from the membership.
Essentially the Committee helps members to help themselves in the ceaseless task of perfecting their skills, keeping up to date with techniques and technology, and sharing knowledge and facilities.
A number of services are available to Division members. Two key services you may find helpful are:
- The Translator’s Pack (available free to members from the IoL from the IoL office – write in to the Membership Department - and also available to download from the TransNet members' page - see below).
TransNet, as the name implies, is a network of translators working in a variety of languages and disciplines, who are willing to support and co-operate with other members of the Translating Division, for work, linguistic assistance, and technical advice. To join TransNet you must be an FCIL, MCIL or ACIL. Please contact Lucy Brooks at lucy_brooks@btconnect.com.
There is no extra fee to join. Since February 2006 TransNet has been a wholly web-based (Yahoo) e-group offering peer support to its members. It is coordinated by Lucy Brooks, with the help of two other moderators, Erika Baker and Elaine Bolton, and is run on an informal basis. Members are able to post questions about professional concerns or problems they may have. Members are also at liberty to make arrangements for meetings amongst themselves, and financial help may be given for these, provided that the Translating Division Committee is satisfied that such events are organised in a manner that meets the published criteria.
Any advice given by individual members of TransNet is given in the spirit of co-operation, and the Translating Division Committee offers no guarantee as to the results obtained from using information posted to TransNet, nor of the correctness, quality, and reliability of the content, or any information obtained via the platform.
Essentially, TransNet facilitates self-help through co-operation. Its objective is not to procure additional work for its members, although co-operation may sometimes lead to this, but to facilitate closer working relationships between people in similar fields. It is the pro-active approach which is most likely to lead to the benefits envisaged in the TransNet concept. The more information TransNet members have about each other, the easier the co-operation becomes.
Within TransNet, there are also specific support groups for German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and for Translation Memory issues. Translators in these language-specific sub-groups, or using Translation Memory, are interested in close cooperation within their own language groups or area and are prepared to actively contribute within the group. The Committee welcomes suggestions for other language groups. Any group of TransNet members may form their own language network, to operate within the TransNet general network, to offer each other mutual help and support in their particular language.
The coordinator of TransNet is Lucy Brooks
See list of committee members below for her email address.
News/Reports
There are currently 5 reports on this website about the Translating Division.
When to use translation memory and when not to use it (the Powerpoint presentations are available to TransNet members)
By Janine Roberts, Freelance Translator
Janine made a very realistic presentation of the advantages and pitfalls of owning Translation Memory. Publicity would have us believe that a translator’s output will improve drastically. But Janine pointed out some of the realities of working with computer aided tools, before going on to explain how they work, and how they can indeed help translators in their daily workon a day-to-day basis LB to avoid work again?
The slides on the presentation illustrate her points.
Localisation and optimisation
By Lynda McDermott, of ‘The Final Word'
With Lynda and her partner , Lynda set up her firm four years ago, specialising in the localisation of websites, principally in the tourism sector. She pointed out some of the problems they are faced with in creating a multi-lingual website. She compared the ideal situation with that which actually prevails, and contrasted some of the problems encountered when translating different styles, such as the flowery French manner of expression with the plainer matter-of-fact style of English or Dutch. She touched on the problems of measurements (for example the US market is unable to accept metric measurements, whereas in Australia, and even in the UK, the metric system is more readily understood). She discussed the problems of translating puns, single out-of-context words, the length of words and phrases, clients’ attempts at providing their own translations, working in html, and the ever-changing requirements of the field. Finally, delegates were invited to think about how keywords can affect a web-site’s chances of being found by search engines.
Creativity and the Freelance Translator
By Lucy Brooks
Lucy gave a very personal presentation that took account of the sort of work she does day in day out, in an attempt to show how even those of us in the more humdrum sector of translating can use our creative flair in our work.
She compared a translator’s work with that of a performing artist, who will always add something to a composer’s work, and examined the scope for creativity in business texts.
Quoting Professor Peter Newmark, she believes that a translator of non-literary text will always produce a better translation than the original, where the writer of the original text is not a professional writer. Translators can use their insight, knowledge, intuition, instinct and flair for expression to create a translation that reads as if it had been written in the target language. She summed up with her view of what she considers a translator’s job should involve.
Literary Translation
by Simon Dalgleish
Due to the severe illness of our planned speaker, Simon had stepped in at short notice to give this presentation on literary translation. Although not a specialist in the field, he has tackled some literary assignments and gave an amusing account of how he dealt with them, as well as his personal background into how he became a freelance translator and the work he does on a daily basis. As a friend of our planned speaker, Simon had asked her a number of questions that he thought delegates might be interested in, and in doing so touched upon copyright, payment, and credit for translation. This elicited a lively and informative discussion from the audience
Selling skills, Opportunities and CV writing for Translators
by Simon Dalgleish
Selling is an essential part of any business, but it is not a skill that comes naturally to all of us. With this in mind, the Translating Division devoted its autumn workshop on 06 October to sessions on selling skills, opportunities for linguists and how to write a punchy, persuasive CV. The Division was delighted to welcome back Stephen Hackett, who participated in our 2006 workshop, How not to Go Mad as a Freelance Translator, to run the sessions on selling and CV writing. Now a qualified freelance translator, Stephen has extensive experience in international sales and contract negotiation gained during his 20 years in export management.
Stephen’s presentation on selling skills focussed in particular on cold-calling and getting through to decision-makers – the people who determine whether your details get on an agency’s database or not. He reminded us never to forget we are selling a professional service: as communications experts, we need to be able to communicate effectively ourselves. The first ten seconds of a call are “make or break”, so you need to get across who you are, where you are from and why you are calling. Otherwise, you may find the call ending before you have had a chance to get your message across. Identifying who you are talking to is essential: are you speaking to the translation manager or an assistant? An assistant may be just the person you need to speak to, or they may act as an obstacle. To get to the person you need, you have to ask the right questions: using open questions allows you to retain control of the conversation, steering it in the direction you want. Stephen shared a variety of techniques for getting past obstacles, from checking whether an assistant is being genuine or simply protecting their manager, to giving them a quandary, to using time pressure, to asking them a question they can’t answer themselves: all designed to get you put through to the decision-maker.
Once you have been added to an agency’s database, you still need to get actual work from them, and you may need to make a follow-up call. You can find yourself faced with a series of objections, from pricing to other objections based on a lack of information or poor communication, or an emotional objection such as a bias towards existing suppliers. The key point is to identify the type of objection you are dealing with in order to be able to deal with it effectively. Good listening skills are essential to ensure that you are really engaging with the person you are speaking to, and you should also practise your speaking skills and analyse past conversations to see what worked well and what did not. Stephen emphasised that all these techniques form part of a structured process: having dealt systematically with all the objections, put over your selling points and provided proof of the benefits to the client, you need to move on to closing the sale. Again there are a number of possible techniques to choose from, depending on the situation.
Our afternoon session was devoted to CV writing – with plenty of real-life examples of how not to do it and lots of useful tips on what to emphasise. Participants then split up into small groups to review their CVs with a group of colleagues. Many constructive and useful ideas were shared during this popular session. With plenty of ideas on opportunities for linguists provided by Rannheid Sharma’s presentation, a whole new set of professional tools to try out and lots of new contacts made over coffee and lunch, participants set off at the end of the day with renewed enthusiasm for picking up the phone on Monday morning!
Events
The Management Committee stages a number of events throughout the year. These include lectures by eminent translators, language workshops for the study and translation of texts in a variety of languages, other workshops, seminars, hands-on sessions with computers and other technology, and social gatherings for networking and the informal exchange of ideas. Activities are sometimes arranged in conjunction with other bodies, or their members are also invited to attend. Essentially, the activities organised by the Division are designed to help members to help themselves in the ceaseless task of perfecting their skills, keeping up to date with techniques and technology, and sharing knowledge and facilities with colleagues. Since the Committee is conscious that the activities it organises are confined to the London area, it is anxious to meet the needs of its members nationwide and, indeed, world-wide by co-operating with the Regional Societies in joint ventures. The Annual General Meeting of the Division is usually held in London in May. This includes a lecture, a business meeting on the affairs of the Division, and the chance for members to get to know one another and the Committee.
Autumn 2009
There will be an event in the autumn. Details to be announced in due course.
Please view the Events Calendar for future events organised by the Interpreting Division.Activities are also advertised in the Institute’s journal The Linguist. If you would like to go on our electronic mailing list for events, please send an email to Simon Dalgleish
Management Committee
| Gudrun Lawlor, FCIL |
Chairman |
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| Lucy Brooks, MCIL |
Hon. Secretary & TransNet Coordinator
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lucy_brooks@btconnect.com |
| Simon Dalgleish, MCIL |
Publicity |
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| Heather Fulford, MCIL |
Treasurer
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| Nigel Goffe, MCIL |
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| Anne de Freyman, MCIL |
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| Michael Cunningham, MCIL |
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michael@michaelcunningham.net |
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Web Coordinator |
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