by Eric Lannak

Created on: March 20, 2008   Last Updated: May 20, 2008

Education Translation

Translation always poses interesting challenges, and education translation is no different. Where literary translation tries to maintain the artistry of the work and maintain it's deeper meanings, and legal translation faces the knotty problems of meshing legal concepts and systems with the literal translation, education translation has it's own subset of problems.

Beyond the usual goals (maintaining meaning, working with terms that don't have equivalents, etc), education translation has a daunting task. The translation has to Educate.

Education is more than just putting out information the information has to be conveyed in a manner that will engage the reader, and it must be accessible. This requires a keen sense of the target readers' sophistication in the use of language, their cultural realm, and what the "common knowledge" of the target group is.

For example, translating an American grade school science text into Somali might be possible on the literal level. But is a Somali grade school student going to understand the concepts as they are expressed? Probably not. The translator needs to see the subject matter as a teacher and as a student. The sentence structure and cultural references must match the target audience, or else they will fail.

Terminology is another issue, one that goes beyond the usual "common meaning" problem, because in higher education texts there is an increasing use of cross-cultural words. For example, the statement that a doctor is "making his rounds" is commonly understood in English. But how would you translate it?

You might not have to. The English word "rounds" is commonly used in many other countries for the same concept. A translator needs to know that "rounds" in this sense may be clearly understood as it is. Rendering it as a doctor making his/her "circles", or that he/she is "visiting patients" might confuse a reader or amuse them.

This is common in other higher education texts. Computer technical literature, in particular, is difficult in this respect. Many languages have adopted English-language terms for concepts like "network", "internet", "browser", "database", etc. A translator needs to know the terms that should be left as they are, without translation.

There has been a wonderful cross-pollination of cultures of late, with many languages becoming richer and deeper with the importation of words from other nations.
Because of this, translating educational texts demands awareness of cross-cultural terms beyond the technical jargon. The French have famously adopted "le week-end" and the "hot-dog", and the Japanese have adopted "rush hour", but these are the most high-profile. Keeping up on adaptations is something an education translator needs to do.

Tests, too, are a particularly touchy point. Since tests often require a keen sense of word usage and meaning in the original language, a translator needs to be very careful with test questions. Ultimately, the person translating a test should be fully versed in the material taught, in that language. Otherwise, the tests may not ask the correct questions, and the answers will all be wrong!

Education translation seems to be a simple matter, but it's not. To educate, a text has to be easily readable, clearly explain terms, and engage the reader. It has to mesh with the target student's culture. Testing requires carefully worded exams. To do this, a successful translator needs to assume the role of interpreter, teacher, student, and linguistic scholar.

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