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Vol/52 No/1 2013 FEBRUARY/MARCH The Linguist 13 FEATURES As presumed by the native speaker principle, some of the non-native speakers of the target language did make errors of fluency. But, unexpectedly, so did some of the native speakers of the target language. None of the errors of fluency made by native or non-native speakers was serious enough to render a translation inadequate, however. The errors of fluency were more frequent in the translations produced by non-native English speakers, while those made by native speakers seemed to result from translationese, where the translator had allowed the source text to influence the translation. It is also possible that, for translators who do not live in a country where their native language is spoken, the language of their environment influences their native language. These findings suggest that it might be wise to rethink the assumption that the native speaker principle is a guarantee for target text fluency, let alone for a perfect translation. Five out of the six translations deemed adequate were produced by translators who had some form of legal training, suggesting that it is, in fact, subject matter knowledge that is key to an adequate legal translation. Reconsidering the principle I am not suggesting that we, as translators, should disregard the native speaker principle. Rather that we should carefully consider what we mean when we refer to it, when we use it in our advertising and, even more importantly, when we disregard others who are not abiding by it. Even within highly specialised fields there will be times when only a translation by a native speaker of the target language will do because, for example, the target text hinges on slight shades of meaning. However, in order to do justice to a translation of this type the native speaker must also have the required subject matter knowledge. There will be cases where the purpose of the translation does not require perfect fluency but does require perfect accuracy. Ideally both elements will be present but, where this is not possible, a translation that accurately communicates the source text message with a few errors of fluency (which can be corrected by a proofreader) is preferable to a translation that is perfectly fluent and grammatically accurate but which distorts or misinterprets the source text message. These kinds of errors cannot be detected in a final target text if the reader is not able to refer to the source text. If business and legal decisions are made on the basis of such translations, litigation somewhere down the line becomes more likely. With so many people today quite happy to rely on machine translation, and many businesspeople successfully communicating in 'global English', it seems unfair to disregard adequate translations by non- native speakers, particularly when, in doing so, we might be favouring incorrect translations by native speakers. MAKING THE CASE Could it be more important for a legal translator (left) to have the source language as a mother tongue, with any fluency errors corrected by a proofreader (below)? automatically produce an adequate legal translation? I asked seven native English translators and six native German translators to translate a short informative legal text, explaining the principles of the court appeal system in Germany, from German into English. The translations were then assessed in terms of their adequacy. For the purpose of the translation in question, 'adequacy' required the translation to communicate the source text message accurately. The translations were therefore regarded as inadequate where they contained semantic errors or errors of fluency serious enough to distort the source text message (for details of the model used for translation quality assessment, see www.legal-translations- rueckert.com/bilder/Dissertation.pdf). The results indicate that the native language of the translator is not directly linked to adequacy. The study found that both native speakers and non-native speakers of the target language can produce adequate translations (4/7 and 2/6 respectively), but also inadequate translations (3/7 and 4/6 respectively). Semantic errors were the only type of error which led to target text inadequacy and, surprisingly, these were made by both native and non-native speakers of the target language. The majority of the semantic errors resulted from insufficient subject matter knowledge: the incorrect interpretation of polysemous terms (Recht, eg, can mean both 'law/legislation' and 'an indivdual's right or rights'), failure to recognise and correctly translate technical terms, and confusion of target language terms (such as 'jurisdiction' and 'jurisprudence'). P HOTOS : © I S TOCKPHOTO