Sarcasm in English is expressed through facial expressions, vocal tone and emphasis that might not be readily recognizable to a non-English speaker. Do interpreters explain when a phrase was clearly meant to be sarcastic?
Whether interpreter or translator, it would vary depending on the person and the situation. And they’d need to be able to recognize the sarcasm in the first place: some of the most sarcastic people I know are absolutely deadpan about it, if you don’t know them you can’t tell.
I once had a girlfriend who did simultaneous translations. Most of the time they had the written speeches in front of them, but they had to listen out for when the speaker went off-piste. If a speaker said something they thought was funny, it often got translated as “the speaker made a joke”. I am not sure how they treated sarcasm, but it can be problematic in your own language, never mind someone else’s.
I’d be curious about Asian translators.
I’ve had a couple of Asian coworkers that totally didn’t get it when I was being sarcastic.
I’ve always wondered why sarcasm didn’t translate well with them.
“They don’t have sarcasm on Betelgeuse, and Ford Prefect often failed to notice it unless he was concentrating.”
Was English their first language? Because sarcasm is indicated differently by different cultures. For instance, in Cantonese, a speaker typically raises the average pitch of the phrase, whereas English speakers typically lower it.
The French to English interpreters I have used (and I’ve used them extensively in the past 20 years) have conveyed sarcasm by using a sarcastic tone of voice when conveying the English. If they thought there was any ambiguity, they would insert an aside “he was being sarcastic” or something like that.
My wife is an interpreter. The answer is yes, interpreters convey sarcasm, the same way that the original speakers convey sarcasm – with facial expressions and/or tone of voice. If necessary, the interpreter can add something to the effect of “speaker is being sarcastic”. In ASL (American Sign Language), there’s a sign for “sarcasm”. But you’d generally just indicate sarcasm by facial expression and the style of your hand movements.
You mean she was an interpreter.
Translators work on written documents and can take breaks or consult dictionaries.
Interpreters work on the fly, in real time, almost always with spoken language, not written.
The job of the people translating speeches from the booth is often called simultaneous translation; the differentiation between translation, interpretation and localization(1) as a function of the support media is the kind of terms d’art which the majority of people don’t even know exists. Many people, if they are aware of the difference, would use interpreter to refer to those performing chuchotage (a personal interpreter) but not to the people doing it from a booth.
(1) Localization is most commonly used when referring to software, but it’s also applied to refer to changes of dialect such as those suffered by Harry Potter in the US edition.
In may differ by industry/discipline, but “simultaneous translation” is a perfectly cromulent way of referring to this, and in my industry (market research), it is the only way we refer to it. And, here’s a cite defining the term.
Well - this lady worked at the European Parliament. She and her colleagues sat in soundproof booths listening to speeches on their headphones and translating on the fly - or not. Most of the speeches are scripted and the translators were given advance notice of what the person was intending to say, but of course, not all the speakers followed their scripts and it took a great deal of concentration to keep up. There would have been no room for nuances like sarcasm.
As I see it, an interpreter would be working one-on-one with each speaker pausing while they translated.
So does she know all the culturally specific ways to indicate sarcasm for the languages she interprets? Because like I said in a previous post, Cantonese and English speakers use opposite changes in pitch, and ive read that every language conveys sarcasm differently.
I have always heard this referred to as simultaneous translation, and we use it a lot in seminars and conferences. I have never heard it referred to as interpretation. The distinction the UN pages make seems to be very unusual.
Anyone who understands a language well enough to be employed as a professional interpreter is going to understand details like that.
Okay, let’s summarize here. I provided three sources. D18 provided one source, plus a comment about people in market research. Colibri weighed in with what he has heard at seminars and conferences, but no source.
- My wife, who works as an interpreter at a university, where she manages a team of a couple dozen other interpreters, says a translator translates written documents (not in real time) and an interpreter works with spoken language, in real time.
- The United Nations makes the exact same distinction. Interpreters in real time, translators with documents.
- The Registry for Interpreters for the Deaf also says people who work in real time are interpreters, not translators.
- Collins Dictionary (cited by D18) agrees that the word for someone who translates while someone is speaking is interpreter.
Emphasis mine.
I admit, Collins refers to the end product as a translation, but notice that Collins refers to the person who does the work as an interpreter.
I think we should pay attention to what the professionals call themselves. They are the experts. Collins Dictionary also agrees.
Think about it. If you want to debate the difference between a asteroid and a planet, should you poll some random people on the street and ask them what they learned in fifth grade? No, you ask astronomers. If you want to know what’s the correct term for a box which is inside a safe or a vault, should you look at TV and movies? No, you ask locksmiths. If you want to know the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, do you ask high school English teachers? No, you ask some psychiatrists and some psychologists.
nm
Technical usage can be different from popular usage, but that does not mean the popular usage is wrong. Some herpetologists make a distinction between poisonous (containing poison within the body) and venomous (injecting venom), but referring to snakes as being poisonous is not wrong. Technically speaking, there is no such thing as a fish (if one excludes tetrapods) or a reptile (if one excludes birds), but it’s still OK to refer to birds and reptiles.
You may argue prescriptivist vs descripivist usage, but the fact remains that “simultaneous translation” is very widely used in practice. As I said, I have never heard it called anything but that in 45 years of attending conferences and seminars using it. (No, I can’t provide a cite for personal experience.)
And regarding popular usage, I’m not going to cite all the dictionary definitions, since they are pretty consistent. “Translate” just means "to turn into one’s own or another language, and “translator” is someone who translates, especially as a profession. “Interpret/interpreter” specifically refers to oral communication. So interpreter is a subset of translator. Saying that translator can only refer to written communication is a distinction that the dictionaries do not make. All interpreters are also translators, but not all translators are interpreters.
I am not denying that the work itself can be called “simultaneous translation”. I’m talking about the person who does the work. The person is called an interpreter. I’m not talking about “it”. I’m talking about him/her.
At the next conference you attend, ask the person if they call themselves a translator. I will be shocked if they say yes.
I frankly don’t know what you guys are arguing about.
The job title would probably be “interpreter”
The job description would probably be “provide simultaneous translation”
These statements do not contradict. Does anyone actually disagree with either of them?
If we’re nit-picking, wouldn’t they refer to the first type as toxic?