In this article Mary Carroll addresses what it means to work for a translation company that specialises in translations for the audiovisual media, the social sciences as well as business and marketing texts.  She outlines different work processes, client needs, continuing training opportunities and expectations, and the impact and opportunities of technology on their work.

The job profile of a translator is changing constantly. It is no longer defined solely by criteria such as source and target languages, specialization areas and freelance or payroll status.  Translation skills and love of language are essential but so, too, are lifelong learning, an open attitude to new technologies, team spirit, and reliability.

The translation world is as diversified and specialized as life in the early 21st century, so it is not surprising that translators become specialists in particular areas in the course of their careers.  Sometimes the die is already cast when a student opts for a particular university course.  In other instances, it is a gradual process molded by the translator’s interests or simply by chance: where market demand exists, where opportunity presents itself.  The lucky translators are those who find a perfect match between their own interests and the type of translations they do.

At the start of my career as a freelance translator from German into English, I gained experience in fields as diverse as telecommunications and engineering, through a wide range of the social sciences, to development aid, education and vocational training, to marketing and film. While technical translations initially provided a regular source of income, it was the cultural topics, training and the social sciences and, most of all, translations and adaptations for the audiovisual media that captured my imagination and won my heart.  From there it was an easy step to set up a language consultancy firm and later, a subtitling and translation company that specializes in those areas that I love most.

Our company has its headquarters in Berlin and concentrates on business and marketing, cultural and social science translations and provides technical translations in some fields, but our unique strength lies in our inter semiotic focus as multilingual translators of audiovisual material.  Our translators and subtitles work side by side, and most switch between the two types of language transfer, using different workstations with different software, depending on which task they are performing.  Not every translator takes to subtitling, however. Some highly competent translators never feel happy condensing a text, shaping their language to match images or working under the technical yoke that subtitling imposes.

Our translators invariably work at PCs and use standard office programs as well as translation memory and terminology software.  They have direct internet access and are efficient at researching and finding information from online and print resources. Translation memory and terminology software have become indispensable, not only because they are prerequisites for obtaining contracts with certain clients such as the European Union, but also because of their efficacy in ensuring consistency of terminology and improving quality and productivity.

All clients want the highest quality, but many take their decisions on price alone.  For translators this means finding the best way to deliver quality and optimize their work processes. Upon entering the workforce, most graduates have a solid repertoire of translation techniques. However, few have an adequate concept of the complexity of many texts and the overall background knowledge required to translate such material reliably while meeting realistic deadlines. It pays to embrace any technology that can enhance efficiency and reduce repetitive processes.  Why not research a topic thoroughly the first time and have terminology available for a team of translators and the client thereafter? Why not enroll in a speed typing course, for both economic and ergonomic reasons?  At university it is perhaps hard to conceive that it won’t be long before you can think of your translation faster than you can type it or that the “hunt and peck” system might cause wear and tear to your index finger joints. A typical personal profile for a freelance or payroll translator would include qualifications as varied as excellent translation skills, sound knowledge of office software as well as terminology and translation memory programs, speed typing and good (internet) research skills.

In a translation company such as ours, teamwork and flexibility are just as important. Teamwork ensures that knowledge and skills are passed from the more to the less experienced and guarantee a consistently high quality level. Flexibility enables us to meet deadlines, even when translations arrive at short notice or festival film prints are delayed in Customs. Being part of a team helps to raise quality awareness in other ways as well: revisers’ corrections provide ongoing continuing training and team members act as multipliers of knowledge that they have acquired at both in-house and external training courses and conferences. Translation for voiceovers and subtitling are two of the areas for which we have developed our own training modules.

Lifelong learning has special relevance in our profession.  Not only do we need to keep abreast of changes and evolving terminology in the subject matter we translate, we also need further training if we wish to move into new fields and keep up to date with trends and tools which may increase our proficiency and productivity or simply broaden our perspective of ourselves or the world we live in.

Subtitles and other audiovisual translators work at dedicated workstations with two monitors, one showing the film, the other the computer screen showing the translated subtitles or text, the in and out times and other relevant information. Alternatively, subtitles have a ’screen in screen’ workstation where they see the film, their subtitles and time codes on a single monitor. While a written script in the source language is normally provided for voiceovers and re-narrations, audiovisual translators translate what they hear.  Discrepancies between texts and sound tracks do occur. Choice of translation must reflect the images that appear on the screen and echo the speech rhythm of the original version. The translated narration must not be longer than the master version and it must fit the available time slot. Many voiceovers leave a flavor of the original at the start and end of the new rendition, so the translation may need to be abridged.

To translate well for audiovisual media, you need the writing talents of a journalist and the ability to match the verbal to the visual and to express yourself concisely and succinctly.  Failure to observe time constraints will have financial repercussions and result in others tampering with the translation in the recording studio.  If the provided translation is too long, it will be shortened in situ so that the recording can be completed on schedule.  In an ideal scenario, the translator or reviser of the text will be present at the recording session, but this is not always the case.  Studio time is expensive so the client will not appreciate added costs when editing is done at this late hour. 

Page layout is also important for a voiceover translation.  Times in a column on the left indicate the starting time of each paragraph for the actor and give directions on pronunciation and speed of delivery.  The right hand side of the page has the translation.  The text for one take should never extend from one page to the next as any hindrance to the flow of speech or noise of ruffling pages must be avoided.

The nature of subtitling is what makes it so special.  Interpreting transfers speech to speech, translating transforms the written word of one language to that of another, while interlingual subtitling converts the dialogue of one language into the writing of another against the background of the audiovisual medium. The challenge facing the subtitler is to find an accurate translation limited to the number of characters which an audience can read in a restricted length of time.  The subtitler’s choice must always respect the visual and verbal language of the film.

Subtitlers, like all audiovisual translators, should have sound journalistic skills, an appreciation of film and a sense of rhythm. Subtitles must provide an accurate translation, but they must also adhere to three rhythms: the rhythm of the actors’ speech, the rhythm of the images as defined by the shot changes and an audience reading rhythm. To comply with these constraints, subtitlers learn to condense the text of the original without compromising it or omitting important information or nuances.  Paraphrase, ellipsis, simplification of syntax and distribution of text in sense blocks or syntactic units are some of the techniques they use. Normally subtitlers would never translate the entire text first. They go straight from the original spoken dialogue to the individual subtitles and hone their translations to fit the time slots which they have defined. Cueing the in and out times is part of the subtitler’s job and an integral part of the subtitling process. 

The preparation of subtitles for film, television, video, DVD or the internet is essentially the same.  The film print is scanned to video or a hard drive to create a working copy with identical time codes as the original. Alternatively, the subtitler’s copy might be recorded from other source material such as analogue or digital video cassettes or movie files.  Subtitlers do their timing and translating at dedicated workstations that allow them to watch the film, define subtitle in and out times and run their translated subtitles in sync with the film.  In the past, most subtitlers worked with a VHS copy of the film and used the jog shuttle of the VCR to pinpoint the cuts (shot changes).   Current digital systems store the film on the hard drive.  As subtitling software is under constant development, users are well advised to try out new systems and upgrades since many innovations help to accelerate the subtitling process.  Speed is a crucial issue in a competitive market.

The translation profession will continue to evolve, reflecting changes in society.  In future, translators may well be working with different media, resources and tools, but they will retain their important role of interlingual wordsmiths mediating between cultures.

Mary Carroll

Mary Carroll, Managing Director of Titelbild Subtitling and Translation GmbH; subtitling and media translation consultant and trainer; co-author of Subtitling, Transedit, 1998; member of ESIST, the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation, member of  Transforum Coordination Committee for Translation Practice and Theory in Germany; member of BDÜ, the German Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators, member of the Languages and the Media steering committee.Email: Info@titelbild.de

P.S.: This article is sole property of the writer and all views and comments mentioned herewith are opinion of author. This is an extension article which is part of original script in magazine site called: “Translating Today”