Subtitles which leave out subtle but significant elements of dialogue could be missing out on important character traits, according to a University of Huddersfield linguistics expert

Source: Alpha Galileo

Subtitles which leave out subtle but significant elements of dialogue mean that viewers who are hard-of-hearing or who are fans of foreign language TV  could be missing out on important character traits, according to a University of Huddersfield linguistics expert.

Now Dr Dan McIntyre has been awarded funding from a major research council which means he can continue to investigate subtitling for hearing-impaired viewers. He hopes that his project will bring about changes in the approach adopted by the film and TV industries.

Dr McIntyre, who is Reader in English Language and Linguistics, explains: “When you watch a TV drama with subtitles, you often find a discrepancy between the original dialogue and what is represented in the subtitles.

“We know from research in stylistics that particular character triggers in dialogue allow you to form an impression of a character, and those character triggers are often missing from the subtitles. You are getting a somewhat impoverished viewing experience if you are relying on those subtitles. So we are looking at the impact which that difference really does have on how you view the drama.” More.

See: Alpha Galileo

Google Translate now allowing users to edit translations

Source: Google Translate Blog

Google is launching a new experimental feature (in beta) that lets you customize and improve the way the Website Translator translates sites. Once you add the customization meta tag to a webpage, visitors will see your customized translations whenever they translate the page, even when they use the translation feature in Chrome and Google Toolbar. They’ll also now be able to ‘suggest a better translation‘ when they notice a translation that’s not quite right, and later you can accept and use that suggestion on your site. More.

See: Google Translate Blog

Over 75% of people conduct online searches in two or more languages according to survey

Source: Marketwatch

It might be assumed that not many people conduct online searches in more than one language. However, results from a global survey undertaken by an independent digital marketing agency suggest quite the opposite, that a significant 76% do. Occupations one might most readily associate with the Internet – IT and Marketing – topped the list of those who are most likely to search in more than one language.

Greenlight’s global “Search & Social Survey (2011-2012)” asked 500 people – from students, law enforcement professionals, medical staff, accountants, lawyers to the unemployed, how they engage with online advertising, search engines, and social networks, in order to glean insight into how consumers engage with marketers today, and to formulate views on what the future might hold.

Italy and Spain top multi-lingual search. More.

See: Marketwatch

India’s parliament is raucous – and lost in translation

Source: The National

India’s parliament is a raucous place. MPs often shout down opponents. People rarely speak in turn and more than a dozen languages are used. A team of translators tries to bring order to the chaos but a shortage of skilled professionals is creating a problem in Parliament House.

India lifted a two-decade hiring freeze for translators this year, but the government is struggling to find new recruits who can keep up with the pace of debate in parliament.

India’s 1.2 billion citizens speak more than 120 languages, 22 of which are recognised officially.

This diversity is reflected by MPs. The 50 men and women with parliament’s Simultaneous Interpretation and Verbatim Reporting Service (SIVRS) are tasked with providing simultaneous translation of the parliamentary debate in 15 Indian languages, including English.

“You cannot compare reporting here within parliament with anywhere else in world,” said an official with SIVRS, who asked not to be named as several members of the translation pool who have spoken to the press claim that is the reason they lost their jobs. More.

See: The National

Spanish couple arrested for allegedly scamming translators (source in Spanish)

Source: La Vanguardia.com

A Spanish couple has been arrested for allegedly scamming translators. See the news in Spanish.

Also see this thread.

See: La Vanguardia.com

Remember to visit ProZ.com Translators scam alert center

UK artists create ‘Google,’ a visual dictionary made of 21,000 Google Images

Source: The Verge

Using Google Images and 21,000 words from your run-of-the-mill English dictionary, UK artists Felix Heyes and Ben West have created a 1,240-page visual dictionary, aptly titled Google. To create the book, a pair of PHP scripts downloaded the first image for each word from Google’s service, placed them into a three-column layout, and exported the final product as a series of PDF files. West describes the hand-bound book as “an unfiltered, uncritical record of the state of human culture in 2012,” in which about half of the images are “revolting medical photos, porn, racism or bad cartoons.” Currently, Heyes and West plan on issuing a short run of a paperback edition of Google. Stay up to date on the book’s progress by signing up at either artist’s page.

See: The Verge

Book launch: Writers for promoting endangered languages

Source: The Express Tribune

Every year the world sees about 2,500 languages reach extinction as native speakers do not work for the continuation of their mother tongue from generation to generation, they said while speaking at the launch of five books at the National Language Authority on Monday.

In addition, they said the fast-paced and homogenous technological world of today is not conducive to verbal and literary diversity.

The books launched covered a wide academic spectrum from the importance and decay of the Urdu language to socio-political dynamics of Pakistan. Sulaiman Athar’s book ‘Saanwi zubaan se Urdu ki tadrees’ (Teaching Urdu as a second language), “is not only a reflection of the languages spoken in Pakistan,
but also a means to keep the language alive forever,” said the author.

Riffat Iqbal’s ‘Urdu adab mein kharadfarozi aur roshan khayali ki rawayat’ (Individualism and liberalism in Urdu literature) is a study on the rising trend of liberalism in today’s times, particularly in literature. “I like to use stream of consciousness while writing about the present as it gives a sense of urgency to my work,” the author said while talking to The Express Tribune. More.

See: The Express Tribune

A self-made African polyglot – thanks to radio (Africa)

Source: All Africa

In rural areas, listening to educational radio programmes is often the only way to learn foreign languages. The extraordinary story of Hassan Kaou is a case in point. Thanks to the radio, this young polyglot fluently speaks Japanese, Arabic, English and German, in addition to French and the main dialects of northern Cameroon: Haoussa and Fulfulde.

In one of the classrooms of the Ngaoundéré high school, in northern Cameroon, fifteen pupils, aged between eleven and seventeen, are assiduously learning Japanese. The class is taught by a volunteer teacher, Hassan Kaou, a history student at the University of Ngaoundéré.

Unlike other teachers, Hassan Kaou did not graduate from a language school. He learned Japanese by himself, through the radio. More.

See: All Africa

Indigenous languages key to prosperity

Source: The New Age

A senior lecturer in African languages at the University of Fort Hare, Dr Zoliswa Mali, says the use of indigenous languages is key to developing a “prosperous Africa”.

Mali took part in a social cohesion dialogue organised by the department of arts and culture at Guild Theatre, East London, on Africa Day, together with Prof Nomfundo Luswazi of Walter Sisulu University.

Mali said she found it curious that people chose to speak foreign languages even if they were all alone with non-speakers of the foreign language.

The African languages activist said parents should realise their indigenous languages were not just important for communication but were also important for cultural conservation. More.

See: The New Age

Winners of Tchernichovsky Prize for translation announced

Source: Haaretz

Tal Nitzan is receiving the prize for a diverse corpus of translation of poetry and prose written in a number of languages, especially Spanish.

The Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation has been awarded to Dr. Aminadav Dykman and Tal Nitzan.

The committee of judges for the prize, which is awarded by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality, awarded the NIS 18,000 prize to Dykman and Nitzan for their years of effort and achievement in translation work.

Dykman has translated poetry written in a number of ancient and modern languages. Some consider his most important translation to be an anthology of 17th century European poetry.

Nitzan is receiving the prize for a diverse corpus of translation of poetry and prose written in a number of languages, especially Spanish.

The two will receive their awards in a ceremony to be held this coming October. More.

See: Haaretz

US Supreme Court decision reaffirms definitions of interpreting and translation as separate disciplines

Source: Interpret America

(…)The simple answer, now upheld by the Supreme Court, is that translators write, and interpreters speak.
When Japanese professional baseball player Kouichi Taniguchi fell through a wooden deck at the Marianas Resort and Spa while on vacation in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, he unwittingly set in motion a chain of legal maneuvers that culminated this week when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling. The question presented before the highest court in the land, however, had nothing to do with construction codes, accident liability or even compensation for pain and suffering. The question presented is whether costs incurred in translating written documents are “compensation of interpreters” for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1920(6).[1]

“So what?” may well be your next question. But for translators and interpreters, a cadre of multilingual knowledge workers whose importance continues to grow daily in the globally connected 21^st century, and for those who rely on their services, calling things by their names matters. Clear definitions are important; they help ensure that all parties involved understand each other.
Consider Capitol Hill, home to this nation’s lawmakers. Representatives work in the House, while senators work in the Senate. The work they do is similar, but no senator would take kindly to being called a congressman, and no congressman would try to participate in a vote on the Senate floor, even though they both work in Congress.
A similar division of labor exists between translators and interpreters. Translators work with the written word. They translate international treaties. They translate seized documents from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They have translated Harry Potter into at least 67 other languages.  In contrast, interpreters made the Nuremburg Trials possible by simultaneously interpreting witness testimony into and out of English, French, German and Russian for those present in the courtroom. Interpreters make it possible for our president to pick up the phone and speak with other world leaders. They work in countless emergency rooms across this country interpreting what doctors and patients say in life and death situations. A literary translator is of no more use to an emergency room doctor than a medical interpreter is to a company that wants to publish the English version of Stieg Larsson’s latest mystery novel.  The skills, disciplines, and job descriptions are quite distinct.
In its opinion, the Court stated that “both the ordinary and technical meanings of ‘interpreter,’ as well as the statutory context in which the word is found, lead to the conclusion that § 1920(6) does not apply to translators of written materials.”[2] More.

See: Interpret America

EU representatives in Croatia searching for translators

Source: Emg.rs

Assembly language decision is defended after criticism (South Wales)

Source: This is South Wales

SOUTH West Wales AMs have defended their decision to recommend that minutes of every meeting held at the National Assembly should be translated into Welsh.

AMs Mike Hedges and Bethan Jenkins were part of the communities, equality and local government committee which has recommended that as well as plenary sessions held in the Senedd, transcripts of all committee and other meetings should be translated into Welsh.

Yesterday a debate raged across the country after criticism of the decision, the cost of which was estimated to be up to £400,000.

Speaking to the Post Bethan Jenkins, AM for South Wales West, said: “We have made a recommendation to the Assembly commission at this stage to provide a comprehensive translation service, based on the multitude of evidence we took, but also because Welsh is an official language here in Wales, and the National Assembly — as this country’s legislature — has a duty to provide services in both languages. More.

See: This is South Wales

SAIC introduces spoken MT App for the iPhone

Source: Common Sense Advisory

SAIC today made Arabic and Spanish versions of its Omnifluent Travel machine translation (MT) app available at the iTunes store for free, joining a growing category of handheld MT and mobile interpreting offerings. While online MT software has long offered computer users translation at their fingertips, this technology on mobile phones brings language technology into real-life situations, such as traveling to distant lands.

The Omnifluent Travel app accepts either keyboard input on the iPhone or spoken requests using SAIC’s automated speech recognition (ASR) technology. Both apps use the company’s MT engine in the cloud for bidirectional translation to or from English, and produce both a textual and spoken version of the translation. Translation requires a connection to the web.

When the phone doesn’t have web access, the app allows one-way communication of emergency, health, dining, and transportation issues through a set of more than 100 phrases that should prove useful for travelers. For example, the set expressions run the gamut from “call a doctor!” to “where is the nearest all-night drug store?” When the iPhone is connected to the cloud, users can record, save, and even post-edit translations of expected interactions, such as “please take me to the Jeddah Hilton” to play for the cab driver at the airport.

We spoke with SAIC Senior Vice President Jonathan Litchman about the product and his company’s plans for the technology. He told us that the major reason for making the app available for free was to showcase the company’s ASR and MT technology to a broader community than the usual professional and government workers who use SAIC’s products. Longer term, the Travel App is a test bed for future versions tailored to the needs of a specific vertical. SAIC has already produced a version for the New Jersey Association of County and City Health Officials to support the group’s influenza outreach program to Spanish-speaking residents of the state.

Litchman acknowledged that Omnifluent Travel is a first-version product in explaining an input-output issue that we noticed with the Arabic version of the application. Because it was trained with speakers in Egypt and the Gulf States, the speech recognition component stumbled with our Algerian-born test speaker. Also, the MT outputs classic Arabic, not the dialect used in North Africa. Litchman said that the broader community that will be reached through the iTunes store – and through future Android and Windows Mobile versions – should increase the app’s ability to deal with other dialects and regional accents. However, classical Arabic will be the preferred dialect until there’s demand for other variants. More.

See: Common Sense Advisory

Supreme Court says interpretation and translation are different things when it comes to fee

Source: The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says interpretation and translation are not the same thing when it comes to paying fees associated with federal civil lawsuits.

The high court ruled Monday that the translation agency did not deserve to get $5,517.20 in compensation for interpreters for fighting off a lawsuit from a Japanese professional baseball player.

The company argued that translating written documents was the same as “compensation of interpreters,” which can be charged to losing parties.

The court disagreed. This came in a case where Japanese professional baseball player Kouichi Taniguchi sued a resort owned by Kan Pacific after falling through a wooden deck while in the Northern Mariana Islands. A federal judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out his lawsuit and awarded costs to Kan Pacific. More.

See: The Washington Post

£400,000-a-year meeting translation plan for National Assembly into Welsh

Source: Wales Online

AN EXTRAORDINARY recommendation has been made by eight AMs that would see up to £400,000-a-year spent on translating the written record of every meeting held at the National Assembly into Welsh.

A new law is under consideration that will define the Assembly’s approach to the Welsh language. The Assembly Commission, which runs the legislative arm of our national democratic body, wants to stick with the current arrangement under which a fully bilingual transcript of plenary meetings is produced.

But members of the communities, equality and local government committee, who are scrutinising the National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Bill, have recommended that in addition to plenary sessions, the transcripts of all committee and other official meetings of the Assembly should also be translated into Welsh.

A senior Assembly source has suggested to us that if the recommendation is accepted by AMs as a whole, the total cost of translating all Assembly proceedings could rise to as much as £400,000. This is a rough calculation projected from the cost of translating plenary meetings, currently not far short of £100,000. More.

Land’s End Cornish translation removal criticised

Source: BBC

The removal of a Cornish translation of the name of Land’s End from an entrance to the landmark has been criticised by Cornish language advocates.

The Cornish Language Partnership said the removal of the words “Penn an Wlas” ahead of the Olympic Torch’s arrival was an act of “linguistic cleansing”.

It added that such moves could be damaging to Cornish culture.

Managers at the attraction said the move was just part of a planned refurbishment.

Cornish is believed to have died out as a first language in the late 18th Century. More.

See: BBC

Angola: World Day of Cultural Diversity celebrated Monday

Source: All Africa

Luanda — The World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly to mark the date of approval in 2001, of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity .

The declaration rises cultural diversity to the category of “common heritage of mankind”, as necessary for humankind as biological diversity for living organisms and whose defence is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for individual dignity.

the declaration includes general guidelines that are general guidelines for the Member States, in cooperation with the private sector and civil society, translating them into innovative policies.

According to UNESCO, member states undertake to take appropriate steps to disseminate widely its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and promote its effective implementation.

The promotion of linguistic diversity, while respecting the mother tongue at all levels of education, wherever possible, and encouraging the learning of several languages from an early age are also part of the declaration of UNESCO.

See: All Africa

Welsh scientists use Shakespeare to unlock the true art of translation

Source: Wales Online

Scientists from a Welsh university are exploring how some of the world’s best known works of literature are interpreted in widely diverse ways by different cultures – using more than 300 translations of a famous Shakespearean couplet.

The eventual goal of the Swansea University-led global translation project is to establish a complex cultural database of some of the world’s most important pieces of literature such as The Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Homer.

Swansea University modern languages expert Dr Tom Cheesman[CORR] is seeking translations and adaptations in all languages – including various versions of English – of a controversial couplet from Othello that has had experts scratching their heads for hundreds of years.

Already, the team has received translations in over 20 languages, including Albanian, Catalan, Finnish, Kiswahili. Macedonian, Persian and Ukrainian.

The couplet being translated is that of the last words spoken by the Duke of Venice in Othello: “If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black”.

Dr Cheesman said: “These lines raise controversial questions for readers, actors, directors, critics and editors, as well as translators.”

The different ways in which people from different countries and cultures interpret the lines go a long way towards showing works like Othello are not, in the words of Shakespeare’s Caesar, “as constant as the northern star”. More.

See: Wales Online

English triumphs over other languages

Source: Straight

The second president of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that “English will be the most respectable language in the world and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the end of this one.” It is destined “in the next and succeeding centuries to be more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age.”

It was a bold prediction, for at that time there were only about 13 million English-speakers in the world, almost all of them living in Britain or on the eastern seaboard of North America. They were barely one percent of the world’s population, and almost nobody except the Welsh and the Irish bothered to learn English as a second language. So how is Adams’s prediction doing now?

Well, it took a little longer than he thought, but last week one of the most respected universities in Italy, the Politecnico di Milano, announced that from 2014 all of its courses would be taught in English.

There was a predictable wave of outrage all across the country, but the university’s rector, Giovanni Azzoni, simply replied: “We strongly believe our classes should be international classes, and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language. Universities are in a more competitive world. If you want to stay with the other global universities, you have no other choice.”

See: Straight