Role of Translators in the proper functioning of the European Union - The Association of Professional Translators of Moldova (ATP)

ASOCIAȚIA TRADUCĂTORILOR PROFESIONIȘTI DIN MOLDOVA
O abordare profesionistă a comunicării interumane

Role of Translators in the proper functioning of the European Union

Speech delivered at the seminar of the Association of Professional Translators, Moldova   November 24, 2003 by Brigitte Schaefer, Lecturer, State University of the Republic of Moldova

First of all I thank you very much for your invitation. I am really happy to be with you this evening, for this very interesting meeting. I am going to tell you something about the situation of translation and interpreting in the European Union with some possible forecast of what will happen with the enlargement of the EU.

From the very beginning the Council of Europe had a very important task that was to improve communication among people with different cultural and linguistic background. We tried to do it because a better communication leads to better mobility in the Union, to better direct contacts, to major comprehension and cooperation between individuals and nations. The Council of Europe supports this kind of policy including in the education area, where we try to develop the necessary behaviour, knowledge and ability allowing people to become independent in their way of thinking and in their actions aiming at responsible and cooperative relations with other people. I think we can say that the Council tries to contribute to the creation of a democratic European citizenship.

 At the institutional level the EU uses 11 official languages to work with, so they didn’t choose the easier solution of only one official language. The Union has assumed very high costs and a difficult organization for the extensive interpreting and translation services. With the enlargement of the EU, even if we don’t know what might the Union decide, this process will become even more complex, when new countries will join the EU with languages which at present are not very widely used and less disseminated, as for example Romanian, One thing we know for sure: management of 20 to 25 languages will not be easy, because in this case we’ll have to speak about from 380 to 600 language combinations. In case that each language will be considered an official one, the EU will become the greatest and the most varied market of interpretation and translation services, where without doubt, preference will be given to the degree holders with a rich combination of languages.

Today EU shows respect to every single idiom following the principle of equality access. The right of every member nation, to express itself in the best way in its own language is observed, so that nobody has to renounce to be party to the communication process and to share his cultural peculiarity. That is why citizens and officials of every member nation have the right to read texts and documents in their languages, to avoid feeling themselves uncomfortable due to the poor understanding of a foreign language.

We can say that the unification process has partially been realized thanks to the production and the circulation of these texts. Countries involved in the bloody Second World War have in part built their Union and determined it in this way.

Additionally to these official texts there are of course a great number of literary and non literary texts, which facilitate ordinary activities, exchanges and relations between the different countries. The translation is necessary to make people feel that they have common interests and intellectual affinity in the Union with all its ethnic and linguistic varieties.

The translation of literary texts has developed a common European treasure of knowledge, of ideas and shared values. The translation of literary texts gives us the opportunity to take possession of others culture and, consequently, first of all it will be young people who will be able to build up their community identity.

(By the way editors decided to translate even classics, already translated about 50 years ago, due to the fact that those translations seem to reflect an outdated mentality with unusual constructions and metaphors, which can be proposed no longer).

Good interpreters/translators become also more and more important for the creation of new business relations and for the strengthening of the old ones, even for the resistance to the international competition. One cannot but mention here such domains as journalism, the film industry, the TV-film production, synchronization and so on.

At present the newest type of interpreting and a very important one has become the community interpreting, also called public service interpreting. Due to massive migratory flows from Asia, Africa, the Balkans, the European societies have become increasingly diverse in their linguistic and ethnic composition. Thus, the community interpreting is a widely spread phenomenon given the uncountable interpreting needs for those residents with small or no knowledge of the local majority languages in the Member States of the Union. It is unavoidable fact that these residents have to communicate with local authorities and public services and here appears the need to support them with interpreters or translators. We think that there are many job opportunities in this field.

However schools and curricula are not ready yet to prepare translators for the new tasks. In Italy and in other European countries, for example, students, most of all learn to be conference interpreters. Nowadays they study 2 foreign languages. They use their first FL in both active and passive way and the second FL in a passive way only. But this situation must change because in the future enlarged EU they will have to speak no less than 3 to 4 foreign languages. At this point it might be interesting to reflect in connection with what a translator/interpreter has to do with respect to those languages, what kind of knowledge, ability and experience he/she must achieve in order to work successfully. For the time being the requirement is that he/she has to know:

-          two FL

-          the means of documentation

-          specific terminology, perhaps relevant to one specific domain, and

-          he/she should have a solid cultural knowledge

In the 21st Century, however, he/she has to know something more and that is:

-          3 to 4 FL

and they must possess:

-          a knowledge network

-          a core competence

-          knowledge how to use their PC

-    and additionally he/she must learn the savoir etre, to move in a multi-linguistic and multiethnic reality. And in case of a translator that will not be enough, because he/she must know how to interpret texts, how to lay down a text, how to get them ready for publication, and finally he/she will be a proof-reader too.

On the other hand we have to admit that in the world English has become the most spoken language in international communication. English has become world property and today everybody in Europe learns English as their second language. Most of the international meetings are in English. In these situations English is the only language they work with. However, more and more three languages, -English, French and German - are used during meetings. Here we have interpreting services that cover all the combinations of these three languages. Thus on one hand there is a decreasing demand for interpretation from English on the market, but on the other hand there is a global increasing demand for interpreting into English. We believe that future interpreters/translators have to acquire the fundamental ability of translating form their third into their second foreign language. So schools and universities have to prepare their students for this new professional rule the market is demanding for.

I would like to sum up my address and at the end of my short reflection I’ll make two statements. In our linguistic environment a larger Europe means the knowledge of more languages. And I would like to underline the concept that interpreting/ translation is a strong means of cultural exchange and integration and that is why it is a means of peace.