Translating for International Organisations

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Translating for International Organisations

• Focus on EU and UN

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Definition Significance

• What is an international organisation?
• Governance as the objective (no commercial
  product)
• Foundational multilingualism
• The significance of international organisations
  today

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Websites of EU UN

• http//europa.eu
• http//www.un.org

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Multilingualism in the EU

• Equal status for all official languages
• Legislation language versions equally valid,
  equally authentic
• All citizens have right of access to the
  institutions
• may write in one of the languages and
  have an answer in the same language (Art. 21, EC
  Treaty)
• EU Language charter
• Council Regulation No. 1
• http//eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?
  uriCELEX31958R0001ENHTML

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EU Languages (1)

• Official languages vs. languages spoken in EU
  member states
• Procedural vs. non-procedural languages
• internal business in EN, FR, DE

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EU Languages (2)

• BG - Bulgarian
• CS - Czech
• DA - Danish
• DE - German
• ET - Estonian
• EL - Greek
• EN English
• ES - Spanish
• FR - French
• GA - Irish
• IT - Italian

• LV - Latvian
• LT - Lithuanian
• HU - Hungarian
• MT - Maltese
• NL - Dutch
• PL - Polish
• PT - Portuguese
• RO - Romanian
• SK - Slovak
• SL - Slovene
• FI - Finnish
• SV - Swedish

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EU Institutions

• European Commission
• European Parliament
• Council of the European Union
• Court of Justice
• European Court of Auditors
• European Ombudsman
• European Data Protection Supervisor

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EU Bodies and Agencies

• Financial bodies
• European Central Bank
• European Investment Bank
• Advisory bodies
• European Economic and Social Committee
• Commission of the Regions
• Community agencies
• currently 24, including the Translation Centre
  for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT)
• Common Foreign and Security Policy agencies
• - currently 3

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DGT

• Directorate-General for Translation of the
  European Commission
• department for each official language (unit for
  Irish)
• 3 Translation Directorates
• Transversal Linguistic Services Directorate
• specialist areas web translation, editing
• Resources Directorate
• staffing, IT, finance infrastructure, training
• Translation Strategy and Multilingualism
  Directorate
• workflow and policy issues, external translation

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DGT employment

• 1,750 translators, 600 support staff (2007)
• largest translation company in world
• Competition to get place on panel
• TL plus 2 SLs
• External translators
• call for tender

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DGT translation volumes

• 1.8 million pages (2008)
• 72.5 from English
• 11.8 from French
• 2.7 from German
• 13 from other languages
• Main target languages en, fr, de
• over 20 done by freelance translators

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Workflow (1)

• Poetry interface for submitting translation
  request, ST and supporting docs to DGT
• Suivi system for managing translation requests
  within DGT
• Dossier Manager interface for translators to
  access job, collaborate on job

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Workflow (2)

• DGTVista archiving system, all STs and
  translations since 1994
• rapid search
• bilingual scrolling
• EUR-Lex database of Official Journal of
  European Union (all legislation, treaties, etc.)
• www.eur-lex.europa.eu

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Workflow (3)

• Euramis
• European Advanced Multilingual Information System
• central translation memory, since 1997
• 84 million translation units/phrases
• SDL Trados Translators Workbench (TWB)
• used to access Euramis translation memory
• integrated with Microsoft Word

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Workflow (4)

• European Commission Machine Translation (ECMT)
• automatic translation system, since 1976, Systran
• 860,314 pages translated by MT (2005) 40
  requested by DGT
• not all languages handled
• select specialised dictionaries or domains to
  improve quality of output
• MT output is post-edited

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Workflow (5)

• IATE
• Inter-Active Terminology for Europe
• term bank, formerly Eurodicautom
• over 8 million terms, 500,000 abbreviations
• all fields of EU activity
• www.iate.europa.eu

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UN Main Bodies

• General Assembly (192 member states)
• Security Council
• Economic and Social Council
• International Court of Justice
• Secretariat
• Specialized Agencies

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UN Languages

• Working languages of Secretariat English, French
• Official languages for intergovernmental meetings
  and documents English, French, Spanish, Russian,
  Arabic, Chinese
• Also German Translation Service

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Documentation Division

• Part of Department for General Assembly and
  Conference Management
• Translation Service (6 langs)
• Editorial, Terrminology and Reference Service
• Contractual Translation Unit
• German Translation Section

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Activities (1)

• Translates all official UN documents, meeting
  records, publications and correspondence
• Prepares summary records of bodies entitled to
  such records.
• Arranges for contractual translation and
  text-processing

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Activities (2)

• Edits official UN documents, meeting records and
  publications
• Ensures linguistic concordance among the 6
  official languages of resolutions, decisions and
  other legal instruments
• Issues editorial directives for the UN Secretariat

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Activities (3)

• Provides reference and terminology services for
  authors, drafters, editors, interpreters,
  translators and verbatim reporters
• Develops terminology databases

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Workloads

• 2002 A/57/289 self-assessment and report on
  Documentation Division
• 1,650 words for translation to be revised
• 1,815 words for self-revised translation
• 3,960 words for revision

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UN Office Geneva

• Languages Services, part of Conference Services
  Division
• One translation section for each of the 6
  language and support sections (reference and
  terminology text-processing)
• 160 permanent translators, plus freelancers
  translate 50 million words per year
• Provides translation for 50 bodies at UNOG

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Legislation

• EU primary legislation
• treaties
• international agreements
• EU secondary legislation
• binding regulations, directives, decisions
• non-binding recommendation, opinions, joint
  actions

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Binding instruments

• Regulation general application, binding in all
  Member States, no need for national authorities
  to do anything
• Directive binding but Member States decide how
  to implement
• Decision binding for those to whom it applies

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The legislative process

• Proposal, recommendation, communication from
  Commission, Green Paper, consultation, studies,
  draft legislation, debate, amendments, final
  draft, adoption
• Consolidation incorporating changes (no
  official authenticity)
• Legislative consolidation consolidated version
  goes through legislative procedure to become
  adopted

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Tracing the procedure

• Oeil Legislative Observatory analyses and
  monitors
• the interinstitutional decision-making process
• role of EP in shaping legislation
• activities of various institutions involved in
  legislative process
• http//www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/
• Contains procedural factfiles
• searchable by type, topic, institution

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EU drafting principles

• The drafting of a legislative act must be
• clear, easy to understand and unambiguous
• simple, concise, containing no unnecessary
  elements
• precise, leaving no uncertainty in the mind of
  the reader
• appropriate to type of act and addressee
• succinct, internally consistent and consistent
  with other legislation

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Translation issues

• The original text must be particularly simple,
  clear and direct, since any over-complexity or
  ambiguity, however slight, could result in
  inaccuracies, approximations or real
  mistranslations in one or more of the other
  Community languages.
• The use of expressions and phrases in
  particular, but not exclusively, legal terms
  too specific to the authors own language or
  legal system, will increase the risk of
  translation problems.
• http//eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/index.htm

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Structure of acts (1)

• Title info to identify act
• if amending act, all acts amended need to be
  given by number
• number, date, year
• short title possible
• Preamble citations, recitals, solemn forms
• Citation sets out legal basis of act (e.g.
  treaty) Having regard to
• Recital reasons for provisions of enacting terms
  Whereas numbered

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Structure of acts (2)

• Enacting terms legislative part articles may
  be grouped in titles, chapters, sections
• no non-normative statements
• no reproduction or paraphrasing from other
  legislation
• first article may define subject matter and scope
  of act
• terms can be defined in single article at
  beginning

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Translation and drafting guides

• Access to language resources, English style guide
  and Fight the Fog campaign
• http//ec.europa.eu/translation/index_en.htm
• Interinstitutional style guide, in all languages
• http//publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-000500.ht
  m
• Drafting guidelines and toolshttp//eur-lex.europ
  a.eu/en/techleg/index.htm

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Reading

• Cao, Deborah and Zingmin Zhao (2008) Translation
  at United Nations as Specialised Translation,
  Journal of Specialised Translation, 9.
• Koskinen, Kaisa. 2008. Translating Institutions
  An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation.
  Manchester St Jerome.
• Kudryavtsev, Eduard and Louis-Dominique Oedraogo
  (2003) Implementation of Multilingualism in the
  United Nations System (JIU/REP/2002/11), Geneva
  United Nations.

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Reading (2)

• Tosi, Arturo. 2003. Crossing Barriers and
  Bridging Cultures. Clevedon etc. Multlingual
  Matters.
• Translating for a Multilingual Community
• http//ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/publications/
  brochures/translating_eu_brochure_en.pdf
• Wagner, Emma, Svend Bech and Jesús M. Martínez
  (2002) Translating for the European Union
  Institutions. Manchester St Jerome.

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TUTORIAL

• Get students to compare the English and other
  language version of a legislative text of the EU
  (a regulation, directive, or decision).
• You can find such texts on this site
• http//eur-lex.europa.eu/
• Go to the site, click on simple search, for
  search words type any subject you like in the
  first box eg. pollution, then type regulation,
  directive, or decision in the second box.

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Tutorial cont.

• When you get to a document, click on
  Bibliographical notice text (bilingual
  display).
• To find out about the set structure and phrases
  of these texts in both languages, you can use
• http//eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/23.htm
• A helpful site for vocab is
• http//iate.europa.eu/

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Tutorial cont.

• Get students to notice the type of language of
  these texts. Not only are there features of legal
  language, but this type of translation is
  constrained by previously established
  institutional norms such as the set structure and
  phrases of the texts, and precedents for vocab.
  EU translators are not free they have to comply
  with these norms.