Мир перевода 2

Комментарии перспективы — prospects, vistas;

иметь ... инвестиционную направленность — to target foreign investors;

в рамках соглашения о разделе продукции — under the Production Sharing Agreement/Deal;

первичная переработка нефти — primary refining.

Тема: Роль перевода в общении

Interpreting: Perils of Palaver

When a Japanese sucks in his breath and tells a Westerner that "your proposal is very interesting and we will consider it carefully" — meaning. in a word, "no!" — what is the honest interpreter to say?

The answer is that the professional interpreter is duty bound to report the words of the Japanese as faithfully as possible. But according to Gisela Siebourg, who regularly interpreted For Chancellor Kohl of Germany, it would also be legitimate for the interpreter to draw his or her client1 aside after the conversation and explain the complexities of Japanese double-speak.

It would depend on the degree of trust between the client and the interpreter, she said.

This illustrates the need for the interpreter to be taken into the client's confidence, Siebourg said. It also indicates the qualities required of an interpreter — the discretion of a priest in the confessional and the mental subtlety of a professional diplomat. Rule number one for the interpreter, she said, is never to repeat outside a meeting what was learned in it.

Siebourg is a president of the International Association of Conference Interpreters — set up in Paris in 1953 with 60 members, and now including 2,200 members — which is holding its triannual assembly here this week.

The association, which has worked since its inception to raise the standing of the interpreters' calling, thinks a lot about such ethical issues. as well as seeking better working conditions for its members.

The profession is at least as old as the Book of Genesis in which Joseph outwitted his brothers by, as the book says, speaking "into them by an interpreter." But the modern practice of simultaneous interpretation through headphones dates only from the post-war Nuremberg trials and the formation of the United Nations.

Before that, even in the League of Nations, speakers had to pause at intervals to allow the interpretation

— a process known as consecutive interpretation. This is still the method most often used in tete-a-tete conversations.

The method is not suitable for large modern conferences at which several languages are used simultaneously.

Interpreting often is, but ought not to be, confused with translating. The translator has time and a battery of dictionaries at his or her command in order to find the precise word. The interpreter, by contrast, has to get across the right meaning rather than the exact wording (формулировка) without a second's hesitation. This often requires a deep knowledge of culture as well as language, an ability to understand expression as well as content.

Diplomats such as former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq, who speaks excellent English, often work through interpreters either to conceal precise meaning or to give themselves time to think. In such cases, the interpreter must be careful not to go beyond the speakers' words, even if they make apparently little sense. As Confucius put it. "If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success."

Being used as part of a negotiating ploy again points to the need for the interpreter to be taken into the diplomat's confidence. The interpreters association always tells clients that "if you are not prepared to trust an interpreter with confidential information, don't use one." The failure to provide in advance background information and specialized terminology involved in complex negotiations makes the interpreters' job all the more difficult, Siebourg said.

Several years ago the association — speaking either in English or French, its two working languages — started discussing improved contacts with colleagues in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe when the East was opening up. One difficulty is that the East European languages often contain no terminology to describe many of the private-market terms used in the West.

Russian interpreters also have practice of working from their own language into a foreign language, while most Western interpreters. Siebourg said, prefer to work from a foreign language into their mother tongue.

This avoids the kind of gaffes that can occur with less than intimate knowledge of a language. When Jimmy Carter visited Warsaw in December 1977, for example, he made the mistake of using a Polishspeaking American as interpreter rather than an English-speaking Pole. Siebourg said.

The result is that the interpreter, a State Department contract employee, spoke about sexual lust rather than desire and rephrased Carter's "when I abandoned the United States." The embarrassment was long remembered.

Barry James

• Текст можно использовать для перевода с листа по теме «Переводческая этика».

Комментарии sucks in his breath — втягивает дыхание; duty bound = obliged;

draw aside — отвести в сторону;

double-speak — зд. что имеется в виду (см. "1984" by G.Orwell); to be taken into confidence — завоевать доверие;

discretion of a priest in the confessional — такт исповедника; mental subtlety — тонкость ума;

to raise the standing of the calling — зд. поднять престиж профессии;

Book of Genesis — книга Бытия (Библия);

outwitted — перехитрил;

to get across — передать;

expression as well as content — зд. форму и содержание;

ploy — уловка (ср. ловушка);

opening up — зд. расширяют связи;

gaffe — «прокол», «накладка», «ляп»;

lust — похоть (ср. desire);

abandoned — покинул, бросил (ср. left).

Topics for discussion

Do you agree with all the ideas concerning interpreter's ethics?

What are the interpreter's main qualities? Do you share the point of view expressed in the text?

Breaking the Language Barrier

Для устного перевода «под запись»

At a recent business dinner a chief executive1 was extolling the export achievements of his UK support services group.When China was mentioned, with regard to business, he looked askance at the very word. "God no," he said. "They don't even try to speak the language there."

Although there is some evidence of a growing awareness among UK companies of the importance of understanding other languages, their linguistic prowess still lags far behind that of European competitors.

Stephen Hagen, languages professor at the University of Wolverhampton and adviser to the UK's Department2 of Trade and Industry (DTI), says, compared with its European partners, the UK is "the bottom of the pile of language ability."

Professor Hagen believes Europe's linguistic and cultural barriers are proving harder to break down than trade blocks. "There is a legal framework to enable us to export easily," he says. "The only thing that's preventing us from going further is that we don't have the cultural and linguistic competence to cope."

A European Union-funded (financed; funds = money) survey of exporters, conducted in July, suggests that 49 per cent of companies have experienced language barriers. The survey of firms with up to 500 employees found a further 20 per cent which had encountered cultural barriers and 12 per cent which had lost business because of these barriers.

The survey also found that only 13 per cent of the companies had formulated any languages strategy to deal with the problem. Most — 83 per cent — used translators.

Several studies concur in the growing importance of cultural competence. Professor Hagen says, "When you ask exporters whether they need to learn German, they say no. When you ask whether they need to understand how the German mind works, they all say yes." The problem is that "in this country we don't link languages with culture enough."

However, there is evidence of improvement. With 60 per cent of the UK's exports going to non-English speaking countries, Robert Holkham, at the UK Department of Trade and Industry says: "There is a growing awareness that learning a customer's language and culture increases the chance of doing business overseas."

A benchmark survey of 500 small to medium-sized companies conducted by the DTI in each of the past three years has found that while 34 per cent said they had no language proficiency two years ago, the figure had dropped to 30 per cent in 1996.

The campaign highlights the kinds of problems communication difficulties can cause. These range from the tale ofreceivers finding a large order written in German left unread in a collapsed company in the UK1, to the non-English airline which boasted that it would "send your luggage in all directions." (См. Кунсткамеру «ляпов» на стр. 158.)

Studies suggest linguistic proficiency is related to company size, with those employing fewer than 250 suffering the most problems. Companies less than five years old with young managing directors are also more likely to employ linguists.

Many in the industry feel they have an uphill task. John Fergusson at the Association for Language Learning, says that with English considered a world language "there's a feeling that one doesn't need to put oneself out too much."

He puts part of the blame on an education system which, until recently, made just three years of language training compulsory until the age of 14.

He believes that the national curriculum, adopted in England and Wales in 1988, will improve matters, but only gradually. He also feels it did not go far enough — it should introduce language learning in primary schools, he said.

Professor Hagen says this is not "just a question about how Fred Bloggs sells apples into France." The meetings between European political leaders are indicative, he says. "The UK representative is always out on a limb, talking even to the Irish person."

Комментарии to extoll = to praise, boast of;

support services group = зд. consulting firm;

to look askance — смотреть искоса; зд. скривился, сделал гримасу;

awareness — зд. осознание;

prowess = proficiency, skills (навыки);

lags far behind — далеко отстает от ... ;

lost business — зд. потеряли выгодные сделки;

concur in — зд. указывают на ...;

benchmark survey — рейтинговое исследование;

receivers — зд. судебные исполнители (ср. to go into receivership = to go bankrupt);

collapsed = bankrupt, ruined;

uphill = very difficult, hopeless;

to put oneself out — зд. прилагать усилия, «напрягаться»;

national curriculum — национальная программа обучения;

to be out on a limb — быть в опасном (неустойчивом) положении (букв.висеть на конце ветки); зд. чувствовать себя неловко, неуютно; ср.«ходить по тонкому льду».

Тема: Язык и сознание

Second Language Works Alone in Brain

When people think in a language they learned in adulthood, they employ special brain circuits not used for their native tongue, a study suggests.

But if adults started learning two languages in infancy, they use the same circuits for both, researchers found.

The difference appeared in a critical language centre of the brain called Broca's area, which lies near the left ear in righthanded people.

There is no evidence that the study explains why kids learn a second language more easily than adults do, cautioned senior author Joy Hirsch.

The work appeared in the current issue of the journal Nature1.

It included six people who had been exposed to two languages in infancy and six who picked up a second language as adults. Their brains were scanned as they silently told themselves what they'd done the previous day, thinking first in one language and then in the other.

The finding fits with prior reports that in bilingual people, strokes or brain tumours can hinder ability in just one language, Hirsch said.

Arturo Hernandez, who studies bilingual people at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said it's not clear what it means that two languages are associated with different brain circuits.

It could mean the brain stores each language in a different place, or that it gets access to each language through a different circuit, or simply that it works harder to use the language learned in adulthood, he said.

Комментарии circuits — зд. клетки, зоны;

critical = important;

strokes — зд. инсульт;

tumour — опухоль.

Тема: Компьютер — переводчик?

Web Translator Is Quite Not Perfect Yet

In matters of diplomacy, the U.S. is the world's sole superpower, wielding more influence than any other nation. But that's nothing compared with the American influence in cyberspace.

On the Internet's World Wide Web, America rules — and so does the English language. While figures are hard to come by, it seems clear that most of the content of the Web today is from the U.S. When you add in the Web content provided by other English-speaking nations, the dominance of English is overwhelming. Even many of the Web sites published in non-English-speaking lands are produced in English.

Ironically, the Web itself was invented in Switzerland (though the Internet was a U.S. innovation). But there are many more people with computers in America, and many more of those machines are linked to the Internet than are computers anywhere else. As of today, if you don't read English, you miss nearly everything on the Web.

Words for the Wise

Technology is attempting to the rescue of many non-English-speaking people. A new software product for Windows called Web Translator, from Globalink Inc. of Fairfax, Virginia, promises to rapidly translate English-language Web pages into French, Spanish or German. You just click on a button labeled "translate" and Web Translator grabs the page from the Netscape Navigator Web browser, renders it in one of the three languages in less than a minute and displays the translation in Navigator, with all graphics and links intact.

Web Translator also works in reverse. Following the same process, it will take a Web page that's in French, Spanish or German, and turn it into English. That will help English speakers catch up with the fastgrowing number of Web sites in those tongues.

Globalink's product is fundamentally different from similar-sounding Web software, such as Accent Software's highly regarded Internet with an Accent program. These programs merely let your PC view Web sites written in foreign alphabets. They don't attempt translation. And, after trying out Web Translator for a few days, I can understand why.

Literal and Laughable

Web Translator does such a crude job of translation that it can't really be relied upon for anything requiring any degree of accuracy or nuance. Like most computer-based translation, it is so literal as to be laughable, and fails to grasp many common idioms.

You can get the basic idea of what a Web page says, but not much more. To be fair, Globalink doesn't claim perfection. On the box, the company promises only a "draft translation" and concedes your translations may contain some "rough spots."

I'll say! For instance, I tried translating into English some articles from French-language press. A reference to the Canadian foreign minister came out as "the alien Business minister of Canada," and Prime Minister Chretien was referred to as "the Christian prime minister."

Elsewhere on the Web, a headline in Germany's Die Welt came out: "Cabbage: Future of the grandsons do not lose." This may be an article about the passing down of cabbage farms through the generations, but who can tell?

May Day

Going the other way, from English into French, I discovered that Web Translator garbled the simplest things. In The Wall Street Journal's Web site, even Wednesday's date — May 1, 1996 — was mistranslated as "Peut 1, 1996" because the program couldn't distinguish the month of May ("Mai" in French) from other forms of "may."

The software also had trouble with the English legal term "suit." In different journal headlines it rendered it differently in French, but never properly. A reference to a lawsuit filed by a Texas grocer came out as "Costume d'epicier," an allusion to a grocer's garb.

Web Translator was easy to use, though it takes up 70 megabytes of hard-disk space. But I was disappointed, even though I didn't expect perfection. This computer translation effort has a long, long way to go.

Walter S. Mossberg (" Wall Street Journal Europe")

Комментарии wielding-having (ср. power-wielding ministries – силовые министерства); crude – грубый, примитивный;

chrétien – христианский, фр. ; cabbage = kohl, нем.;

garble = confuse, mix; garb = clothes;

has a long, long way to go – зд. еще весьма далек от совершенства.

Topics for discussion

Can a PC replace human brain?

Will the interpreter's profession remain in this century?

Can computers provide an adequate translation? Share your experience and views.

Тема: Язык и понимание (для перевода «под запись»)

Язык твой – враг мой (мнение журналиста)

Зная английский на уровне средней школы или доморощенных «курсов погружения», «новые русские» теряют выгодные контракты, терпят убытки и выглядят посмешищем (laughing stock) в глазах иностранных партнеров.

Рассказывает Михаил Петров, генеральный директор компании «Делайт 2000»: «После заключения в Нью-Йорке контракта (after closing a deal) один крупный бизнесмен был

приглашен в гости к своему партнеру. Перед визитом он зашел в один из дорогих магазинов, купил там ценный подарок, в коробку с которым попросил положить красивую открытку, на которой было написано "With deep sympathy," то есть, как думал бизнесмен, «с глубокой симпатией». Когда хозяин дома и партнер по бизнесу при получении подарка сильно засмущался, жена партнера посмотрела на бизнесмена странновато, а дочь партнера так просто покатилась со смеху (roared with laughter), наш герой ничего не понял. Причину странной реакции ему объяснили только дома: такие открытки в Штатах дарят, когда хотят признаться в любви»1.

Переводчики – народ ненадежный. Не так давно в Англии тестировали группу переводчиков из разных стран, в том числе и из России. Знания большинства из них, к удивлению организаторов, оказались весьма посредственными: в специальных областях бизнеса обычного владения языком недостаточно. И если переводчик усвоил терминологию, например в области вычислительной техники, это не значит, что он будет уверенно переводить переговоры о поставках алюминия.

Вот приедет «генерал»...

Е. Капранова, менеджер компании «Ост-Вест», знает совсем невеселый случай, когда одна большая закупочная фирма готовила документацию по контракту со всемирно известной General Electric, пригласив для этого переводчика с кучей дипломов, который оказался профаном в бизнес-лексике до такой степени, что на третьей странице перевода появлялся некий «генерал-электрик», который и должен был устранять недостатки, если техника у клиента плохо работала. Ошибку никто не заметил, представитель General Electricприбыл в Москву принимать работу со своим переводчиком, знающим русский. Как они «генерал-электрика»увидели, так сразу собрали чемоданы и уехали.

Еще один минус работы через переводчика в бизнесе – высокая стоимость его услуг (до 300 долларов в день) и совсем невысокая надежность. Бизнесмен М.Петров: «Обсудив даже через самого лучшего переводчика детали контракта, вы не можете быть уверены в том, что подробности переговоров не станут известны вашему конкуренту через час после их окончания». Нет, о громких скандалах, связанных с перекупкой конкурентами переводчиков, Петров пока не слышал, но вот о контрактах, которые внезапно и без объяснений срывались, а потом подписывались с конкурентами,

– сколько угодно. (Похоже, российские бизнесмены просто не хотят выносить «сор из офисов» – let the cat out of the office.)

Мода на привлечение переводчиков миновала. Е. Капранова: «Теперь хорошим тоном стало иметьштатных (full-time) переводчиков. Но топ-менеджеры все равно все мало-мальски важные переговоры ведут сами, без лишних свидетелей». Ведут, добавим от себя, в основном уповая на знания, полученные в школе.

"Little knowledge..."1

Лингвист Изабелла Лаутериахт: «Как-то раз я работала на семинаре по пневматическому оборудованию. Техническая лексика очень сложна – у меня даже при наличии университетского диплома переводчика и филолога ушел год на ее освоение. Поэтому меня умиляло (зд. I was amused), когда люди, начавшие учить язык полгода назад, сами вели переговоры. Один зав. международным отделом после третьей рюмки отодвинул меня, ему показалось, что я недостаточно точно перевожу его «перлы» – (зд. gaffes), и начал сам общаться с двумя шведами. Английский он знал плохо и каждый раз требовал, чтобы я ему подсказывала слова. Выглядело это смешно и неприлично. Шведы были милейшие люди, но их напрягало (annoyed), что они вынуждены тратить время и

силы только на то, чтобы понять собеседника.

Сколько бизнес-судеб было	сломано на	заре перестройки	из-за вроде	бы невинной	границы
между fourteen(14) и forty (40),	совершенно	теряющейся при	неважном	произношении!	Сколько

раз, рассчитывая на 14 долларов за штуку (unit), килограмм или тонну, мы получали в контракте 40! Теперь наши вроде научились: цифры или пишут, или проговаривают раздельно, вместо сорока – four zero, вместо четырнадцати – one four. Сколько раз невежды спотыкались о похожие английские слова include (включать) и exclude (исключать), принимали в договоре одно за другое, а потом обнаруживали, что сами и за свои деньги товар из-за моря доставляем, растаможиваем (get customs clearing) или ремонтируем! Вроде бы битые-перебитые иностранными граблями по лбу (to fall in a booby-trap)! Но продолжаем исправно на них

наступать.

Вопросы к тексту

Имеете ли вы опыт работы в качестве устного переводчика?

Тема: Язык и перевод

Gorbachev's English Voice Speaks

Recenty, Pavel Palazchenko published his English-language memoirs1, chronicling the last Cold War summits and the challenge of interpreting the father of perestroika's verbose and often fractured sentences into intelligible English.

"My problem was that I had to actually make all of those sentences and mangled structures that Gorbachev produced, I had to make them sound grammatical," Palazchenko said in an interview. "It was even fun for me to do it because it was achallenge. It was a challenge I did not have with other speakers."

His ability in turning an earthy (колоритный) Russian phrase such as "Don't hang noodles on my ears" into "Don't try to fool me" made Palazchenko the leading translator for Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze for much of 1985 to1991.

Sometimes, he played a role in U.S.-Soviet diplomacy as well. On Christmas Day 1991, the day the Soviet Union collapsed, it was up to him to figure out a way to get Gorbachev's call through to Bush without going through the hotlineor the Foreign Ministry, by then run by the new Russian government. He found the home phone number of a top U.S. Embassy official, who helped route the call. "[Gorbachev) didn't want to use the hotline, he wanted to do it in a personal way," Palazchenko said.

Among the foreign leaders Palazchenko has met, he is especially warm in his praise for Bush. "I think that Bush is an interesting study (зд. пример) in a kind of public spiritedness" (предвзятость), he said. "I think he really liked government, ... he really liked to work on issues. He was well prepared on just about any issue. ... I think he was kind of underrated."

Reagan, by contrast, was "certainly not totally in command of the details," but one who had very good instincts (чутье) and an ability to rely on wise aides.

"Also, he was a person who, in my opinion, was very difficult not to like because he had this ability to convey the impression that he wants to be liked, and that he also likes you."

After Gorbachev left office, Palazchenko was one of relatively few loyal aides to join him at the Gorbachev Foundationthink-tank (мозговой центр). He says that the ex-communist leader is holding up (держится) well despite being hated or ignored by most Russians. "He really is not a person who allows himself to concentrate on what others would regard as a tragedy, as what others would regard as a great personal injustice done by the people."

Palazchenko also believes Gorbachev's wife, Raisa, was unfairly condemned by many and falsely accused of being thepower behind the throne. "That's so ridiculous," he said. "You cannot imagine Gorbachev being imposed on by whoever, certainly not by Mrs. Gorbachev."

Palazchcnko's memoirs are sparse in (have little) gossip or scandal – which made it hard for him to find a publisher initially – concentrating mostly on the diplomatic history he witnessed.

He does recall a few vignettes, such as a furious Gorbachev during Reagan's 1988 visit to Moscow when U.S. officials insisted on checking all spectators entering the Bolshoi Theater before the two leaders arrived.

Adam Tanner ("Reuters")

Комментарии verbose – пространные;

mangled – путаные;

hotline – special communication line between the Kremlin and the White House;

to route the call – использовать другой канал (связи);

vignettes = episodes.

NB: issue = important problem (см. стр. 16).

Тема: Взаимовлияние культур

Lost in Translation

A new Paris tabloid InfoMatin, wrote the other day: "All proposals designed to legislate on the use of language give off a stale smell. And a regressive one, because words have a capacity to fly in the face of those who persist in acting as customs officers of the language."

This was a response to the new bill to enforce the use of French on public signs and in private conferences (зд.частные беседы). The defence of the French language is an item of recurring interest: there is, of course, only one real enemy of the Gallic tongue: American English.

But elsewhere things are different. Unremarked by everyone outside Germany, the Society for the German Language (GfdS) has admitted another bunch (group) of words. These are new German words rather than imports but the Germans do not have "douaniers" like the French – any old import can make itself at home in Germany in about 10 minutes. One can write articles consisting almost entirely of English.

German has a gift for fabricating new words in a way Americans might envy. Each January the GfdS picks a "Word of the Year." The one for 1993 was Sozialabbau which "stands as a generic term for a series of the difficult changes that have been felt in the lives of millions of people in east and west Germany."

This flexibility is something lacking in French. Mind you, there arc words that leave me stunned at the richness of French life: ramaillage or "the treatment of skins in preparation for the manufacture of chamois leather." Maybe this reflects theinfinite linguistic variety the French reserve for such matters as food and women's clothes.