No to revenge

Background: Three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by Arabs. On the day their bodies were discovered, an Arab teenager was found murdered. It is not yet known whether he was killed by Israelis seeking revenge, but there have been a shocking number of calls for revenge, so even if this was not a revenge murder, enough people seem to support the idea.

Revenge is never a good answer! Why does this even need to be said?

If you wish to harm another person, for whatever reason, you are evil. If you enjoy or justify harm being done to another person, you are evil. The only possible justification for violence is immediate self-defence when you are attacked.

Any ethical system based on universal values would support this position. The problem is that we still have so many so-called ethical systems that are based on a group identity, such as nationality, ethnicity, or religion. These groups seem to consider their own members as better than the rest of the human race. As a result, they can justify treating non-members as less than human. This is evil.

I don't know how to solve conflicts, but I do know that revenge only makes things worse, leading to a never-ending vicious cycle of hatred. It doesn't matter who "started". How you respond to hatred and violence defines you as an individual and as a group. I hope the sane majority can pull back the extremists from the brink and prevent further violence and hatred. Things have already gone way too far in this conflict as it is.

Not fitting in

Sometimes memories are triggered by sensory stimuli. Last week I heard the song "Dancing Queen" by Abba, and had a very vivid recollection of hearing it when it first became a hit, back in the summer of 1976.

I was seven years old, and was just beginning to form an impression of what it was going to be like to be a teenager. This song represented a sort of ideal of the perfect teenage girl. I remember feeling a complete certainty that I would never be that girl. It was not only that I was not a good dancer. In an early moment of self-awareness, I realized that I did not have the confidence and social skills to become the sort of person who would enjoy having everyone's eyes on her as she danced.

The more I thought about the song and the type of lifestyle it described, the more I considered this ideal of partying and dancing to be shallow and pointless. That sort of having fun was never my highest aspiration. I disliked the expectation that everyone should conform to the same lifestyle, and the implication that this sort of fun was equal to happiness.

I was a shy, serious, and bookish child. This will come as no surprise to those who know me now, or have been following this blog. I felt that the way I was represented the right way to be me, and I knew that even if society considered me unusual in some ways, that was a problem with society and not with the way I was.

One thing that helped me, and that I hope may help others, is this insight I got from something my father told me. He said, "You were not born to be a child. You were born to be an adult, and that will be most of your life". I realized that I would just have to pass through childhood and adolescence as best I could. The pressure to conform seems to be highest during adolescence, which is unfortunate because this is when people form their identities. Being made to feel that you are weird or an outsider at this age is very damaging. As an adult it is easier to be the person you actually are, and nowadays it is easier for people to find similar friends and explore their interests online.

There are many different ways to be a person, and many ways to be a girl, or a boy, or a woman, or a man. Nobody should feel that their way is wrong just because they don't match someone else's standards of "normal".

Finding translated citations in academic translation

This post is based on a talk I gave at an informal translators' meeting last week. I gave examples from a book I translated from Hebrew to English last year, but here I will be more general, and refer to the source language and the target language.

When an academic book or article contains source language citations from sources, there are three options: 1. If the work is in the source language and there is no version of it in the target language, then the citation should be translated. 2. If the work was originally in the target language and has been translated into the source language, then the citation should be found in the target language original. 3. If the work was originally in the source language and has also been translated into the target language, then the translation into the target language should be found.

Should finding the citations be the translator's job? This depends on the relationship between the translator and the author. I am fortunate to be able to work directly with the authors of the books and articles I translate. In some cases I ask them to find the citations themselves, but in other cases this service is part of the added value I offer. Finding the citations yourself enables you to use the vocabulary of the sources consistently within your translation, and gives you greater control over the end product. The disadvantage is that it takes time and effort, and of course this should be calculated in your pricing.

The first stage is to look at the book's Bibliography (or footnotes/endnotes) and find which works have a version in the target language.

The second stage is to locate these works, either online or in a library. In some cases, particularly older sources, you can find PDF versions online. Some more popular books have been scanned and appear on Google Books. While not all the pages are visible (at least for free), you can search for specific words and the results will show you enough of the context to identify your citation. It is much easier to search in a digital text, but translators can become proficient at scan-reading even in printed texts. Of course, the page numbers are different in the different language versions. When there are several citations from a particular work, you can eventually start estimating where citations will be located by comparing the page numbers of previously found citations in the source and target versions.

The third stage is to insert the target language citations into the translation, according to the author guidelines of the translation's publisher or periodical. The original spelling and punctuation of the citation must be maintained, even if it differs from these guidelines. Citations over a certain length (sometimes 25 words or three lines) tend to appear as block citations rather than being cited within quotation marks within the text. The length of the citation will vary in different languages. The shorter the citation, the more difficult it is to find because there are fewer key words that can be identified in the target language.

In cases where the versions in the different languages are not exactly equivalent - for example, if the translation added or omitted certain passages - it may not be possible to find all the citations. In such cases, the citation should be translated in the same way as a citation from a work that does not appear in the target language. Then the source language work should be included in the bibliography and referenced as a footnote, endnote, or author-title or author-year in parentheses after the citation, according to the guidelines.

The final stage is adding the target language works to the Bibliography (or footnotes/endnotes), and omitting any source language works that were not used in the translation. Where versions in both source and target language were used, both should be included.

I hope this explanation will help translators decide whether to offer this service, and if they do, how to do it and what to expect from the process.

The culture of not hearing "no"

Yesterday I had a phone call from an insurance sales rep, trying to persuade me to upgrade my insurance policy. I explained that we can't afford to pay any more for insurance, and that we have policies in other companies too. Nothing seemed to be getting through, and he just kept up the sales pitch until I hung up. Then he called back and said, "The call seems to have been disconnected". I told him that I was trying to say "no" to his offer, and he said, "You didn't have to hang up, you could just say that you're not interested!". So I said, "I'm not interested, thank you", and he finally accepted this and ended the call.

This got me thinking about how difficult it is for people nowadays to hear "no". We are often taught to stand up for ourselves and learn how to say "no" to things we don't want, but at the same time we are not being trained to hear and accept when other people say "no".

It starts in childhood. Parents nowadays seem to think that children will be permanently damaged by hearing any rejection. Children learn that they can always get their own way eventually. I remember when I was growing up a request had two possible answers, "yes" and "no", and it if was "no", that was final. Sometimes I got an explanation for the "no", such as "we can't afford it" or "we don't have time", but even without any explanation, I had to accept the "no". This was a good preparation for reality, in which people can't always have everything they want. I grew up knowing that I was not the centre of the universe and that other people had needs and wishes, too.

Another major culprit in the culture of not hearing "no" is sales training. Sales people are taught to "overcome resistance" and have answers for any "objections", and they often become persistent to the point of harassment. This approach has leaked into general life, where people are encouraged not to take "no" for an answer and to keep on trying until they get what they want. Sometimes this stems from a sense of entitlement, and sometimes this sort of persistence is seen as the sort of "hard work" that deserves to be rewarded.

Ultimately, the inability to hear another person's "no" reflects a very self-centered culture in which the self is considered much more important than the other. Selfishness has become not only accepted but cherished, while empathy and consideration are often considered signs of weakness. People who think only of themselves and cannot hear another person's "no" may end up accused of sexual assault without understanding what they did. In the same way the sales rep yesterday couldn't understand that I was refusing his offer, I think it is possible that some men don't understand a woman's "no" in more intimate situations. I know that I often feel "raped" (metaphorically) by aggressive sales reps and selfish people in general.

One of the most important things we can teach and learn in life is the importance of listening, of really hearing and seeing each other, and having empathy and understanding for others even when this is inconvenient for our own desires. I hope some way can be found to get this message across before society becomes even more selfish and aggressive.

ITA Conference 2014

This week I attended the ITA's 2014 Annual Conference, held at the Sharon Beach Resort Hotel in Herzlia. After many years of the conference being held in Jerusalem, it was refreshing to be in a hotel by the beach. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the full conference this year and had to leave on the afternoon of the second day. I will try to link to other blogs describing the conference and especially the lectures I missed.

On Monday night after dinner we heard Ioram Melcer talk about translating invented words in the classic novel "Hopscotch" by Julio Cortazar. Interestingly, the linguistic distance between Spanish and Hebrew, and the deep structure of Hebrew word morphology, made it relatively easy (for him!) to invent new words that could somehow match the invented words and be completely new words but also comprehensible.

Tuesday morning's plenary session started with historian Prof. Anita Shapira talking about the meanings conveyed by silence in the public discourse in the early years of Israeli society. When people were silent about their past lives before immigrating to Israel, this expressed the focus on their new lives and hopes for the future. The silence about the Holocaust and about the fallen soldiers of the War of Independence is understood as reflecting a pain too great to express in words. The subject was interesting, though only very tangentially related to translating and language issues.

Next we heard Polish-British translator Marta Stelmaszak discuss translating as a collaboration rather than a competition. As she noted, each translator offers a slightly different set of skills and expertise, and it is possible to create a unique service that does not compete directly with other translators, even in the same language pair. She also recommended collaborating with other professionals, such as editors and designers.

The session ended with translator Betsy Benjaminson explaining how she chose to become a whistle-blower and expose her client Toyota's cover-up of a fatal problem in its cars. Her story was recently reported in the local media, and showed that translators sometimes have to put ethical considerations above loyalty to their clients. I hope most translators never have to face this sort of dilemma, and would like to believe many in such circumstances would show the sort of wisdom and courage Betsy displayed.

After a break, there were four parallel sessions of lectures. I first attended the Professional track, and heard Eve Hecht talk about the translation of correspondence, with an emphasis on various cultural differences and social norms. Then Inga Michaeli discussed translating guidebooks into Hebrew, again noting the cases where it was necessary to adapt the contents to the readers' culture and preferences.

In the afternoon I went to the track devoted to improving your business. The first lecture was a shared presentation by Yael Sela-Shapiro and Inga Michaeli about diversification. Yael spoke about the importance of expanding your areas of expertise in order to increase your work volume. After spending a long time working towards becoming a specialist in my ideal translation niche, I somewhat disagreed with this idea. I can see that it works for some people, but I am finding that I can have a sufficient amount of work even after narrowing my area and don't feel the need to expand and diversify. Then Inga told her personal story of diversifying her business. She added content writing in her area of expertise to her translating business when she found that she was getting less work, and also proactively contacted potential customers. These strategies can be useful for translators seeking more work.

Finally, Dalit Ben Tovim discussed ergonomics, an important subject for translators who lead a sedentary life in front of a computer. I have heard her lecture at a conference a few years ago, and found it interesting to be reminded of this issue. I think I already implement many of her suggestions.

I enjoyed what I saw of the conference, and it was good to have an annual ITA conference again after there wasn't one last year. I hope some of the lectures I missed will be given again in the ITA's monthly lecture evenings.

Other blogs reporting on the conference:
Stephen Rifkind (English)

The importance of translation specialization

Here is a phone call I received today:

Caller: Hello, I'm ___ from ___ agency. We contacted you by email last month about translating some automative material.

Translator: That isn't my area of expertise.

Caller: What is your specialization, then?

Translator: I specialize in academic translation, especially in philosophy.

Caller: OK, if we have something in that area we'll get in touch. We won't bother you with automative material again.

This is why it's important for both sides, the translator and the customer/agency, to be aware of specializations.

As a translator, you must choose not only your languages but a type of material to specialize in. I always feel my heart sink when a translator, usually a young one, tells me he or she translates "everything" in a particular language pair. Nobody is an expert in "everything", and even highly educated and fluent speakers of more than one language are not equally skilled at all the possible types of material written in their languages.

Other professions have very clear sub-specializations. You wouldn't ask a plastic surgeon to deliver a baby or a tax lawyer to handle a divorce. I would like to see translators choosing a similarly narrow definition of their expertise. Less is more! Saying you specialize in translating a particular type of texts makes you an expert in that specific area.

Translators should have a clear "introduction" to use when they meet someone. It could be something like: "I translate from [source] to [target], and I specialize in ____". It is also important to list specializations on your own website and anywhere you have a professional profile.

Customers and agencies should also be aware that translators have specializations, and should find out what a translator specializes in before (online) or during the first conversation, and then offer only appropriate work.

Being an introvert

I have always known that I'm an introvert. I probably first learned this concept as a teenager, and it explained a lot about my feelings and preferences. I have been thinking about this again recently, and one aspect of being an introvert makes sense of a lot of my experiences: the idea that introverts have their energy drained in social situations and replenished when they are alone.

Throughout my life I have found social gatherings exhausting. At school and university, I sought solitude during the breaks, when other people sought social interactions. To get through the day I needed to spend time alone. This is now true when I'm at conferences.

This preference made my three experiences of working in an office difficult (each job lasted less than a year), and had a strong influence on my decision to work from home. I feel very fortunate that I have a profession where working from home is the norm.

My preferred form of socializing is in groups of up to 4-5 people, preferably somewhere quiet where we can talk. I have largely avoided going to parties since about 7th grade. My discomfort in crowds has meant that I have been to very few rock concerts or demonstrations. The desire to see my favourite bands play live or to support good causes is usually outweighed by my knowledge of how the crowd would make me feel.

Looking back, I now realize that much of what I found difficult when I moved to Israel at the age of 9 was not acclimatization problems or a culture clash, but just another expression of the introversion. I tried to fit in with my peers, but often social gatherings or parties ended with me in tears, for reasons that I couldn't explain. I was something of an outcast and a loner throughout school and university, but I now realize that this was just as true before I came to Israel. I used to think I didn't fit in because I was different, being half-English and half-Israeli, so I couldn't belong fully to either culture. In fact, it was something more primal in my nature, and would probably have been expressed no matter what circumstances I encountered.

Being introverted is not the same as being shy. I have worked hard over the past years to overcome my shyness, so that I no longer expect to be rejected or ignored by other people, and also so I don't care so much what others think of me. This has been a very important step for me. However, I don't know if or how the introversion can be changed. When I try to go outside my comfort zone, I inevitably end up feeling uncomfortable! Perhaps introversion is an innate tendency, while shyness was something I learned and had to unlearn.

I think extreme introversion like mine is a problem, because I believe human beings are social animals, and we find meaning in life through our interactions with other humans. Everything that people do that makes their lives meaningful has some relation to other people. This includes family interactions like raising children, caring for ageing parents, and of course intimacy with a partner. Our work is done to be of some benefit to other people, and our creative lives are intended to have some influence on an audience. Our ideals and values reflect what we consider to be the best way for human beings to live.

In this respect, I am fortunate to have a close relationship with my husband and family, and my work and my creative writing give meaning to my life and benefit other people without forcing me to spend hours in the company of others each day.

Western society seems to be biased towards extroversion. There is an expectation that people "should" be social, and loners are often treated with suspicion and/or pity. I imagine that many people are introverts without being aware of this, not understanding why social situations are so difficult for them, perhaps accepting the judgment of others or even feeling guilty for not wanting to socialize. I hope this can change. Awareness of the differences between introverts and extraverts should be raised, and society needs to find ways to value and nurture both types of people and allow them to live fulfilling lives.