The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

Steve Pinker's next book will be entitled The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. I look forward to it.
For an interview with Pinker, see the Harvard Gazette article entitled ‘What could be more interesting than how the mind works?’.

Towards the end, Pinker makes some interesting comments on 'the curse of knowledge' which "prevents us from fully appreciating what it’s like to be a student or a reader". Pinker's 'us' refers to teachers, but the same approach applies equally well to technical journalism and the translation thereof or, in a nutshell, about how to see your readers.
The final passages of Pinker's interview are remarkable in many respects. Clear. Refreshing. Insightful.
Recommended reading for all, but more particularly for anyone over 40 who has expressed doubt about a younger generation.

Arthur Goldhammer interview

BloggerheadTV has an excellent interview -- particularly so for translators -- with Arthur Goldhammer, translator of Thomas Piketty's runaway success Le capital au XXIe siècle, or, in English, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Interviewer Mike Konczal asks insightful questions, from a translator's viewpoint, despite the fact that he is not a translator.

A few points:

• Goldhammer studied physics and mathematics and earned a PhD in mathematics before switching his primary focus to languages and then translation.
• He mentions no formal training as a translator other than with the US Army's Vietnamese service.
• He stresses the importance of his in-depth understanding of mathematics in translating texts dealing explicitly or indirectly with that field.
• He readily admits that a couple of challenging technical terms in Capital in the Twenty-First Century that presented both author and translator with a choice between two equivalents might have been better translated by the term they ended up rejecting. Very few translators are open to this type of debate, but perhaps it's easier for truly great exponents of the art than for lesser ones.

Between interview times 20:00 and 26:00, AG says that TP used patrimoine (wealth) and capital (capital) interchangeably and the translation could do the same. AG thus translated TP's approval rato capital/revenu as capital/income ratio, but now recognises that income/capital ratio would have been a better choice.

At 42:40, AG introduces a useful concept when he discusses "the problem of translating from one community of reference to another ...".

Check list for Which English?

Sarah Dillon has a useful checklist to help into-English translators decide which variant of English and English spelling to use when the client fails to indicate a preference.

Show 'em what you can do_#4

As the heading suggests, this post is one of a series.

To follow, start with Show 'em what you can do_#1 and proceed in chronological order.

This is an experiment. Feel free to submit comments or suggestions.

Block 1

For the French, see Les paris gagnés de DCN

100 HLES, steel for the deep

A submarine’s dive performance is determined first and foremost by the strength of the hull material. Since the Narval – the country’s first post-World War II submarine built in 1954 – the yield strength of French hull steels has more than doubled. HLES-grade steels are in a class of their own. (HLES stands for haute limite d'élasticité soudable or ‘high-yield weldable’.)

DCN and steel-maker Creusot-Loire Industrie developed HLES 100-grade steel specifically for the Le Triomphant programme. This steel can withstand a tensile stress of 100 kg/mm2, making it four times stronger than mild steel. By 1991, Creusot-Loire Industrie was supplying DCN with HLES steel to specifications unmatched by steelmakers delivering to either the US Navy or the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy.

The product was developed by Creusot Loire laboratories in Burgundy and produced by its Chateauneuf steel mill. Heavy-gauge sheets of HLES 100 steel are shaped, stamped, cold formed and milled then welded together at DCN’s Cherbourg shipyard. The next challenge will be to produce HLES 120 and even HLES 130 steel.

Caption: Collar for reactor pool. Approx. diam.: 6 m.

Running commentary

• HLES is important as it is the product's formal name. It also seems worthwhile to give both the long form of this French acronym and a translation.
• 'Stronger' is not a precise engineering term but is, I think, acceptable in this technical journalism context.
• Italics for the names of ships:
  In literature and general journalism, italics is the rule.
  In naval technical writing many writers only use italics for the names of ships in service, but not for vessels that have yet to be commissioned or have been decommissioned.
  In the shipbuilding industry, projects go through many phases before the first vessel is commissioned and the name of the proposed ship or class may change frequently. Writers are thus easily confused as to when they should and should not use italics. My advice to any shipbuilder or naval projects office that asks is simple: No italics. Many may disagree. But many will disagree whatever the writer chooses to do.

Show 'em what you can do_#3

As the heading suggests, this post is one of a series.
To follow, start with Show 'em what you can do_#1 and proceed in chronological order.
This is an experiment. Feel free to submit comments or suggestions.
The spelling used here is based on the analysis detailed in the February 2012 post -iz- is not American.

Heading and introduction

For the French, see Les paris gagnés de DCN

DCN innovates time and again

Thanks to inventors like Maxime Laubeuf (1864–1939) and Gustave Zédé (1825–1891), France has long stayed a step ahead of its competitors in submarine design and construction. Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, DCN has repeatedly demonstrated its flair for innovation. Today, DCN is a leading European submarine builder and a major exporter with clients that include the navies of Spain, Portugal , Pakistan and Chile. Below we describe some cutting-edge techniques developed for the French Navy’s Le Triomphant-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs.

Running commentary

• International readers will probably want a little more information about the inventors than the French provides.
• Second sentence of French contains too many ideas. I've attempted to break it up.
• Many readers, including non-specialists, will likely be more familiar with the standard acronym SSBN than the long form (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine), hence the early introduction.
• Note too that while the general rule in technical journalism is to give the long form corresponding to each acronym, some naval acronyms are in a category of their own. SSBN stands for ship, submersible, ballistic (missile), nuclear (powered). It is what is called a standard hull classification symbol and, like other symbols of this type, is normally introduced as above.

Show 'em what you can do_#2

The web page I've chosen to translate for this exercise is called
Les paris gagnés de DCN.

Although out of date (DCN became DCNS is 2007), it presents plenty of challenges that will, I hope, give me a chance to present and discuss my approach to translation/adaptation as outlined in Translation by emulation, take #1 and Translation by emulation, take #2.

Preliminary assumptions

The first step towards producing a reader-centred translation is to define the readership.
The target readership I have in mind can be described as keen and technically aware but non-specialist. In other words, people who regularly read about naval and defence issues, but are specialists in neither. I also assume no in-depth knowledge of France, French institutions or DCN. I further assume that a significant proportion will be reading in their second or third language.

Title (Les paris gagnés de DCN)

The first translation challenge proper is the title or heading.
Literally it translates as either 'Winning DCN hands' or 'DCN winning hands'.
Unfortunately, neither sounds particularly natural or works well as an attention grabber.

Although not entirely satisfied, I propose:
DCN innovates time and again.

The idea of building the heading around an active verb was proposed by rereader and colleague Roger Depledge of Toulouse, France.
Roger suggested the Biggles pattern
[Entity] [verb] [key word or two (no more than two or three syllables each)].

Biggles flies again is a good example.
Before even beginning to search for a reminder of the style used in Captain W.E. Johns' Biggles comics, I understood instantly what Roger meant.
(I also realise that this may indelibly stamp our respective generations.)

Show 'em what you can do_#1

When a prospective client asks a freelance translator for a sample of his or her work, the response is sometimes a lame "I'm afraid all my work is subject to client privilege" or similar.
When asked if they will accept to do a free trial, many translators, quite reasonably, reply that while pro bono work may be envisaged on occasions, free trials are not good professional practice.

In this age of the internet, there are, however, a number of easy-to-implement solutions.
One is to critique the work of others.
Dominique Jonkers Facebook page entitled Des pépites sur le bout de la langue is a good example in French.
Note, however, that this approach demands expertise and confidence and that the tone of the criticism must be pitch perfect so to speak.

Another is to show 'em what you can do, using the following approach:

• Find an web page of interest in your source language, irrespective of whether it is current or out of date.
• Translate it.
• Post your translation on your blog, website of whatever complete with translation notes, or, alternatively, format your translation as a Word or html document, or whatever format is most convenient.
• Send your link(s) or document(s) to anyone who asks.

To demonstrate my point, I have located an out-of-date web page in my prime area of specialisation (naval defence and submarines), translated it, submitted my translation to colleagues for review and comment and will shortly post here my proposed translations with notes.

What sort of notes?
First, some notes on preliminary assumptions.
Second, notes concerning liberties taken and readily anticipated comments or queries by prospective clients and colleagues.
Third, some miscellaneous notes indicative of the sorts of things that run through a translator's mind while working.