Translation in Language Documentation Archives: Translating cultural terms from endangered languages

Описание: Full title: Translation in Language Documentation Archives: Translating cultural terms from endangered languages into languages of wider communication.

Presentation given by Holly Drayton at the Language Documentation and Archiving conference #LDA2022

Text translation forms an important part of the documentation and archiving process since translating endangered language texts into languages of wider communication is vital in facilitating their use by a range of end-users. However, there has been little attempt to theorise or offer guidance on translation methods and strategies within the field. As a result, many documentary texts are deemed to be unsuitable for use outside of the original research project, due to a) a lack of appropriate translated material, or b) poor-quality translation (Evans & Sasse 2007; Penfield & Tucker 2011; Austin 2017: 35).

In this paper I draw on research from the field of Translation Studies in order to work towards better supporting the translation process to meet the needs of end-users. I present a survey of the translation strategies used to translate 422 cultural terms found in 16 documentary texts deposited with ELAR between 2015-2021.

The basis of my analysis is a taxonomy of seven strategies for translating cultural items developed from the field of audio-visual translation (Pedersen 2011). I find that there is a high level of variation between individual deposits in how terms are translated, demonstrating a lack of consistency. Importantly, I find that in many cases translation decisions lead to infelicitous translations where part or all of the meaning of the source text term is not carried over to the translated text. This raises ethical concerns about the responsibility of researchers in representing the voices of minoritized groups in addition to raising questions about how useful the translated texts are.

I suggest that by including basic translation training as part of field methods instruction, the situation could be much improved to facilitate the production of translated texts that respect the original speakers and foster use by a wide range of end-users.