Business and

Institutional
Translation
Business and
Institutional
Translation:

New Insights and Reflections

Edited by

Éric Poirier
and Daniel Gallego-Hernández
Business and Institutional Translation: New Insights and Reflections

Edited by Éric Poirier and Daniel Gallego-Hernández

This book first published 2018

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2018 by Éric Poirier, Daniel Gallego-Hernández

and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-0760-2

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0760-9
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Scientific Advisory Committee ................................................................. vii

Introduction ................................................................................................ ix

INSTITUTIONAL TRANSLATION

University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions......................... 3

Gül Durmuşoğlu Köse, Zehra Gülmüş, Volga Yilmaz Gümüş
and Gamze Eren

Institutional Translation in National Contexts: Quality Assurance

in Governmental Institutions across Europe .............................................. 15
Tomáš Svoboda

Introducing a Korean-English Parallel Corpus for the Standardisation

of South Korean Government Documents: A Terminology Focus............ 33
Jinsil Choi

Determining the Fundamentals of Professionalism in Academic and

Institutional Translation: Bridging Gaps and Standardizing Practices ...... 45
Jamal En-nehas

BUSINESS, FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING

A Case of Hybrid Text Translation: Secondary-Field Terminology

in Purchase Agreements ............................................................................ 63
Leticia Moreno-Pérez

The French Terminology of Consolidated Statements of Profit or Loss:

A Status Quo ............................................................................................. 81
Miriam P. Leibbrand
vi Table of Contents

Préalables conceptuels à la traduction des états financiers italiens au vu des

principes comptables internationaux : l’exemple de la traduction vers le
français....................................................................................................... 97
Danio Maldussi

La traduction-localisation dans le contexte du m-commerce : quelles

particularites sur le marché arabo-égyptien ............................................. 119
Dima El Husseini

La metáfora del léxico económico desde la perspectiva del empleo

predicativo. Algunas reflexiones para la elaboración de herramientas
lexicográficas bilingües ........................................................................... 135
Iván Martínez Blasco

The Satisfactory Cycle of Terminology Management in Translation-

Mediated Business Communication: Problems and Opportunities.......... 149
Alexandra Albuquerque and Rute Costa

SPECIALIZED TRANSLATION

Análisis contrastivo francés-español de términos penales, valoración

y soluciones traductoras........................................................................... 165
Montserrat Cunillera Domènech

¿Es conveniente revisar los grados de Traducción e Interpretación

en España? ............................................................................................... 179
Carmen Álvarez García

Two Sides of the Coin: Mapping Translators’ Competence Criteria

onto the Market Requirements. The Case of Saudi Arabia...................... 193
Turky Alshaikhi, Andrew Rothwell and Maria Fernandez-Parra

L’utilisation du forum de discussion dans la formation des traducteurs :

un outil de pédagogie dialogique ............................................................. 211
Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

Use of Comparable Corpora in Specialized Translation.......................... 223

Roda P. Roberts and Belén López Arroyo
 SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Julie Arsenault (Université de Moncton)

Marie-Christine Aubin (Université York, Collège universitaire Glendon)
Philippe Caignon (Université Concordia)
Gloria Corpas Pastor (Universidad de Málaga)
Jeanne Dancette (Université de Montréal)
Akila Naïma Dib (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières)
Alvaro Echeverri Arias (Université de Montréal)
Marco Fiola (Université Ryerson)
Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera (Universidad de Valladolid)
Chantal Gagnon (Université de Montréal)
Zélie Guével (Université Laval)
Peter Holzer (Universität Innsbruck)
Elaine Kennedy (Independent Certified Translator and Terminologist)
Geoffrey Koby (Kent State University)
Isabel Lacruz (Kent State University)
Matthieu LeBlanc (Université de Moncton)
Ana Medina Reguera (Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla)
Emilio Ortega Arjonilla (Universidad de Málaga)
Jean Quirion (Université d’Ottawa)
Francisca Suau Jiménez (Universitat de València)
Lieve Vangehuchten (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Christian Vicente (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis)
Massiva Robert Zafio (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières)
 INTRODUCTION

Largely due to the economic and commercial globalization, the field of

business and institutional translation is very dynamic and, for translation
practitioners looking to specialize, it has become a significant lucrative
market. This area of translation, compared with technical or medical
translation, or its literary counterpart which receives the lion’s share, does
not seem to capture as much attention from academics in translation
studies. This is unfortunate for teachers as well as practitioners of
specialized translation in this field. In recent years, more publications and
events such as seminars and workshops are focussing on translation
problems and issues related to business and institutional translation. The
series of biannual International Conferences on Economic, Business,
Financial and Institutional Translation (ICEBFIT) launched in 2014 by
Daniel Gallego-Hernandez from the Universidad de Alicante seeks to
enhance efforts to recognize the importance of the field by creating an
international forum — fertile ground to enable cross-fertilization of theory
and practice.
The purpose of this book is two-fold: to pursue the objectives of the
series of ICEBFIT conferences and to bring academics and practitioners
abreast of innovations and reflections on business and institutional
translation. Covering topics ranging from institutional translation, mostly
governmental, the study of business and commercial translation and
specialized translation, this book is indeed an ideal opportunity for
academics in this field to share their research interests and preoccupations.
In the area of institutional translation, Gül Durmuşoğlu Köse, Zehra
Gülmüş, Volga Yilmaz Gülmüş and Gamze Eren, from Anadolu
University, discuss the challenges of University website translation at the
macro level (content management, division of labor, need for cooperation,
directionality) and at the micro or content-related level. From Univerzita
Karlova, Tomáš Svoboda presents the empirical findings of questionnaire-
based, Web-based and interview-based surveys on quality assurance
practices in translation, most notably among member organizations of
COTSOES (Conference of Translation Services of European States) and
appropriate representatives of selected translation services. Jinsil Choi
from Keimyung University, describes how a Korean-English parallel
corpus may contribute to the standardization of Korean terminology and
x Introduction

its English translation in day-to-day press releases and publications for

touristic purposes and governmental public relations with foreign affairs.
In the last chapter on institutional translation, Jamal En-nehas from
Moulay Ismail University adopts a holistic and impressionistic approach in
his critical analysis of the gaps between academic training and the
professional translation industry in the Arab World. He further outlines
proposals for establishing pan-Arabic professional translation norms and
standards.
The second section of the book addresses business, financial, and
accounting translation issues. Leticia Moreno-Pérez from the Universidad
de Valladolid analyses eighteen translation techniques (the straightforward
and the specification techniques; techniques involving literalness,
generalization, creation and transformation which themselves entail three
to four specific techniques such as amplification, particularization and
linguistic amplification) for rendering economy-related terms and
expressions used in purchase agreements. Miriam P. Leibbrand from the
Vienna University of Economics and Business presents an explorative and
qualitative investigation on the variation of terms in French terminology of
consolidated statements of profit and loss. The small corpus of 24
consolidated statements of listed companies in five countries of the
French-speaking world highlights a high degree of terminological
variation in key terms such as the equivalents for revenue, operating
profits, net finance costs, profit before tax and profit. The analysis of the
data supports the distinction between standardization in accounting per se
and harmonization in accounting language, and points out to some
linguistic features of the adopted terms and their regional variation. Danio
Maldussi from the Università di Bologna discusses competencies required
for translating accounting concepts in financial statements in the context of
the implementation of the new International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS) in Italy. Examining variations in conceptual knowledge (experts
competency vs. translators competency) of fair value in Italian Financial
Reporting, he underlines the cultural and thematic dimensions of
accounting concepts that need to be operationalized by specialized
translators. According to the author, these cultural dimensions also shed
lights on the origin of language variation in financial statements. Pursuing
the theme of variation, Dima El Husseini from the Université française
d’Égypte discusses linguistic variations and Arabic to French and English
translation issues. More specifically, she compares menus and language
items of two m-commerce applications in written Franco-Egyptian (use of
the Latin alphabet and numbers to transliterate Arab) and Franco-English
(English terms also used or equivalents translated from Franco-Egyptian)
 Business and Institutional Translation: New Insights and Reflections xi

varieties for local and localized applications in Egypt. She examines the
expressions, transliterations, and usages in Bey2ollak, a local application,
as well as in the localized application of booking.com. She points out that
these considerations regarding translation-localization should be taken into
account in designing translator training programs. Iván Martínez Blasco
from the Universidad de Alicante shares some reflections on conceptual
allusions (related to health, economics as a living organism, to movement
and activity and conflicts, etc.) of nominal and verbal predicate metaphors
in economics in Spanish and in French. He also proposes a model for a
contrastive Spanish-French lexicographic description of the linguistic
features of textual actualization of nominal predicate metaphors such as
crisis and crisis económica in Spanish in contrast with crise and crise
financière in French. Alexandra Albuquerque from Polytechnic of Porto
and Rute Costa from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa present a study on
terminology and specialized language management in international
companies. They highlight the frequent use of non-professional translators
in international companies, the different types of problems (at the concept,
process, and discourse level) generated by this practice, and the perception
of terminology in corporate culture. Their study reveals a definite need for
large international organizations to change their organizational culture and
to acknowledge the importance of being proactive rather than reactive with
respect to terminology management.
The third section is devoted to specialized translation with a particular
emphasis on teaching and learning. It opens with a contribution related to
legal translation by Montserrat Cunillera Domènech from the Pompeu
Fabra University. She spotlights the importance of contrastive analysis
based on comparative law when translating terms whose equivalents
provided by multilingual dictionaries may not be clear to the translator.
Montserrat Cunillera Domènech exemplifies this problem of terminological
variation with a case study based on the French term sursis and its
translations into Spanish. Carmen García Álvarez from the University of
Pablo de Olavide follows with a reflection on the need to revise the current
degrees in Translation and Interpreting in Spain, considering that foreign
trade is an area that can benefit from the competencies of graduates in
translation. First, she presents the results of a study based on a survey
conducted among Spanish exporting companies which shows their needs
for translation services. She then analyzes the curricular content of syllabi
of several translation courses and their relation to foreign trade. The results
show that degree programs could pay more attention to foreign trade,
especially given the fact that this field has a great need for translation
services. The third study in this section is also based on a survey, but
xii Introduction

related to the professional market in Saudi Arabia. The authors, Turky

Alshaikhi, Andrew Rothwell and Maria Fernandez-Parra (Swansea
University), focus their attention on translation competences. They
surveyed 73 professional translators from both the private and public
sectors in order to ascertain how these professionals assess their skills in
various areas of competency (language, translation, technology, intercultural
and thematic issues, information mining, and project management
competence). Their results can be a useful tool for revising job
requirements and also for training translators for the Saudi Market.
Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo from Montclair State University shares
her teaching experience using an asynchronous discussion forum as a
dialogic pedagogical tool for learners. The author provides examples of
interactions between students which demonstrate that students better learn
translation processes when they form a community. She concludes with
the observation that forums deserve to be considered as dialogic
pedagogical tools which transcend classroom training or traditional
workshops, and even allow students to learn faster. Finally, Roda P.
Roberts from the University of Ottawa and Belén López Arroyo form
Universidad de Valladolid propose the use of a field-specific and genre-
specific multilingual comparable corpora in the translation of specialized
texts. Through examples of concordance lines found in English and
Spanish comparable corpora of wine tasting notes, the authors identify
relevant information provided by the corpora for novice and experienced
translators alike in choosing style and vocabulary such as limpio to be
translated by clear and complex as the preferred adjectival form over the
noun complexity. The authors conclude that if translators make the efforts
of deducing their translation choices with the help of comparable corpora
they will achieve accurate translations that reflect typical style and
vocabulary in the target language.
The varied contributions compiled in this peer-reviewed publication
offer a rich overview of the emerging field of research in business and
institutional translation, encompassing themes of international resonance.
They include general issues (website design, corpus-based tools and
standardization of professional practices), core activities in business,
finance, and accounting terminology and phraseology in genre-
prototypical texts, with a focus on terminology variation, language
metaphors, localization, and value-added knowledge translators provide in
their work and lastly specialized translation. Indeed, they foster critical
exchange and reflection within the field of translation studies to which
business and institutional translation belongs and to which it should
contribute to.
 Business and Institutional Translation: New Insights and Reflections xiii

We hope that readers from all branches of translation studies will find
this work not only interesting but instructive.

Éric Poirier
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

Daniel Gallego-Hernández
Universidad de Alicante
INSTITUTIONAL TRANSLATION
 UNIVERSITY WEBSITE TRANSLATION:
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

GÜL DURMUŞOĞLU KÖSE, ZEHRA GÜLMÜŞ,

VOLGA YILMAZ GÜMÜŞ AND GAMZE EREN
ANADOLU UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT. Higher-education institutions now have more interaction at the

international level with the effect of globalization tendencies and hence increasing
exchanges of knowledge as well as mobility of students and staff. This factor
incites universities to have multilingual or at least bilingual websites (English
outweighing other languages as the lingua franca). A multilingual/bilingual
website, ensuring the visibility of universities at the international level, is of
particular importance as it not only offers information to foreign target groups
about the institution but also contributes to “prestige” of the institution. Thus, the
quality of a multilingual/bilingual website is important for offering accurate
information and improving international outlook of the institution. This paper
discusses the importance of having a multilingual website for universities and
challenges posed by translation and/or adaptation of university websites into
another language. The challenges are at macro- and micro-levels. Among the main
macro-level challenges are 1) content management, 2) division of labor, 3) the
need for close cooperation, and 4) directionality. The micro-level challenges are
mostly related to terminological and stylistic choices, which are highly dependent
on macro-level issues. The paper then presents some solutions to these challenges,
based on our experience of website translation of a Turkish university.

Keywords: website translation, institutional translation, institutional website,

terminology management, termbase

Introduction
Higher-education institutions now have more interaction at the
international level with the effect of globalization tendencies and hence
increasing exchanges of knowledge as well as mobility of students and
staff. This factor incites universities to have multilingual or at least
bilingual websites (English outweighing other languages as the lingua
franca). A multilingual/bilingual website, ensuring the visibility of
4 University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions

universities at the international level, is of particular importance as it not

only offers information to foreign target groups about the institution but
also contributes to “prestige” of the institution. Thus, the quality of a
multilingual/bilingual website is important for offering accurate information
and improving the international outlook of the institution. In her study on
translation in intergovernmental organizations, Lafeber (2012: 23) defines
two main functions that translations undertake: 1) fulfilling the function
that source text assumes, and 2) ensuring that translation services (and
hence the institution) look good. The second point becomes more
important particularly with regard to the translation of an institutional
website. More specifically, Fernández Costales (2011: 25) defines three
duties of university websites, describing them as the primary tool for
disseminating information to the university community and the society: 1)
presenting information to prospective students and researchers about the
university, including academic subjects and procedures, 2) enabling
students and academic members to communicate with the university, and
3) “promoting the international visibility of the university”. Fernández
Costales (2011: 24) further argues that the European universities need
multilingual websites “to meet European regulations, to contribute to the
creation of a multilingual society and to grant universal access to the
Web.”
In consideration of these roles attributed to university websites, the
present paper discusses the importance of having a multilingual (bilingual)
website for universities and challenges posed by translation and/or
adaptation of university websites into another language with specific
reference to terminological issues. For the purpose of this paper, we deal
with the challenges to website translation at macro and micro levels.
Among the main macro-level challenges are 1) content management (e.g.
whether to translate a website as a whole or choose some parts, and which
parts to choose when the second option is adopted), 2) division of labor
with regard to translation, revision and decision making, 3) need for close
cooperation between translators, decision-makers at the administrative level,
and technical staff, and 4) directionality. The micro-level challenges are
mostly related to terminological and stylistic choices, which are highly
dependent on macro-level issues. This paper then presents some solutions
to these challenges, based on our experience of translating the website of a
Turkish university.
 Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gülmüş, Yilmaz Gümüş and Eren 5

Website Translation in Higher-Education Institutions

Translating the University website into English, we have been faced with
two main types of problems, which we categorize into macro-level and
micro-level challenges. These two types of problems require decision
making by various stakeholders, directly or indirectly involved in
institutional translation. In 2014, we proposed a project related to
translation processes at our University to offer solutions to these problems.
Anadolu University funded our project titled Creating a Trilingual
(Turkish-English-German) Term Base to Ensure Standardization in the
Institutional Translations of Anadolu University. For the purpose of this
project, using SDL Trados Studio 2011, we went through and aligned the
texts that were translated into a foreign language (English or German) to
collect the frequently used terminology in the university context. In this
process, the official website was one of the resources that enabled us to
compile the list of terms commonly used in the University. The official
website will also be one of the major platforms where the termbase we
develop will be used.
These terms were then compiled in a termbase on SDL MultiTerm. All
members of the project group came together once a week for three months
to discuss the English and German equivalents of Anadolu University’s
terminology. As a result of these discussions, we came up with a glossary
that includes English and German equivalents of the terms frequently used
in the University, and related explanations, when required. As put by
Koskinen (2010: 58), guides, revision techniques and guidance and
training services were used in the past to ensure standardization in
institutional translation; however, today, databases, term banks, and
computer-assisted translation tools serve this purpose. Pym (2010: 4) has
also observed that equivalence strategies depending on pre-prepared
glossaries are quite common in website translation/localization. Developing
a glossary or a termbase to be used in institutional translation, including
the translation of the institutional website, is particularly important for
institutions, like ours, which do not have a single department responsible
for translations and correspondence in foreign languages. Macro- and
micro-level challenges explained below make it clearer why we needed
such a project.

Macro-level challenges or decision-making

Website translation is today mostly associated with localization. However,
in our case, the process of website translation is not much different from
6 University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions

any other translation act. We have been provided with source texts readily
available on the Turkish website of the University and asked to translate
them into English. In his overview of websites of European universities,
Fernández Costales (2012: 56) also notes that university websites are
generally not localized or adapted to a particular market, rather the content
is translated for a global audience. The translation process, nevertheless, is
no longer a pure desk-and-computer act, where the translator plays the
major role.
The primary question related to the translation of institutional websites
is who makes the initial decisions, mainly related to content management.
Sandrini (2005a: 1) describes website translation as the “production of a
new website which is targeted at another linguistic and cultural
community, and based on an existing website in accordance with the
predefined purpose.” In this process, not only the act of translation by
itself, but also other essential factors such as technical requirements,
project management, terminology management, and quality assurance
must be considered. Each of these factors requires decision making,
division of labor and cooperation at different levels. Who makes decisions
related to each factor? Who decides on the content to appear on the
website in a foreign language? Does a bilingual website mean two
websites in two languages, looking exactly the same? Are analyses
conducted to specify needs of the target audience? Are analyses conducted
to specify the target audience? Do translators work in cooperation with the
Public Relations Office or International Office of the university? These are
probably the questions that we, as translators, expect to be answered
before we embark on website translation. However, rather than answers to
these questions, we are mostly provided with raw source texts to be
translated into a foreign language. This was one of the main challenges we
encountered in website translation. It is hard to overcome this challenge
when the institution does not have a language policy. It is highly likely
that translators find themselves in a position where they have to make
decisions on their own, decide on the content of the foreign-language
website, and estimate the needs and expectations of the target audience. To
address this problem, we tried to select the content that is of particular
concern to a global readership of a university website (we translated
general information about the University and programs, campus life and
academic life, but we omitted for example rules and procedures related to
administrative functioning of the University). When translating the
website content, we tried to adopt translation solutions that make
information and terminology specific to the University comprehensible by
 Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gülmüş, Yilmaz Gümüş and Eren 7

global readers. We will provide a couple of examples when defining micro-

level translation challenges.
Another major question is who translates the website (in-house
translator(s) of the university? faculty members? service procurement from
an external source (outsourcing)?). Who are “we”? In the case of Anadolu
University, “we” are faculties employed in various foreign-language
programs of the University. Fernández Costales (2012: 58) examined the
websites of 215 universities in Europe, and found out that no translators
were hired for website translation in 70% of the cases, and universities
worked with a translation agency or a freelance translator in 20% of the
cases and with their own translation unit in 10% of the cases. In the rest of
the universities, website translation was done by academic staff or
students. This is mostly the case in most Turkish universities. Academic
staff employed in foreign language programs are asked to translate the
university website, as well as many other types of texts into a foreign
language. This causes particular problems especially related to linguistic
and stylistic consistency and hence quality assurance, mainly because the
institutional translation is a secondary responsibility of faculty members.
The questions posed by Fernández Costales (2012: 58) are generally the
challenges we encounter: How are quality issues dealt with? Are universities
aware of the importance and effect of translation on their websites? Why
are translation professionals ignored by higher-education institutions?
Dealing with these issues and overcoming relevant problems require that
senior administrators become fully aware of the impact of language and
translation on their image and visibility in the international arena. At the
end of our project, the termbase we developed will be available on the
institutional website for the use of all university members. This is one of
the solutions we developed to improve quality (at least terminological
standardization and quality) in translations and international communication
of the University.
Especially with regard to website translation, there is a need for close
cooperation between translators, technical staff, and decision makers at the
administrative level. In the development of a website, translation is taken
as a separate service, which leads to the perception that translation is a
financial burden or a problem to be dealt with (Pym, 2010: 9). In our case,
the organization deals with this “problem” or “burden” by assigning
translation tasks to academic staff. Therefore, translators are often not
involved in the overall process of recreating the website but are
responsible for translating website content into another language. Yet,
there is still need for cooperation between “academic” translators and
technical staff responsible for website development, under the
8 University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions

coordination of university administrators. Not equipped with technical

knowledge and qualifications as much as localization specialists, translators
must be in contact with technicians to determine, for example, the length
of a title, to make further revisions on a page, or to connect links to the
text. “Academic” translators also need to cooperate with the Public
Relations Office or International Office for content management, which
brings us back to the main issue of decision making. To deal with this
problem and many similar translation and language-related problems, we
continuously advise the senior management to establish a translation or
international communication department in the University. This department
is required to do official translations of the University (and thus to ensure
quality and standardization in international communication) and to coordinate
translation and related activities (interpreting, content management,
international events and so on).
Directionality is one of the major issues, which is concerned with both
macro- and micro-level translation procedures. The traditional view that
translation should be into B language has been challenged in recent years
(Campbell, 1998: 4; Pokorn, 2005: 37). Translation into B language is
now a widespread practice in many countries. Nevertheless, this does not
mean that translation into B language brings about certain quality
problems. The university website has been translated from Turkish to
English. As native speakers of Turkish, we translated website content out
of our own language. This is a practical way for translation tasks in the
university if translations into B language are revised by a native speaker of
that language. A translation unit in the institution with translators and
native-speaker revisers is likely to eliminate problems stemming from
directionality, and contribute to the development of an institutional
language policy.
The final point related to decision making, i.e. who makes the
decisions on terminological and stylistic issues, has driven us to carry out
a project on terminology management at Anadolu University, and offer
solutions to language problems encountered in the University’s
international communication.

Micro-level challenges or translation problems

Micro-level challenges refer mainly to content-related challenges we
encountered in website translation, which are mostly due to educational,
legal and cultural gaps between source and target culture (and even lack of
a specific target culture), ambiguities in the source language and texts, and
lack of a consistent language policy of the University. Translation
 Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gülmüş, Yilmaz Gümüş and Eren 9

problems encountered in the process of website translation may be

categorized as follows:

Lack of a specific target culture

Defining the target culture and audience and then deciding the nature of
the relationship between target and source texts are, in most cases, the
preliminary procedures that a translator completes before starting a
translation task. These are also related to Toury’s initial norms, which play
a role in the whole translation process. However, globalization has altered
standard norms in almost everything, including translation. Text types, as
well as source and target culture/language definitions, have also changed.
This may be challenging for translators that are used to producing target
texts for a specific audience. For us, this problem emerged particularly
during the process of translating Turkish content into English. We first had
to decide whether to go with British English or American English.
Although the target audience of English texts is not limited merely to those
living in the United Kingdom or the United States, our priority was to
make the basic choice first and then to address the global audience. During
the process of developing a bilingual or multilingual website, English
stands out as lingua franca. This is also confirmed in the literature. Limon
(2008: 59) states identifying the target culture can be problematic in
website translations into English. In other words, the decision whether to
focus on Anglo-American culture or to embrace the internationality or
“neutrality” of the internet is the common question. However, not only the
target culture but also the target reader is another issue. As for website
translations into English (university website in our case), the target reader
is everyone who speaks English either as a native or a second language.
Therefore, the target culture here is also quite versatile, which cannot be
limited to the UK or the US culture only.
As a result of our discussions in the project team, we opted for the
American English since our education system is closer to the US higher-
education system. In this respect, for concepts that have an equivalent in
the American higher-education system, we preferred the equivalent in
American English. To exemplify, we translated “lisans programı” as
“undergraduate program” or “öğretim üyesi” as “faculty (member).” This
also applies to academic positions, i.e. professor (profesör), associate
professor (doçent) and assistant professor (yardımcı doçent), which are
formulated in a similar way to the US system in Turkey.
The decision to opt for American English has helped us solve our
problems to a certain degree. Yet, there are still exceptions. For instance,
10 University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions

for “rektör” in Turkish, “rector” was chosen instead of its American

counterpart “president” with a view to being comprehensible by not only
American readership but also other English readers. This also allowed us
to ensure compatibility, to some degree, between target and source
cultures, or between target culture and the globe. A similar decision
applies to preferring “examination” rather than “test” in the translation of
“sınav” in Turkish. There are two options for the translation of this word:
test and examination. In Turkish, the word “test” has traditionally been
used for a test comprising only multiple-choice questions. Thus, preferring
examination to test in this context brings target readers closer to the source
culture, without compromising comprehensibility. Another example is that
we preferred “faculty” rather than “college” or “school” to translate
“fakülte,” i.e. each academic unit consisting of departments. For example,
we opted for “Faculty of Law” rather than “Law School.” This is also one
of the results of our efforts to bring potential readers closer to the
educational culture in Turkey. Another reason was that we had to indicate
the difference between faculties and schools, the former offering
undergraduate degree and the latter offering undergraduate or associate
degree for the training of practitioners in most cases.

Problems related to source language and source texts

Inconsistencies and ambiguities in the source language or texts are likely
to pose significant challenges in international communication. In texts that
provide information about the University, we are required to translate the
names of places or venues, for example, Cinema Anadolu, Atatürk
Culture, and Arts Center, Congress Center and so on. The guesthouses are
no exceptions to this. However, “misafirhane” and “konukevi” are used to
refer to two guesthouses on the campus. The former is an older term
derived from Arabic which has been replaced by “konukevi” over time but
is still used along with the latter. The guesthouses on the campus do not
have specific names but are officially known as Anadolu Misafirhane and
Anadolu Konukevi. We had the same problem with campus gates, some of
which do not have specific names but are known by the name of the
closest facility to the gate. What we could do here is to add these problems
to the report of our project, and suggest the University administration to
revise and rename gates and facilities of the campus.
Apart from this, some terms used in the source language do not make
any sense or are misleading even to native speakers of Turkish when used
out of context. To give an example, concepts such as “1-3 barajı” (a term
related to open education examinations) and “Akademik Danışmanlık”
 Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gülmüş, Yilmaz Gümüş and Eren 11

(literally academic advising, but used in this context to refer to face-to-

face components of open education) are meaningless to Turkish speakers
if they are not familiar with the open education system of Anadolu
University. Thus, their linguistic transfer into English, i.e. “1-3 barrier”
and “academic advising,” would not make any sense to target audience.
Paraphrasing and adding an explanation is an option, but not a practical
one. To solve such problems that we encounter frequently, we decided to
contact respective departments and suggest changes in their Turkish
versions. Our efforts are now yielding results, and for example, “academic
counseling services” is now officially replaced by “face-to-face
education.” Similarly, in the Turkish higher education, “enstitü” is used
for institutions that only do research on one hand, and that do research and
offer graduate programs on the other hand. For instance, “Yer ve Uzay
Bilimleri Enstitüsü” was established to carry out research in earth and
space sciences, whereas “Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü” offers graduate
studies in social sciences as well as coordinating the research on social
sciences. Providing an English equivalent to “enstitü,” we preferred
“graduate school” for the ones delivering graduate studies and “institute”
for the ones established to conduct research.

Terminological problems due to gaps in educational culture

Institutional, educational, legal and cultural differences between source
culture and target culture(s) have led to terminological problems. We have
dealt with each case individually and adopted different approaches. The
most common solutions we have used are word-for-word translations,
translation by paraphrasing, and translation by more general words. Some
examples and our solutions to them are presented below:
Word-for-word translations: There were some terms that are specific
to Turkish education system. We had to adopt word-for-word translation
solution for some of these terms. For instance, “tek ders sınavı” was
translated as “single-course examination,” and an explanation was added
to the termbase for this term. This will be one of the advantages of making
our trilingual termbase available online on the University website.
Translation by paraphrasing: This is a solution used when the source
concept does not exist in the target culture, and there is a need to
paraphrase the concept using related and/or unrelated words. For example,
“ikinci üniversite” is a concept specifically used in our University’s open
education system. This is a type of enrolment where students or graduates
of an undergraduate and/or associate degree program are admitted to an
open education program without taking the nation-wide university
12 University Website Translation: Challenges and Solutions

entrance examination. For this concept, we suggest using “admission

without entrance examination (second university)” in English at least
when the term is used for the first time in a text. Then, using “second
university” later in the text may not be a problem anymore.
We also adopted this solution for translation of some nationwide
examinations. One of them was “Dikey Geçiş Sınavı,” which literally
means “Vertical Transfer Examination” and refers to the nation-wide
examination held for transfer from associate to undergraduate degree
programs. In this example, we combined word-for-word translation with
explanatory translation, and suggested the English equivalent of “Vertical
Transfer Examination from Associate to Undergraduate Degree
Programs,” for being comprehensible to the target reader and bringing the
target reader closer to source culture.
Translation by more general words: In some cases, we defined a
standard equivalent for each of interrelated Turkish concepts that do not
exist in the same way in the target culture(s). Among these terms were the
ones indicating official ranks such as “daire başkanı,” “şube müdürü” and
“idare amiri.” Hierarchical statuses, duties, and responsibilities of these
positions vary according to organizational regulations of target cultures.
We suggested a standard equivalent in English, e.g. “director” and “head,”
for each term, with a view to ensuring a consistent use of these positions in
English texts.

Conclusion
As technology and internet have transformed our perception of boundaries
and communication, bilingual and multilingual websites are becoming
more and more important for companies and organizations, or for anyone
who aims to attract readers on a global scale. As Schewe (2001: 205)
points out, the distinction among monolingual, bilingual and multilingual
sites is marked with the language policy or marketing strategy of the
organization. Each type of website has a specific marketing strategy that
ranges from the “domestic marketing strategy” with a monolingual
website in the native language to the “global player strategy” with a
central website in English or the native language with independent local
websites in another language (Sandrini, 2005b: 4). Today, almost all
institutions and organizations – whether they be commercial or not – adopt
the global player strategy to ensure international visibility. However, to
implement this strategy effectively, institutions should first develop a
language policy, and then fulfill the requirements of this policy.
 Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gülmüş, Yilmaz Gümüş and Eren 13

We designed and carried out a project on terminology standardization,

which is only one aspect of website translation. Writing the final report of
our project, we refer to “macro-level challenges,” partly covered by
Toury’s initial norms, which must be addressed before we offer solutions
to “micro-level challenges,” which are highly dependent on macro-level
decision making. Institutional website translation is no longer the business
of only a translator or translators sitting at the computer. It is a never-ending
process that should be based on a predefined language policy and requires
the engagement of translators, technical staff, and senior administrators. We
designed our project not only to contribute to terminology standardization
in the University but also to draw the attention of administrators to the
importance of institutional language and translation policy. We
continuously remind that large institutions, including universities, need to
set up a unit that is charged with the development and management of
language policy and translation work of the institution.

References
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Conference Proceedings. Saarbrücken: Marie Curie Euroconferences.

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<http://www.euroconferences.info/proceedings/2005_Proceedings/2005_Sandr
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Acknowledgements
Paper written with reference to the project Creating a Trilingual (Turkish-English-
German) Term Base to Ensure Standardization in the Institutional Translations of
Anadolu University (Project no. 1409E397), funded by Scientific Research
Projects Committee of Anadolu University.
 INSTITUTIONAL TRANSLATION
IN NATIONAL CONTEXTS:
QUALITY ASSURANCE IN GOVERNMENTAL
INSTITUTIONS ACROSS EUROPE

TOMÁŠ SVOBODA
UNIVERZITA KARLOVA

Abstract. Institutional translation has become an increasingly popular field of

inquiry in Translation Studies, especially in relation to translation departments of
top-level national or supranational institutions. As a result, descriptions of some
specific features, such as quality assurance, have largely been derived from those
contexts. To verify, if similar approaches are taken in lower-level institutions, an
international survey of seven countries of the EU was performed, the outcomes of
which are presented in this chapter. The survey focused on governmental bodies,
typically ministries, and their translation departments, and enquired about their
quality assurance practices. The following areas have been surveyed and
compared: The use of translation technology, translation manuals/style guides, and
an overall QM (Quality Management) strategy. The results show a rather balanced
picture of prevalent use of CAT tools, with terminology management being the
common practice. Revision is practiced in almost all departments. However, the
best practice is hardly ever recorded in translation manuals and house style codes
are rather an exception, which contradicts the common notion of quality assurance
in institutional settings. It is argued that a more refined definition of institutional
translation as regards the types of translating institutions is needed.

Keywords: Institutional Translation, Translation Quality, Translation

Departments, Governmental Institutions, International Survey

Introduction
It has been stated (cf. Schäffner et al. 2014: 509) that “Analysing
processes in other institutions is […] necessary to see how much similarity
or variation [among institutions] there actually is”. Thus, the diverse forms
of translation practice would become apparent and would provide
additional systematic accounts, which will ultimately lead to “enhanc[ing]
16 Institutional Translation in National Contexts

our discipline of Translation Studies”. By adding more institutions to the

comparison pool, we intend to draw new conclusions on the applicability
of past hypotheses on quality assurance practices in translating institutions,
and, specifically, contrast supranational translating institutions with those
on the national level.
The chapter compares approaches to quality assurance in selected
governmental institutions of the following seven countries of the European
Union: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, and
Poland. The main lines of inquiry included the following:

• Basic information and statistics (languages supported, volumes of

text and/or financial turn-around, the array of clients).
• To what extent are translation/interpreting assignments outsourced?
• What is the practice in using technology in the translation process
(file management, computer-assisted translation – CAT, translation
memory – TM, machine translation – MT)?
• Are there centralised translation guidelines (manuals/style guides)
in place?
• What is the practice in terms of: revision, training, the quality
aspect in the procurement process?

The chapter is divided into three main parts: The first (the
introduction) contains relevant definitions of terms and concepts used, the
second presents the underlying empirical research, while the third
discusses the findings and gives some outlook for further research.

Academic Reflection on Institutional Translation

Before engaging with the actual topic of this chapter, i.e. a survey of
translation quality practices in several governmental institutions of a
number of countries of the European Union (EU), some preliminary
remarks are necessary in order to introduce first the notion of quality in
translation and, secondly that of institutional translation.

Quality, Translation, Institutions

Arguably, quality aspects of translators’ activity were inherent in the early
theories of translation (cf. Luther’s Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen of 1530,
E. Dolet’s translation principles of 1540, G. Campbell’s criteria of good
translations of 1789 as well as many others). These statements/theories
tended to be prescriptive, implying that when the given recommendations