Few things are as frustrating as arguing about stylistic errors in a text or translation. These are the kind of discussions where everybody feels their viewpoint and stylistic preference are correct. Usually, these situations don't get resolved in a cooperative manner.
Over the past few days, a troika of articles have touched on the topic of stylistic and linguistic conventions.
The transubstantiation blog asks the question Which Standards Apply? and observes that "[o]ne of the most confounding issues for translators, editors and proof-readers is not knowing which standards to use when working on a particular document".
The author makes the point that while various standards exist (e.g., ISO 4217 for currency abbreviations), individual clients will often have their own (conflicting) standards - or no standards at all.
Jost Zetzsche's Tool Kit #144 laments that "[o]ne of the more time-consuming and unnecessary problems in communicating with clients is disagreements on linguistic renderings for which there are several 'correct' solutions" but goes on to offer a solution.
Jost had in the past proposed a German style and formatting agreement. He made this available to his readers, asked for input - and was dismayed by the lack of response.
On the Translation Tribulations blog, Kevin Lossner picked up the theme by voicing frustrations with "niggling, repetitive questions about stuff like subheader capitalization" and similar issues.
While he sees the possibility of saving time with a standard style guide, he doesn't seem hopeful that a large-scale, industry wide effort would catch on. "A good idea in principle; I hope something comes of it", is his view on the possibility of a Google docs project with different documents for various languages.
Isn't it incredible that we are still struggling with this? I remember this being a hot topic 10 years ago, when the new German spelling rules were actuall new. Is it possible that absolutely no progress has been made in the past 10 years?
By and large, no, it doesn't appear that we have made any progress. My guess is that it goes back to the fact that nobody cares - until there is a "mistake" (real or imagined).
Many client contacts don't know anything about language and just act as go-between for projects. Translation companies don't value the importance of proper style either. Most of them are in the business of shuffling paper. And because of that linguists don't get paid to pay attention to style. Their clients demand lower prices and quicker turnaround times, not stylistic master pieces.
So unfortunately, despite all of the best efforts of the EU (PDF link) and individual folks involved in translation, authors, linguists and client reviewers seem destined to continue the age-old arguments of car vs. automobile, annoyance vs. frustration...
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The industry is not making ENOUGH efforts to come to some kind of agreement.
I tend to create some standards for each project, include some long-lasting conflicting issues in the glossary and then struggle with colleagues to have them follow the instructions.
Nevertheless, I believe that the more we talk about this, the better.
Thanks for the article!
Diana Kreimer
I am not deluded that any unification is possible because, anyway, I will keep saying "w każdym bądź razie" irrespective of any purist's opinion ;-)
On a side note, my grandfather was Polish, but I do not understand Polish, unfortunately
We should do our best in translations and defend our point of view, but be sure that problems are bound to appear.
Diana
I've never been asked, say, to follow the Chicago Manual of Style or the AMA/Council of Biology Editors equivalent, which would be a fairly straightforward request and most of us have those references. Maybe it seems too obvious.
When editing material like manuals, I have been asked to refrain from doing anything more than correcting grammatical and terminological errors, which, I think, is prudent advice if you are confident about your primary translator. As a project manager I might add: "please include any suggestions to improve readability, etc., as a separate note." If you want to reduce the number of such "helpful" suggestions, you might add "For each suggestion, please explain why you think the text should be more substantively revised."
In some cases, translators are simply not receiving enough instructions.
As an aside, in almost all cases, translators are outside the quality control loop. They should be receiving the edited translation and signing off (or not) on the changes. This step provides feedback, which helps to improve their skills, but also occasionally saves the agency from implementing changes that shouldn't be made.
Any customer is entitled to have a house style, but this should be documented and communicated to the translator at the outset.
Reviewers and translators need to cooperate and cultivate an open-minded attitude. They also need to keep up to date, as certain constructs (eg starting a sentence with a conjunction, split infinitives) are more widely acceptable in certain contexts than they once were.