Is Translation subjective -an art or a science?
Thread poster: marijaflora
marijaflora
marijaflora
Australia
Local time: 22:17
Bosnian to English
+ ...
Jun 6, 2020

As a student, I am wondering if anyone can share their opinion on:

- is translation subjective?
I guess, literal translation is objective. But when clients order non-literal translations, does client satisfaction depend on whether the client like the translators personal style or not?

- with the advent and continuing expansion of AI translation tool, as professional translators do you feel the need to further adapt your translations?
For example, I think som
... See more
As a student, I am wondering if anyone can share their opinion on:

- is translation subjective?
I guess, literal translation is objective. But when clients order non-literal translations, does client satisfaction depend on whether the client like the translators personal style or not?

- with the advent and continuing expansion of AI translation tool, as professional translators do you feel the need to further adapt your translations?
For example, I think some clients are under the impression that machine translation is always bad and wrong vs human translation is always correct.
But realistically, machine translation's such as google translate can get it right often too.

Would it perhaps be better if clients instead thought of it as something along the lines of machine translation = 60 % correct, while human translation equals 90% correct?

With this in mind, when a professional translators translation matches the same words as a machine translation for some passages because they are both right, do you feel the need to reword it in case clients accuses you of using AI translation or do you just leave it as is?

Thanks:)
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Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 12:17
English to German
In memoriam
Translation is a tool for a purpose Jun 6, 2020

You will probably get very different answers to this question, but here's my personal view. For my (end) clients, translation is a tool for conveying a message. They have content in textual form, and with this content, they usually combine an intention. It is my job to deliver their intention to the final audience. Whether I do this by precisely recreating their original sentences with every twist and turn, or by rewriting the content from scratch to convey the meaning in the optimal way for the... See more
You will probably get very different answers to this question, but here's my personal view. For my (end) clients, translation is a tool for conveying a message. They have content in textual form, and with this content, they usually combine an intention. It is my job to deliver their intention to the final audience. Whether I do this by precisely recreating their original sentences with every twist and turn, or by rewriting the content from scratch to convey the meaning in the optimal way for the final audience to understand it, depends on the intent, the audience, the guidance from the client, my own best judgment, and other factors like subject matter or even legal requirements.

As a translator your role is that of an expert or consultant who helps clients to accomplish their goals and intentions. Imagine you were an architect: if the client wants a palace, you don't create a cottage, and if they want a cottage, you don't build them a palace. Your role is to apply rules and techniques and a certain degree of creativity to give the client what they want, and therefore you need to find out what they really want (to achieve).

Machine translation is irrelevant here. It is true that machine translation has a chance to get it right, and this chance has increased over the years, but this is just statistics. Clients who hire a professional translator (should) know that they cannot afford the risk to receive translations that are incorrect or embarrassing. Even if the MT gets 5 of 6 sentences in a paragraph right, the overall result will still be incorrect or embarrassing or both, and the MT provider will not be liable for any gross mistranslations. The clients need people who take responsibility for their work: professional translators. If a professional translator happens to deliver the same result as an MT for a couple of sentences, this makes no difference, because in one case it is the result of professional and responsible work, and in the other case of statistical chance that comes "as is" with no assurances of any kind.

[Edited at 2020-06-06 20:15 GMT]
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Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
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Is Translation subjective -an art or a science?







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