When Joseph P. Mazza graduated from George Washington University in international politics in 1984, he had no intention of becoming a translator. He did, however, love languages — in college he had studied Russian, Chinese, French and Spanish — so he accepted a job offer as a clerk translator at the Navy, translating from Russian. In 1989, he jumped to the State Department as a translator of Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese). In 2003, he became head of that section and, in 2006, became chief of the translating division, overseeing 20 staff translators, eight translation project managers and about 450 contractors. On a recent trip to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, he agreed to meet with the press for the first time and talked with Moscow Times columnist Michele A. Berdy about the genre of diplomatic translation, how 18th-century language is meeting the new communication technology, and how to handle VIP clients who want the translation yesterday.

Q: Is diplomatic translation a separate genre?

A: In diplomatic translation we deal first and foremost with a diplomatic note from one leader to another leader. It can be something as simple as “Thank you for the handsome set of cufflinks,” or it can be something as complex as “I don’t support your stance on a certain international issue, and here’s why.” In international diplomacy there is a very old set of stock phrases that grew up in Latin, then in French, and then were translated into the vernacular and are now in everything from Azeri to Vietnamese.

For example, in English we use “I should like to inform you,” “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of,” and “I present my compliments to … .” We ask for someone’s “kindly consideration of this proposal.” As we say, we are never kind, but we give kindly consideration. There are words that are verboten, too. We actually stay away from “please” in diplomatic usage. We prefer a terser style.

People will sometimes challenge this code, but if you keep it, you always know where you stand. If you close a letter and say, “I’m giving you the assurances of my highest consideration,” then the next time if the letter comes with “I’m giving you the assurances of my high consideration,” you see that something subtle has changed.

Q: Do you aim for a literal translation?

A: In my little part of the world, we want to give our decision makers and our audiences — and sometimes that’s the general public — a smooth, clean, natural-sounding read. The message is the most important thing, so why be distracted by unnatural constructions? If it is one of these critical notes where a world leader is opening up and saying what he or she really thinks about an issue, you want the decision maker — maybe the president himself — to be reading a clean message.

While certainly there is a lot of emphasis on understanding the source language, there is a huge emphasis on style and usage in English. How do you take these ideas and put them into an English that is easy to read, that doesn’t sound like a translation but yet doesn’t depart from the original and doesn’t editorialize? In some senses, you almost erase yourself.

Q: Tell me about treaty conformity. Treaties always end, “Done—”

A: “—in the English and Russian languages, in two versions, both versions being equally authentic.”

In the United States, we have a rule that before any treaty or international agreement is signed, it must go through a certification process. The authority to do that is vested in my office. One or two linguists will sit down with the Russian on one side and the English on the other, and they go through it line by line, word for word, looking for discrepancies. Read more.

See: The Moscow Times