A single set of standards and the multiplicity of interpretations - EGOS

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This paper makes following contributions: First, it extends to the literature on accounting regulation (e.g. Cooper and Robson 2006, Young 2006) and the implementation of international accounting standards; in particular, to the strand that problematizes the idea of achieved international comparability under the IFRS regime (Durocher and Gendron 2011, Nobes 2011). Second, it identifies challenges encountered by those translating accounting standards and draws upon the discipline of applied linguistics, in particular translation theory, in classifying and analyzing these challenges. Third, compared to the majority of previous linguistic research on accounting (e.g. Doupnik & Richter, 2003; Mills 1989), it examines translation in its institutional context. Fourth, the paper shows that the quality of translations is far from a straightforward issue: As the translated IFRS standards are not a merely technically produced counterpart of the original text, the translated text is a compromise between those who participate in translation process. Seeking to understand the processes and procedures related to the translation of accounting standards and regulations. The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows: The section 2 synthesizes theoretical literature from the fields of translation studies and terminology in order to present the general problems of translation. In section 3, research setting, data and methodology are described. Section 4 section analyses the problems of translation encountered by the translator and the translation review committee, and it is suggested that the actors in the translation process need to interpret the meaning of the original standards and translation thus unavoidably involves choices. Section 5 shed light on the dynamics surrounding translation: First, translation is not a solely unidirectional activity starting from the newly issued standard and ending in the translated text, but instead various actors entangle the standard setting process at different stages via translation. Second, it is suggested that the leeway in the interpretation and translation of the standards arise partly from the constitutive nature of the standards. Section 5 concludes. Abbreviations DGT Directorate-General for Translation IASB International Accounting Standards Board IFAC International Federation of Accountants IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards ISA International Standards of Auditing RC Translations Review Committee 4
2. A translation theory approach to international accounting regulation 2.1 Theoretical insights on translation, translatability and terminology “Linguistically naïve persons tend to think of translation as a text which is a sort of ‘reproduction’ of a text originally produced in another language, where this reproduction is somehow of comparable value.” Juliane House (2006), translation theorist Whether it is possible to translate a text into another language is a question that has been pondered upon by linguists and philosophers for centuries. On a practical level, we can conclude that at least some dimensions of translatability are achieved as texts have been and are translated from one language (“source language”) into another language (“target language”) but often the translated text cannot convey all the nuances of meaning in the original text (Chesterman 2000, 8-11). The theoretical part of this study draws on the field of translation studies by borrowing selected notions which are refined with concepts from terminology for describing overall issues that make any translation a complex task: Translation theorists have analyzed translatability and translations with the concept of equivalence (Pym 2007, Chesterman 2000, 9-10, Reiss and Vermeer 1986, 60). In general, equivalence refers to the relationship between the source text (or a part of it) and the target language text (or a part of it), and there is a body of literature in translation studies that conceptualizes various types of equivalence: for instance Nida (1964) makes a dichotomous distinction between formal equivalence (i.e. focusing on the same form) and dynamic equivalence (conveying the thought expressed in the source text at the expense of literality). Formal and dynamic equivalence represent somewhat opposite approaches to which dimensions of equivalence are or should be given the priority in translation when perfect correspondence in form and meaning does not exist between different languages. (See also Evans et al. 2011.) When full equivalence between concepts in two languages does not exist, translation studies identify following solutions to compensate the lack of equivalence between the concept systems: First, the translator can use definitions to describe what the source language word means. However, this is neither allowed by IASB in the translation of IFRS (IASB, Terms of Reference) nor according to EU’s translation policies. Second, the translator can translate literally term consisting of multiple words e.g. true and fair view (cf. e.g. Aisbitt & Nobes 2001). The problem 5
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