Today we would like to share with you extracts from an article written by B. Fraser and H.T. Beeth in 1999 under the title “The Hidden Life of Translators”.
 The article deals with three different aspects of translating. The material it contains has been collected, developed and condensed from a series of workshops for translators which have been conducting at the European Commission.
Our main purpose in these workshops has been to explore translating from the angle of internal observation and experiencing of a process rather than external observation and measurement of a product. This is because we are convinced that the secret of “quality translation” is to be found not so much in the constituents of the end-product but in the process by which it is arrived at.
Our method has been to ask professional translators how they work and how they react to descriptions of working process that are given by other translators. Our descriptions are as clear as we can make them on the basis of inner self-observation. It is perhaps worth stressing that we have avoided “think-aloud” protocols because we believe these are still likely to be structured and censored by unconscious presuppositions. The hope is that other professional translators will recognize the process described and – by virtue of having them described in words – be able more easily to access their own internal processes and so improve or change them if they wish.
The three themes of this article reflect different levels of detain in the translating process. The first section is concerned with how our perceived identity as translators influences our performance. The second section will look at the meta-processes which provide a framework for the specific act of translating. The third will deal with more detailed micro-processes, which we will relate to the wider contexts discussed in the first two sections.

 Section 1: The translator as professional and craftsman 

Knowing where you are

 Translating cannot be seen in isolation. The translator’s role is embedded in the broader context of a communication process whose purpose will be different in each instance and where the number and identity of the interlocutors will also vary. Indeed, the very same text can sometimes be made to serve different purposes on different occasions and can therefore require a different translation each time.
To do full justice to any text, we have to think and feel ourselves into the relevant context. The more thoroughly we can steep ourselves in the background, the more effortlessly and naturally we will be able to produce the quality of work which is required for each occasion.

  There is more, however: the ultimate success of the communication process depends on understanding not only the content of the message and its context but also, wherever possible, the identity of the sender and receiver and the relation between them, as experienced on both sides.

 Knowing who you are

   As translators, our position in the communication process is unusual. We are “in the middle”.
Being neither the sender of the message nor the receiver, the translator is not so much an interlocutor in the communication process as part of the process itself. In this capacity, we are supposed to be invisible.
The translator rarely comes face-to-face with either the sender or the receiver of the message. Our investment in the process is to ensure that he message from the sender is relayed as faithfully as possible to the receiver. Sometimes, the receiver need not be taxed with the knowledge that the message originated in a different organization, a different language or a different culture. At other times, the receiver wants to understand the circumstances in which the message originated.
As translators, our role in the process is also more complex that hat if either the sender or the receiver. Part of our role must be “chameleon”. For if we are to be sure of faithfully and effectively transmitting the message, we will need t spend time in other people’s shoes.
We have all been senders and receivers of written messages ourselves, so we know what it means, as an author, to ask ourselves “How can I make sure my audience understands what I am trying to say?” and, as a reader, “I wonder what the author was trying to tell me when she wrote these words?” Since we often have no access to the actual reader or author, in order to answer these questions we instinctively project ourselves into the position of the other in the communication loop, as the only place where we can glean the information we need.
As translators we must covert double the territory, being required to “inhabit” first the author, to check we have understood his intent and the context from which he is formulating his message, and then the reader, to check that the message is pitched at a level she will readily understand. And for the actual act of translating, of course, we must fully inhabit our own selves if we are to have all our resources at our command as – for a while – we become the original author of a new text.
We need to be more consciously aware of these special features in the translator’s role in the communication process. Always being an intermediary, aspiring to invisibility or at least window-like transparency while having to spend so much time inhabiting other people’s identities can be a recipe for rapid burn-out unless we are soundly anchored in our own role in the process. Conversely, if we remain in touch with our sense of vocation as we translate we will find that playing the chameleon gives a deep authenticity ti our work which is the hallmark of the truly inspired translator.

  ...to be continued