Abstract
In the age of machine translation, translation service providers are looking to expand their services to aspects that a machine cannot master properly (i.a. Korhonen 2021, Pym & Torres-Simón 2021:50-52). In the past, scholars have noted that translators possess adequate competences to work also as technical writers (Schubert 2007:102-103, Risku 2016:131-132.). Gouadec (2007:120) calls them ‘translator-cum-technical writer’. Technical writers are professionals for whom facilitating communication in situations of asymmetric distribution of knowledge, i.e. between experts and laypersons, is a constitutive task (Schubert 2007:73). Other researchers (i.a. Spinzi 2021, Jemielity & Katan 2021) described the work of the ‘translator plus’, a translator that actively participates in the text (re)drafting, revision and cultural adaptation phase, thus notably influencing the final result, including the source text (ST).
Many translators do not consider a close cooperation with authors and notable interventions in the ST within their remit (cf. Risku 2016:133). In our contribution, we will discuss and illustrate a more pro-active translator’s role, based on a real project within the domain of occupational health and safety (OHS). The ST was an e-learning module for the compulsory training of middle managers in an Italian research centre. It had been drafted in Italian by a domain expert and needed translation into German and English. Before beginning to translate, the translator discussed the ST with the expert and implemented several changes with the aim of optimising expert-to-lay communication. The type of work described here cannot be considered a typical instance of intralingual translation, such as rewriting a text drafted for experts for non-experts. First, the expert drafted the ST with exactly their lay readership in mind. Second, changes beyond the purely linguistic level – where a ‘language expert’ like the translator may be given free hand by the domain expert – needed sound motivation.
From a theoretical point of view, the activities performed by the translator pertain to the domain of ‘optimisation of [specialised] communication’, defined by Schubert (2009:109) as the “deliberate intervention with the aim of achieving some kind of improvement in the communicative act or in the means of communication”. The relevant dimensions are specialised content, language, technical medium and work procedures (Schubert 2007:248).
Changes in ST content were deemed necessary by the translator either when information was too detailed, complex or of relative relevance for the target group or when future needs for clarification could be prevented. For example, a paragraph on the complicated calculations that determine the insurance premium payable by the employer for each employee was considered irrelevant for middle managers. They never see these numbers and primarily need to ensure that their staff applies health and safety rules to avoid accidents and workplace illnesses. However, they must know how and how many risk profiles to assign to each of their staff. They require information on how to estimate the percentages for each risk profile. While this was well explained for full-time staff by the expert authoring the ST, information on how to deal with part-time staff was missing. This was added by the translator to prevent further enquiries by the target audience.
Most work concerned the linguistic dimension, which comprises the word, sentence and text level (Maaß 2020:42). The translator replaced synonyms in the ST aiming at terminological consistency but at the same time also at facilitating translation within a CAT-tool with reference to a domain-specific terminology database. The use of abbreviations in text was limited to cases that can be considered familiar to the target readership, after an initial reference to the full form (e.g. after two years of pandemic, most should know the initialism PPE for ‘personal protective equipment’). Syntactic complexity is one of the features that impacts on text comprehension (Antos et al. 2011:644, Cortelazzo 2021:16-23, Lutz 2015: 287-296, Bredel & Maaß 2016:118, Ebert & Fisiak 2018:53-55). Therefore, long and convoluted sentences produced by the expert were shortened and rewritten. However, since all members of the target group possess an academic degree, syntactic simplification was not excessively pushed. A notable challenge consisted in rewriting a text drafted in the generic masculine by a domain expert – following the example of the Italian refence text, the Consolidated Law on Safety at Work no. 81/2008 – to obtain a gender-inclusive text according to organisational recommendations.
The technical medium relates to file formats as well as the typographic appearance and structure of the document. The translator, based on their competence in communication, sometimes suggested to replace specific text segments with workflow graphics or tables, for example, to better structure and visualise information. These changes are still pending. However, more straightforward changes to paragraph structure also pertain to this aspect of communication optimisation.
Finally, the dimension of work procedures concerns the organisation of work and cooperation around text production, in our case, the interaction between domain and language expert. Using track changes and comments to allow the expert to see, understand and – if necessary – reject the proposed changes in the ST proved an essential way to build trust and foster cooperation.
This type of collaboration with the ST author is more time-consuming and challenging for a translator but also more rewarding from a professional (and financial) point of view. On the one hand, we have the translators’ knowledge of the target readers as well as their ability to adapt texts to different readerships (Pym 2003:489). On the other hand, there is the generally scarce ability of domain experts in addressing non-experts (cf. Askehave & Zethsen 2002:28), calling for support by writing professionals. In our contribution we argue that two key competences enabled the translator to proficiently support asymmetric communication between experts and laypersons: a) sound domain competence due to prior experience with translation and terminology work in OHS, which allowed them to address also the content dimension and discuss proficiently with the expert; b) familiarity with the target audience, hence the ability to adopt their perspective and anticipate their (level of) previous knowledge (Bromme & Jucks 2014: 5-7). With this we hope to contribute to research on professional translation and on the role of the translator in supporting asymmetric communication.