The Linguist

14 The Linguist Vol/65 No/1 ciol.org.uk/thelinguist FEATURES What does it mean for legal translators to work in a secret, criminal world they cannot talk about? S pecialisation is something that clients and translation agencies encourage us to include in our profiles. Unfortunately clients sometimes assume that a specialisation means more than it does. Translators may possess a high level of knowledge on a topic, and declaring their specialisations may be necessary, but without official standardisation we might fail to fulfil clients' expectations. I don't talk much about my professional expertise, partly because a lot of my work, research and study must remain secret. This fits assignments from agencies whose clients include the National Crime Agency (NCA), Interpol and the Ministry of Justice. I prefer to remain anonymous, and some other translators in this field may agree with my decision. Perhaps you know me, might have met me at a CIOL event, but I would never introduce myself and talk about my work as a translator of criminal or forensic topics. Working in this field, translators become aware of the seriousness of the topics we access and although our professional code of conduct may protect our clients and guarantee our work, disclosing our involvement may put us at risk. Serious crimes, sometimes covered by the press, involve more than the linear progression portrayed in fictional thrillers. Behind the scenes, bringing criminals to justice involves a network of national and international bodies, legal teams, investigators and professionals in many fields who need to protect their identity. Why would this not be the case for translators? Like most freelance translators, I hide in my office at home, surrounded by books, dictionaries and plants. Even when it's cold or raining, walking to the nearby park reminds me that in spite of the horrific crimes I learn about through my work, beauty and balance can also be part of my day. Our closeness to the languages we translate creates an additional connection and it is important to maintain awareness of what secondary trauma may mean for our mental health. Translating evidence When I began receiving these types of assignment, I realised that I was working with information that could involve not only fraud or tax evasion, but also modern slavery, murder, domestic abuse or worse. Some of the documents I've translated stay in my mind, such as a statement about extreme domestic abuse by a man who locked up his wife and baby daughter for extended hours every day. The woman, unable to communicate with anyone after arriving in the UK, remained under his control for many months before escaping. Someone who had the good intuition to take her to the local police station saved the lives of both mother and daughter, and in the process, uncovered a case of modern slavery at a much bigger scale involving several countries. Crime agencies work together across borders, and communication between them is essential to their outcomes when it comes to tackling organised crime of international scope. These cases are often disturbing. More importantly, this is not fiction; it is the reality of victims in the hands of cruel perpetrators. The translations required include official documents, which are often standardised by the EU, UN and other world organisations based on mutual conventions and agreements among participating countries. There is also a substantial amount of source texts relating to evidence in the form of text messages, chats, audio recordings or videos, which often need to be transcribed with precise time stamps. Linguistic codes and dialogue Evidence of this nature is challenging for translators on many levels. When I began transcribing and translating dialogues between individuals, I spent more time figuring out what was said than expected. I needed a different angle for my preliminary research. Once, I was given a source text involving group text messages among gang members, for which I had to become familiar with the tone and potential double meaning of terms or phrases to help me identify the nuances of their informal communication. Criminals are not only cautious with the language they use, they also develop their specific codes and lexicon to communicate among themselves. Furthermore, there is no standardisation on the meaning of specific words and it cannot be assumed that if someone speaks about cocaine using one noun, this noun will have the exact same meaning for another gang. My experience in literary translation, where identifying the voice of the author is essential, helped me to approach this. There are specific priorities when it comes to extracting relevant information from conversations that have been intercepted or that will be used as evidence. Nowadays, I use a hybrid strategy born from experience, using an interpretation of a source text before focusing on its translation, without forgetting that there is a professional code of conduct to guide my decision-making process. Translating dialogue among gang members or from a cartel subculture is tricky. Seemingly innocent conversations could be hiding a darker truth. The traditional translation approach may not reveal the hidden meaning and could sound incoherent. This is complicated by the fact that a lot of Working in the shadows THE SECRET TRANSLATOR © SHUTTERSTOCK

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