Metaglossia: The Translation World

Choice

January 1, 2001

The first dictionary devoted to historical linguistics, the oldest scholarly branch of the discipline, this book fills a need. Most terms, laws, techniques, and processes that it defines are not listed in existing general or specialized dictionaries of linguistics. These include such tantalizing entries as "cranberry morpheme," "Dante classification," "lower-middle-class crossover," "'only-six' argument," "Northern cities shift," and "upper exit principle." Trask, a prolific author of student dictionaries in linguistics, provides clear definitions, examples, and lively commentary ranging from two lines to about half a page. He defines "pejoration," for example, as "a type of semantic change in which a word comes to denote something more offensive than formerly," and notes that "all of English 'churl,' 'villain' and 'boor' originally meant only 'farm worker,' but all have come to be insults, and much the same is now happening to 'peasant.'" The book includes a brief preface; lists of symbols, abbreviations, and tables; cross-references; and a 30-page bibliography. Although the price may seem high (a paperback edition would be welcome), the book's high quality and uniqueness make this a necessary purchase for all academic and many public libraries. J. M. Alexander; Carnegie Mellon University

 

#metaglossia_mundus

"On Friday afternoon, three professional translators participated in a panel, “The Bridge,” in Sanborn Library.By Julia Zichy

Published April 15, 2024

On April 12, Sanborn Library hosted a Q&A with three professional translators: Czech specialist Alex Zucker, Hindu and Urdu specialist Daisy Rockwell and Italian and German specialist Alta Price.

 

The event, dubbed “The Bridge,” was catered by the Nest Café and co-sponsored by the comparative literature program, the English and creative writing department, the Leslie Center for the Humanities and the Office of the Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs. French and Italian department chair Andrea Tarnowski organized the event, which drew around 40 students from across the College’s humanities departments.

“Planning this event has really been an education, finding out the sources for who translates what languages, what the signs of successful translation are,” Tarnowski said. 

Zucker reflected on the powerful calling he felt to become a translator, explaining that he and his fellow translators had felt an “innate responsibility” to share certain non-English texts with the English-speaking world.

“Translation is … how we can understand people from across the world who are always to some degree different from us, yet also inextricably linked to us,” Tarnowski said. “It’s another individual, another representative of another group. You have to do a form of translation to understand that individual [and] understand their experience.” 

Zucker said he most recently translated the Czech text “A Sensitive Person” by Jáchym Topol, which was shortlisted for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development Literature Prize in 2024. 

“Each book is its own theory,” Zucker said. “It is its own world. Each time we translate a book, we essentially create our interpretation of that book.”

In 2010, Zucker won the National Translation Award for his translation of Petra Hůlová's 2002 début novel, “All This Belongs to Me,” according to Tarnowski. Zucker was awarded the honor for his excellence in translating Czech culture successfully into the English language and retaining both the novel’s literal and metaphorical meanings, Tarnowski said.

During the panel, one student said learning a language can be like “building a lego” — as one learns language by building a cohesive structure of meaning. Yilu Ren GR, who is studying comparative literature, said she appreciated this metaphor.

“As a Chinese drill instructor, I use the lego metaphor to show students how the Chinese characters are combined into one Chinese word as the infrastructure of Chinese vocabulary, which is vastly different from the English vocabulary,” Ren said. “You’re putting pieces together, but it’s an organic new entity which we’re making from the pieces.” 

Ren — who hopes to pursue a career in translation after graduating this June — asked whether the “top experts in the field” are willing to teach prospective translators the art of translation. 

“Absolutely, I would love to lecture at a university about … the art of translation, but it’s just not a luxury that I particularly have or anticipate having, at least in the coming year or two,” Zucker responded.  

According to the Dartmouth English department website, the event was held in honor of English professor Monika Otter, who died on May 5, 2023. Otter, whose scholarship focused on the use of language, worked in Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Provençal, Spanish and medieval Welsh.

Tarnowski concluded the program by emphasizing the intricacies of translation, as well as the creativity it requires.

“Translation is niche in the sense that the splashy success tends to be for the authors of a given literary piece,” Tarnowski said. “But I think that there has been over the last decade an increasing attention paid to translation as its own real craft or art as opposed to something that’s derivative. All the panelists have said here that they really make a new creation, and this creation should also be on its own terms.” "

#metaglossia_mundus

"The Association of Translators and Interpreters Ireland (ATII) and the DCU Centre for Translation and Textual Studies are holding an all-day, in-person conference on language and the law next month.

The event, entitled ‘Language and the Law: Interpreting and Translation in Legal Settings’, takes place on Friday 24 May at Dublin City University (8.15am to 5.30pm).

The organisers say that the conference will bring together legal professionals, researchers, trainers in the legal and language arenas, relevant NGOs, and language professionals.

‘Lack of regulation’

The ATII, formerly known as the ITIA, says that the lack of regulation of translation and spoken-language interpreting in Ireland has given rise to concerns about standards, lack of due process, and potential miscarriages of justice.

The conference will focus on the challenges and complex needs inherent in multi-lingual communication in three settings: garda stations, the courts, and international protection.

The event will also address the issue of legal translation in the public, private, and corporate domains, specifically in relation to risk and liability.

Training and qualifications

The conference will also discuss best practice in the training, qualifications, and work of legal translators and interpreters.

Speakers include:

• Barbara Rovan (President of EULITA, the European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association),
• John O’Shea (chair, FIT Europe),
• Professor Lorraine Leeson (Centre for Deaf Studies, TCD),
• Professor Yvonne Daly (Professor of Criminal Law and Evidence, DCU),
• James MacGuill SC, (former president of the Law Society and CCBE President),
• Wendy Lyon (solicitor),
• Dia Silverstein (solicitor), and
• Sarah Jane Aberásturi (legal translator and chair, ATII Certification SC)."

#metaglossia_mundus

"An Indigenous man couldn’t understand the court proceedings when he was charged with a crime in Texas. He was sentenced anyway. 

By Sasha von Oldershausen

May 20240

The English expression “like a deer in the headlights” has no real equivalent in Spanish. Instead of its literal translation, “como un ciervo en los faros,” which would be lost on many Spanish speakers, you might instead use the phrasal verb “quedarse pasmado” (“to stay stunned”), which still fails to capture the momentary paralysis that accompanies the subject’s bewilderment. That’s how Fidel Gutierrez-Garcia looked when defense attorney Robert Garcia spoke to him in Spanish about his case, Garcia would later testify: “like a deer in the headlights.”  

Gutierrez-Garcia, a pecan picker from a rural part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, had been charged in Texas with possession with intent to distribute more than one hundred kilograms of marijuana—a felony, punishable by five to forty years in prison. On November 30, 2021, he and three other men were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol officers while walking near Van Horn, 120 miles southeast of El Paso, carrying what the officers described as burlap sacks containing the drug. The agents transported the men and their bags to the Van Horn Border Patrol station for processing. 

The next day, two agents responsible for recovering the marijuana interviewed the men. Unable to speak Spanish, the officers called an interpretation company to facilitate their conversation over the phone. Interpreter Christian Saenz later testified, at a motions hearing in March 2022, that he could tell Gutierrez-Garcia was not a native Spanish speaker. The defendant, Saenz said, told him that he spoke a Mayan language. 

 

Gutierrez-Garcia’s mother tongue turned out to be Northern Tepehuan, spoken by some 10,000 Indigenous residents of northern Mexico. It belongs not to the Mayan family of languages but to the Uto-Aztecan family, which includes more than thirty languages spoken by Indigenous people as far north as Idaho and as far south as Nicaragua. Few linguists in the U.S. have made it their focus. One of them, Stefanie Ramos Bierge, occupies a postdoctoral position at the New York Botanical Garden, documenting ecological terms in the Uto-Aztecan language Wixárika. She described Northern Tepehuan as a fast-paced and melodic language that makes frequent use of palatalizations—when consonant sounds are softened by the tongue meeting the palate, as with the “s” in “measure.” Whereas typical English and Spanish sentences usually follow a subject-verb-object sequence, in Northern Tepehuan the object’s placement is not fixed, and often the speaker will leave out the subject entirely. 

The Story: Writer John Spong on "Six Brothers"

On the witness stand in March 2022, Saenz said Gutierrez-Garcia responded to his questions in Spanish, albeit with short replies, though the interpreter could not glean his level of comprehension. But when he translated Gutierrez-Garcia’s Miranda rights into Spanish, Saenz recalled, Gutierrez-Garcia said he did not understand.

The language barrier became increasingly problematic as the case progressed. The Western District of Texas appointed Robert Garcia—who spoke fluent Spanish—as Gutierrez-Garcia’s counsel. Garcia met with Gutierrez-Garcia at the detention center in Sierra Blanca, 85 miles southeast of El Paso, to discuss his plea. “He said very little,” Garcia testified during the motions hearing. Having withdrawn from the case in March 2022 because of health issues, he now appeared as a witness for the defense. (Garcia died later that month.) “I would talk to him for a while, and he would . . . just sort of nod his head. And then I’d ask him, ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’ He would nod his head.” Garcia continued: “I frankly got the impression right away that . . . he was nodding his head just to be polite more than anything else.”

Given the proximity of the Western District of Texas to the border with Mexico, language interpreters are in high demand. Typically, the court will supply defendants with one—if it can find an interpreter who speaks the defendant’s mother tongue. Luis Navarro, a federally certified Spanish-language interpreter for the Western District of Texas’s Pecos and Alpine divisions, spoke with Gutierrez-Garcia to determine whether he could effectively translate for him in court and found that he could not. “He does speak some Spanish, in the sense of ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ ‘[my] name,’ and that’s it,” Navarro testified at the motions hearing. Navarro informed the court that he was unable to communicate with the client and tried to help locate an interpreter who could. But he was unable to enlist one fluent in Northern Tepehuan who was willing to take the case.

After Garcia withdrew as counsel, he was replaced by Shane O’Neal, a criminal defense attorney based in Alpine, an hour north of Big Bend National Park. O’Neal, who is proficient in Spanish, said he could gather some basic information from Gutierrez-Garcia: he had a wife and child, he lived with his father-in-law, he picked pecans for work. But O’Neal believed that the language barrier would compromise the case. He filed a motion to dismiss it on the grounds that his client did not understand Spanish well enough to comprehend the proceedings against him.

“It’s a bedrock principle of our Constitution,” O’Neal told me, “that people aren’t supposed to sit through this Kafkaesque proceeding, where they are in a courtroom and a lot of things are being said but they don’t understand what’s going on, and they’re not playing a meaningful role in making really important decisions that affect both how their case unfolds and what happens to their liberty.”

Brandon Beck, a law professor at Texas Tech University, who worked for eight years as an appellate attorney at the public defender’s office in the Northern District of Texas, compared the issue of language barriers in court to the way the government protects people who are legally “incompetent” from standing trial. “They can’t participate in their own defense,” he said. 

Though the issues of competence and language proficiency are fundamentally different, the takeaway is the same: a defendant’s comprehension is essential to the due process of law. To demonstrate this point, O’Neal put Gutierrez-Garcia on the stand during the motions hearing. First demonstrating his client’s ability to understand and respond to basic Spanish, O’Neal asked him a series of simple questions—his name, his place of origin. Gutierrez-Garcia answered these in Spanish. When O’Neal then asked him questions about the crime he was accused of committing, Gutie-rrez-Garcia’s responses suggested that he understood his infraction. But as soon as O’Neal began asking questions related to the court proceedings, Gutierrez-Garcia’s comprehension seemed to hit a wall.

“Do you know what a witness is?” O’Neal asked.

“No,” Gutierrez-Garcia said.

“Do you know what a judge is?” O’Neal asked.

“Judge, yes,” Gutierrez-Garcia replied.

“What’s a judge?” O’Neal asked.

“Judge,” Gutierrez-Garcia said.

“Can you tell me who in the room is the judge?” O’Neal asked.

Gutierrez-Garcia replied, “No.”

During a recent press appearance in Eagle Pass, Donald Trump made one of his hallmark incendiary speeches, remarking on migrant traffic crossing the Texas-Mexico border. “We have languages coming into our country,” he said from the town 330 miles northwest of Brownsville. “We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.” The remark drew plenty of criticism that noted the obvious: “It cannot be the case both that someone speaks a language and that no one speaks that language,” wrote a Washington Post columnist. 

But in the sense that some of the rare languages spoken by migrants are barely spoken in the United States, Trump’s not wrong.“There are people who come here and no one speaks their languages,” said O’Neal. 

For the few interpreters in the U.S. court system who are fluent in rare Indigenous languages, the task is a formidable one. For one, they must contend with the regular challenges of interpretation, making choices about what to prioritize—intonation, logic, sentence structure—within the overall transmission of meaning. They also face unique challenges in working with languages that lack cultural touchstones common to English and Spanish, said Dale Taylor, a Nebraska-based court-appointed interpreter of a Uto-Aztecan language called Tarahumara, spoken by some 70,000 in the state of Chihuahua. “They don’t understand a court system. They don’t understand a judicial system,” Taylor said of the Tarahumara people. “They don’t even have a word for a ‘law.’ ” 

Bierge noted that the same can be said for Northern Tepehuan. “Legal terms are not going to be in the language,” she said. The only interpreter Garcia and Navarro were able to find—a missionary who had interpreted for two previous cases—declined to take on Gutierrez-Garcia’s case, citing the difficulty of explaining legal concepts to Northern Tepehuan speakers.

 

The work of the interpreter within these Indigenous languages requires creativity and contextualization. Using the example of a “term of probation,” Taylor said of Tarahumara, “there’s no word for ‘probation.’ So you have to say, ‘You’re going to be watched. It’s kind of like you’re going to be watched for five years.’ ”

Emiliana Cruz is a Mexico City–based linguistic anthropologist and an interpreter of Chatino, spoken by about 45,000 people in the state of Oaxaca. She said communicating legalese to clients in U.S. courts can be an arduous process, often requiring lengthy explanations of abstract concepts. “I often find that the judges roll their eyes like, ‘Okay, when are you going to be done talking?’ ” Cruz said. Some judges will assume that her clients’ ignorance of legal matters equates to stupidity. 

Cruz’s two sisters, who’d also worked as interpreters, decided they didn’t want to continue; it was too emotionally taxing. “I do it because I feel that it is the only way someone can understand their rights in their own language,” Cruz said. “I think that is something fundamental for all of us, right?” 

Gutierrez-Garcia’s motion to dismiss the case was denied. U.S. district judge David Counts, of the Western District of Texas, concluded that Gutierrez-Garcia had “a sufficient understanding of the Spanish language to proceed to trial with a Spanish interpreter.” While Counts acknowledged the defendant’s right to an interpreter competent in his primary language, he wrote that the issue ultimately required a balance of the defendant’s rights against the “economical administration of criminal law.” 

Gutierrez-Garcia pleaded not guilty but sought to minimize his penalty by accepting responsibility for the crime in what is called a “stipulated bench trial.” There, the parties agreed that Gutierrez-Garcia had possessed marijuana with the intent to distribute it and that he reserved his right to an appeal, where he could challenge the district court’s finding that he was proficient in Spanish. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison. 

In August 2022, O’Neal filed an appeal with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which accounts for a high number of court hearings involving interpreters in the United States, and argued that the district court had abused its discretion. But a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit deferred to the district court’s decision. “True, there is evidence in the record that Gutierrez did sometimes struggle to understand legal concepts,” the opinion stated. It then framed Gutierrez-Garcia’s confusion as an issue not of language but of education. “The record indicates that Gutierrez never attended school.” 

The circuit judges concluded that because Gutierrez-Garcia was able to acknowledge having committed the crime, “any deviations from ideal communication” were minor enough that they would not be considered fundamentally unfair. In other words, as long as Gutierrez-Garcia was able to admit responsibility, his lack of comprehension of the proceedings or the arguments being made about his sentencing were considered
unimportant. 

Courts over the years have ruled that the right to an interpreter is necessitated by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which grant certain rights to those accused of crimes, including the right to know the charges and evidence against them. The Court Interpreters Act, enacted by Congress in 1978, turned those court decisions into statute law, stating that a court should use a certified interpreter provided that a defendant “speaks only or primarily a language other than the English language.” 

“If we all agreed he couldn’t speak Spanish, and we all agreed there wasn’t an interpreter there for his particular Indigenous language,” said Beck, “then there is no way to have any of these proceedings without violating the Sixth Amendment and probably the Fifth Amendment . . . and the Court Interpreters Act.” Nevertheless Beck was unsurprised by the ruling. “The Fifth Circuit has evolved over time [into] a court that has a lot of emphasis on law and order,” he said. “The Fifth Circuit today is often unsympathetic to the plight of the criminal defendant.” 

When Trump took office, in 2017, he had the opportunity to fill more than one hundred judicial vacancies, including seventeen across the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Six of the seventeen judges in the Fifth Circuit are Trump appointees. “Anytime one third of the court changes with one president—which should never happen—it’s going to shift the ideological perspective of the court,” Beck said. 

All three of the judges on O’Neal’s appeal were Trump appointees, including Texas judge Don Willett, whom Trump also considered as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

Gutierrez-Garcia’s case was not the first, nor the last, of its kind to appear before the Fifth Circuit. In United States v. Herrera-Quinones (2022), the Western District of Texas court provided a Tepehuan man with an interpreter fluent in his native language before determining that the defendant’s Spanish was sufficient. The defense argued that the Tepehuan
interpreter should not have been dismissed. Its request for reversal by the Fifth Circuit was also denied. 

 

In 2023 criminal defense attorney Matthew Kozik’s client Jose Manuel Ayala-Alas, a Tepehuan speaker who was provided with a Spanish interpreter, was sentenced to thirteen and a half years in prison for smuggling marijuana across the border, even after an expert testified that Ayala-Alas spoke Spanish at a second-grade level. “You have a federal court turning a blind eye to language issues,” said Kozik, who filed for an appeal and is awaiting a ruling. “This is not just some small-town Hudspeth County state court. This is a federal jurisdiction.” 

As his last resort, O’Neal petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to hear Gutierrez-Garcia’s case, invoking the Court Interpreters Act, as well as the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The odds were against him. Fewer than one percent of the cases heard by the high court involve indigent criminal defendants. “These are people who are poor, who can’t afford to pay, who are utterly helpless, who are pitted against the most powerful institution in the world—the United States of America,” Beck said. 

Gutierrez-Garcia served eighteen months in federal prison. His current whereabouts are unknown; O’Neal has been unable to contact him. In January the Supreme Court responded that O’Neal’s petition had been denied. He had expected the result but was disappointed. Still, he takes solace in the fact that it won’t change Gutierrez-Garcia’s fate significantly. By the time of the high court’s action, he had already served his time.  

This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “When a Defendant Gets Lost in Translation.”"

#metaglossia_mundus

"Looking to fulfill those pesky All-University Core Curriculum credit requirements? Well, there are now more options for students who are still in need of arts and humanities credits. Colorado State University students registering for the fall 2024 semester are now able to sign up for the newest foreign language class BS 420: Swearing Across Languages.

Seriously: CSU to offer new class Swearing Across Languages

Hana Pavelko, Collegian Columnist

April 16, 2024

 

Looking to fulfill those pesky All-University Core Curriculum credit requirements? Well, there are now more options for students who are still in need of arts and humanities credits. Colorado State University students registering for the fall 2024 semester are now able to sign up for the newest foreign language class BS 420: Swearing Across Languages.

 

After a trial run this semester with a few students, Swearing Across Languages will finally be available to be taken by all CSU students. This newest course offers a comprehensive look at swearing and curse words in several different languages, including Spanish, German, French, Mandarin and Russian. These languages are some of the most commonly spoken in the world, so students can use their newfound language skills almost anywhere.

“Our teaching team thought content learned in a typical foreign language class isn’t really helpful or practical in the real world,” said Puta Mierda, an assistant professor in the department of languages, literatures and cultures and the instructor for Swearing Across Languages. “I mean, when is, ‘What’s the weather today?’ ever going to come up in a casual conversation?”

“We’re looking to incorporate other languages into the course in the future. We’re really hoping to include American Sign Language because there are lots of fun gestures there.” –Puta Mierda, BS 420 instructor

In this new course, students will learn practical vocabulary sure to come up in any conversation: swear words. Studies have found that over 82% of conversations with a college student will include at least five different swear words. This course takes advantage of the natural inclination of college students to swear and teaches them how to say their favorite swear words in different languages.

“This is by far the most applicable language class you’ll ever take,” said Mist Ficker, one of the students from the trial run this semester, who will be returning as an undergraduate teaching assistant for the course in the fall semester. “The content they teach you is stuff you’ll actually need to know if you decide to visit another country.”

The course will spend approximately two weeks on each language and introduce students to a variety of curse words that are expected to come up most in daily conversation. The teaching team has cultivated a long list of vocabulary words found to come up in most conversations.

“We have found that students are actually more engaged because this is the content they actually want to learn in a foreign language course,” said Chier Bordel, a member of the teaching team.

While the course currently features five different languages, the teaching team is hoping to expand their cursing proficiency and include more languages.

“We’re looking to incorporate other languages into the course in the future,” Mierda said. “We’re really hoping to include American Sign Language because there are lots of fun gestures there.”

The teaching team of this newest foreign language class said they are looking forward to introducing this class to the CSU student body. They hope it will give a better insight into the cultural aspects of different countries while also providing students with a broader range of vocabulary they can use in practical situations."

#metaglossia_mundus

UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where people who are bilingual store language-specific sounds and sound sequences in their brains.

By Anne Brice

April 16, 2024Share link

 

Follow Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast about the people and research that make UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. Review us on Apple Podcasts. 

See all Berkeley Voices episodes.

 

 

 

For the first three years of Justin Davidson's childhood in Chicago, his mom spoke only Spanish to him. Although he never spoke the language as a young child, when Davidson began to learn Spanish in middle school, it came very quickly to him, and over the years, he became bilingual.

Now an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where in the brain bilinguals store language-specific sounds and sound sequences. The research project is ongoing.

This is the final episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first two episodes: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "A language divided."

 

For the first three years of Justin Davidson's life, his mom, Mindy, spoke only Spanish to him. But then she stopped. When Davidson learned Spanish in middle school, it came very quickly to him, and over the years, he became bilingual. Now, he's an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese. 

Courtesy of Justin Davidson

 

Read the transcript for Berkeley Voices episode 123, "One brain, two languages."

Anne Brice: This is Berkeley Voices. I'm Anne Brice.  

[Music: "Selena Leica" by Blue Dot Sessions]

For UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson, Spanish has always been a part of who he is.

Justin Davidson: My grandparents on my mother's side enrolled my mom in Chicago's first pilot program of Spanish-English bilingual education. I don't know why, but they did, because there was no cultural, linguistic, any kind of connection there.

So my mom, from K-12, kindergarten to 12th grade, was part of a single cohort. So the second graders above her, no. And the kindergartners below her, no, when she was in first grade. She was in that one cohort, where from K-12, all of their curriculum was in English and in Spanish.

And so with me, my mom spoke to me in Spanish exclusively until I was about 3, and then she stopped and reverted to English.

Anne Brice: His dad didn’t speak Spanish, and few people in their community did, so it just got easier to not be the only one speaking a different language other than English.

Justin Davidson: So did I speak Spanish as a child? No. I understood some things. But then, when I learned Spanish formally in school starting in, I think, sixth or seventh grade, everything came to me quite quickly.

Anne Brice: Wow. I wonder if it was stored in your brain…

Justin Davidson: So I have plenty to say about that. (Laughs)

Anne Brice: Yeah?

[Music fades out]

Justin Davidson: There are linguists now, now that we have such advanced technology to do fMRI, to do PET scans, to do all sorts of imaging of the brain, we can study so many facets of language, and where and how language is processed in the brain.

Anne Brice: Davidson is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. When he teaches a course in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, he always shares with his students a 2014 study in which researchers looked at a group of people who were born in China and adopted by French-speaking families before the age of 3.

This group of international adoptees grew up in France as monolinguals, speaking only French. Unlike French, Chinese dialects have multiple sets of different words distinguished orally only by their pitch or tone.

Justin Davidson: So the question is, how do different speakers process tone, process pitch in the brain, if they've been exposed to a language where that's very linguistically meaningful, relative to languages like French, where, you know — au revoir, au revoir, au revoir (said in different tone and pitch) — same word, no difference.

[Music: "Trois Gnossiennes" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Anne Brice: When the adoptees were older — between 9 and 17 years old — linguists played pseudowords, or fake words, for them while they were in fMRI machines. These words contained tones that are present in Mandarin and Cantonese and in several other Chinese dialects.

And what researchers found was that for these adoptees, electrical activity in their brains was present in the left hemisphere, where most of language is processed. So their brains recognized the tones as related to language.

But for French speakers with no exposure to Chinese, electrical activity was only in the right hemisphere, which has general cognitive acoustic capabilities. So their brains recognized the tones as just sound, not connected to language.

Justin Davidson: And so the idea is that the brain at a very early age has primarily linguistic faculties on the left hemisphere of the brain. And so speakers whose languages use tone or pitch in a linguistically meaningful way, those are the areas of the brain where pitch and tone are processed.

And for everyone else in the world (laughs) whose pitch and tone in their language isn't linguistically meaningful in that way, other general, sort of, cognition and acoustic processing areas of the brain are what's used.

Anne Brice: In fact, electrical activity in the adoptees' brains was the same as it was for native Chinese speakers.

So even though the adoptees, after they moved to France, had no subsequent exposure to Chinese and no conscious recollection of that language, their brains had effectively stored it — for years, if not indefinitely.

Justin Davidson: So the brain is very, sort of, geographically organized according to the languages that we're exposed to as children. It's fascinating.

[Music comes up, then fades out]

Anne Brice: With advanced brain imaging technologies, researchers have learned a lot about where and how language is processed in the brain — and they continue to learn more.

Since 2020, Davidson has been part of a research team at UC San Francisco that’s working with bilinguals to map where exactly in the brain particular sound features of different languages are processed and stored.

To conduct their research, the team is studying brains of people undergoing surgery to treat certain brain conditions, like seizure disorders or chronic migraines.

Justin Davidson: One of the medical solutions for that is to implant, physically touching the brain, a piece of sort of mesh electronic wiring that allows the person with a remote control to send electronic energy, shocks to the brain to calm it down.

Anne Brice: The first phase of the project began in 2011 with two collaborators — principal investigator Edward Chang, the chief of neurosurgery at UCSF, and Keith Johnson, then a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, who’s now emeritus.

Justin Davidson: So their original work, with a National Institutes of Health grant, was working with monolingual English speakers. Those were the patients they were getting that required the surgery.

So again, they were looking at what specific areas of the brain process, i.e., where is electrical energy sent, when you hear certain sounds?

I was brought into the picture because the type of patients that Dr. Chang was getting — there was this big influx of bilingual patients that weren't English speakers. They were English-Mandarin. They were English-Spanish.

And so the thinking was: Gosh, you know, we've already studied these really interesting components of how speech sounds are processed, where geographically they're processed in the brain, in English.

Now we can look at bilinguals. Now we can see, are monolinguals different from bilinguals, in that way? Or for bilinguals, now that they have two languages, is the way that they process sounds in those two languages the same, or different? And what about a language that they've not heard before?

So all sorts of new, really interesting questions about where and how the brain processes speech sound with this group of bilinguals. The majority were Spanish-speaking, so that's where I was invited to join the team. (Laughs)

[Music: "Sprig Leaf" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Anne Brice: During certain types of brain surgery, a patient is awake so neurosurgeons and their teams can make informed decisions in real time about how a procedure will affect a patient's cognitive ability and language. For clinical studies like this, medical professors and students are present during the operation to coordinate the surgery alongside language tasks.

And in this study, they play audio recordings of sets of speech stimuli that Davidson helped design. The set includes all sorts of word combinations that differ in how acoustically similar they are across the two languages, and also whether they share a similar meaning.

Justin Davidson: So for example, we have ropa. And that is not a rope. That is clothes.

Anne Brice: Or soup and sopa, which sound similar and have the same meaning in both languages.

[Music fades out]

Some of the words in the set have sounds that are acoustically similar in both languages, like "esss." But there are also sounds that are only present in one of the languages. So in English, for example, a lot of words start with sp, like Sprite or Spain. But in Spanish, these words start with an e, so it's Esprite or España.

Justin Davidson: And so what's been going on, then, at UCSF is that we have these patients that are, again, bilingual in English and Mandarin and English and Spanish, and we're playing to them these words and these snippets of sounds from both Spanish, English, Mandarin and other languages that they're not familiar with.

Anne Brice: In doing this, the researchers are trying to answer where bilinguals store the sound inventories of their two languages, among other research questions.

[Music: "Waiting at the Hem" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Although the research is ongoing, there are some new findings from the study that the team has documented and presented at conferences.

Justin Davidson: What they found was that when it came to the location of electrical activity for hearing the sounds across the two languages, that was the same. So the sounds in English and the sounds in Spanish were all, relatively speaking, overlapping on top of each other.

But there was a very striking language-specific difference when it came to the sequences of sounds.

So when Spanish-specific clusters of sounds were just listened to, right — these people are just sitting there, they're hearing this, they don't have to talk. They're just listening.

 

This is sort of simplifying a bit, but there's the Spanish location for the Spanish clusters. And then there's the English location for the English clusters. They were teased apart very readily.

[Music fades out]

 

Anne Brice: So this discovery means that for bilinguals, the clusters of sounds unique to each language, so sounds specific to Spanish and sounds specific to English, are stored in separate areas of the brain, millimeters apart.

Justin Davidson: So that's to say, when you learn a new language, acquiring new sounds might be using the same sort of neural networks that are used to have acquired all the sounds that you've gotten prior.

But when you have enough exposure to the language to learn the patterning of the sounds, which sounds tend to appear together, that information, the brain is attuned to that, recognizes that pattern, and stores it separately based on the different languages. That’s fascinating.

[Music: "Gondola Blue" by Blue Dot Sessions]

The brain is an incredible pattern detector, and one of the patterns that it very clearly detects and physically — electrophysically — responds to is not just sounds in language, but their co-occurrence.

Children that are exposed to two languages from birth will have different sound systems and grammatical systems than other kids that were exposed to one language at birth and another language later in life. And it's not, again, to say that one is inherently better or worse than the other, but it's that it's different. It's different.

Anne Brice: Our language and the way we speak it, he says, is a reflection of our past and present linguistic and social environments. And neurologically, our brains, too, reflect our sociolinguistic experience.

I'm Anne Brice, and this is Berkeley Voices. This is the last episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the United States. You can find links to the episodes in our show notes.

Berkeley Voices is a Berkeley News podcast from the Office of Communications and Public Affairs at UC Berkeley. If you like what we do, please tell a friend and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We also have another show, Berkeley Talks, that features lectures and conversations at Berkeley. You can find all of our podcast episodes, with transcripts and photos, on Berkeley News at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.

[Music fades down and ends]

 

#metaglossia_mundus

"One worker has had enough of her boss expecting her to translate for Spanish-speaking patients without paying her extra for providing the service.

In a viral video that has been viewed over 808,000 times, TikToker Chena Guillen (@chenaguillen) explained why she is no longer willing to budge on the issue.

"When I got this job, I let them know like, 'Hey, I speak Spanish. I'm fluent,'" the TikToker began her on-camera rant. "But I wanna be paid for translating."

Her employer, however, didn't believe they would need her to act as a translator and refused to increase her pay.

"Oh, that's cool, but we don't need that skill," they allegedly responded. "We don't get a lot of Hispanic patients."

Guillen believes the expectation that she will translate for free as a native Spanish speaker is unfair because others who attend college to learn the language often get higher pay.

"If a white person goes to school and they learn Spanish, they are getting two or three dollars more than the rest of us," she argued.

So, she always makes it clear to potential employers that she will not act as a translator unless she is paid to do so, and they rebuff her offer, saying they don't need an employee with the skill. Nonetheless, a situation always arises where her boundaries are tested.

"Fast forward, I'm working, and they get Spanish customers, and he [her boss] is like, 'I need you to translate Che,'" she said.

"I need you to pay me," she retorted.

Her employer continued to refuse to pay her for utilizing her skills, but she didn't budge.

"Then I look bad 'cause I'm not helping my own people," she said. "But if I don't put my foot down, then I'm not gonna make money. I'm not gonna do what I need to do to take care of my kids."

 

Ultimately, she recommended her employer use Google Translate if they aren't willing to pay workers to act as translators.

In the comments section, many viewers could relate to Guillen's dilemma and applauded her decision to stand firm.

"The 1st time I refused to translate for someone, I felt so bad that I cried but I had to stand my ground with my employer," one commenter wrote.

"I'm with u 100% it's a skill and needs to be $$$$$," a second said.

"Yessss same girl but if we don’t value our worth no one will," another commented.

"I feel you, smart girl," a further commended..."

#metaglossia_mundus

 

Raphaëlle Macaron “Nos différences ont fait notre force”

 

Publié  23/04/2024 Par  La Rédaction

L’illustratrice libanaise Raphaëlle Macaron séduit tous azimuts avec sa ligne claire mâtinée de pop culture acidulée et teintée d’ironie.

Los Angeles. La Cité des anges a toujours attiré Raphaëlle Macaron de par “sa scène musicale dynamique et son accès à la nature”. La jeune femme de 34 ans y a débarqué presque par hasard après un séjour à Mexico, sans aucune envie de rentrer à Paris. Depuis, elle y passe trois mois par an. “Un lieu idéal pour mes projets personnels, mes explorations musicales et l’élaboration de YHM, actuellement basée ici”, déclare l’artiste qui dessine pour cette marque de vêtements et d’objets, un projet initié par Patrick Gemayel et destiné à soutenir les associations locales du Moyen-Orient.

Prisée des médias internationaux, on trouve régulièrement ses illustrations dans The New York Times, Society Magazine, Libération ou The New Yorker. “Très engagée contre toute forme de discrimination quelle qu’elle soit, racisme, islamophobie, antisémitisme, homophobie ou misogynie”, elle dessine aussi pour Amnesty International, Médecins sans frontières, Helem (ONG libanaise qui défend les communautés LGBTQ+) ou Skoun (ONG libanaise pour la réinsertion et la réhabilitation des personnes addicts). Ce qui ne l’empêche pas de travailler pour Gucci, Nike ou Foot Locker.

Après un master en bande dessinée de l’Académie libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Raphaëlle quitte Beyrouth à 24 ans. Elle intègre ensuite le collectif et magazine Samandal, qui lui ouvre les portes d’une communauté de dessinateurs du monde arabe : “Une source d’inspirations et de motivation incroyable pour moi, même si j’y suis moins active par manque de temps.” En 2020, sort son premier roman graphique, Les Terrestres, un road trip vert et tragicomique sur les routes de France, un état des lieux de la transition écologique en duo avec Noël Mamère : “Nos différences ont fait notre force”, une devise qui lui sied parfaitement. Actuellement, elle planche sur une fiction qui se déroule au Liban, un projet de longue haleine pour lequel elle avait imaginé un contexte de crise exagérée avec des personnages un peu loufoques. “Mais depuis 2019, j’ai été rattrapée par l’actualité de mon pays qui traverse une période exceptionnellement difficile, entre crise économique, l’explosion du 4 août 2020 et la menace de guerre… Je l’ai mis en pause en 2020, car mon histoire me paraissait soudain grossière au vu de la réalité.” Le travail a repris l’an dernier, animé par le besoin urgent de mettre en scène les émotions compliquées liées à son pays.

Loraine Adam

#metaglossia_mundus

Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies (Petrarch in Global Translation, Vienna) Publié le 23 Avril 2024 par Marc Escola (Source : Marion Kratochvill)

Petrarch in Global Translation: A Genealogy of Western Love (PGT) is a collaborative humanities project across languages and national borders that is investigating the foundational conception of Western love as codified by Petrarch’s Canzoniere. PGT is funded by the NOMIS Foundation: 

https://nomisfoundation.ch/projects/petrarch-in-global-translation-a-genealogy-of-western-love/

The project will explore the extent to which Petrarchan norms are useful and adaptive models both within and outside of the Western tradition from which they arose. By re-engaging with the practice of Petrarchism, which has spawned centuries of literary production and critical reception, PGT proposes a simultaneously theoretical and experimental, historical and systematic approach to identifying a dominant poetics of love. To realize the project goals, we are looking for a 

Postdoctoral Fellow

This is a two-year position that will be based at the University of Vienna, and the appointment will begin September 2024. The ideal candidate should have Italian literature, culture or history as one of their primary fields of research, although candidates in related fields may also be considered, provided they have a strong knowledge of Italian and English. There is no teaching associated with the postdoctoral position, but the fellow will be asked to conduct research on several specific questions to support the PGT research agenda as a whole, in addition to pursuing their own research project related to our general topic. 10% of the postdoctoral fellowship’s time will be dedicated to scholarly coordination and programming. Among the topics [but not limited to these only] that the fellow might be asked to research are the following: 

• The global impact of Petrarch through an investigation of how Petrarch’s Canzoniere circulated throughout the world
• Traces of Petrarchanism in modern art/culture (music, painting, cinema)
• Material for the project website, i.e. adding resources, critical essays, sources or integrating tools
• Literature review on contemporary thinking about the relationship between love and sexuality/gender identity, e.g. how social scientists are writing about/studying love today
• The reception, reproduction, or “travelling” of Petrarchan forms across genres and media
  Future topics that may arise from our research 
    

Job Requirements

• Completed doctoral/PhD studies in Italian/Romance Studies, Italian/European Renaissance History, or related disciplines
• Research competence and initiative proven through publications
• Excellent knowledge of Italian and English
• IT skills
• Team player and very good social and communicative skills
• Basic skills and some experience in project management
   

Your application includes

• Letter of Intent
• Academic CV with list of publications and doctoral certificate
• Summary of your research interests including a short proposal of the project you intend to pursue with PGT (max. 500 words)
• Names and contact details for two letters of recommendation
   

Please send your application in a single document/PDF until May 15, 2024 to: 

pgt.romanistik@univie.ac.at

 

Any questions about the application should be addressed to:

marion.kratochvill@univie.ac.at

• Responsable :
  Marion Kratochvill
• Url de référence :
  https://nomisfoundation.ch/projects/petrarch-in-global-translation-a-genealogy-of-western-love/

 

#metaglossia_mundus

"Dr Hilary Brown will be leading a project over 2024-25 which will explore what feminist translation means in practice in the twenty-first century.

Published 22 April 2024

Dr Brown has been awarded an AHRC Networking grant, together with her co-investigator Dr Olga Castro (University of Warwick/Barcelona), and will be establishing a "Feminist Translation Network" which will bring together researchers, practitioners and educators to discuss feminist approaches to contemporary literary translation in English. The Network will ask questions such as: What is feminist translation (e.g. how does it differ - or not - from translations by women/of women or from queer translation/gender-inclusive translation)? Is feminist translation a matter of identity or a matter of practice? What are the goals of feminist translation and whom is it for?

The Network will address these themes at a series of free public events held over 2024-25, beginning with a translation 'slam' and roundtable discussion at the Birmingham Literature Festival in October 2024.

The Network's activities will be overseen by a steering group which includes former DoML staff member Dr Gaby Saldanha.

Dr Hilary Brown

Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies"

#metaglossia_mundus

"Brazilian authorities announced this week that the Constitution of South America's largest country, originally penned in Portuguese, would be translated into the languages of the indigenous tribes in a move to fully bring that part of the population into the rule of law, Agencia Brasil reported.

Pursuant to the Living Indigenous Language in Law program promoted by the Office of the Attorney-General alongside the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the text will also become available in Guarani-Kaiowá, Tikuna, and Kaingang, the most widely spoken indigenous tongues, it was explained.

Reaching a common understanding between indigenous peoples and lawmakers is the main objective of the plan. To ensure cultural integrity, the program should invite indigenous leaders and community members to help draft texts that take into account the interaction with indigenous legal systems. Community members will also be trained to gain better access to national and international laws and public policies.

The new materials will be disseminated among traditional communities, lawyers, representatives of all three branches of power, councils, universities, and nonprofit associations working on public policies and the rights of indigenous people.

Meanwhile, Brazilian native tribes are holding their annual protest in Brasilia through April 26 to protest against the so-called time framework whereby indigenous peoples only have the right to the lands they were occupying by Oct. 5, 1988, when the new Brazilian Constitution was adopted.

This thesis was deemed unconstitutional by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in September last year. However, it was subsequently incorporated into legislation through a bill passed by the National Congress which was vetoed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva but reinstated through a Congressional veto override.

The protest features a comprehensive agenda comprising debates, report presentations, marches to the Three Powers Square, and various political engagements at the National Congress, including solemn sessions, public hearings, and meetings. Additionally, cultural performances and exhibitions showcasing handicrafts and indigenous art representing all Brazilian biomes will be staged.

The Free Land Camp is also to condemn a recent surge in violence targeting indigenous communities as well as an increase in suicides among native Brazilians. According to the National Articulation of Indigenous Peoples, citing a study by the Proteja Collective, six indigenous leaders were murdered between December last year and early 2024. A turnout of over 6,000 indigenous individuals is expected at this year's event.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)"

#metaglossia_mundus

"The Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia unanimously and without debate approved new education rules, which provide for the gradual rejection of studying Russian as a second foreign language in schools from 2026.

This is reported by Delfi.

Schoolchildren who chose Russian as a second foreign language by September 1, 2025 will be able to continue studying it until they graduate from high school (until the ninth grade). Then, as a second foreign language — starting from the fifth grade — it will be possible to choose only the official language of one of the countries of the European Union, the European Economic Area or a language regulated by intergovernmental agreements on education. The Russian language is not included in them.

"This is good news! Finally!" Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silinia commented on the new rules.

According to her, the Russian language will gradually disappear from schools, and children will learn the languages spoken in the European Union.

Currently, Latvian schoolchildren learn English as a first foreign language from the very beginning of their education, and a second foreign language begins to be learned from the fourth grade. Theoretically, children can study French, German and other European languages as a second foreign language anyway, but in practice Russian is most often taught, since there are not enough teachers of other languages in schools.

According to the Ministry of Education and Science, Russian is taught as a second foreign language in almost half of Latvian schools. In some educational institutions, alternatives are not even offered.

The gradual rejection of the Russian language is justified by the fact that it is still necessary to train teachers of other European languages, which are currently in short supply.

Schoolchildren who do not want to learn the Russian language can refuse it already this year. The Minister of Education of Latvia Anda Čakša said that in the plans, from the 2026-2027 school year, children will learn a second foreign language not from the fourth, as now, but from the fifth grade. Instead, in the fourth grade, hours will be added to study English.

Students who will enter the fourth grade on September 1, 2025, will not study a second foreign language at all in the 2025-2026 academic year.

During the public discussion of the draft law, many objections were received from individuals against the plan of the Ministry of Education. Within two weeks, more than 300 appeals were received from individuals and representatives of various associations, most of which are directed against the gradual abandonment of Russian as a second foreign language in secondary schools. All these objections were summarized in a table and added to the draft decision of the government, that is, the ministers had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with and take note of this opinion. However, in the table opposite the objections, in the end it was noted "not taken into account".

The main reasons for the disagreement came down to the fact that "children cannot be restricted in learning their native language" and they should decide for themselves which language they should learn. Opponents of the new rules also emphasized that abandoning the Russian language for political reasons is unacceptable."

#metaglossia_mundus

Apr 23, 2024

"Large Language Models are set to change the manufacturing industry forever by acting as a conversational gateway between humans and machines.

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Andre S. Yoon

Chief Executive Officer, MakinaRocks

Kyoung Yeon Kim

Marketing Manager, MakinaRocks

OUR IMPACT

What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Manufacturing and Value Chains?

 

 

• Large Language Models are set to disrupt industries the world over. For manufacturing, they will bridge potential knowledge gaps and manage databases that humans could not.
• They will serve as a conversational gateway between humans and machines, allowing businesses to unlock previously unknown potentials.
• Large Language Models are required to fully reflect the complex, domain-specific needs of the manufacturing industry.

We stand on the brink of a new era, fueled by the rapid advancement and integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today, the manufacturing industry is poised to undergo a transformation unlike any it has seen before.

While the transition from manual labor to automated processes marked a significant leap, and the digital revolution of enterprise resource management systems brought about considerable efficiencies, the advent of AI promises to redefine the landscape of manufacturing with even greater impact.

Central to this transformation are Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI technologies. These tools are significantly lowering the barrier to entry for subject matter experts and field engineers who traditionally have not been involved in coding or "speaking AI." The impact of this should not be underestimated. Up to 40% of working hours across industries could be influenced by the adoption of LLMs, a significant shift in workforce dynamics.

AI, and particularly LLMs, will have a profound impact on the manufacturing sector. The opportunities are vast — but there are potential challenges, too.

The impact of AI on manufacturing

AI is reshaping the very fabric of manufacturing, transforming traditional automation frameworks and aligning them with ISA-95 standards at every level. This new era of automation heralds increased productivity and the emergence of innovative manufacturing practices, all driven by AI.

The integration of hardware automation, spearheaded by advances in robotics, combined with software automation led by AI, is crucial to unleashing the full potential of these innovations.

Yet, despite these advancements, AI remains an alien concept to many within the manufacturing industry. Subject matter experts, the seasoned engineers who intuitively understand machinery and production processes, find themselves at a crossroads. As these experts retire, their invaluable knowledge and insights risk being lost, underscoring the need for AI's integration into manufacturing to bridge this gap.

LLMs: The gateway between humans and machines

LLMs are set to revolutionize the manufacturing industry by serving as a conversational gateway between humans and machines, enabling assets and machinery to "communicate" with humans.

By interpreting vast amounts of manufacturing data, LLMs facilitate informed decision-making and pave the way for the future use of natural language in production and management.

This symbiotic relationship between AI and humans enhances the intelligence and efficiency of both parties, promising a future where AI's impact on manufacturing is more transformative than the industrial revolutions of the past.

In this future, AI amplifies human expertise, creating a collaborative environment where decision-making is faster, more accurate and informed by insights drawn from data that was previously inaccessible or incomprehensible.

 

An industrial LLM encapsulating all layers of the manufacturing plant, from machinery to AI-driven analytical solutions, will be able to manage and optimize entire operations.Image: MakinaRocks

The integration of AI into manufacturing extends beyond simple automation, encompassing areas like control optimization. By analyzing vast datasets, AI enhances production efficiency and reduces costs through the optimization of manufacturing processes. This not only smooths operations but also minimizes resource waste.

Reflecting the importance of these technological advancements, research shows that 75% of advanced manufacturing companies prioritize adopting AI in their engineering and R&D strategies. This commitment underscores AI’s key role in the future of manufacturing, guiding the sector toward more efficient and sustainable practices.

In the not-too-distant future, AI will be able to manage and optimize the entire plant or shopfloor. By analyzing and interpreting insights at all digital levels—from raw data, data from enterprise and control systems, and results of AI models utilizing such data—an LLM agent will be able to govern and control the entire manufacturing process.

How to make AI in manufacturing a success

For AI and LLMs to truly transform manufacturing, they must first be tailored to specific domains. This customization requires not only connecting to the right data sources but also developing tools for effective prompting that align with the unique challenges and processes of each manufacturing sector.

Domain specificity ensures that AI solutions are relevant, practical and capable of addressing the nuanced demands of different manufacturing environments. This demonstrates the need for industrial LLMs (or domain-specific LLMs) for proper and accurate application of LLMs in manufacturing.

In addition to domain-specific tailoring, the widespread and successful adoption of AI in manufacturing necessitates standardized development and operational processes. Establishing common frameworks and protocols for the implementation of AI technologies is critical to ensure compatibility, interoperability and security across different systems and platforms.

Standardization also facilitates easier adoption and integration of AI technologies, helping manufacturers to navigate the transition to AI-powered operations with greater ease and efficiency.

Maximizing the potential benefits of AI

The AI transformation in manufacturing is set to usher in an unprecedented level of innovation. To keep pace with this rapid advancement, manufacturing leaders must make timely and informed decisions.

Preparing for this shift means implementing organization-wide AI transformation initiatives to standardize the AI development and operations processes and laying the foundation to fully leverage the benefits AI offers.

As the manufacturing industry stands at the cusp of this new era, the integration of AI promises to bridge the gap left by retiring experts and propel the sector towards a future of unparalleled efficiency and innovation.

The journey towards AI-enabled manufacturing is complex and fraught with challenges, but the potential rewards make it an endeavor worth pursuing."

#metaglossia_mundus

What We Lose When Languages Die

By Ross Perlin

May/June 2024Published on April 23, 2024

The world’s 190-odd nation-states are home to 7,168 “living languages,” according to the latest figure from Ethnologue, a widely used language database. The implications of this enormous disproportion are obvious, given that few governments support more than one or a handful of official languages. The vast majority of languages represent communities that are much older and more localized than nation-states, and the mismatch between states and languages is at least one driver of a planet-wide shift in human consciousness: the staggering loss of linguistic diversity.

Linguists consider at least half of all human languages to be endangered...

#metaglossia_mundus

Par Pascale Elbaz TRADUCTRICE ET ENSEIGNANTE-CHERCHEUSE

Les récents progrès des logiciels de traduction automatique neuronale et des intelligences artificielles génératives poussent de plus en plus de lectrices et lecteurs à se satisfaire de résultats approximatifs et médiocres. Il devient donc urgent que les traductrices et traducteurs fassent mieux reconnaître leur indispensable travail de post-édition pour garantir la qualité des textes.

 

La traduction automatique (TA) a fait des progrès fulgurants ces dernières années, avec l’apparition de la traduction automatique neuronale (TAN) puis celle des intelligences artificielles génératives, créant des espérances folles et des peurs réelles.

 

Espérances d’une communication multilingue aisée et bon marché, d’une diffusion multilingue de la science, d’une facilitation des échanges avec des communautés parlant des langues disposant de peu de ressources. Peurs d’une transformation rapide des services de traduction avec diminution du nombre de professionnels pour un volume de traduction toujours croissant, s’accompagnant d’une double perte : perte de qualité des traductions produites et perte de revenus pour les professionnels qui se verraient remplacés par des machines.

Certains langagiers préfèrent parler de prétraduction automatique plutôt que de traduction automatique, soulignant à la fois que le texte est produit par un moteur entraîné sur des algorithmes à la conversion automatique de texte d’un langage à l’autre, que ce produit n’est qu’une étape, et que le texte qui en sort nécessitera un travail qui, loin de s’apparenter à une relecture du texte d’arrivée (texte en langue cible), nécessitera un aller-retour entre celui-ci et le texte de départ (texte en langue source) que seuls les traductaires sont capables de mettre en œuvre.

L’utilisation de réseaux de neurones rend l’opération plus efficace : le moteur de traduction code le texte de départ, fait une série d’opérations algorithmiques à partir des ensembles de textes bilingues sur lesquels il a été entraîné, puis ces opérations sont décodées en un texte dans la langue d’arrivée. Toutefois, un certain travail sur le texte ainsi généré est souvent nécessaire..."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://aoc.media/opinion/2024/04/23/de-la-traduction-a-la-post-edition/

 

Après s'y être d'abord opposé, le ministère de l'Éducation nationale, accepte que les énoncés du brevet soient proposés en breton ou en basque.

Nicole Belloubet fait machine arrière et autorise la traduction des sujets du brevet en langue régionale
Par Paul-Henri Wallet
Publié le 23/04/2024 à 11:21, mis à jour le 23/04/2024 à 11:21
La ministre de l’Éducation nationale a finalement autorisé la traduction des sujets du brevet en langue régionale.
Après s'y être d'abord opposé, le ministère de l'Éducation nationale, accepte que les énoncés du brevet soient proposés en breton ou en basque.
Les écoles basques et bretonnes ont obtenu gains de cause. Dans un courrier rendu public, ce vendredi 19 avril par la sénatrice du Finistère Nadège Havet, la ministre de l'Éducation nationale, Nicolle Belloubet indique que les sujets du brevet 2024 pourront finalement être proposés en langue régionale.

Avant d'opérer ce revirement le ministère de l'Éducation nationale, s'était opposé à cette mesure. Dans un courrier du 20 novembre 2023, la DGESCO (direction générale de l'enseignement scolaire), en effet, avait ordonné que « quelle que soit la langue de composition, les sujets et les documents d'accompagnement des sujets ne sont pas traduits en langue régionale et demeurent en français. » Les élèves restaient libres de composer en breton en basque, ou en corse mais les consignes devaient être les mêmes pour tous les élèves français.

Une décision qui avait eu beaucoup de mal à passer pour les défenseurs des langues régionales. « Nous avions obtenu une dérogation pour que les sujets soient traduits depuis une vingtaine d'années et cela se passait très bien,» explique ainsi Yann Uguen, le président de Diwan, un réseau d'école immersif en langue bretonne. «Alors quand nous avons appris au cœur de l'hiver, que cette dérogation n’avait plus cours nous avons été très étonnés», poursuit-il.

«Egalité pour tous les élèves»
Dans son courrier, la DGESCO justifiait sa position en invoquant une nécessaire « égalité de traitement pour tous les élèves ». Mais pour les partisans du breton, le résultat aurait plutôt été l'inverse. « Si nos collégiens doivent tous traduire l'énoncé avant de pouvoir commencer l’épreuve, ils sont discriminés par rapport aux autres », affirme Yann Uguen. « Le risque, c'est qu'une partie d'entre eux se découragent et en viennent à écrire en français pour ne pas perdre de temps. »

Le président du réseau Diwan précise par ailleurs, que seuls les sujets d'histoire sont concernés par la décision de la ministre. « Dans les autres matières, les énoncés ont toujours été en français, mais cela ne pose pas de problème pédagogique car ils sont moins denses et les élèves peuvent plus facilement passer d'une langue à l'autre dans ces disciplines. »

Pour obtenir le revirement de la ministre, plusieurs acteurs se sont mobilisés. « Lors de ses derniers déplacements dans les territoires concernés, la ministre à toujours eu des questions à ce sujet », rapporte ainsi Yann Uguen. Par ailleurs, des questions orales au gouvernement ont été formulées par des parlementaires et de nombreux courriers ont été envoyés rue Grenelle pour attirer l'attention du ministère.

Après ces nombreuses sollicitations, Nicole Belloubet a décidé de lâcher du lest. Dans sa lettre, la ministre indique que le premier courrier envoyé par la DGSCO était « antérieur aux annonces du choc des savoirs [l'ensemble des mesures arrêtées par Gabriel Attal pour améliorer le niveau à l'école NDLR]. Elle précise que « ce nouveau cadre », qui induit « des modifications profondes et progressives » du brevet l'amène « à décider de reconduire, pour cette session 2024, les modalités de traitement en langues vivantes régionales des sujets du DNB et de leur traduction. » Avec cette décision, la locataire de la Rue de Grenelle entend vouloir « maintenir une stabilité du cadre d'évaluation ».

Modifier la constitution
Le président du réseau Diwan est finalement satisfait d'avoir été entendu. Il s'inquiète cependant qu’un nouveau courrier remette en cause les acquis des écoles régionales. « À l’heure actuelle, le cadre juridique de nos écoles repose uniquement sur une circulaire, explique-t-il. Nous restons donc à la merci d'une décision administrative édictée, par un gouvernement hostile à notre pédagogie. Pour protéger notre statut, il faudrait que la scolarité immersive en langue régionale soit inscrite dans la constitution. »

Yann Uguen a conscience qu'un tel changement de la norme suprême n'est pas à l'ordre du jour. Il espère cependant que sa mesure pourrait «prendre le train des révisions constitutionnelles engagées par l’exécutif». « Il y a eu l'IVG récemment, et il pourrait y avoir bientôt un projet d’autonomie de la Corse, nous pourrions peut-être avoir notre tour ensuite», poursuit le président de Diwan..."
#metaglossia_mundus

"IQNA-L'adjoint du cheikh Al-Azhar a souligné dans ses propos qu'il n'est pas possible de traduire avec précision le Saint Coran dans d'autres langues.

Mohammad Al-Dawaini,  adjoint du directeur d'Al-Azhar, a déclaré lors d'une conférence au centre d'Al-Azhar : « l'Islam est confronté à une campagne féroce des ennemis afin que les peuples des pays occidentaux ne comprennent pas la vérité de l'Islam.

Nous vivons dans un monde où les civilisations se battent non seulement avec des armes, mais aussi avec des idées et des connaissances. La réalité est que la traduction des textes islamiques connait encore de nombreux problèmes. La traduction des textes religieux est l’une des traductions les plus difficiles.

Ce n’est pas comme la traduction de textes littéraires, sociaux, politiques ou économiques, facilitée grâce aux informations que le traducteur a acquises au fil du temps. La traduction religieuse nécessite une compétence, une précision et beaucoup de soin, et est une grande responsabilité.

La traduction des significations du Saint Coran dans d'autres langues, est un domaine où les problèmes de traduction apparaissent clairement. Il y a des phrases, dans le Coran, qui ne peuvent pas être transférées dans d'autres langues.

De plus, certains termes de la pensée islamique, notamment dans la jurisprudence, n’ont pas d’équivalents et pour cette raison, sont traduits « de la façon la plus proche », dans la langue cible, afin que le lecteur puisse comprendre le sens en arabe ».

4211698"

#metaglossia_mundus: ????!!!!!

 

Cazals : Rencontre autour de la traduction en littérature ce samedi à la librairie Vent d’Autan

Elle se déroulera ce 27 avril à 16 h. 

La 3ème rencontre du cycle autour de la traduction en littérature organisée par la librairie Le Vent d’Autan se déroulera ce samedi 27 avril 2024, à 16 h (à la librairie).

Autour du livre Les quatre filles du docteur March, paru en traduction aux éditions PKJ et Éditions Gallmeister, Natalie Zimmermann et Janique Jouin-de Laurens confronteront ainsi leurs traductions publiées à celles des élèves du Lycée Léo Ferré de Gourdon, dans le cadre d’une joute de traduction. Véronique Béghain, traductrice, animera ces échanges où chacun pourra parler des choix de traduction qu’il a faits des passages proposés. Cette rencontre permettra de présenter le métier de traducteur-trice et de saisir le rapport intime que chacun-e entretient avec le texte d’origine.

Librairie Le vent d’autan

Place Hugues Salel

46250 Cazals

Tel : 09 81 91 29 26

Mail : librairieleventdautan@gmail.com

 

#metaglossia_mundus

"After mainland Chinese official media outlets started calling the 2024 Zodiac the Year of “Loong” instead of the Year of the Dragon to advance the State's political goals.

This year's zodiac symbol has been retranslated from 'dragon' to 'Loong'

Written byOiwan Lam

Posted 22 April 2024 10:41 GMT

After mainland Chinese official media outlets started calling 2024 “the Year of Loong” instead of the Year of the Dragon, the word “loong” and its homophones have become a popular meme among Hongkongers on social media, representing the government's shift toward nationalistic policies and language.

The Year of “Loong”

This year, major Chinese state-affiliated media outlets have abandoned the term “dragon” and adopted the word “loong”, an uncommonly used transliteration of the Chinese word 龍 (dragon in English), to refer to the 2024 Chinese Zodiac. The alteration was later explained in numerous media commentaries, including the Chinese state-sponsored China Daily.

These commentaries argued that in Chinese culture, the image of the mythological animal is very positive and divine, while its Western counterpart is a negative “monster”. They also contended that the mistranslation of the Chinese word into “dragon” is a cultural distortion and misinterpretation.

In recent years, China has started using standard Putonghua pinyin to replace the English translation of Chinese words in its public signs in major cities in order to symbolize the country's cultural confidence and strength under leader Xi Jinping. For example, “road” was replaced by “lu” and “museum” by “Bó wù guǎn” on public signs — leading to confusion among foreigners who do not speak Putonghua:

The argument of state-funded media outlets won popular support from mainland Chinese online nationalists. Some even suggested that “loong” should become a standard English term to refer to a Chinese dragon. On X, formerly Twitter, many pro-China social media influencers, such as Shanghai Panda, also promoted the new term to non-Chinese speakers:

However, there were also disagreements and pushback.

Nick Kapur pointed out on X that in Chinese mythology, the dragon is associated with natural disasters:

China Digital Times highlighted a comment circulated on WeChat by Chén-fēng lao-yuàn (晨楓老苑) criticizing the official argument:

Discursive power is important, but it should come from strength, not volume; from respect, not insistence. In the case of Loong and Dragon, the ambiguity comes not from the Chinese and Western signification of the dragon symbol, but from deliberate misuse [of the symbol]. It is China's image that determines whether the Chinese dragon is good or bad, not the other way around.

Linguistic confusion

Moreover, the politically correct choice has resulted in linguistic confusion. First, it has confused the function of translation and transliteration — the process of representing a word or phrase in a different script — as pointed out by X user @languagediarya1:

“Sau pei lass pok kaai zai” is written as 收皮啦仆街仔. The Chinese words don't make sense to non-Cantonese speakers as the phrase is Cantonese slang which means “Fuck off, asshole.”

Such confusion was ridiculed by the following viral cartoon, which suggests that the translation of the English word “Dragon” into Cantonese should be 姐緊 “jie-gan”, a nonsensical term that means “sister-ing”:

Even if people accept using transliteration for the English translation of the word 龍, the romanization of “loong” still causes confusion. In the mainland Chinese standard pinyin, 龍 is romanized as “long” instead of “loong” — a transliteration originated from British missionary Joshua Marshman (1768–1837). However, most contemporary sinologists have shifted to mainland Chinese standard pinyin in recent years to avoid confusion. 

Currently, “loong” as the transliteration of 龍 is mostly used among overseas Chinese in Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia and Singapore. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s name is one such example.

Yet, this “loong” transliteration has little to do with daily interaction among overseas Chinese as the pronunciation of the word 龍 in Hokkien, a popular Chinese dialect spoken by more than 47 million people in Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, is transliterate as lêng, liâng or liông. As for Cantonese, while the pronunciation of “loong” is similar to 龍, the standard romanization is lung4 or long2 (the number represents the nine Cantonese intonations). 

The pick of the fading transliteration “loong” is likely to avoid the misinterpretation of the Putonghua pinyin “long” into the common English word “long”. Yet, it does not really facilitate cross-cultural communication. After all, English speakers often use the word “long” in their everyday expressions. 

“Loong”: overburnt, loan and alone

When Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee used the term “the year of ‘Loong’” in his welcoming address at a tourism event during the Lunar New Year, many Hongkongers raised their eyebrows as they perceived the choice of political correctness would further harm the reputation of the international city which is coined as a conduit of Western and Chinese culture.

Instead of open criticisms, some started using “loong” homophones that have negative connotations, such as 燶 (overburnt), “loan”, and “alone” on their social media posts. Even now, some still use “loong” as a hashtag for economic bad news as the Cantonese term 燶 is often used to describe losing money in the stock market:

Below is a viral image on this year's Valentine's Day depicting a dragon being left “a-loong”:

Sometimes destructive and horrific images of dragons can bring happiness and laughter to people, as suggested by Surrealhk’s Photoshop image of the Japanese dragon Godzilla:

For now, it seems the Chinese government will continue to politicize the Chinese language and its transliteration, meaning it will be a “loong” year."

#metaglossia_mundus

"Timmer Harvey’s translation of Dutch writer Jenthe Posthuma’s ‘What I’d Rather Not Think About’ is shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

Timmer Harvey’s translation of Dutch writer Jenthe Posthuma’s ‘What I’d Rather Not Think About’ is shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.

Harshaneeyam

Apr 21, 2024 · 03:30 pm

Two questions lie at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple Dutch novel What I’d Rather Not Think About. What if one-half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them? The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely. Praising the author, the prize jury remarked, “[Posthuma] skilfully inflects tragedy with unexpected humour and provides a multifaceted look at the search for meaning in the aftermath of suicide.”

Reconstruction, Timmer Harvey’s translation of stories written by the Dutch-Surinamese writer Karin Amatmoekrim, was published by Strangers Press in 2020 as part of their Verzet! Series, and their translation of Thistle by Nadia de Vries will be published by The New Menard Press in 2024. Timmer Harvey’s own Dutch-language poetry and prose translations have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Gulf Coast Journal, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Born in Australia, she lived and worked in the Netherlands for 14 years before moving to New York City in 2013.

 

The translator spoke about learning Dutch, the translator’s “compass”, and the importance of constructive criticism.

You were born in Australia and graduated from the United States from Columbia University. That's right. What drew you to the Dutch language?
I lived in the Netherlands for 14 years and I consider it as much my home as Australia, where I was born and raised. For such a small country, the Netherlands is really bursting with a lot of literary talent and equally passionate readers. So it's hard not to be attracted to Dutch literature. A lot of Dutch writing tends to be quite experimental and boundary-pushing, which I really enjoy as a reader. Even before I became a translator, when I was reading Dutch books, I often found myself translating novels and poetry in my head.

So you learned Dutch after moving to the Netherlands.
Yes, I learned the language when I moved there. I was supposed to move for one year and well, I ended up staying for 14 years. I actually have never had an adult job in Australia. My professional history has only happened in the Netherlands and I immigrated to the country when I was quite young.

You are an author too. You have published books. Now as an artist, you can express your creative urge in your own writing. So why translate?
That’s a really interesting question. I’m a writer and I still write. I’m actually very slow – I’m working on a novel between translations. I find translation equally as fulfilling, if not more. I tend to get really excited about my translations in a way that I don’t about my own writing. And I’ve been thinking about this recently, wondering what it is.

 

But I think it's the collaborative aspect of it because even if I’m not directly working with the original author, I'm engaging with a text that’s not mine and creating something from it using someone else’s art. And I find that very exciting – though that might change. I’m not going to box myself in or limit myself. I may prioritise my own writing again at some point in the future. I really do think that the key to creative fulfilment is to do what excites you and scares you. And when it gets too comfortable, you change it up.

I believe translating helps with your own writing too.
Oh, absolutely. It completely does. Although I do have to be careful when I’m really immersed in a novel or some amazing poetry. I do find myself sometimes taking on the style of the novel or the poetry that I’m translating. But yes, it’s always inspiring – like reading any good writing is.

When it comes to translating into English, I gather that you have to construct phrases in American and British English, which is different from Australian English. How do you do it? Since the Dutch language is free from these complications.
Before I start any translation, I always ask the publisher and the writer, if I’m able, what English we are aiming for. What is the logical English to be translating into?

There are so many Englishes. I have lived in Australia and I was educated in British English and I now live in America. So I’m able to draw on all these nuances. But even outside of the countries that I’ve directly experienced, I like to research the various Englishes around the world. I think it’s really important as a translator to understand how each generation and each region is using English and expanding it.

 

I also always search for a model for the narrative voice. And sometimes that comes from novels that have been recently published in English or around the same time period as the English I’m trying to translate into, but it can just as easily come from film, television, and social media. And even my friends and family around the world.

Do you use any tools or any particular dictionaries for these things?
Sometimes I do get a little confused, especially with slang and I’m thinking, well, I have heard someone use that in this country, but is this typical? So I always cross reference and see how is it being used.

 

How did you come across this book?
Oh, that’s a lovely story. I’ve been a big fan of Jenthe’s work for a long time.

I adored her debut novel, People With No Charisma. And right at the start of my translating career, I approached her former publisher about perhaps translating it. I hadn't published very much at the time, and I don’t think they were particularly impressed with me. I didn't know this, but at that point Jenthe was in the process of parting ways with that particular publisher.

 

So it didn't work out at the time but I sort of put it aside and continued on with other projects. And then we cut to 2020, the pandemic year. And one of my dear friends in the Netherlands sent me a pandemic care package. And part of the care package was this book with a note from them saying, I haven't been able to put this book down, you have to read it.

Of course it being the pandemic, I didn’t have much else to do. I immediately read it and fell very much in love as I had with the debut novel. I reached out to her publisher and they were luckily just as keen to have me translate it as I was to translate.

It all worked out this time.

What is the particular aspect of the book which you like so much?
I think the way that Jenthe looks and explores human relationships is really fascinating. Um, I think that her ability to handle such a tragic subject with humor and compassion just speaks to me.

 

Now this book is published by Scribe Books in the US and UK. Can you tell us a bit about this independent publisher?
Oh yes, I’ll be very happy to. I love Scribe. It was set up by a man called Henry Rosenblum in the 1970s in Melbourne, Australia, my favourite city. They’ve got offices in Melbourne, London and the US and they publish around 65 titles per year, in fiction and nonfiction.

They’re very committed to translated fiction and publish a lot of really good translated fiction. In fact, one of the other books on the International Booker Prize shortlist Mater 2-10, is also a Scribe title. So when they picked up What I’d Rather Not Think About, I was also excited to work with an Australian publisher.

I worked primarily with Marika Webb Pullman, who is the publisher in the Melbourne office and I would say one of the best and most thoughtful editors in the business.

Please tell us more about Jenthe Posthuma.
Jenthe is an incredible writer and also one of the funniest people I know. She worked as a journalist for many years and also published quite a bit of short fiction in some very well-known Dutch journals and magazines before she published her debut novel, People with No Charisma, in 2016.

People with No Charisma was nominated for several awards in the Netherlands and very well received. She published her second novel, What I’d Rather Not Think About, in 2020 which was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature. It’s also been translated into multiple languages like Spanish, Bulgarian, and German.

She has recently also published a Dutch-language book called Hex, Hex, Hex, which is a, an exploration of witches and the representation of women in Dutch folklore.

Tell us more about What I’d Rather Not Think About.
The novel is about two twins and they are called One and Two. We never learn their names but the two of them grow up in each other’s pockets. They slowly start drifting apart the closer they get to adulthood and become estranged with rather tragic consequences. I think the novel examines the unimaginable grief that comes from losing a sibling or a close family member.

But I also think it’s a really good exploration of human relationships and how so many of us fail to listen to other people when they tell them and show them exactly who they are and how they feel. I think Maya Angelou said when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. It sounds straightforward, but I think it’s something a lot of people fail to do because they’re so attached to their idea of someone and can only look at them through that one particular lens.

 

What I’d Rather Not Think About really brilliantly explores this phenomenon and how it affects intimate relationships. But also our view of public figures and how blind we can be to the true natures of certain powerful and famous people, even when they have shown us and told us exactly who they are.

Jente has handled the situations of the suicide of a fraternal twin and grief very successfully. What do you attribute this success to?
That’s a great question. I think Jenthe has a unique ability to look at something and infuse it with humour because that’s what real life is like.

I think when we’re grieving, it’s not one note. We have good moments. We have bad moments. We look back and we laugh at memories. We recognise our blind spots. Jenthe does all that in brilliant, empathetic language. It speaks to the reader. It feels real.

What are some of your interesting experiences of translating the book?
Early on in the translation of this novel, before we had a publisher, there was a certain European literary arts funding institution that offered their support. But they also asked me if they could assess my translation.

 

I was actually really pleased because their support at the time could have really made all the difference in terms of which publishers would look at the sample and be interested in. This was a real passion project for me. So I was really invested. In any case, I always think it’s really good to get as many eyes on a translation as possible.

I welcome criticism and I think that it can only improve a text. But the feedback that I got from this particular institution was really brilliant. They questioned, in actually quite a rude and patronising way, some of the translated details about New York, my language and word choice, including my ability to translate Dutch humour at the time. They said I might be better suited to translating serious nonfiction books. I was really shocked because I’d already shown the draft to several people in the New York publishing industry and they had found it very funny and hadn’t raised any of the issues that this assessor from the institution had.

Nevertheless, I was really crushed. The assessment made me question my instincts as a translator and wonder if I was indeed up to the task, if I was going to do Jenthe’s brilliant writing justice. So I asked for a meeting with the institution and I quickly realised that the people who had assessed my work didn’t necessarily have any real knowledge about New York. They weren’t really up-to-date with the humorous Gen X and millennial voices that were being published in the UK and the US at the time. And some of their language and style notes just felt really outdated for the kind of narrative voice that Jenta had written in.

But even after the meeting, I still thought, well, this is a well-known institution. I should adjust my translation. So I did. I did adjust it, but it felt really off. It didn't read as well. And I had another editor friend, an American, look at it and, and the feedback was, it’s not as funny.

 

So after a lot of debate, I ended up reverting to my original and sending out a much longer sample to publishers.

How much time did it take for you to translate the book after all?
Around six months in total, but, you know, there was back and forth and I also like to put translations down and away.

I always try to build in time to put something away and come back at it with fresh eyes. It’s really important for my practice. Between the bad assessment and my deciding to send out my own version, only a few months. Scribe wasn’t the only one who wanted to publish it but one of the reasons we went with it is because they said they picked it up for the humour. By now, I had learned a really important lesson – to trust my gut.

Even seasoned professionals and institutions can have their blind spots. I think the way the industry is set up, these kinds of institutions and funding bodies do essential work in supporting writers and translators, but they aren’t infallible.

 

And I really wish that someone at the time had told me it was okay to push back if I felt something wasn’t right. You know, I think that honing your own compass for what works and doesn’t work in writing and translation is just as important as the language itself. It’s also really important to find readers that you can trust, who can criticise your work in a way that is thoughtful and informed and aimed at helping you improve it.

Working with Jenthe on this book has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a translator. I’ve got to know her as a person and deeply understand her writing. I think building that kind of relationship with a writer as a translator is wonderful.

We are excited about our next project with Scribe, where I’ll be translating her debut novel People With No Charisma."

#metaglossia_mundus

"Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.

Today, Earth Day, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the availability of all chapters of the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) in Spanish. This marks the first time that the National Climate Assessment has been translated into Spanish, greatly broadening the reach and accessibility of the U.S. government’s premier resource for communicating climate risks, impacts, and solutions and underscoring the Administration’s commitment to reaching all Americans across the country.

“The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of how climate change is affecting people and the actions they are taking across the United States—and highlights that more action is needed,” said Jane Lubchenco, Deputy Director for Climate and Environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “President Biden has taken historic action to meet the climate crisis. Releasing the NCA5 today in Spanish underscores his Administration’s commitment to reach out to all Americans where they are—including Latinos—and to ensure they have access to the best-available science, understanding, and solutions to climate change impacts in the United States.”

The NCA5 was led by the U.S. Global Change Research Program highlights particular impacts on Latino communities, including:

• Across the country, Latino communities face disproportionate water security impacts as a result of climate-driven water quality and quantity hazards.
• Latino residents are more likely to live in floodplains, and flood risk across the country is expected to disproportionately impact areas with more Latino residents.
• Across the country, Latino communities experience, or are projected to experience, numerous climate-related health impacts, from disproportionate exposure to extreme heat to increased incidence of asthma as a result of worsening air quality.
• Under the best global warming scenario by the end of the century, Latino populations will be more likely to experience the highest reduction in labor hours due to extreme high temperatures compared with other demographic groups.    

Spanish-language PDFs of each chapter can be accessed on the NCA5 website, and a Spanish-language webinar on the findings of the U.S. Caribbean chapter is also available.

On May 14, 2024, 3-4 p.m. ET, USGCRP will host a Spanish-language webinar to share about the NCA5 Spanish translation and to share opportunities to participate in the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6). Register here to attend La Evaluación Nacional del Clima: Resumen de Hallazgos y Oportunidades Para Participar.

###"

#metaglossia_mundus

 

The £100million annual cost of ensuring NHS services can be fully accessed in languages other than English could pay for 3,000 more nurses, figures show.

Taxpayers pick up the bill for translation and interpretation for hundreds of thousands of patients as NHS trusts and Integrated Care Boards routinely convert standard hospital and health literature into languages including Romanian, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali and Punjabi.

Former NHS cancer consultant Karol Sikora said: "With funds so tight...the priority must always be patient care. Translation and interpretation costs, however noble, are not a necessity. In an ideal world, we could provide that. But with constricted budgets and constricted resources, frontline support must always come first."

Prof Sikora, right, added: "The NHS has to get back to basics. Providing timely and efficient care.

"Fund frontline staff over translation/interpretation teams. Use Google Translate."

An NHS spokesman said: "As well as legal duties, translation and interpretation services are vital for patient safety and it is absolutely right the NHS in England offers these."

Using Freedom of Information laws, 251 NHS trusts and 42 ICBs were asked the cost for translation and interpretation services in 2021/22 and 2022/23.

Trusts spent £44,885,265 and ICBs £14,762,608 last year - big increases on the £41,527,118 and £13,063,721 12 months earlier. If reflected across all trusts and ICBs, the bill would be £102,612,830.WIONUK: Public satisfaction with NHS hits lower level

 

Birmingham Community Healthcare spent £64,775 translating into Bengali, £54,402 on Romanian and £53,405 for its Punjabi services.

North Central London ICB's Arabic work cost it £59,458 while similar tasks cost Gateshead Health Foundation Trust £24,964; Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust paid out £20,521.

Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust spent £14,553 on Urdu services, and translating into Romanian cost Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB £9,988.

Rupert Lowe, business spokesman for Reform UK, said: "Translation services in an NHS facility are simply not necessary, particularly with the advancements of AI-powered translation which is available on every single smartphone. If people are using our health service, already with no cost, then they can certainly fund the translation or provide a family member who can do so.

 

"This is a significant cost, which should be diverted to frontline staff or back to taxpayers. It is the National Health Service, not the international health service.

"We are being taken advantage of - if you are receiving treatment in an English hospital, then English is the language that must be expected."

The average spend on translation and interpretation at 132 trusts that replied was £314,599 in 2021/22 rising by 8% to £340,039 a year later.

Average ICB spend was £326,962 in 2021/22 increasing by 13% to £410,801.

John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, said: "With the NHS struggling to keep up with demand for services, it's crucial as much money as possible is freed up to deal with the ongoing backlog.

"Health bosses should look to cut costs by making more use of ready-translated material and pooling resources."

In January, 44% of patients waited more than two months for cancer treatment after an urgent referral from a GP - the second worst result on record.

In February, 29% of people at A&E spent more than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.

#metaglossia_mundus: Pathetically deceptive analogy!

"Prolific Translator and UCSB Professor Emerita Suzanne Jill Levine Receives Prestigious PEN Award for Career Achievement

By Riley Burke
Mon Apr 22, 2024 | 9:57am

If you’ve read a novel of Latin American origin in the past 50 years or so, chances are that UCSB’s own Suzanne Jill Levine had something to do with it. 

Levine, a distinguished translator of many significant Latin American texts and a Professor Emerita at UCSB, was named the recipient of the 2024 PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for career achievement in translation. The prestigious award given out by PEN America will be presented to Levine in a ceremony held at Town Hall in New York City on April 29. The award is conferred only once every three years to a translator who has demonstrated particular excellence in their field. 

Throughout Levine’s five-decade-long career, she has translated the likes of Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Manuel Puig — all significant figures in Latin American literature. She also served as editor and co-translator of Penguin’s five-volume paperback classics of the works of Jorge Luis Borges.

Her work began in 1971 with the publication of the critically acclaimed translation of Three Trapped Tigers by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. The novel is widely considered to be one of the greatest Cuban works of the 20th century.  

For Levine, her years of contributions have functioned as a means of connection across cultures, something she has not taken for granted. “My work as a translator has been very much about respect for difference,” she said. 

Apart from her prolific translation work, Levine has written extensively about the value and theories of her field. In 1991, she published The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction. “By tracing the process of translating, [my book] explicitly shows readers how translation is a creative act and defines what a translator is, and why a translator needs to be a linguist, literary critic, and poet or novelist all in one,” she said. 

Levine, who grew up in New York City and went on to get her PhD at New York University, began as a professor at UCSB in 1988. Since then, she has cultivated strong ties to the community. 

 

Between 1989 and 2002, she played a major role in bringing several Latin American writers to speak at the university, the most recent of which was Mario Vargos Llosa, a Nobel laureate. 

Levine remains active in the local literary community, regularly attending writing workshops around town, including recent readings at Chaucer’s Books and literary events at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Santa Barbara Library. “I’m very happy to be involved with the Santa Barbara community,” she said. 

Levine also played a key role in the connection between Santa Barbara–based artist and bookmaker Mary Heebner and Alastair Reid. Reid is the poet and translator with whom Heebner collaborated on an illustrated collection of Pablo Neruda’s poetry.  

Levine is now working on a memoir about her storied career, titled Chronicles of a Literary Translator. Excerpts of the upcoming book have appeared in several literary journals, including Another Chicago Magazine, Review Magazine (CUNY), and the Catamaran Literary Reader. 

Apart from the PEN Award, Levine has received many honors throughout her career. These include NEA fellowships and NEH grants for literary translations, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and the Rockefeller Residency Fellowship at Villa Serbelloni. 

This latest honor underscores her dedication to the field and enduring influence on the past half-century of Latin American literature English-speakers are given access to."

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"A recent survey highlights the harm caused by generative artificial intelligence to the livelihoods of real human creators.

Theodore McKenzie

Published

23 April 2024

Despite the new rules and regulations introduced in some countries, the advancement of generative artificial intelligence and its displacement of human creators continue unabated, with all the negative consequences it entails. While many responded to concerns about replacement in the wittiest of ways – with the "they took our jobs" GIFs from South Park – generative AI has, in fact, been taking jobs from the people, as revealed in a recent survey by the Society of Authors, the UK's largest trade union for writers, illustrators, and translators.

Conducted earlier this year, the survey in question queried respondents about their experiences with generative AI technology, as well as their views on such systems and worries regarding their future impact on creative careers. Notably, the report highlighted that 22% of participants acknowledged using generative AI in their work, including 12% of illustrators, 37% of translators, 20% of fiction writers, and 25% of non-fiction writers.

When asked about the negative impact AI had on their careers, an alarming 26% of illustrators and 36% of translators claimed that they have already lost jobs to machines. Adding insult to injury, a third of illustrators and over 40% of translators reported a decrease in income due to generative AI.

Considering the results, it's no wonder that almost all respondents are calling for new regulations in the field of generative AI. As per the SoA's survey, around 95% of creators seek acknowledgment and compensation, as well as the necessity to obtain consent when their work is utilized for developing generative AI systems. Additionally, the same percentage of creators is urging the government to introduce safeguards to ensure consent, compensation, and transparency in the training and usage of artificial intelligence.

For more interesting findings, we recommend checking out the full survey overview here.: https://80.lv/articles/a-third-of-translators-a-quarter-of-illustrators-have-lost-their-jobs-to-ai/"

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"100 Years of Conference Interpreting: A Legacy 

When Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Georges Clemenceau met in Versailles in January 1919, they ushered in the modern era of multilateral diplomacy and—perhaps inadvertently—laid the foundation for a new profession. Indeed, communication among these statesmen was only possible thanks to the first conference interpreters. For the following 100 years, these interpreters would become a permanent fixture at all international multilateral conferences. As we celebrate one century of conference interpreting, this volume takes stock of some of the most important milestones throughout the history of this exceptional profession and looks at its future at a time when the global COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world of international meetings.

With an impressive list of over 40 contributors across different stakeholder groups this book bears witness to the first 100 years of the profession and will serve as an invaluable time-capsule against which to compare the changes the world of conference interpreting is undergoing. 

A mention to this work has been made in the dedicated section of the KCI"
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