Language Professionals and Students: So Many Careers, So Little Time

Posted On December 27, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages, Tips for Translators/ No Comments

The claim that speaking one or more foreign languages increases your job marketability has almost become cliché in recent years. However, in an ever-globalizing world, it is truer than ever. For those who attain fluency in one or more languages beyond their native language, translation is an obvious option, with a variety of directions to go in. But there are several other careers either directly related to languages or tangentially related.

Any time someone achieves a deep understanding of any subject, there is always the option to become a teacher in that area. Depending on level of education, certifications and work experience, this could even be at the college or university level. Similarly, polyglots may often become theoretical or applied linguists and go on to publish industry-related research. These are also the folks that organizations tap into when a languages-related study needs to be developed and conducted.

Outside of academia, there is also an array of interpretation careers. When most people think of interpretation, they imagine the highly skilled interpreters that might work at the UN or some other multi-national organization. Achieving that level of professional success may be daunting for some, but there are certainly other directions to go in as an interpreter. Businessmen and women who travel for their work often find themselves in a country where they do not know the language, and require an interpreter to follow them around for a few days or weeks. This kind of work can be grueling in terms of work hours, but often pays higher rates because of it.

The tourism and hospitality industry is also a popular choice for those who study languages or grow up with fluency in more than one. Everything from hotels to cruise ships, restaurants and vineyards will often employ bilingual people, especially those with knowledge of English. Other less-obvious options that many don’t consider are museums and libraries. Regional departments in a museum, for instance, may require someone with extensive knowledge of the language from those regions, even ancient languages. Some jobs as a librarian, or information scientist, may also ask for knowledge of at least one additional language.

One area that many language students overlook is that of logistics and distribution. This is a thriving industry in many parts of the world, and due to the nature of international transport, often requires knowledge of different languages at the level of being able to communicate. Employees working in a ship harbor, for instance, may need to coordinate with their equivalents at the port of embarkation. Communicating with distributors in another country may also be required, as well as communicating with import and export agents or government representatives.

In sum, there is certainly a plethora of options to consider when researching language-related careers. Each carries its own set of requirements and non-language related training. But an in-depth knowledge of at least one foreign language will certainly open a variety of doors in the job marketplace.

Did a bad translation put horns on Moses’ head?

Posted On December 13, 2012By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Many translators are familiar with the controversy surrounding the horned Moses and his sometimes-amiss translator. Although that translator, commonly known as Saint Jerome, concerned himself with biblical analysis, theological debate, history, correspondence and translation, he earned his place in history mainly through his translations and revisions of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

Jerome translated these texts from the original Hebrew into Latin, and was humble enough to admit ignorance when warranted and to revisit parts of his translations when it became apparent that he had made a mistake. Nonetheless, his Latin translation of the Bible was later recognized by the Council of Trent as the official version, and to this day he remains a widely respected and studied biblical translator.

The controversy in question concerns part of the text in Exodus 34. The original Hebrew version can be read idiomatically as stating that Moses had “rays of light” coming from his head when he descended from Mt. Sinai. However, the same word for ray of light also meant “horns” depending on the context. And in what some may consider a classic case of mistranslation, Jerome chose the latter meaning.

The result of his possible mistake was a horned Moses appearing in the official Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. And as a lesson to students of translation and art alike, Michelangelo secured that image in our collective consciousness by basing his 1515 sculpture of Moses on Jerome’s translation—along with a list of other contemporary and subsequent artists.

More recently, scholars have attempted to justify this transgression by citing the metaphorical relevance of horns to “glorification, strength and authority”, in an attempt to align them with the meaning of light emanating from Moses’s face. Similarly, some artists such as José de Ribera in his 1638 interpretation, have tried to visually combine the light rays and horns to be essentially the same. Students of translation, however, will likely take from this a reminder to always look into the meaning behind the words and their historical context.

Michelangelo’s Moses with horns

José de Ribera’s Moses with rays of light

Language Proficiency Testing Among Doctors and Hospital Staff

Posted On December 11, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

An EU directive allowing doctors from member countries to work anywhere in the European Economic Area has come under fire recently. Following the case of a 70 year old British patient who was killed by an incompetent German doctor, critics of the directive have begun pushing for competency tests as well as language proficiency tests as essential measures to protect patients.

The attention has focused on doctors working in the UK without ever having undergone tests to prove that they know enough English to communicate effectively with their patients. Currently, such testing is prohibited under a directive issued from Brussels which considers such measures to be an impediment to the free movement of labor across EU-member country borders. The result, critics say, potentially puts patients at risk of encountering doctors without the basic English skills necessary to work in Britain.

While issues such as this are not new to the EU, which combines so many languages with borders open to travel and commerce, it highlights a concern that can be seen in any area where multiple languages come into frequent contact. If it is not the doctors, for example, who speak different languages, it may be the patients. And that raises the question: at what point is it necessary for hospitals to employ multilingual staff to meet the needs of their patients? Or, as in the case of the EU, at what point should staff be tested for proficiency in one language?

Certain areas of the United States have had their own contact with this issue, particularly in southern states with high and increasing Hispanic populations such as Florida, Texas and Arizona. In some areas, mostly close to the border with Mexico, street signs can be read in Spanish, and even the occasional advertisement in a movie theater will be in Spanish before a movie in English begins. The issue of Spanish-speaking doctors working in hospitals and clinics, of course, goes beyond the question of convenience or marketing to a particular group. As the example in Britain illustrates, the results can be fatal.

At what point, then, does proficiency in Spanish become “necessary” for doctors in the U.S.? How large does the Hispanic population need to get before requirements are put into place? These are questions which face a very complex political environment, particularly in border states. The answers may not come easily, but given the existing population of Spanish-speaking individuals, the discussion is certainly worth having.

Translation: It’s History and Trends

Posted On December 10, 2012By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

The term “translation” hails from the mid-fourteenth century with an etymological base in the Latin word translationem, a noun of action from the stem of transferre. It also shares roots with the word from Old French meaning “the rendering of a text from one language to another.” The verb form in English, translate, is from the Latin translatus, literally “carried over.” Interestingly, the word translate replaced an earlier word in Old English which carried a similar though not exact meaning, awendan, literally “to turn, direct.”

Beyond the etymology of the word, the act of translating texts has a long history that is intricately connected with human religious, artistic and scientific expression. From the Bible to the travels of Marco Polo along the silk road and beyond, the diffusion of knowledge and cultural heritage—and, indeed, cross-cultural interaction itself—owes a great debt to history’s translators. As many would expect, the bible still holds the title of the most-translated book. But according to the Guinness Book of World Records, another book holds the title of most-translated for a living author—O Alquimista, or The Alchemist, by the Brazilian Paulo Coelho.

The First Translation of the Bible Into English – Ford Madox Brown (1847)

And if you’re interested to know what the most-translated languages are, UNESCO actually keeps a running tally in its Index Translationum. According to the index, the most-translated source language in the world (through 2011) is English, followed by a distant French. It lists German as the language most translated into, or target language, followed more closely this time by French.

You can also find a list of the most-translated authors within the index, with a few surprises. Despite being the author of the most-translated book by a living author, Coelho actually didn’t make the list of the top-50 translated authors. Coming in first on that list is Agatha Christie, followed by Jules Verne, William Shakespeare, Enid Blyton, and Vladimir Lenin filling out the top five spots. Indeed, the former USSR block makes a good showing on this list, with the region contributing a total of seven authors.

Aesthetics and Meaning: The Balancing Act of Literary Translation

Posted On December 5, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Words carry more than just their meaning. They also possess an aesthetic quality that can derive from their meaning, their sound when being pronounced, or even the appearance of the word if it contains symmetry. While these are purely subjective and personal preferences, translators can find themselves faced with the task of trying to decipher and properly transfer that aesthetic quality into another language. As if this alone wasn’t tricky enough, it must also be balanced with the accurate translation of meaning and sense.

Literary translations, by their very nature, offer plenty of opportunities for a translator to use his or her personal judgement when deciding how to translate a text. Indeed, if machine translators ever reach the level of accuracy that a human translator can possess, literary translations may be the final frontier where machines cannot compete. Only a true and complete understanding of techniques being used, such as implied references, understatement, irony, parallelism, rhyme and rhythm in all their manifestations, etc. can produce a correct translation of a particular literary text. The degree of subjectivity in literary texts, and the interpretation that it requires, means that a machine or less-than-apt translator could hardly do justice to the original when translating the meaning into another language. The degree of subjectivity in literary texts, and the interpretation that it requires, means that a machine or less-than-apt translator could hardly do justice to the original when translating the meaning into another language.

Yet when translating a work of poetry or prose, for example, the translator must be sure to remove his or her self and personal expression from their understanding of the text. They must interpret the work on the level intended by the author. It requires walking a thin line of interpretation without interference, with a balancing pole that carries stated meaning and accuracy on one end, implied sense and aesthetics on the other. When done correctly, translating literature of any kind is the ultimate balancing act.

Do children really learn languages faster than adults?

Posted On November 19, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages/ No Comments

Traditional knowledge has been that children are better at learning languages than adults, along with a whole host of other abilities like playing a musical instrument. Heavyweights like Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have supported this assumption with theories regarding the critical period of human maturation, among others. Essentially, the argument states that there is a particular period that is prime for learning skills such as language acquisition, and any time before or after that is less than prime, even much less so.

For some of us, it’s nearly enough to discourage lifelong learning. There are several explanations which support this argument, among them that very young children may learn a language by forming associations rather than by mental translations, and that young brains are just more impressionable than older ones—a sort of version of the blank slate idea.

But it turns out that this may only be part of the story. Children indeed do learn more naturally through word associations, in particular if they learn two or even three languages simultaneously without the option of translating one into another. But it can be argued that adults simply possess a different set of skills that may be no less useful in picking up a new language, albeit skills which utilize different methods.

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For example, a string of experiments presented groups of children, 12 and 13-year olds, and adults noun-verb pairs that were pronounced and spelled differently according to whether they corresponded to animate or inanimate objects. While none of the groups were given a description of the rule or guidance on how to use it, the adults fared much better in identifying the rule and applying their knowledge. The group of 12 and 13-year olds was nearly as good at identifying the rule and applying it, while the group of children struggled with it. These particular experiments highlighted the theory that adults may be better at identifying patterns and applying their knowledge than young children—something which supports the argument that children do not learn better than adults, but that they simply possess different strengths.

Proficiency often comes down to just how frequently or how long an individual is able to practice their new language, as well as whether they receive guidance via timely corrections of their mistakes. While children who continue to learn a new language face ample opportunity to practice it over many years, generally with teachers all too willing to correct them, adults can’t necessarily replicate that learning environment. Even with full immersion in a new place where only the new language is spoken, people are often hesitant to correct an adult. Ultimately, it comes down to just finding an effective learning method according to how the individual learns—whatever their age may be—and ensuring that there is sufficient opportunity to continue refining the skill. That last factor can make all the difference between a good command of a language and proficiency.

Frankenstorm: The Perfect Storm with a Perfect Name

Posted On October 30, 2012By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages/ No Comments

Can a new word become part of a language before the event it refers to officially happens? That seems to be what happened with “Frankenstorm” — the storm currently terrorizing cities and towns along the East Coast.

Paul Payack, the president and chief word analyst of Global Language Monitor, which tracks word usage in the English language around the world, suggests that the name Frankenstorm most likely became an official English word before the storm even made landfall. To qualify as having entered the English lexicon, a word must be mentioned at least 25,000 times in the global media, including print and electronic media, blogs and social media. And it has to be used in every place where English is spoken as the primary language.

The popularity of the word largely comes from the well-known literary character it refers to, Frankenstein, and its eerie occurrence so close to Halloween. But the extreme makeup and strength of the tropical storm-turned-hurricane is ultimately what connects it to the terrifying and destructive man-made character from Mary Shelley’s novel. Perhaps not surprisingly, the blogosphere is already lit up with debates as to what extent Frankenstorm is also man-made.

So there are several reasons that this ‘perfect storm’ seems to have gotten a perfect name … or nickname, at least. Let’s not forget she’s actually called Sandy.

Communicating for Life: The Language Barrier in Health Care

Posted On October 29, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Language, Spanish Translation, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Learning a foreign language for the purpose of living in another country goes beyond mastering the basic conversations one might have on a street corner. With the complexity of life, comes the wide variety of situations that a person must know how to navigate in their new language in order to get by. But even for those who are conversational or, indeed, fluent in the language of their host country, communication in the context of health care can prove to be a daunting challenge. Because it comprises a highly technical vocabulary, a simple conversation with a doctor or nurse can easily call for a number of words that the patient may never have come into contact with before.

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Unfortunately, this has the effect of preventing some groups of people from even seeking the care that they need. A recent study conducted by a team of researchers at Northwestern University found that non-English speaking Latinas in the US are less likely to receive an epidural during the birth of their first child than English-speaking Latinas and non-Hispanic patients. The language barrier that these women experience in the delivery room, for example, actually prevents them from knowing what their options are and making an informed decision regarding their health care. And that’s only one example. The ramifications of this barrier extend to anyone who has limitations in English and has ever required medical attention.

The stress that an immigrant can experience in a doctor’s office comes from all sides: unfamiliarity with common local medical practices, differences in attention to patients, even the appearance of health care facilities may be quite different from what the person is used to. Add to all of that the language barrier — amplified by a highly technical context — and the result can be a very intimidating experience.

The benefit of studies such as the recent one from Northwestern is that healthcare providers can start to understand the difficulties that Latinos and Latinas face in seeking and receiving care in the US, which can begin the process of finding ways to mitigate them. Whether it’s having a Spanish-speaking employee on hand, or creating issue-specific pamphlets in Spanish with basic information to get the conversation started — institutions and health care providers have a number of ways they can respond to this need.

Indigenous Influence on the Spanish Language

Posted On October 24, 2012By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Languages, Spanish Language/ 1 Comment

The history of the lexical influences that have come into contact with the Spanish language is one steeped in geography, politics and colonization. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas representing the Spanish crown, he was immediately put into contact with various native groups and tribes with their own respective languages. As colonization spread out over the continent, the penetration of these influences grew, adding words to the Spanish language that might sometimes be taken for granted as being from the original Castilian.

Spanish words with indigenous origin

With the discovery of new technologies, crafts or inventions, comes the discovery of the terms given to them. One of these which Columbus discovered from the local mode of transportation was canoas. It was not long before the term replaced the word Columbus had used to describe them in his journals — almadía. The Castilian word was simply not an accurate description of this form of transport, and so for simplicity the native word was quickly adopted. The Spanish explorers also discovered hammocks in the Americas, and adopted the indigenous word hamaca to refer to them.

This penetration of local vocabulary also occurred with indigenous flora and fauna which did not exist in Europe at that time, and thus for which there were no existing words in Castilian Spanish. Ají is an example of this (a separate item from “pimienta”, although Columbus used the latter term to refer to the former.) Tiburón was another borrowed word, as well as iguana, manatí and guacamayo. And from the local flora came maní, camote, cacao, tomate, tamal, and papaya, among others. The sheer variety of vegetation and wildlife in South America lent the Spanish language many words in these categories from the region’s indigenous languages.

Because weather patterns also vary between continents, the explorers were simultaneously introduced to both hurricanes as well as the local term for them – huracanes, or huracán in the singular. And not to be left out, geography also contributed some words to Castilian Spanish during the initial period of mutual influence, such as cayo from the many cays found in the Caribbean.

Some Spanish Words of Native American Origin

Indigenous penetration into mainstream Spanish

When these words finally began to make appearances in texts from Spanish writers, they were not included as exotic novelties, as was the case with lexical influences occurring in other regions at that time. Instead, they were used simply as descriptors, introducing their usage into mainstream Spanish and simultaneously avoiding associations with “otherness”, at least in relation to the words themselves. But even with the mainstream introduction of many words with indigenous origin, there were still others that eventually fell out of use, such as cazabe for bread. Moreover, many terms from indigenous languages never extended beyond their local or regional influence. Even today, many terms from the Quechua language — choclo for corn, for example — are not used outside of areas with some connection to the Andes.

Of course, many of the indigenous languages which contributed to the Spanish lexicon no longer exist today. And in those cases, the words that we use when communicating in Spanish are their only living remnants.

The Dynamics of Language and Sociolinguistic Norms

Posted On October 23, 2012By TranspanishIn Languages, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/ No Comments

Language change is a well-documented phenomenon and one that has contributed greatly to the idea of language as a dynamic, evolving form of communication. This evolution manifests in everything from vocabulary to syntax, punctuation and accent. Because it encompasses so many influences over a period of time, language change is generally too gradual to make a significant impact within a generation. A common example of this has been borrowing words or expressions from another language, since contact between different cultures and languages was historically less common than it is now.

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Yet modernization, globalization and technological development are all factors which hasten that change, particularly in spoken communication. The rules governing written text have traditionally been slower to accept changes than spoken language, and such changes are often first rejected as degradations of the language before they are finally accepted. Such has been the case throughout history.

This poses a particular challenge for linguists and others working in the translation industry, as it can often be difficult to determine whether a new form has been “accepted” or is still outside of a language’s norms. As translators, we are constantly having to monitor the sociolinguistic environments of the languages that we work with. And if localization is a focus, it is that much more important.

Ironically, while social media often represents the place where language degradation first occurs, it is also where changes to written expression first become used, popularized, and accepted by groups on a large scale. While written expressions such as “x favor” will likely never become an accepted form of formal communication, other trends – like the frequent omission of tildes, for example – may one day become so common that they are eventually incorporated into the formal usage of Spanish as well.

As many linguistics professors have argued before, the first order of business is to drop our notion that the “correct” usage of a language exists with prescriptive rules. If nothing else, it frees us to analyze the changes taking place and use professional judgement regarding when to incorporate them.

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