32 The Linguist FEBRUARY/MARCH
www.ciol.org.uk
INSTITUTE MATTERS
From literature to legalese
SALLY LAMM JOINS THE GERMAN SOCIETY AT A DIVERSE TRANSLATION WORKSHOP
DIVISIONS & SOCIETIES
another valiant attempt was made by the deutsche
Bahn to stop the German society meeting in Frankfurt,
but there were only two casualties, with everyone else
adopting a successful plan B. and it was well worth the
effort for this excellent mix of speakers.
the day started with Gottfried röckelein on the
subject of literary translation. Gottfried works from
English into German and has covered an enormous
range of subject matter. there are two main
approaches to literary translation: being true to the
original and targeting the text to the reader. Gottfried
favours the latter. he took us through various difficulties,
such as the different concepts of time and morality, the
need to decide who is saying Sie and who is using Du,
technical inaccuracies in the original, and the degree of
political correctness required by the publishing house.
publishers and editors also have an enormous say and,
in his experience, there is an inevitable degree of
'dumbing down' at the editorial stage.
sadly, we heard again that it is not possible to make
a living from literary translation. Gottfried was witty,
modest and inspiring, and left us with a feeling of
enormous respect and admiration for anyone
embarking on work of this kind.
next came isabelle thorman, who attempted to
compress a semester's worth of lectures on German
legalese into an hour-long talk. she began with some
horribly convoluted sentences. some should have been
expressed more simply, but not all could have been.
many are obviously designed to lead the reader astray,
including Beabsichtigt wird die Vermeidung künftiger
Abwicklungsverluste durch Prämienanpassungen, which
simply means 'we're putting up your rates'.
then isabelle dealt with the need to understand the
functions of various legal bodies and authorities, and
for complete understanding of legal terminology
before translating it. For example, there is a difference
between Berufung and Revision in legal texts.
after this cerebral challenge, we had a welcome
break for lunch, returning for the third session with ilse
Freiburg on translating questionnaires about staff
satisfaction. this turned out to be a far more time-
consuming and complicated business than i could
ever have imagined. in addition to translating, ilse
has to liaise with the company, the agency that
commissions her, and more than 30 other translators
working into their respective languages.
Finally, came a workshop on cross-cultural business
concerns from intercultural trainer kirti seetharam. the
first exercise involved dealing with discrepancies in
hierarchy between a parent company and one of its
overseas subsidiaries. one man's manager, it transpires,
is another man's underling, and it may be necessary to
tweak job titles by adding such words as 'regional'.
For the second exercise, we compared job adverts
geared to different countries. kirti explained what is
important in various cultures: americans want
something concise with no images, for example,
whereas indians like photos. it was eye-opening.
it was an altogether enjoyable, thought-provoking
and informative day, and our thanks go to mike
harrington and ilse Freiburg for organising it.
KEY
DIVISIONS
Business, Professions
& Government:
Interpreting:
Translating:
SOCIETIES
Cambridge:
German:
Hong Kong:
Lincolnshire:
London:
North West:
Scottish:
Spanish:
BPG
TD
CAM
GER
LINC
NW
SCOT
LON
SP
HK
ID
CONTACT DETAILS
Judith ridgway,
bpg@ciol.org.uk
id@ciol.org.uk
michael
Cunningham,
td@ciol.org.uk
leslie ray,
cambridgesociety
@ciol.org.uk
stephanie tarling,
germansociety@ciol.org.uk
Francis lee,
hongkongsociety@
ciol.org.uk
Candia hillier,
lincolnshiresociety@
ciol.org.uk
rannheid sharma,
londonsociety@ciol.org.uk
katrin hiietam,
northwestsociety@
ciol.org.uk
anne withers,
scottishsociety@ciol.org.uk
rebekah rhodes,
spanishsociety@ciol.org.uk
BPG
ID
TD
CAM
GER
HK
LINC
LON
NW
SCOT
SP
Study weekend,
4-6 September,
Cambridge
Join us for a joint
Cambridge society/
German society event.
Save the date
EpizEntrum,
'F
rankFurt
skylinE
in
JunE
2013,
viEw
From
south-wEst'
via
wikipEdia
(CC
By-sa
3.0)
NEW
PERSPECTIVES
The Frankfurt skyline
