COLLABORATIVE TRANSLATION REVISITED: EXPLORING THE RATIONALE AND THE MOTIVATION FOR VOLUNTEER TRANSLATION 1 Alberto Fernández Costales University of Oviedo, Spain Abstract/Résumé Dans le contexte de la société de l’information et de la mondialisation, les nouvelles technologies permettent aux usagers de jouer un rôle proactif dans la création, la modification et la distribution de contenus sur Internet. Cet article explore les phénomènes du crowdsourcing et de la traduction amateur dans une perspective traductologique, en s’intéressant en particulier aux « traducteurs bénévoles ». Notre but est de proposer une vue d’ensemble des différents contextes et des différentes motivations relatives à la traduction collaborative et d’expliquer les difficultés de définir un profil unique concernant les bénévoles qui réalisent ces activités. Nous tentons de décrire quelques-unes des initiatives les plus marquantes catégorisées sous l’étiquette de traduction collaborative, en attachant une attention toute particulière aux différents objectifs des traducteurs non professionnels. De plus l les avantages ou les inconvénients de ces tendances émergentes sont analysés du point de vue de la pratique professionnelle de la traduction. Cet article entend contribuer à faire comprendre que la traductologie, étant donné son caractère multidisciplinaire et multidimensionnel, doit envisager les phénomènes liés a u village planétaire. Keywords/Mots-clés : collaborative translation, amateur translation, crowdsourcing, fansubbing, scanlations.
I. Introduction The spread of globalisation and the revolutionary breakthroughs in new technologies have contributed to defining a new scenario characterised by the speed of communications and the complexity of having a higher number of agents interacting with each other. New technologies have promoted the exchange of information and the knowledge transfer among people by providing suitable resources and tools (Schäffner, 2000: 1). In the shaping of the new panorama of the global era, the Internet has turned out to be one of the key elements since it has contributed to the implementation of a 1
This research is supported by the grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation FFI2009-08027, Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Audio Description: objective tests and future plans, and also by the Catalan Government funds 2009SGR700.
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worldwide communication network. The current flows of information allow for the immediate exchange and distribution of contents at an international scale and at greatly reduced costs (Castells, 2009: 55; Schäffner, 2000: 1). On the basis of the free and -almost- universal access to information, the process known as collaborative translation has gained momentum in the last decade in parallel to the professional practice of translation. 2 Community translation can be categorised under different taxonomies and classifications, including fansubbing, scanlations, romhacking, web or wiki translation to mention just a few examples of the activities undertaken by non-professional translators. Volunteer translations in the Web have mushroomed in the last years and this is an issue to be addressed by academia and the translation industry alike. Indeed, the number of articles published in journals (Cronin, 2010; García, 2010; O’Hagan, 2009; Pérez González, 2006; Perrino, 2009) and the amount of papers presented in conferences focusing on collaborative translation has increased significantly, underlying the immediate relevance and topicality of this trend. Indeed, we need to take into account the fact that community translation will keep growing with the support of new technologies. Moreover, as has been suggested by Cooper (2011), “it will compete with Machine Translation and professional Human Translation in the localisation ecosystem and it will find its niche”. Besides the dubious legal and ethical implications of collaborative translation (Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006; Lee, 2009; Leonard, 2005; O’Hagan, 2009), we should turn our attention to what the main motivation is for people who start translating on a “voluntary basis”. Is it the irrepressible urge to translate something for themselves or for others? Is there something beyond the premise of translating “by fans and for fans”? Are there additional grounds? Should crowdsourcing and amateur translation be considered as a unique and inseparable concept? In addition, we need to address a good number of questions surrounding a nuclear issue: who should be regarded as a community translator? Can users engaged in user-generated contents claim to be translators? Is it possible to 2
Collaborative translation is also referred to as “amateur translation”, “fan translation” and “user-generated contents”. In this paper, “collaborative”, “community” and “volunteer” translation are preferred since this activity is not only supported by “fans” or “amateurs” but also by professional translators, resulting in a broader concept. Nevertheless, the non-profit nature of volunteer translators seems to be a common feature in these activities (Pym, 2011).
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establish a well-defined profile of amateur translators? What about professionals who are involved in this kind of initiatives? Should these activities be excluded from the scope of ‘translation proper’ or is it the duty of scholars to gather information (and set the criteria) in order to have a clear picture of ‘who does what’ in translation? This paper is aimed at tackling these questions, taking into account the “lack of hard empirical data” (Pym, 2011) and assuming that monitoring the total amount of non-professional translations on the Web is no easy or straightforward task. The article is structured as follows: section 2 briefly describes the current scenario in which new technologies have converged with translation, leading to new paradigms and sub-fields. Section 3 focuses on crowdsourcing and the main types of community translation activities, such as fansubbing and scanlations, whereas section 4 is devoted to the possible motivation promoting these initiatives. Section 5 evaluates some of the most relevant threats that community translation may entail and also its possible virtues and applications in educational settings; finally, in section 6, the main conclusions of this paper are presented. II. The technological turn in Translation Studies The long-term effects of globalisation, together with the powerful communication tools of the digital age have contributed to broaden the field of study for the Humanities in general and for Translation Studies in particular: in the context of the global era, translation is not only the basic tool for intercultural communication but it is also a determining factor in social, political and economical settings. The relevance of translation has been reinforced in the last decades due to the growing need for translating contents into different languages and the inclusion of more agents in the international scenario. The current panorama was foreseen more than a decade ago when Minako
O’Hagan
(1996)
described
the
forthcoming
industry
of
teletranslation: a global network where the paradigm of the information society would reshape the way people communicate -and translate- in the new era. Indeed, these predictions were quite accurate and in the last three decades we have witnessed the consolidation of the GILT industry
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(Globalisation, Internationalisation, Localisation and Translation) as a response to the need for the internationalisation and localisation of products mainly software and websites-, which has been approached from different points of view (Esselink, 2000; Fernández Costales, 2010; Pym, 2004; Singh & Pereira, 2005; Yunker, 2002). The scope of translation in the scenario of ‘collective intelligence’ and the -possible- paradigm shift need to be addressed by academia, as the threat of fragmentation is still real: the emergence of the localisation industry can contribute to increase the gap between the theory and the practice of translation, as it is usually argued that “traditional translation” is only one of the activities included in any localisation process (Esselink, 2000: 2). However, translation has evolved towards a “multimodal” discipline and nowadays it should not be regarded as an activity restricted to linguistic mediation since it also addresses the adaptation on non-textual, semiotic or cultural elements (Fernández Costales, 2009b). In fact, in the context of globalisation,
borders
between
disciplines
have
been
blurred
and
interdisciplinarity is nowadays a meeting point where translation converges and interacts with more “trendy” varieties such as video games localisation or web internationalisation (O’Hagan & Ashworth, 2002). Undoubtedly, the technical advances achieved in the last part of the 20th century have led to the “technological turn” of Translation Studies (Cronin, 2010), a discipline that has already undergone social, cultural and linguistic “turns” (Snell-Hornby, 2006: 3). The introduction of computers, the use of smartphones, the global spread of the Internet and the ubiquity of the Web are some of the main landmarks to be pointed out in the remarkable technological boom of the digital era. In a nutshell, the professional practice of translation faces a dynamic and complex scenario where immediacy and providing global coverage and services are a must for translation agencies and freelancers. Nowadays, translation is supported by a wide range of tools (such as translation memories, terminological databases and localisation software) designed to assist translators and optimise their performance. The impact new technologies have had on the profession can be analysed by assessing the possible benefits and advantages translation technologies provide in terms of efficiency, accuracy and consistency (Fernández Costales, 2009a; Fiederer &
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O’Brien, 2009; Somers, 2003; Webb, 1998); however, even though timesaving and the optimisation of project management and translation flows have been documented in the specialised literature, the excessive use (or abuse) of translation tools entails several dangers concerning the role of the translator and the status of this discipline in the context of the information society. Indeed, some authors have already underlined some of the possible threats posed by new technologies since “the amount of work available to the professional translator on the web appears to be shrinking, due to the pincer effect of both machine translation and crowdsourcing” (García, 2010). Also, some scholars have studied the negative effects of the over-dependency on technology for the role of the translator and how it can contribute to a deviation from the core activities of translation and the establishment of a word-for-word pattern. This idea is supported by Anthony Pym (2003, 2007) and also by Michael Cronin (2003: 112), who comments on the risk of translators becoming “transnational cyborgs who can no longer be conceived of independently of the technologies with which they interact”. Nevertheless, it is worth bearing in mind that translation technology is not intended to replace translators by machines but to provide suitable tools to optimise and streamline this process (Melby, 2006). In this regard, it is necessary to underline that translation is a human activity. As such, translation is a process driven by the ingenuity and the audacity of human translators and analysed and studied by scholars and researchers. It can be concluded that the influence of new technologies has triggered a shift in the translation industry; interestingly, the unexpected application of some of the new devices by non-professional users has opened new paths and horizons. The interactive nature of the Web 2.0 has led to the appearance of unforeseen phenomena that can somehow shadow the professional practice of translation: in particular, community translation, where users adapt contents voluntarily to be accessed by other people on a free basis. Therefore, in the context of globalisation and the technological turn of Translation Studies, professional human translators are not only challenged by machines but also by other humans who collaborate translating on a voluntary basis.
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III. New phenomena in the Web: crowdsourcing and collaborative translation As long as professional translation is concerned, the Web has allowed for the promotion of tele-working for millions of freelancers who search for new customers in any location of the world without leaving their homes. Moreover, new online translation tools have been developed to support teletranslation and stimulate the exchange of information. In this context, it is interesting to underline that many web-based translation tools are no longer limited to the professional use since they are also accessed by several kinds of users: online dictionaries, machine translation systems like Google Translate, translation memory sharing platforms and online marketplaces for translators (e.g. www.proz.com) are regularly accessed by millions of people who use them to check terms and translate different types of texts. Furthermore, translation teamware systems and collaborative translation environments are being designed and developed in order to allow people to work together in large translation projects on a voluntary basis (Shimohata et al., 2001; Utiyama et al., 2009). As regards collaborative efforts, the achievement of the so-called Web 2.0 has set a clear landmark due to the tremendous power it has put in the hands of the global audience. The Web 2.0 is aimed to activate and foster the interaction among users and also the relation between humans and machines. In the first case, interaction is created among individuals who collaborate on different projects, editing and creating digital contents such as wikis, blogs, forums, podcasts or websites as a community. On the other hand, the interaction between users and technology itself has been triggered by allowing individuals to produce rather than only consume digital contents, leading to a shift from consumers to prosumers (O’Hagan, 2009). The setting of global networks has also supported the belief that collective intelligence or “the wisdom of crowds” (Surowiecki, 2004) may be more powerful than the efforts of single individuals. In other words, the Web has allowed users to participate and collaborate in the creation of a system where “much like in a social insect colony, individuals contribute to the bigger picture by adding or editing the elements that make up the building” (Perrino, 2009).
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In this panorama, where technical progress has contributed to removing physical barriers giving people the power to share information in an unpredictable way, users still have to face one last barrier that human societies have been facing for ages: languages. Online contents need to be translated to different languages in order to be accessible for different communities, locales or markets. Beyond the preference of Internet users to read online contents in their own language, translation is nowadays a market need and adapting products is a must for all those companies wishing to be profitable beyond their national borders. This might be one of the main reasons explaining the link between crowdsourcing and translation. III. 1 Crowdsourcing by institutions and private firms The term crowdsourcing makes reference to the massive outsourcing of a task to be undertaken by a rather large and undefined pool of people who will perform it on a voluntary basis. The term was coined by Jeff Howe, who defines it as “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call” (Howe, 2006). Crowdsourcing has a good number of legal, social, political, economical and ethical issues to be addressed (Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006; Leonard, 2005; Munday, 2008: 190): most of the activities carried out by amateur translators fall outside the law and in many cases the intellectual property rights of the authors of translated materials are not respected; similarly, copyrights and distribution regulations are often ignored by volunteer translators. However, many of these topics fall out of the scope of this paper, which focuses on the specific influence and implications crowdsourcing may have for translation. Indeed, within the undefined and opaque activities to be categorised under the umbrella of crowdsourcing, translation has been particularly successful thanks to the support of a good number of people who translate on a voluntary basis. It is worth mentioning that there may be sufficient grounds to support the differentiation between crowdsourcing and community translation: while the former is an activity initiated by companies and corporations looking to reduce production costs (e.g. LinkedIn and Google relied on crowdsourcing
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to have their online contents adapted to different locales) with unclear legal and ethical settings and even more obscure purposes, community translation is an initiative set up by fans and for fans. In other words, it has not been triggered by private interests or underlying purposes but it is intended to make some contents available to other users in their own language: that is, users are interacting or collaborating in order to disseminate a message into other cultures. Beyond the emphasis in the sense of community of collaborative translation, these processes can also be differentiated from the point of view of Translation Studies, as the figures of the commissioner or the initiator (Nord, 1991: 93) clearly differ in both cases: while crowdsourcing is usually started by a particular company or corporation that outsources translatable contents to its customers, community translation is normally- initiated by the own users who work as “volunteer translators”. A good example of “crowdsourced translation” is the adaptation of Facebook into different locales by the own users of the social network, which launched a promotional campaign some years ago inviting its members to contribute by translating the website into their mother tongue (García, 2010; O’Hagan, 2009). This was a successful initiative that got thousands of users involved in the adaptation of the social network into several languages; in fact, Facebook released a translation application to provide a helping hand to those volunteers willing to contribute to the localisation of the website. Currently, the number of active translators for French (France) is 42,721, while the number of translations into Spanish submitted by the community exceeds 153,000.
3
These figures can be used to support the idea that
outsourcing translation services to “the crowd” is at its very peak on the Web and is a profitable activity for many companies. The example of Facebook may have influenced other corporations that followed suit. In 2009 LinkedIn sent an e-mail to more than 41 million users with a survey asking about their availability and willingness to translate online contents on a voluntary basis; although the company received positive feedback, there were bitter protests from professional translators (Kelly, 2009). Similarly, Second Life fans adapted the contents of its site into eleven different locales, as three quarters of the registered users are not native
3
Source: http://www.facebook.com/translations/. Accessed on November 20th 2011.
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speakers of English (Ray, 2009). The process undertaken by these sites may serve to illustrate how crowdsourcing is working in the Web and the way it can affect the practice and the industry of translation. III. 2 Community translation As regards community translation, some well-known examples can be found in fansubs, scanlations and romhacking. Although several differences can be pointed out in these three activities, all of them share two main characteristics: contents are produced by fans and for fans, and the final product is distributed and disseminated using the Web. This is the meeting point where new technologies (the Internet) converge with translation in the new interactive scenario leading to the development of collaborative efforts. III. 2.1 Fansubbing Fansubbing refers to the practice of subtitling audiovisual material by fans and for fans (Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006; Ferrer Simó, 2005; O’Hagan, 2008: 159; Pérez González, 2006). Although this phenomenon dates back to the 80s, when followers of Japanese anime subtitled their favourite products in English in order to distribute them in Western countries, nowadays it is one of the most widespread examples of collaborative translation and, probably, the most popular activity among young volunteer translators. The two main areas of fansubbing are films and TV series that are subtitled by fans and released in the Web within hours after they have been broadcast in American cinemas and on TV channels. In this sense, fansubbing shows another feature that can be applied to community translation in general: normally, contents are not translated by a single person but by a group of users or even a whole community of supporters. In many cases, fansubbers are even organised with a well-established definition of roles and duties, resembling the working system of a translation agency. It is also noteworthy to mention that there has been a shift from the initial language pair in fansubbing (Japanese - English) into a more complex pattern in which contents are adapted from English into many languages. Due to the popularity and success of American TV shows and films, we have witnessed how collaborative translation is nowadays more active in the reverse direction, with English as the source language being adapted into several
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locales (e.g. to this regard, the Spanish fansubbing community is particularly large thanks to the number of amateurs translating TV shows in Spain and South America). III. 2.2 Scanlations Scanlations are another example of community translation in which nonprofessional translators scan comic books and edit the dialogue boxes translating them into different languages (Ferrer Simó, 2005; Lee, 2009). Again, one of the primary sources of scanlations is provided by the Japanese manga, which is adapted by fans into those locales in which these products are not marketed or localised. The files are subsequently distributed through the Internet to bring the fan community their favourite stories in their own language. As in the case of fansubbing, the authorship of scanned translations is commonly attributed to a group of amateurs with well-defined tasks and duties (O’Hagan, 2008: 163). Although the main principles of audiovisual translation (i.e. subtitling techniques) do not apply in scanlations, the translation of this type of texts has to take into account not only the space restrictions of the comic books but also the complexity and difficulty of transferring many Japanese cultural elements into other target audiences. III. 2.3 Romhacking Finally, romhacking is the edition of classic videogames to adapt them to a particular culture (Muñoz Sánchez, 2008). In this regard, the technical processes undergone in this practice are close to software and videogame localisation and there is a great deal of creativity; in fact, the so-called transcreation (Mangiron & O’Hagan, 2006) or the unlimited freedom of the translator when localising a game can be frequently observed in videogames adapted by fans. As it happens with fansubbing and scanlations, the ‘fandom culture’ can be largely observed in romhacking, which is basically driven by the desire of having access to products that have not been adapted to certain cultures for commercial reasons or budgetary constraints. Even though ‘fandoms’ were set and started long time ago before computers were available to the wide society (Jenkins, 2006: 137), the use of the Internet as a communicative tool may have also affected and reconfigured fan cultures (Hills, 2002: 170). For instance, the Web has allowed for the creation of a good number of forums, websites and communities devoted to the edition of classic videogames.
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Although these are the three main categories in which community translation is usually classified, this is a far more complex phenomenon that cannot be simplified under a single label; in fact, the number of fields, areas and cases in which translations are being done on a voluntary basis is much bigger. III. 2.4. Other types of community translation Collaborative efforts can be observed in many websites, Wikipedia being one of the most remarkable examples, as this is a wiki which has been completely translated by its users; similarly, open source software applications and their related materials (manuals, blogs and all types of documents) are translated on a daily basis by volunteer translators; also, in the case of institutional websites we can find examples of pages being translated by amateurs: research conducted in the field of web localisation confirms that most university websites of the European Union have been translated by students, faculty and administrative staff and very few institutions -only 20%- rely on professional translators to adapt their corporate sites (Fernández Costales, 2010). Although the adaptation of university websites by faculty or staff cannot be related to “fan” activities or the fandom culture, this clearly falls in the scope of volunteer translation. Leaving aside the Web, we can also find people who translate for humanitarian reasons in war conflicts, volunteers in legal and medical settings, and translators contributing to give some visibility to marginal or peripheral groups (e.g. the gay community in the 80s, or more recent tendencies such as the cosplay subculture). On the other hand, interpreting is even more difficult to track -since there are no written records- and there are many legal and medical contexts where volunteer interpreters bridge the gap between cultures. We have to take into account that community translation is usually done by amateurs but we can also find professional translators working on a voluntary basis in many of the scenarios previously described. The obvious question to be addressed in this context is: what are the reasons for people to get involved in community translation?
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IV. What are the motivations of community translators? The opacity and the great diversity that can be detected in the different activities and initiatives grouped under the category of community translation make it hard to offer a simple and straightforward answer to this question. The particular interest of individuals or groups engaged in collaborative translation can correspond to very different grounds, approaches and contexts. The following sections are intended to provide an overall view on the rationale and motivation for volunteer or community translation. IV. 1 Translating for fun One of the key features commonly associated with community translation is that the underlying motivation for volunteer translators is to allow other people access to certain materials which have not been adapted to their culture. Due to different marketing and commercial strategies, some products are not translated into a given language (although these cases seem to have been reduced in the last decades with the establishment of simultaneous shipment - or simship - strategies). In any case, even when books or films are effectively translated by professionals, amateur translators rush to publish their own versions even before the official product has been released. A wellknown example was the translation of the last chapter of the Harry Potter saga into Chinese only two days after the book was published in English speaking countries (Perrino, 2009); similarly, different unauthorised translations of the fifth book of the story appeared in less than 48 hours after the title was released (Munday, 2008: 190). These are just two examples of the power of the fandom culture and the community of amateur translators, which use the Web in order to make materials available for the highest possible number of people. In this context, which can be clearly applied to fansubbing, romhacking and scanlations, it can be concluded that the aim of products translated ‘by fans for fans’ is being fulfilled. In this regard, the culture of fandom can be considered to be underpinning the whole process because fans turn into the promoters of a particular taste or admiration for certain products by enabling other users to access them in their own language. In other words, “fan
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translation, therefore, can be considered as a manifestation of participatory culture” (O’Hagan, 2008: 159). This idea is supported by Lee (2009) who conducted a survey on scanlators concluding that they share “a strong missionary zeal for promoting manga” and “their first and foremost motive is their love of, and passion for, manga”. Indeed, the initiative of allowing other people to access some contents (TV series, videogames, comics, etc.) relies on the concept of the community; the feeling of belonging to this community implies that its members have to share their interests and passions and they collaborate in order to disseminate them. In this sense, the involvement of more and more users in any kind of fan activity on the Internet is moving fandom “from cult status to cultural mainstream” (Jenkins, 2006: 142), as the Web allows targeting the global audience. It can be concluded that the initiative of translating for others can be regarded as an example of “translating for art’s sake” or the “irrepressible urge to translate something for themselves or for others”. The idea of “translating for fun” is reinforced if we pay attention to those cases where official translations are provided by the companies producing the materials: in the case of American TV shows, the number of amateur translations into French and Spanish has rocketed in the last years and chapters are fansubbed within hours after they have been aired, even when the show is going to have a dubbed version in these countries. Similarly, some Japanese anime series that are currently translated into English still have alternate amateur versions, which are often preferred by many of their fans; indeed, fansubbing and scanlations can have some influence on the translation strategies of the official versions regarding the adaptation of names or places (Ferrer Simó, 2005). The main purpose of amateurs translating audiovisual products is to allow other users to watch them in (almost) real time with the support of subtitles in their native tongues -i.e. interlingual subtitles, in which the script is translated from the source into the target language, as opposed to intralingual subtitles where on-screen text is in the same language of the dialogues (Díaz-Cintas, 2005; Gottlieb, 2001: 247)-. Hence, the idea of collectivism can be effectively observed in this initiative, highlighting the sense of translation as a human activity.
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As has been already mentioned, a common feature in community translation is that products are not usually translated by a small group of people but by a large pool of volunteers. Furthermore, translations are constantly changing, as they can be subsequently modified and edited by other users: chapters of famous TV shows like House MD or Desperate Housewives can be easily translated by 50 different people and the translations are edited up to 900 times. 4 Obviously, the lack of quality control and the methodology used in these translational activities can differ very much from professional practices; furthermore the poor quality in amateur subtitles can be easily assessed in many of the mainstream products adapted by fans (Bogucki, 2009; Díaz-Cintas, 2005; Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006). In the particular case of fansubbing, some of the most common issues are typos (i.e. misspellings, etc.), using different language varieties (e.g. including Mexican Spanish words like jalar or carro in Castilian Spanish subtitles), and failing to meet the standards to be applied in subtitles: for instance, certain conventions and subtitling techniques are sometimes not fully respected in amateur subtitles, which do not stick to the ‘golden rule’ of two lines per subtitle or 72 characters on screen (Díaz-Cintas, 2008: 97; Pedersen, 2011: 19). Figure 1 shows an example in which the Spanish subtitle consists of 87 characters, covering an unusual part of the TV screen (almost three full lines). These issues can contribute to underline the nonprofessional nature of fansubbing and they can even spoil the user experience since fansubs will not meet the expectations of the target audience, who will probably “forgive” typos or even grammar mistakes but will be less permissive regarding an excessive number of characters on the screen.
Sequence 51 00:02:23,080 - 00:02:29,184
Un tac, quizá una resonancia... Pero es Ud. El paciente más educado que he visto en una semana, así que... Figure 1: Spanish subtitle in Person of Interest Season 1 - Episode 4. Source: www.subtitulos.es.
4
Some of the websites providing subtitles for TV shows (like www.subtitulos.es) include a detailed record of every chapter with the number of translators and the number of times the script has been edited.
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The recreational side of community translation can be regarded as one of the main grounds to stimulate activities like fansubbing, romhacking and scanlations: people translate on a voluntary basis in order to share something they like with other users in their own language. Even though these are the most fashionable and trendy initiatives within amateur translation, we have to take into account other situations that are less visible and where volunteer translators do have additional reasons to engage in collaborative activities. IV. 2 Translating to help other people In humanitarian contexts, helping other people seems to be the primary target of community translation when trying to overcome language barriers and enable communication in different settings. People who collaborate with non-profit organisations and those (amateur or professional) translators working in humanitarian settings are helping to improve a given situation by adapting messages from a source into a target culture. Munro (2010) describes how volunteer translators contributed in the emergency response after Haiti’s earthquake in 2010 by translating text messages from Haitian Creole into English, so they could be understood by the emergency responders (mainly US military); about 1,000 volunteer translators processed more than 40,000 emergency text messages in the first weeks after the catastrophe. Similar situations are normally produced after natural disasters and catastrophes such as the 2011 tsunami in Japan, where a list of volunteer interpreters and translators was assembled by the Japan Association of Translators to help in the aftermath of the crisis. Non-profit organisations, charity institutions, agencies for cooperation development, NGOs, or any initiative aiming to build a more equal and fair society normally require volunteer translators in order to gain visibility and advertise in different countries. In this regard, children’s development organisations are a frequent meeting point for volunteer translators who adapt websites, promotional texts, leaflets, application forms and a good number of documents into different languages: specifically, those companies promoting children sponsorship (like Unicef or Plan International) rely on volunteer translators to render the correspondence between the child and his/her
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sponsors. 5 Similarly, volunteers working for Red Cross and other emergency response organisations provide translation and interpreting services in a wide variety of situations. A rather interesting case is the Rosetta Foundation, a spin-off of the University of Limerick, which is intended to relieve poverty and promote justice by removing language barriers.
6
More precisely, this non-profit
organisation aims to make information available to people worldwide regardless of their income levels, cultural background, and language (Anastasiou & Schäler, 2010). This initiative was set in 2009 and can be regarded as one of the first cases where an institution attempts to take advantage of community translation in order to service the general public. IV. 3 Translating to preserve cultural heritage Finally, another motivation for community translation can be placed on a more cultural scenario: the dissemination of contents into different languages can pursue social and cultural aims, as it makes it possible to improve the visibility of peripheral groups or minorities which are not sufficiently represented in the mainstream panorama. This may include the translation of independent or low-budget films, the adaptation of literature and theatre plays, or the translation of materials into minor languages that are not usually considered by editorials, companies or institutions: adapting a novel to a minor language is sometimes done in order to improve the international visibility of certain low-dissemination languages, allowing speakers of a given community to read the book in their own language (for instance, in Spain, this can be observed in the case of many books translated into Basque, Catalan and Galician, and also into some other minor languages, such as Valencian or Astur-Leonese). Regarding online materials, once again, Wikipedia can be used as a good example since the number of articles translated into minor languages (e.g. Irish, Scottish Gaelic, etc.) keeps growing on a steady basis; in this regard, the adaptation of all kinds of online
5
See http://plan-international.org/what-you-can-do. Accessed on November 20th 2011. See the official website at: http://www.therosettafoundation.org. Accessed on November 20th 2011.
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contents into minor languages is a phenomenon to be studied by research on the basis of the social, cultural and political questions involved. The three main motivations described so far -translating for fun, translating in humanitarian contexts and translating for cultural, social and political reasons- can set the basis for a good number of cases of community translation, understanding this issue as a self-initiative of users and not as a process started by companies or corporations pursuing particular interests (i.e. crowdsourcing). However, the huge and ever growing amount of contents being translated on a free basis cannot be empirically measured and monitored and we cannot ignore the fact that there may be a great diversity concerning the goals and intentions of particular users when translating contents on a voluntary basis: improving their competence in a foreign language, updating their IT skills, becoming part of a community of fans, getting in touch with other people, etc. Similarly, the possible grounds for professionals who translate without being paid can also be more complex to analyse: some translators look to achieving some recognition in the Web, translation students may attempt to get some expertise in the use of subtitling and dubbing tools, while novel professionals try to enter the market, gain experience and get some “free” advertising that will pay-off in the medium term. Obviously, the question of authorship in the Web is a complex issue and in many occasions the names of the translators remain anonymous (although in the case of the Internet, this applies to both, professional and non-professional translators). However, in some contexts (such as romhacking and fansubbing) translations are credited to their authors (that may use real names or nicknames). In more professional settings, such as www.proz.com, translators (using their real names) are awarded points according to their answers in terminology forums. On the basis of these arguments, it is not possible to define a single and prototypical profile of “volunteer translator” that applies to the wide variety of situations observed in community translation. Although some common features may be identified in many of the initiatives commented in this section (e.g. team work, the sense of community, trying to improve a given situation by removing language barriers, the use of technology to disseminate contents) the particular targets of each case cannot establish a common pattern. One of the basic reasons explaining this diversity may be found in
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the nature of translation, which has proven to be a multidimensional and multidisciplinary field that is able to include and embrace different approaches, interests and points of view. V. Collaborative efforts or serious threat for professional translation? Leaving aside the possible motivations for community translation discussed in the previous section, it can be stated that volunteer translation represents a paradox in the case of a profession and a discipline that have been struggling to gain visibility and recognition during the last decades: whereas scholars keep working to reinforce the status of Translation Studies as a proper academic field and professional translators demand better labour conditions, we find volunteers performing translational activities without being paid for them. As has already been stated in the introduction of this paper, the study of these new initiatives can contribute to draw the line between “collaborative” and professional translation. V. 1 Possible danger for professional translation? From the point of view of Translation Studies, there are several issues to be addressed in community translation. Clearly, one of the most controversial assumptions underlying activities such as fansubbing is that “anybody can be a translator”: in other words, translators are people with “some” knowledge of a foreign language who adapt a sentence from A to B. This simplified vision is very distant from the real role of the translator as a cultural mediator and language expert who is able to convey a message from a source culture into a given audience taking into account not only linguistic issues but also semiotic, paralinguistic, pragmatic, cultural, technical or legal matters to mention just a few of the elements that are normally involved in translation. Also, the lack of academic qualifications or professional expertise in the field of many collaborative translators does not seem to reinforce the idea that professionals need both, a solid theoretical background and technical skills and competences to deliver high-quality translations. Secondly, as it has been already mentioned, the output of amateur translation is -normally- “below par” (Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006)
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and the lack of consistency and coherence may be considered to be a relatively common feature in non-professional translational activities. Far from being an irrelevant issue, the question of quality does matter since the normalisation of poor standards could be understood by customers as a good opportunity to reduce rates on the basis of the consideration of translation as a minor service that can be provided by anyone since it does not require any specific skill or competence. In a nutshell, poor services and low quality may lead to the loss of prestige in the profession. Third, in the case of some practices like scanlations, fandubbing or fansubbing, users profit from the legal vacuum and the fuzzy borders of the Internet to carry out these activities; however, it should be taken into account that, from a legal point of view, many amateur translators are not complying with the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, governing copyright laws. 7 Besides international regulations (e.g. European policies on intellectual property), community translation may also breach national laws as happens with scanlations in Japan (Lee, 2009). Last but not least, collaborative translation can be understood to be detrimental to the professional practice of translation: no software engineers are requested to improve Facebook or Google servers for free; similarly, car manufacturers do not expect engineers to test or provide new designs on a voluntary basis for “an alleged benefit of society”. Therefore, why should professional translators be happy when volunteer or amateur translators get engaged in their field of expertise? Broadly speaking, these are the main drawbacks that are commonly associated with community translation. On the other hand, although there is still a lack of hard empirical data, research is being conducted in order to explore the possible benefits or advantages to be drawn from these activities. To this regard, we should focus on how translation can profit from the present situation in order to create synergies and best practices that stimulate knowledge transfer to society at the same time it enhances the relevance of professional practice and academic research on translation.
7
Some collaborative translation environments are taking legal issues into account by asking volunteer translators to confirm that the authors of the corresponding text have approved its translation (Utiyama et al., 2009).
19
V.2 Advantages and applications of collaborative translation Community translation can be regarded as a beneficial practice from a linguistic and a social point of view. As regards languages, collaborative translation can be used as a resource intended to train translation (and language) students: the introduction of audiovisual translation has proven to be beneficial in language courses and research has been conducted on how subtitling techniques can be used to improve language competence and skills (Díaz-Cintas, 1995; Talaván, 2006). Some of the results of these studies can be applied to related fields and practices such as dubbing, audiodescription (respeaking) and voiceover. Also, in the line of new educational approaches and training methodologies, where new technologies are used in order to improve the learning output of students (Forte & Bruckman, 2007), the creation of wikis, blogs, videoblogs, podcasts, websites and terminological databases in foreign languages by students of different disciplines is an interesting tool in order to promote multilingualism, a key objective in the framework of international mobility and the European Higher Education Area. The interaction between languages and technology is being currently addressed in the classroom by means of teaching methodologies such as task-based and problem-based approaches, or the trendy Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The use of technology in the teaching / learning process can contribute to stimulate students’ motivation since they can perceive the practical application this may have in real contexts; besides, it can also promote the acquisition of basic competences such as learning to learn or handling new technologies. In this context, the creation of e-learning platforms and other online resources such as Virtual Campus or telematic tools can benefit from the collaborative efforts of students working under the supervision of a lecturer or a professional who monitors the quality and the standards of the final result. From a social point of view, the possible contribution of community translation seems to be clear in different ways. In general terms, collaborative translation can bridge the existing gap in certain settings and provide
20
forgotten users with contents in their own language. By “forgotten” I refer to those communities or groups which do not receive information in their own language due to the low dissemination status of their mother tongue: this is the case of minor languages and also those ones which are not officially recognised in the European Union. Beyond the Eurocentric point of view of someone whose mother tongue is English, French, Spanish or other “major” language, we have to take into account those people that belong to smaller linguistic communities. Anastasiou and Schäler (2010) use a dramatic example when explaining that “signs warning children in Afghanistan of land mines are written only in English, a language foreign to the children playing in these areas”. This is just a sample of the lack of information in different languages in healthcare, and comes to reinforce the fact that localisation is required
in
“independently
order of
to
guarantee
short-term
universal
return
on
access
investment
to
information,
considerations”
(Anastasiou & Schäler, 2010). In addition to this, we also have to consider the lack of profitability resulting from the translation of certain contents into different markets: pharmaceutical companies do not adapt their patient information leaflets into many languages, and people who suffer from rare diseases are commonly ignored by authorities and institutions. Similarly, in the age of the information technology, many audiovisual products are still available only in English. This does not help to reduce the digital divide and imposes a great barrier for many mature people who want to access new technologies in Europe (websites, videogames, software applications, etc.). In line with this, accessibility and usability in digital contents are clearly hampered by the lack of translation into different languages: people with disabilities (e.g. blind people, the deaf and hard of hearing, people with cognitive problems) are not usually taken into account when designing multimedia products and translation can effectively provide a helping hand to overcome physical barriers. In this sense, community translation often addresses issues that have been forgotten or ignored by the industry of translation.
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VI. Conclusions Community translation is an emerging phenomenon where a growing number of users are getting involved in different kinds of collaborative activities using the Web as a communication platform. As happened with other initiatives powered by the development of the Web 2.0, community translation might not be a temporary fashion but rather a permanent practice; in other words, we have to consider the possibility that community translation is here to stay. Translation Studies should approach community translation as a tendency resulting from the interactive framework of the digital age. Clearly, a line has to be drawn between professional and non-professional activities in terms of quality, standards and best practices, but the analysis of the different forms of volunteer translation can also render interesting results as long as the “sociology” of translation is concerned. On the other hand, community translation has to be in the agenda of Translation Studies in order to avoid the risk of fragmentation; inclusive approaches will allow Translation Studies to contribute to reduce the eternal gap between theory and practice. Many translation students are engaged in fan translation, as it provides a good opportunity to practice in “real contexts”. Therefore, translation training could address topics like fansubbing, romhacking and scanlations aiming to raise students’ awareness on legal issues and provide them with models of best practices (which can result from translation theory). Emerging phenomena in translation must be analysed and studied by scholars and researchers in order to keep track of new trends and have an updated perception of the current panorama in the translation industry. Even though there are a number of issues to be addressed in volunteer translation and several danger focuses can be spotted in many of these practices, ignoring their existence -or simply denying it- will not solve the problem. Although the anonymity and opacity of the Web may hamper the development of quantitative studies aiming to monitor and quantify community translational initiatives, descriptive approaches and the study of the final output of community translation, together with the analysis of the tasks and activities carried out by volunteer translators, may contribute to building a more solid and objective knowledge of these new phenomena.
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Regarding the industry and the professional practice of translation, knowing ‘who is doing what’ must be in the radar screen of associations and freelancers since it may well supply valuable information to promote best practices and struggle for the recognition of the profession and the enhancement of the role of (human) translators. In addition, by studying and analysing these new activities we will contribute to the definition of the figure of the translator in the 21st century and we will gain new insights and knowledge that can be subsequently transferred to the professional practice of translation. Translation Studies have been fighting in order to achieve recognition as an academic discipline and many barriers have been overcome, including the so-called fragmentation: translation has proven to be a multimodal and multidimensional field that is able to include distant areas such as localisation, literary translation, simultaneous interpreting or dubbing, to name just a few examples. The very essence of translation as a human activity makes it impossible to control and monitor every aspect in the practice of translation. However, by studying and analysing new trends, we will be able to promote best professional standards and underline the role of the translator as a professional intercultural and communication expert. Fortunately, the unpredictability and the ingenuity of human translators are still needed in the global era.
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[email protected]
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