Interpreting Errors in Translation

Abstract

Sometimes I happen to reread a translation after I've submitted it to a client, and there it is: an elegant solution to a translation problem, obvious now, but not obvious then. At times like these I like to remember a story one of my colleagues told me about a well-known and highly respected interpreter. The meeting for which he was interpreting was about the provision of public services. At one point in the discussion someone brought up the question of authority for the public washroom facilities at the yacht basin. These facilities were so poorly maintained, the speaker lamented, that sailors could not use them, preferring to moon out over the sides of their boats. On hearing the term moon out, the interpreter grew glassy-eyed and offered the French-speaking members of his audience the totally meaningless et ils préferent faire de la lune par-dessus leurs voiliers. I cherish this story partly because it makes me feel better personally, and because it illustrates several points about errors. First of all, even excellent translators and inter- preters make horrific mistakes. Secondly, some errors are almost unavoidable given the fact that translators and interpreters inevitably have vocabulary and knowledge gaps, gaps which cannot always be filled in time. Hence the third point, that evaluating the serious- ness of an error is a less interesting exercise than interpreting the source of an error. Errors obviously tell us something about the quality of a translation, but they are also windows into the translating process itself. Analysis of slips of different kinds has been used in linguistics to provide evidence about the organization of mental grammars (for example Cutler 1982 and Fromkin 1980) and to postulate intermediate grammars or inter- language in the language learner. In the same way, translation errors provide two kinds of information: an indication of how information about language might be organized in the brain and an insight into the developmental process that takes place in translator training.