Ouvrant le débat entre traducteurs et graphistes

Message posté aujourd'hui sur un forum de traducteurs francophones :

Comme une grande proportion des fichier pdf que nos clients nous demandent de traduire sont aujourd'hui des fichiers de sortie crées sous InDesign, les échanges sur le thème « Traduire en Pdf », ouvre un débat bien plus vaste.

Comme l'écrit Branislav Milic a écrit récemment :
« Les métiers de la communication (journalisme, web, imprimé, multimédia, audio-vidéo, design,...) doivent impérativement travailler main dans la main en raison des convergences technologiques et artistiques indéniables et déjà palpables de nouveaux médias et de nouveaux modes de consommation. »
... sauf qu'il a oublié d'inclure « traduction » dans sa liste...

Permettez-moi de présenter quelques idées et commentaires, et fournir quelques liens, dans le but d'élargir ce débat. En le faisant, je vais faire quelques critiques à nos collègues graphistes. Mon point de vue est basé sur des expériences répétées, mais pas forcément représentatives. Si vous avez eu d'autres ou si vous pensez que j'ai tort merci de corriger le tir.

Je travaille depuis bien des années avec bon nombre de graphistes basés en France ; certains ayant des petites équipes, la plupart faisant partie de grandes agences.

D'après ce que j'ai vu, les agences françaises (j'entends basées en France) sont souvent très fortes en créativité, relations avec leurs clients (souvent également les nôtres) et graphisme, bien moins en ce qui concerne l'optimisation de la « chaîne graphique » et l'utilisation de Word avec InDesign et carrément bornées en ce qui concerne toute approche multiculturelle à la mise en page et mise en ligne de documents et textes.
Sur ce dernier point, la question que pose est celle-ci : une maquette méritant tel ou tel louange (élégant, efficace, percutant, …) du point de vue du lectorat de culture A, méritera-t-elle le même du point de vue du lectorat de culture B ? Ce sujet est encore plus vaste que celui déjà abordé, mais d'autres commencent à y penser.

Revenant à InDesign, Word, nous et les graphistes.
Quelques commentaires :
- les dernières versions de InDesign sont conçues pour travailler directement avec du texte Word et avec des feuilles de styles Word
- il est possible de créer des feuilles de styles InDesign & Word utilisant les mêmes styles et réduisant (a priori et après mise au point multiples) le ‘versement' de tout un fichier Word dans un fichier InDesign avec quelques cliques (si vous connaissez des agences qui travaillent déjà ainsi, nous aurions tous intérêts à travailler avec eux et à promouvoir leurs services auprès de nos clients)
- l'agence graphique qui procède par copier-coller (ou pire qui « re-tape » vos titres et légendes), ou qui n'a pas les modules nécessaires pour travailler dans votre langue d'arrivée, a encore du chemin à faire.

Pour en savoir plus (en anglais), consulter:
- Moving Text From Word to InDesign
- mon blogue
- memoQ and InDesign

Pour en savoir plus (en français), consulter:
- site de Branslav Milic
- site de Ziggourate Formation
- et d'autres entreprises similaires

Insourcing Boom (in industry)

The Insourcing Boom by Charles Fishman in the December 2012 issue of the Atlantic is remarkable in many respects. Among other things, it highlights the power of even erroneous group think over just about everything, including deep, comprehensive analysis (I refer to the efforts of the handful of people who saw the errors inherent in outsourcing long before others).

Inspired by this excellent article, I would like to hazard a three quick and highly optimistic predictions:
1) The day will come when more companies will realise that sincere, honest, simple messages can achieve more than hype.
2) That these companies, and hopefully others too, will realise that texts presenting such messages that need to be translated, deserve the attention of professional translators and consistent client-translator relations.
3) That these companies, and hopefully others too, will realise that document production can benefit from the comprehensive analysis of methods, workflow and accounts in the very broadest sense, not just in terms of word rates.

Predictions or daydreaming? Time will tell. But the fact that the insourcing boom is now taking place leaves more room for hope.

Translating in, into or for InDesign

On 30 October I posted under the heading Moving text from Word to InDesign.

Today, I'd like to share a couple of links concerning the latest emerging methods for translating InDesign files for translators already familiar with Kilgray's memoQ TEnT, or translation environment tool. (I am not in fact a memoQ user, but I freely admit that the technology is advancing very fast indeed and may soon become part of an almost standard procedure for translating InDesign files.)

First, this announcement from Kilgray:
InDesign support with preview (new in memoQ 6.2)
Using a cloud-based file filter, Language Terminal uses an InDesign server in the background to import INDD, INX or IDML documents. Once Language Terminal processes an InDesign document, you get a memoQ bilingual document with the text, the live preview, and a PDF file for your reference. The preview works in memoQ and memoQWebTrans, too.

Second, this tongue-in-cheek introduction by Kevin Lossner.
(Caution: Second-language readers might find this a little challenging.)


Third, LanguageTerminal.
The section of the What Is? page on InDesign says:
Import InDesign documents with preview. Language Terminal can process all Adobe® InDesign™ documents known to the CS6 edition and produce XLIFF files. These XLIFF files include live preview if you translate them in the memoQ translation environment. In addition, you can now import native INDD files, not just IDMLs and INXs.

Comment:
It is interesting to note that translators are thinking hard about their workflows.
It is equally interesting to note that in some sections of the international market for InDesign services, a few agencies seem interested in saving money for themselves and/or their customers by optimising workflows while the majority (especially in my limited experience in southern Europe) appear to be so focused on creative graphics, scintillating presentations and hype that simpler notions like well-though-out workflows that speed delivery and save money attract little attention.

Well, for anyone wanting to break the mould and challenge the agencies qualifying as "lazy fat cats", at least the ideas and tools are now available.

Insights into editing

On 16 November 2012 Yuka Igarashi posted a fascinating piece to The Granta blog entitled House Style: Editing Brazil. The comments also give insights into what goes on in the editor's head while editing.

The processes that go on in the heads of translators working on technical journalism are similar if, perhaps, little less obsessive than at Granta.

On this theme, see also Kevin Hendzel's excellent post entitled Confirmation Bias: Why Collaboration is the Path to Translators’ Best Work.

Neologisms in high finance

Gillian Tett's article entitled Beware the next financial blindspot, published in the Financial Times on November 22, gives a remarkable insight into the challenges and, on this occasion, the immense importance, of coining terms combining meaning and impact.

Ms Tett relates how Paul Tucker, now deputy governor of the Bank of England, tried to sound timely alarm bells about  systemic financial risks posed by what he initially called “Russian doll finance” or “vehicular finance”. It was not, however, until Paul McCulley, a senior Pimco official, coined the term “shadow banking” in 2007 that the concept, thanks partly to its new high-impact name, began to catch on.

Ms Tett does an excellent job explaining the details and the importance first of the concept, second of the term -- shadow banking -- combining meaning and impact.

Translators, who often have to come up with names for things "on the fly" usually earn no more for a well-coined high-impact term than they do for any other handful of words. And, as a rule, there's nothing much wrong with that. Sometimes, however, as Gillian's superb article demonstrates, a very great deal can hang on the success or failure of a handful of words.

Constructions that bring to mind the unspoken

Under the heading Thank you can be the hardest words, FT columnist Andrew Hill writes:
“ ... dispatched his chief financial officer, ..., with a brief thank-you – before pointing out how their working styles were not well matched. (Perhaps the clue was in his use of the phrase 'I want to thank Liz' – a construction that always suggests to me the unspoken addition ' . . . but I just can’t bring myself to do so'.)”

The expression  “a construction that always suggests to me the unspoken addition... ” is an excellent example of the sort of subtlety of language that should be available to 'into mother-tongue' translators but only very rarely to 'into L2' translators.

Found in translation

For information about Found in Translation by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche start here.

Writing in the American Translators Association Chronicle, Corinne McKay, sums the book up nicely:
"In superbly written, rigorously researched, and perfectly-sized segments, the authors have encapsulated the passion that all of us have for our work and its place in the world. [...] Found in Translation starts from a beautifully simple premise -- translation is everywhere -- and weaves a rich story of the ways in which languages truly do shape the world."

Highly recommended.