Talk:Translation

Archiving

This talk page was getting very long and needed to be archived. Please feel free to restore any currently relevant discussions. Dreadstar † 07:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

TMX standard?

I removed a link to the Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA) because I followed it and didn't initially see anything about translation. Autoterm put it back, saying LISA was "the originator of the TMX Standard, to name only one." Forgive me, but I've never heard of the TMX standard or LISA. There are a lot of websites of translation associations, and associations somewhat related to translation, but it doesn't make any sense to include them all. Adriano had pointed this out [1] in the archived discussion. I think that the LISA link should go. LISA has no wikipedia article and the link, in my opinion, doesn't really add to the article. But I thought I'd put it up for discussion. maxsch 03:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Also, do we need the "Expert Translators" section that was recently put in? The article previously had a whole slew of sections on specialized sorts of translators which, fortunately, have been deleted. Nihil novi 03:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I admit to having also been confused by the expert translators bit. For one thing, it could use a reference. I can see having something a "translation certification" page that maybe gets referenced in the "see also". But my vote is for it not to be in translation. maxsch 03:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That's odd: I just entered "TMX" in the search box and had no problem getting to Translation Memory eXchange, a core standard that enables users of translation memories from different vendors to exchange their language assets. And if that doesn't satisfy you: Searching Google for "translation memory exchange" produces more than 16,000 hits, which indicates, at least in this contributor's opinion, that there is substantial discourse around this topic. And yes, unfortunately there is only a stub on the Localization Industry Standards Association. However, LISA is the driving force behind standards that make the lives of thousands of translators easier every day because the standards developed by LISA (TMX, TBX, SRX, GMX, to name just a few) allow translators and vendors to share linguistic assets across otherwise incompatible tools. Autoterm 03:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added Localization Industry Standards Association to "Category:Translation." That should suffice. I don't see a need to add a link to "Localization Industry Standards Association" under "See also" in the "Translation" article. Nihil novi 05:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nihil novi. LISA is specific to l10n, not to t9n. --leuce 10:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously saying that translators working outside of the localization field neither use translation memory nor terminology management tools? Because anybody (translation vendor, agency, translation buyer) who is serious about translation memory management (TMX), terminology management (TBX), quality assurance (remember the LISA QA Model?) on any scale simply cannot ignore the standards LISA developed and evangelized. Just take a look at LISA's member list http://www.lisa.org/info/members.html and ask yourself why organizations such as the ATA, the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission (DGT), McDonald's Corporation, the Polish Association of Translation Agencies and hundreds of others with a non-localization focus would join LISA if it solely catered to the L10N industry.Autoterm 13:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Expert translators (certification)

Regarding the question Maxschmelling sent to me about expert translators, here is the provisional/preliminary answer I have: a) an expert translator or sworn translator or court translator or legal translator (the name depends on the country) is a translator authorized by the law (different procedures in different countries) to render special kinds of documents (official documentation such as certificates of studies/death/marriage/birth/divorce/criminal or police records, commercial agreements, powers of attorney, etc.); b) on the other hand, certified translators are those translators who, by means mostly of an exam, demonstrate their ability to work professionally as translators, but this does not include the legal authorization to translate the aforementioned types of documents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Correogsk (talk • contribs) 21:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this distinction. Only recently did the ATA begin to call their accredited translators "certified translators" (causing much confusion in the process because "certified translations" need not be done by certified translators).

I do agree, however, that the concept of a translator whose translation is considered legally equivalent to the source text, and that should be explained here. Not all "legal translators" are sworn translators. Not all lawyer-translators are sworn translators either. And in my country (ZA) you don't nee authorisation to translate legal documents (although you do need to be a sworn translator to swear an oath that a translation is good).

I suggest a rewrite of these two sections to NPOV:

Translating for legal equivalence

For legal and official purposes, evidentiary documents and other official documentation are usually required in the official language(s) of that jurisdiction. In some countries it is a requirement for translations of such documents that a translator swears an oath to attest that it is the legal equivalent of the source text. Often, only translators of a special class are authorised to swear such oathes. In some cases, the translation is only accepted as a legal equivalent if it is accompanied by the original or a sworn or certified copy of it.

The procedure for translating to legal equivalence differs from country to country. For example, in South Africa, the translator must be authorised by the High Court, and he must use an original (or a sworn copy of an original) in his physical presense as his source text; the translator may only swear on his own translation; and there is no requirement for an additional witness (such as a notary) to attest to the authenticity of the translation.

Even if a translator specialises in legal translation or if he is a lawyer in his country, this does not necessarily make him a sworn translator.

Accreditation of translators

Private or parastatal organisations from various countries often accredit translators based on a variety of requirements, which often include a written examination to attest to the translator's skill. Such accreditations often have no legal effect, and their value lies in the esteem that the translation organisation has as an independent authority on good translation.

Most translators' organisations refer to this stamp of approval as "accreditation", although the American Translators Association's accreditation system is called "certification".

See also [Category:Translation_associations] -- leuce 10:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I just want to add that I don't know in which countries these translators are known as "court translators", "expert translators" or "legal translators", and I think we should be able to name the countries before we try to tie down these names to this specific class of translator. -- leuce 10:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting issue. In principle I agree with the rewrite, it does seem more neutral. I think, however, that because there are so many different legal situations involved, it will be difficult to make the section "translation for legal equivalence" true for all countries/all jurisdictions. I can foresee this bit getting long as different laws are described. I am going to put the text by leuce in the article, but I think we should think about whether this ends up being a separate page eventually. maxsch 18:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Images

What's going on here? Why are the images disappearing? How are the images of Kurzweil and Muegge less relevant to this article than those of Krasicki, Johnson and the others? If anything, there are not enough images in this article. Naturezak keeps changing his standards, and where does the path he wants to take us down lead to: a totally bland and lifeless Wikipedia! Autoterm (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't insist on images of Kurzweil or Muegge. What the historic personages said has stood the test of time. These two moderns are highly speculative and, I think, superficial. I doubt that either has had much practical experience of real-life translation. Nihil novi (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how "practical experience in real-life translation" qualifies a person for having their image accompany their entry in a section on machine translation. And I don't see the logic of having a reference to a person in the article but removing their image. So yes, all three Hofstadter, Kurzweil, and Muegge have also stood the test of time as the community has considered them worthy of inclusion in this article for a long time. If a person appears in an article and if an image is available, then that image should be included in the same article. Anything else just doesn't make sense. Let's keep Wikipedia colorful and alive! Autoterm (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

This is not a debate about aesthetics, and I am not pleased to be characterized as trying to make Wikipedia less colorful and more deaden. Since the images of the three contemporary commenators does not illustrate a concept discussed in the article, or demonstrate the visual aspect of the subject of the article, they do not belong. The images of historical personnages might very well be removed for just that reason.

Autoterm, you say that "there are not enough images in this article." Is this an aesthetic preference (and therefore not a point in contention here) or do you mean that there are not enough images to properly convey the meaning of the article? Naturezak (talk) 17:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that you would happily remove all images of all people referenced in this article, and you would have to to be consistent and not discriminate against contemporary contributors to the field. And the result would be, pardon my repeating myself, a bland and lifeless entry. There are too many of those already! WP:Images states that "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)." All the images you removed meet those criteria. Please tell me which requirements of WP:Images have been violated by the images you removed from the article to warrant their removal. Once again, you can't say the people are relevant but their image is not.Autoterm (talk) 18:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)