Translating for International Organisations

Focus on EU and UN

Definition & Significance

• What is an international organisation?• Governance as the objective (no

commercial product)• Foundational multilingualism

• The significance of international organisations today

Websites of EU & UN

• http://europa.eu

• http://www.un.org

Multilingualism in the EU

• Equal status for all official languages• Legislation: language versions equally valid, ‘equally

authentic’• All citizens have right of access to the institutions:

– ‘may write […] in one of the languages […] and have an answer in the same language’ (Art. 21, EC Treaty)

• EU Language charter– Council Regulation No. 1– http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?

uri=CELEX:31958R0001:EN:HTML

EU Languages (1)

• Official languages vs. languages spoken in EU member states

• ‘Procedural’ vs. ‘non-procedural’ languages – internal business in EN, FR, DE

EU Languages (2)

BG - BulgarianCS - Czech DA - DanishDE - GermanET - Estonian EL - GreekEN – EnglishES - Spanish FR - French GA - Irish

IT - Italian

LV - LatvianLT - Lithuanian HU - HungarianMT - MalteseNL - DutchPL - PolishPT - PortugueseRO - RomanianSK - SlovakSL - SloveneFI - FinnishSV - Swedish

EU Institutions

• European Commission• European Parliament• Council of the European Union• Court of Justice• European Court of Auditors• European Ombudsman• European Data Protection Supervisor

EU Bodies and Agencies

• Financial bodies– European Central Bank– European Investment Bank

• Advisory bodies– European Economic and Social Committee– Commission of the Regions

• Community agencies– currently 24, including the Translation Centre for the

Bodies of the European Union (CdT)• Common Foreign and Security Policy agencies

- currently 3

DGT

• Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission– department for each official language (unit for Irish)

• 3 Translation Directorates• Transversal Linguistic Services Directorate

– specialist areas: web translation, editing

• Resources Directorate– staffing, IT, finance infrastructure, training

• Translation Strategy and Multilingualism Directorate– workflow and policy issues, external translation

DGT employment

• 1,750 translators, 600 support staff (2007)– largest translation company in world– Competition to get place on panel– TL plus 2 SLs

• External translators– call for tender

DGT translation volumes

• 1.8 million pages (2008)– 72.5% from English– 11.8% from French– 2.7% from German– 13% from other languages– Main target languages: en, fr, de

• over 20% done by freelance translators

Workflow (1)

• Poetry = interface for submitting translation request, ST and supporting docs to DGT

• Suivi = system for managing translation requests within DGT

• Dossier Manager = interface for translators to access job, collaborate on job

Workflow (2)

• DGTVista = archiving system, all STs and translations since 1994– rapid search– bilingual scrolling

• EUR-Lex = database of Official Journal of European Union (all legislation, treaties, etc.)

• www.eur-lex.europa.eu

Workflow (3)

• Euramis– European Advanced Multilingual Information

System– central translation memory, since 1997– 84 million translation units/phrases

• SDL Trados Translator’s Workbench (TWB)– used to access Euramis translation memory– integrated with Microsoft Word

Workflow (4)

• European Commission Machine Translation (ECMT) – automatic translation system, since 1976, Systran– 860,314 pages translated by MT (2005); 40%

requested by DGT– not all languages handled– select specialised dictionaries or domains to improve

quality of output– MT output is post-edited

Workflow (5)

• IATE– Inter-Active Terminology for Europe– term bank, formerly Eurodicautom– over 8 million terms, 500,000 abbreviations– all fields of EU activity– www.iate.europa.eu

UN Main Bodies

• General Assembly (192 member states)• Security Council• Economic and Social Council• International Court of Justice• Secretariat• Specialized Agencies

UN Languages

• Working languages of Secretariat: English, French

• Official languages for intergovernmental meetings and documents: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese

• Also German Translation Service

Documentation Division

• Part of Department for General Assembly and Conference Management – Translation Service (6 langs)– Editorial, Terrminology and Reference Service– Contractual Translation Unit– German Translation Section

Activities (1)

• Translates all official UN documents, meeting records, publications and correspondence

• Prepares summary records of bodies entitled to such records.

• Arranges for contractual translation and text-processing

Activities (2)

• Edits official UN documents, meeting records and publications

• Ensures linguistic concordance among the 6 official languages of resolutions, decisions and other legal instruments

• Issues editorial directives for the UN Secretariat

Activities (3)

• Provides reference and terminology services for authors, drafters, editors, interpreters, translators and verbatim reporters

• Develops terminology databases

Workloads

• 2002 A/57/289: self-assessment and report on Documentation Division:– 1,650 words for translation to be revised– 1,815 words for self-revised translation– 3,960 words for revision

UN Office Geneva

• Languages Services, part of Conference Services Division– One translation section for each of the 6 language and

support sections (reference and terminology; text-processing)

– 160 permanent translators, plus freelancers translate 50 million words per year

– Provides translation for 50 bodies at UNOG

Legislation

• EU: primary legislation– treaties– international agreements

• EU: secondary legislation– binding: regulations, directives, decisions – non-binding: recommendation, opinions, joint

actions

Binding instruments

• Regulation: general application, binding in all Member States, no need for national authorities to do anything

• Directive: binding but Member States decide how to implement

• Decision: binding for those to whom it applies

The legislative process

Proposal, recommendation, communication from Commission, Green Paper, consultation, studies, draft legislation, debate, amendments, final draft, adoption

Consolidation = incorporating changes (no official authenticity)

Legislative consolidation = consolidated version goes through legislative procedure to become adopted

Tracing the procedure

• Oeil: Legislative Observatory analyses and monitors – the interinstitutional decision-making process– role of EP in shaping legislation– activities of various institutions involved in legislative

process

• http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/• Contains procedural factfiles

– searchable by type, topic, institution

EU drafting principles

• The drafting of a legislative act must be: – clear, easy to understand and unambiguous– simple, concise, containing no unnecessary

elements– precise, leaving no uncertainty in the mind of

the reader– appropriate to type of act and addressee– succinct, internally consistent and consistent

with other legislation

Translation issues

1. “The original text must be particularly simple, clear and direct, since any over-complexity or ambiguity, however slight, could result in inaccuracies, approximations or real mistranslations in one or more of the other Community languages”.

2. “The use of expressions and phrases — in particular, but not exclusively, legal terms — too specific to the author’s own language or legal system, will increase the risk of translation problems”.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/index.htm

Structure of acts (1)

• Title = info to identify act– if amending act, all acts amended need to be given by

number– number, date, year– short title possible

• Preamble = citations, recitals, solemn forms– Citation: sets out legal basis of act (e.g. treaty): ‘Having

regard to …’– Recital: reasons for provisions of enacting terms :

‘Whereas…’ – numbered

Structure of acts (2)

• Enacting terms = legislative part: articles may be grouped in titles, chapters, sections– no non-normative statements– no reproduction or paraphrasing from other

legislation– first article may define subject matter and scope

of act– terms can be defined in single article at

beginning

Translation and drafting guides

• Access to language resources, English style guide and Fight the Fog campaignhttp://ec.europa.eu/translation/index_en.htm

• Interinstitutional style guide, in all languages:http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-000500.htm

Drafting guidelines and toolshttp://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/index.htm

Reading

Cao, Deborah and Zingmin Zhao (2008) ‘Translation at United Nations as Specialised Translation’, Journal of Specialised Translation, 9.

Koskinen, Kaisa. 2008. Translating Institutions: An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation. Manchester: St Jerome.

Kudryavtsev, Eduard and Louis-Dominique Oedraogo (2003) Implementation of Multilingualism in the United Nations System (JIU/REP/2002/11), Geneva: United Nations.

Reading (2)

• Tosi, Arturo. 2003. Crossing Barriers and Bridging Cultures. Clevedon etc.: Multlingual Matters.

• Translating for a Multilingual Communityhttp://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/publications/brochures/translating_eu_brochure_en.pdfWagner, Emma, Svend Bech and Jesús M. Martínez (2002) Translating for the European Union Institutions. Manchester: St Jerome.

TUTORIAL

• Get students to compare the English and other language version of a legislative text of the EU (a regulation, directive, or decision).

You can find such texts on this site:http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Go to the site, click on simple search, for search

words type any subject you like in the first box eg. pollution, then type regulation, directive, or decision in the second box.

Tutorial cont.

When you get to a document, click on ‘Bibliographical notice + text (bilingual display)’.

To find out about the set structure and phrases of these texts in both languages, you can use:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/23.htmA helpful site for vocab is:http://iate.europa.eu/

Tutorial cont.

Get students to notice the type of language of these texts. Not only are there features of legal language, but this type of translation is constrained by previously established institutional norms such as the set structure and phrases of the texts, and precedents for vocab. EU translators are not free: they have to comply with these norms.