• What technical translation is and why it is so important;
• Typical technical texts and their features;
• Analysing texts and developing translation strategies;
• Developing your writing skills;
• Understanding your audience;
• Common pitfalls and how to deal with them.

For details on how to register, visit the ITIA website.

::: Update :::
My PowerPoint presentation from this workshop is now available here.
 

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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As an instructional designer what you’re trying to do is move away from a one-way model of learning where you just supply information without any real learner interaction or engagement. I think most people have taken some sort of course where the biggest challenge was to stay awake long enough to click the “Next” button over and over and over again! Branched interactions come in useful when you’re trying to help people think about problems and make appropriate decisions. We’re not so concerned about specific, step-by-step procedures as we are on the principles that guide those decisions.

 

This approach really appeals to me and it’s something I’ve used in class-based teaching many times before but when it came to taking it online I thought I’d do a bit of research to find some examples. I found some good examples and some not so good examples. One of the best examples I found is this one developed by Cathy Moore for the US military. Some other examples can be found here.

Anyway, after some trial and error I built a number of prototypes on different topics. The process itself is quite enjoyable particularly if you like to flex your creative muscles. That said, there are a few areas where you can run into problems. Many of the problems I encountered cropped up during the storyboarding process where my instructions to media developers made sense to me, but not to anyone else. I also managed to tie myself in knots with plot conflicts as I tried to figure out the different decisions  and consequences at the same time as developing the basic storyline. I’ve taken my experiences and put them into this basic procedure.

Designing Branching Scenarios

1. Define the Situation

Start with a simple situation based on a task or a procedure, for example, making a sandwich. Don’t make it too complicated or require too much information. If you can’t say what the scenario is in one sentence, it’s too big and needs to be more focussed. Decide on the “angle” for the scenario. What is the motivation for going through this process and how is it going to be measured or evaluated? For example, the sandwich scenario could be based on:

1. Making a school lunch
2. Working in a deli

Imagine making a sandwich to go in a child’s lunchbox. If you make a horrible sandwich, the kid won’t eat it and will either be hungry all day and come home with a letter from the teacher because he tried to steal food from another kid, or he will swap the sandwich with another kid, eat something he is allergic to and end up in hospital.

Alternatively, you might be making sandwiches in a deli and need to interpret a customer’s order, e.g. a “club sandwich”, “Ploughman’s” or a “Montecristo” and make the sandwich quickly, otherwise the customer will complain or walk out.
As part of the angle, decide what are the overall consequences of getting this process right and wrong. Do learners “fail” or do they get to try again until they get it right? Or are the outcomes more nuanced with feedback specific to the choices made? If this is the case, how do you ensure that other learning content is addressed? If the learner makes all of the right choices first time around, how do you ensure that they know why their choices were correct?

2. Map the Normal Process

It makes sense to start with the “correct” or ideal process for dealing with the scenario so detail the correct steps required to complete the task or follow the process under normal circumstances. Using these steps, create a “process flow” using either a flowchart diagram in Word or Visio or even using an application such as Twine. Make sure you number each step in the process. This will form the top level numbering for all choices and branches in the lesson.

 3. Identify and Define the Choices

When you have created the process flow, identify the “choice nodes”, points where different courses of action are possible. Use outline numbering to label each node, e.g. 2.0, 3.0 and so on.

For each choice node provide:

• a name for the choice or decision facing the learner: This helps you visualise the branch and makes it easier to discuss and navigate through the scenario when storyboarding or choosing media.
• a description of what the choice is and what are the different options facing the learner. What learning objective or knowledge does this choice relate to and what, if any, are the prerequisites?
• details of the consequences and effects of the different choices
• details of what happens next: Does a particular response bring the learner to another screen or branch or is the learner presented with feedback and prevented from proceeding?

4. Write the Story

Now start building a narrative around the process. Put simply, tell the story of what is happening. Start with the process flow before moving on to the choice nodes. Writing a story for the choice nodes is easier when you have a main story to base it on. Work on both simultaneously and you might get lost in the story or introduce continuity errors. Some people recommend taking a creative writing class to help you develop your storytelling skills. For examples of courses, see the Irish Writers’ Centre.

When writing the narrative decide on the voice for the scenario: do you want a documentary, third person description or do you want a more personalised “dialogue” style where the learner is addressed directly?

5. Start Storyboarding

Once you have written the narrative, you can start creating a storyboard to describe how all of this should be built and structured into a final lesson. It’s really important to be clear and explicit here especially if you’re working with media developers. Good media developers can produce all sorts of amazing things, but they’re rarely psychic so don’t leave them guessing. During the storyboarding process you should also:

1. Weed out excessive text, dialogue or detail in the story. Try to keep the scenario as lean and streamlined as possible.
2. Use graphics to convey information where possible. A scenario with lots of audio can have learners sitting there twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the narrator to finish speaking.

It goes without saying, though, that while this process works for me at the moment it may not work for everyone. It’s also iterative and it will often take several passes before you get a satisfactory lesson. Patience is the key and so is keeping an eye on the bigger picture, namely creating an engaging and effective learning experience. 

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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Scientific and Technical Translation Explained

A Nuts and Bolts Guide for Beginners

Jody Byrne

ISBN: 978-1-905763-36-8 (pbk), 230 pages

From microbiology to nuclear physics and chemistry to software engineering, scientific and technical translation is a complex activity that involves communicating specialised information on a variety of subjects across multiple languages. It requires expert linguistic knowledge and writing skills combined with the ability to research and understand complex concepts and present them to a range of different audiences. Using a combination of interdisciplinary research, real-world examples drawn from professional practise and numerous learning activities, Scientific and Technical Translation Explained equips you with the knowledge and skills you need to get started in this exciting and challenging field.

The book explores the importance of scientific and technical translation and the environment within which it takes place. This includes an examination of its origins, history and the people, tools and processes involved in translating scientific and technical texts. You will learn that effective scientific and technical translation depends on a deep understanding of the people for whom these texts are designed and written. Building on this, the book provides an overview of the main features of scientific and technical discourse as well as the different types of documents which are produced.

A series of detailed case studies highlighting various translation challenges is used to introduce a range of strategies for dealing with them. Next, the book introduces some general translation approaches before outlining specific scenarios which translators may encounter as well as ways of avoiding potential problems. A variety of resources and exercises are included in the book to make your learning effective and enjoyable. You can also find a range of additional resources and activities on Facebook.

Scientific and Technical Translation Explained costs GBP£20 including P&P and is available from St Jerome Publishing.

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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The event will take place on 12th November from 10.30-15.15 at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin and admission is free to members and non-members alike. The organisers do ask that you send an email to give them an idea of numbers if you plan attending. For more details, go to the ITIA website.

Update:
A number of people asked me for a copy of the slides I used for this event. You can download them in PDF format here.

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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The epitome of efficiency?

This agency had a pretty weird approach to test translations. Instead of a test translation at the start of our working relationship, which is the customary thing to do, they announced that they ask translators to complete short test translations for each project. The translator who produces the best test translation is then awarded the particular project. I read and re-read the email several times to make sure I understood what they were proposing, hoping that I had misunderstood. But no, when they received a job from a client, rather than contacting a translator who they had already screened, tested and knew was suitable, they would start a mini screening process before work could even start on the translation. I can imagine this being pitched to customers as a way of ensuring that “only the best translators are used” for their projects, and it’s probably well intentioned, but does anyone seriously think this is good practice?

Aside from the startling inefficiency of this Rube Goldberg approach to operations management, which disadvantages both customers and translators alike, things became even more interesting when I queried whether translators would be paid for producing numerous test translations over an extended period of time. The hitherto brisk and prompt exchange of emails suddenly ground to a halt. I never received a response and can only assume that it confirms my worst suspicions.

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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But then just a couple of days ago I received an email which began:

Jody Byrne,
I am contacting you blah blah blah”

Like opening the door of a lit oven, this abrupt opener scorched my eyebrows and left me red-faced and speechless. The last time someone addressed me like this was when a particularly bad-tempered primary school teacher caught me dismantling my desk at the back of class.  Regaining my composure, I remembered the BBC article. Standards, it seems, really are slipping. From colleagues who write emails like scolding parents to students who address me like drinking buddies on a booze cruise, nobody it seems, knows how to write an email anymore. Now everyone has their own view of what the various salutations mean but for what it’s worth, here’s how my delicate little brain interprets them:

• Dear …,
  I like this. It’s like a hearty and sincere handshake unless, of course, someone uses both your first and last names in which case I immediately assume it’s junk mail sent by a machine and generally delete it without reading. Okay, you don’t know whether I’m a Mr or Ms but better to take a chance and pick one or even go for “Dear Jody” even if you don’t know me. Anything is better than talking to me like those annoying letters banks send out offering loans I don’t need and can’t afford.

 



Good day to you, sir.

• Hi …,
  If I don’t know you, this is like calling around to my house while I’m having dinner. A friend will get away with it but a stranger will be the recipient of a tirade of abuse and need to step lively as I release the hounds. If you simply have to use “hi”, at least wait until the second or third email.

 

• Hey …,
  The email equivalent of slapping someone on the backside, especially if there’s an exclamation mark.

 

• Jody,
  What did I do wrong? Why don’t you like me? Why are you so angry? I think I’m going to cry!

 

• No salutation at all
  Walk right up to me and give me a big ‘ol poke in the eye why don’t you?

 

As old-fashioned as it seems, you really can’t go wrong with “Dear…”. 

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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No problem, it'll all be ready by morning (Image via Global Nerdy

I received an enquiry from a potential client asking whether I could verbally translate 400,000 words of specialised texts into English, on-site and over the course of 8 days. Now it’s possible that in my old age (I’m approaching another birthday with alarming speed) I’m slowing down ever so slightly but this equates to 50,000 words per day. The most I’ve ever managed to turn around in a day was around 18,000 words and that took a solid 20 hours to do with a good translation memory and it was for information purposes.  Surely nobody could do 50,000 words in a single day? 

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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Fuzzy wuzzy was a what now?

Eco-translatology is viewed as an ecological approach to Translation Studies with an interdisciplinary orientation. In the light of the affinity and isomorphism between translational ecosystems and natural ecosystems, Eco-translatology regards the scene of translation as a holistic translational eco-system, and focuses on the relationship between the translator and the translational eco-environment. A translational eco-environment is construed as a highly integrated entity that comprises the actual text, the cultural context and the human agents, as well as other tangible and intangible ingredients. In a translational activity, a translator both adapts and selects (or makes choices) in accordance with the specific configuration of the translational eco-environment. Eco-translatology thus describes and interprets translational activities (including the essence, process, criteria, principles, methods, and phenomena of translation, and the entire translational eco-system) in terms of such ecological principles as holism, relevance, dynamics, balance and harmony, together with ecological esthetics. Ancient Chinese/Eastern philosophies and cultural essentials are projected in this nascent field.

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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Translators rise up against the tyranny of agencies and job forums

No. It turns out that the Italian translation community is in the midst of a proper fight against scurrilous agencies who try to impose outrageously low rates on translators and generally treat translators like glorified typists aided and abetted by race-to-the-bottom job auction sites. Now translators aren’t known for their fighting spirit. Normally we might sit and give a muffled grumble or start to write a strongly worded email but before long we turn back to our computers and get on with translating (Those 7000 words of medical reports aren’t going to translate themselves you know!). There’s no fight in us at all. In fairness, with most of us working as self-employed contractors, it does feel that there’s not much we can do. Or so you would think. Cue the Italian translators who, like modern day Gladiators under the banner of their translators association, have said “Enough is enough. The abuse of translators has to stop!”


It just so happened that my article was republished around the same time they were mobilising their troops. One of the leading figures in this push against unfair and unethical business practices is Wendell Ricketts and he emailed me shortly after the ITIA Bulletin issue to fill me in on the story.

Apparently this has been simmering for some time but what brought it all to a head was a job advertisement on none other than Proz.com, where a translation agency called Trust Traduzioni was looking for translators to work on a project on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Tourism. The rate supposedly imposed by the Ministry was €9 per 2600 characters with payment after 90 days. According to Wendell’s site, a rate of €9 per 1500 characters would be considered as he puts it “starvation” rates so basing this amount on 2600 is downright offensive. Now the Ministry of Tourism subsequently denied all knowledge of these rates and said it was filing a complaint with the relevant authorities so you have to wonder who is responsible for the rates. It couldn’t be the agency? But they’re translators just like us. Aren’t they?

It’s times like this that you actually feel proud to be a translator. The Italian translators are doing what most of us secretly wished we could do but never really thought was possible – organising a geographically disparate group of people who have no employment protection and who often work alone and get them to mobilise against what everyone knows is a massive problem for our profession. Perhaps it is because translators do not have the protection afforded to other professions that they feel as if they have nothing to lose. What is absolutely clear to me from all this is that just because translation isn’t a protected or highly unionised profession and just because most of us are self-employed, it doesn’t mean we cannot stand up for ourselves and do something about the appalling conditions many of our fellow translators have to endure. Farmers and fishermen are all self-employed but whenever a supermarket cuts their prices or the government imposes higher taxes, they won’t waste a second in taking to the streets and manning the barricades or dumping a truck load of cow dung in front of the supermarket’s headquarters if necessary. So why don’t we take our lead from the Italian translators. It might work, it might not work but at least the other side will know they were in a fight if nothing else.

You can read more about this story here, here and here. 

( © 2013 JodyByrne.com. All Rights Reserved. )

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