Peter Newmark’s Revision Hints for Translation Exams and Deadlines

(1)   I assume that in a translation exam for professional purposes, you can bring in reference books with you, and that reference books are provided. This is realistic, and if it does not happen, you should make a fuss. Therefore you should bring in: Collins English Dictionary, the best monolingual SL dictionary, one bilingual dictionary, and Roget.

(2)   Say you have three hours for a test: you should develop a technique that allows 15 minutes for translational analysis, 2 hours 10 minutes for translating, and 35 minutes for revision, and check the time every half hour.

(3)   Write double space and leave gaps between paragraphs. This gives you more space for corrections. Do not do a rough copy except for difficult passages.

(4)   Underline all words you intend to look up. Look them up in batches.

(5)   Look up all words not familiar to you, and, in SL monolingual dictionaries, any words that look like English words.

(6)   You should check any word you look up in a bilingual dictionary in at least one SL and one TL monolingual dictionary. Further, look up all technical words or collocations (SL or TL) in the English Collins and the Webster, where you may find the words you fail to find in the bilingual dictionaries, e.g., kermäs.

(7)   Look up all proper names. You may have to ‘classify’ geographical terms and historical names as part of your translation. But looking up is usually the ‘iceberg’ rather than the ‘tip’.

(8)   Do not spend excessive time on words that defeat you. Translate them provisionally according to their derivational and/or analogical sense. Then edge the meaning nearer to what makes most sense in the context.

(9)   Translate easier sentences and paragraphs first, including the last paragraph if appropriate. Do not leave the paper half finished.

(10) Spend relatively more time on sentences which you think you have a fair chance of getting right, therefore which you have to work on.

(11) Make sense, or at least o o write nonsense, unless you know the passage is ironical or is purposely irrational. Do not reproduce dictionary translations that are obviously wrong in the context. Do not get mesmerised by the SL text.

(12) There are two basic articulations of meaning - those of words and those of sentences. Usually, the meanings of words cannot be stretched beyond certain limits. But when a culture looks at an object in a different way (chateau d’eau - ‘water tower’), one word is replaced rather than translated by another. The meaning of sentences must cohere with those of the previous and the following sentences, then the paragraph, then the text.

(13) Your translations have to be referentially and pragmatically accurate. With- draw from literal translation when you become inaccurate for these reasons only.

(14) Grammar is more flexible than lexis. You can sometimes make a translation natural by using an alternative structure, converting a clause into a group, a verb into a noun. SL words that won’t go into one TL word may go into two.

(15) Make use of all the time available. If you have the time, revise separately for accuracy, naturalness (usage), collocations, sentence connectives (logic), punctuation (correspondence or divergence from original), word-order.

(16) It is essential to read your version without looking at the original, paying particular attention to unfamiliar adjective-plus-noun collocations.

(17) Correspondingly, compare your version closely with the original at least to make sure you’ve not omitted any word, sentence or paragraph. You have to account for the meaning (function) of every SL word, but you don’t always have to translate it.

(18) Play for safety with terminology, but be bold with twisted syntax.

(19) Do not replace the dictionary with the encyclopaedia. Do not replace/ translate explanations in the TL text with TL encyclopaedia explanations. Do not translate a technical term by a descriptive term (which is usually wider), unless the technical term does not exist in the TL. Contrariwise, do not translate a descriptive term by a technical term, but this is occasionally justified provided: (a) the technical term does not exist in the SL; (b) the descriptive term is not being used to make a ‘linguistic’ contrast; (c) an expert assures you that the TL technical term would be better understood.

(20) Always consider the use of couplets for translating institutional and cultural terms and recherché metaphors, for the purpose of informing expert and uninformed readers. (Experts may require a transference, educated readers a functional equivalent, uninformed readers a cultural equivalent.)

(21) The more context-free a word, the more it is likely to be used in its primary (most frequent) meaning.

(22) Write well and naturally, unless the SL text is ‘sacred’ or linguistically banal or innovatory. In that event, follow the banalities or innovations of your SL text.

(23) Finally, fill in all gaps, guided by your contextual understanding of the piece. Do not write alternative translations.

(24) Normally, write your own note only:

       (a)   when you have translated a word you have not located. Write ‘not found’ and, if appropriate, briefly justify your translation.

       (b)   if there is a factual mistake in the text which you have corrected.

       (c)   possibly, if there is a substantial ambiguity in the text, where the second version would make almost equally good sense.

(25) Be suspicious of and particularly careful with easy (looking) texts. Examiners have to differentiate. Scaled marking can magnify mistakes.

(26) Unless you detest pencils, use pencils first and write over with ballpoints.

(27) Remember the marker will note linguistic and referential mistakes of accuracy as well as pragmatic mistakes of usage. Usage is almost as important as accuracy.

(28) There is no such thing as a correct or perfect or ideal translation of a challenging text. Ten first-rate translators may well produce ten different, more or less equally good translations of a complicated sentence. The area of taste in a translation remains, after the area of science, skill and art. So take courage.

(29) If you are working for an employer or a client and you fix your own deadline allow for at least a two-day gap between your main revision and your final reading, so that you can return to your version and see it in a different light. You may have to spend more time pursuing one word than on the whole of the rest of the piece.

All these hints are my own, not objective, not subjective, for you if you prefer to react against.

 (From Newmark 1988:221-223)