Topics in Language Resources for Translation ... - ymerleksi - home

118 Marie-Josée de Saint Roberttranslator and reviser to assess adequacy and reliability in an environment wheremany translators are involved. Translators at the United Nations Headquarters inNew York and to a limited extent translators at the United Nations Office at Genevaa combination of tools where alignment robots (Logiterm) play an important role:aligned bilingual texts are either indexed by dtSearch for the Web and easily searchablemanually by key words, or fed into the TRADOS translation memories whichare operated on stand-alones as no network environment is provided.4.4 Knowledge baseThe construction of a knowledge base is envisaged to help translators performtheir task in a more efficient manner. Ideally it would capture all knowledgegenerated by United Nations bodies and organs and various organisations andinstitutions working in related fields (i.e., any subject from outer space to microbiologytackled by the United Nations), and the knowledge and know-howof an experienced translator well trained in United Nations matters and that ofan experienced documentalist knowing which documents are the most referredto. Such knowledge base would, for instance, predict instances where “guidelines”should be translated in French by “directives”, as given by most dictionaries, andwhere ‘principes directeurs’ would be a more appropriate translation. In statisticaldocuments at the United Nations, one finds “recommendations,” a term whichis translated by “recommandations” in French and refers to rules to be followed,and “guidelines”, translated as “principes directeurs,” which are mere indicationsto be taken into consideration. If the term “directives” would be used in such context,it would convey the meaning of a document of a more prescriptive naturethan “recommandations” would, which are actually more binding. Such instancesof translation are best captured by a knowledge base that refines contexts andprovides best reference material on any topic in the text to be translated. Theknowledge base would provide not only adequate referencing and documentationof the original, but also the basic understanding of any subject that arise in aUnited Nations document. Such knowledge base ideally would reduce the choicesoffered to the translator rather than list all possibilities. The easier it is for thetranslator to make the decisions he or she needs the faster he or she delivers.The knowledge base would offer the translator with past alternatives, too, asin the case of “sexual harassment”, translated into French by “harcèlement sexuel”.Other French equivalents were tested before this rendering was coined andaccepted. They may arise in a French original to be translated into other languagesand thus should be retrievable: “assiduités intempestives,” “avances (sexuelles)importunes,” “privautés malvenues,” “tracasseries à connotation sexuelle”.The knowledge base would refer, too, to associated terms: “attentat à la pudeur,”“outrages.”