“TRANSLATING SCIENCE: RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS, KNOWLEDGE
AND LOTS OF SCI-FI READING”
Fernando
Santiago dos
1. First words...
Science. This tiny word has challenged men for centuries.
And Science, as it is widely accepted nowadays, directs us to the academic
researching, which is understood as a branch of the technologic studies and one
of the areas translators can have an opportunity to work on a systematic basis
and play an important role by helping researchers and scientists write
scientific papers, articles to scientific magazines, monographs, abstracts for
Congresses, theses, dissertations and so on. It demands a lot of technical
background and experience from the translator especially in what concerns the
handling of dictionaries and other aids. The translator deals with a very diversified target-public with whom many interesting
things may be presented: subjects on medicine, dentistry, biology, veterinary,
chemistry, physics, philosophy... Translating Science, then, is a kind of
translation that depends directly on the help from friends, good dictionaries,
checklists and other essential tools so that the final work reaches the
specialized readers: scientists, who are always expecting a
high-quality, precision product.
2. Who can translate
Science?
Translators who may venture into translating Science are supposed to show
the following profile:
·
Good
knowledge of general Sciences and areas alike à If a
translator is not majored in any scientific area, he/she should have a solid
background on scientific jargon before starting the translation of scientific
papers;
·
Concentration
and available time to make use of glossaries, dictionaries and Internet
researching à Sometimes, translating a single two-page text
may consume hours of work and tiring searching through the Internet —
concentration and time (besides sense of humor!) are fundamental;
·
Ability
on comparing and analyzing technical-scientific terms à Getting to the point — i.e., conveying the
right translation to a term or sentence — depends once in a while on several
aspects, such as comparing, analyzing, discussing;
·
Responsibility
and security when deciding for certain terms in the translation à How difficult it is sometimes to go for a
certain term! A wrong or badly placed word may invalidate a whole translation.
Being responsible to adopt a safe word or sentence is a key feature when
translating Science.
Don’t get scared!
Obviously, some of the above features may be — and actually are! — conquered with experience and time. Self-assuredness can
be obtained by having good aid literature reading and close contact with
researchers and consultants.
3. What does this kind of translator do?
Basically, the technical-scientific translator (do we
have permission to call such translators this way?!) usually works with:
·
Abstracts
for specialized magazines;
·
Articles
and papers for journals, bulletins and other information media on the academic
areas;
·
Version
and/or translation of theses, dissertations, monographs and other documents
that normally result from the academic research;
·
Checklists
and specialized glossaries.
If you haven’t been
asked to translate a “strictly confidential” document until now, be sure you
might face this situation one day. When someone orders a translation for a
text, which can’t be read by non-authorized people, many translators refuse the
order. Why? Maybe some don’t feel self-confident enough to accept such a thing;
some may think of the responsibilities such a thing demands; some may even
think they can’t handle something so “secret”. Reasons vary much. Here, the
word ethics brings a deep connotation. When a translator accepts a
“strictly confidential” translation, it is implicit that he/she will not make comments
on the contents of the document with anyone except authorized personnel. Let’s
think about this: keeping a secret involves ethics. And it goes farther:
involves responsibility to a high extent. Not everybody is prepared to face
this.
5.
And the timetable?
I’d say it is just
awful to kill a timetable and deliver a translation out of the deadline. If a
translator accepted a translation to be done within a week, he/she has seven
days ahead to prepare everything. Deadlines are to be followed. Many scientists
depend on the translation to send abstracts to congresses, to scientific
magazines and being stuck because of the translator’s irresponsibility is
unbearable. Be sincere: if you knew you wouldn’t have enough time to translate
in a week, why did you accept the seven-day period order? Watch out for this.
Many translators just lead their careers to a complete darkness because they
repeatedly killed timetables and made up excuses to justify irresponsible and
unethical attitudes. Keep in mind that a bad translator’s name is rapidly
known. Bad comments fly.
6.
Translators should read a lot of Asimov...
Isaac Asimov is perhaps one of the most interesting people I’ve ever heard of throughout my whole life. You don’t know who he is? Well... He has written more than 50 books on sci-fi. Interplanetary trips, robots, androids, atomic journeys. Asimov has gifted us with an entire universe of scientific jargon and surprising neologisms, partly because of his own scientific background — he majored in physics — and partly because he has proved to be a restless knowledge seeker. That’s it. He has studied and read things from physics, biology, chemistry and the like. Sci-fi and science nowadays are partners. When we read sci-fi, real science pops up with its specialized language much easier.
7. Final words...
Maybe
you are just frightened now. Petrified, I dare say. Although translating
science may sound as something extremely hard for you now, I would see it in
three qualifiers:
enriching profitable rewarding
There are difficulties, but if you really want to succeed and be a good science translator, this experience will certainly be enriching — can you guess how much knowledge you will get from translating? —, profitable — money and fame can come after a good job, don’t you think so? — and, finally, rewarding — is there anything else you would expect after being famous, with considerable knowledge and, who knows, having a pocket stuffed with countless dollar bills?