The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/119185
FEATURES around 100 full-time terminologists supported the team of translators. Much of the english terminology pre-dated the entry of the Uk and ireland, but these terms had to be tracked down. 'Without specialist knowledge and expert contacts, how would you find that Alter Mann in a mining context is "goaf" in english?' asks Crowther. Some odd terms have been coined over the years, such as the infamous 'pig-meat' for 'pork' or the 'omnibus transfer' of financial resources. Senior colleagues remark that terms such as this were more tangible in the early days. in more recent years, neologisms have mainly concerned ideas and concepts, for example 'comitology' and 'interoperability', as the Commission's work has changed. The nature of the work is now dramatically different. developments in iT, such as the introduction of pCs and, of course, the internet, have revolutionised the translation profession. For the 60 translators and support staff who formed the english division in the early 1970s, the online resources and translation software available today were inconceivable. Without the internet, translation software and sophisticated terminology databases, finding the exact wording of elusive references to Shakespeare or passages quoted from the text of a convention, for example, meant much brain-wracking and rifling through filing cabinets. 'one of the best things about the introduction of computers is that you can send a clean copy to the client,' says Crowther. But that is not the only positive impact of the iT revolution. Mick Shipley, a translator in the english department since the late 1980s, remembers people running down the road clutching translations needed urgently by one of the other Commission departments. now the email 'send' button does the running. another huge change in recent years has been the number of source languages the department deals with. in 1973, some 80 percent of translations were from French and they were mainly for publication in the official Journal of the european Union. Today, at least 85 percent of documents produced by the Commission are originally drafted in english, so the english department deals instead with documents sent to the Commission by national governments and organisations. Unlike most other language departments, the english department therefore has to translate from all the official eU languages (except for irish, which is handled by the irish Unit), plus some Chinese, Turkish, Russian and other languages. in 2012, because of the documents relating to the bail-out, greek overtook French for the first time to become the second-largest source language after german. The number of staff in the english department has risen from around 60 in 1973 to 145 today, while the Translation Service as a whole is now one of the largest in the world, employing around 1,750 translators in 24 language departments. So, has the job got harder? Most senior colleagues agree that it has, due mainly to the wider range of languages a translator is expected to accumulate and the number of policy areas in which documents need to be translated. Working without today's translation tools and databases would be unthinkable now, but expectations are higher too. 'gone are the days when it was ok to photocopy sections of the official Journal and stick them together with sellotape before sending a document for typing,' laughs Shipley. demand for translation into english is on a steady ascent, as the position of english as a lingua franca continues to become cemented in the eU institutions. Future enlargements will increase the number of languages the english department has to deal with and, as the Commission's work portfolio grows, so will the range of subjects for translation. The use of machine translation also looks set to increase. Translating for the european Commission presents wonderful possibilities for translators who have an appetite to learn and want to work with multiple languages. The next 40 years of english translation are certain to present plenty of new challenges. perhaps in 2053, young colleagues will scoff at the tools we consider cutting-edge today. In the next issue, The Linguist will explore the future of translation at the EU, with a look at the Commission's opensource IT resources and multilingual terminology database. THE COMPUTER-LESS OFFICE Terminology mining at the coalface in the 1980s ( far right); and David Crowther, a translator in the English Department, with his daughter in 1981 (right). By the time she had grown up, Dictaphones had become museum items Vol/52 No/2 2013 apRiL/MaY The Linguist 25