TRANSMAG 2013: EDITORIAL

Teaching Interpretation

As an interpreter, a teacher and a researcher in the field of interpretation, I think that the task of determining the skills required for an interpreter is rather difficult. However, there are some general standards that are agreed upon: Having mastery of the source language (SL) and the target language (TL) as well as both cultures and being educated and having up-to-date information in different fields of knowledge.

Interpreters, especially simultaneous interpreters, should have the ability to perform the tasks of perception and production of speech in two different languages at the same time. They should also have a selective attention to what they hear so that they can omit any redundant information. Interpreters should be capable of performing the complicated operations of monitoring, storing and decoding while engaged in encoding into the target language. For difficult texts, I believe that interpreters have to pinpoint difficulties; whether linguistic (lexical, syntactic, stylistic, etc.) or extra-linguistic (information overload, high speech delivery rates, very low or rather loud voice of the speaker, limitations of time, or even the atmosphere in which the interpretation is taking place).

Each of the aforementioned difficulties affects interpreters overall performance and demands a specific way of handling.
But, generally speaking, interpreters should:

1-    Segment the original message into smaller units.

2-    Make use of pauses in speech to grasp as much of the output as possible.

Among the three types of interpretation: sight, consecutive, and simultaneous, I think consecutive interpretation is the most difficult because, apart from taking notes for some limited information, it depends mostly on memory techniques to render passages as long as nearly 6-8 minutes accurately and the personal touch is highly required. Of course, one year of studying cannot make a student an interpreter. I have always supported the idea that Translation students should concentrate either on translation or interpretation, this could take place from their very beginnings in the department - at least from the third year. I think that each student inside the class should have the chance to practice Interpretation with a notable focus on weak students so that they might be able to gain the necessary training and acquire the skills required to be an interpreter.

Lecturer Atheel Khaleel

Prepared by: Saleem D. Butti

TRANSMAG 2013: FUNNY FOOD FACTS

·        Apple is made of 25% air; that is why they float.

·        Avocado has the highest protein and oil content of all fruits, but most of this is the healthier unsaturated type.

·        Cabbage is 91% water.

·        Carrots were originally purple in colour, changing in the 17th century to orange with newer varieties.

·        Celery requires more calories to eat and digest than it contains.

·        Cherries are a member of the rose family.

·        Corn always has an even number of ears.

·        Corn makes up about 8% of the weight in a box of corn flakes.

·        Eggplants are actually fruits, and classified botanically as berries.

·        Honey is the only edible food for humans that will never go bad.

·        Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.

·        Orange does not rhyme with any other word.

·        Peanuts are legumes and not a tree nut.

·        Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.

·        Pear is a fruit that ripens from the inside out.

·        Strawberries are the only fruit which has its seeds on its outer skin.

Prepared by:

Saleem D. Butti

TRANSMAG 2013: WHAT MAKES A GOOD, SUCCESSFUL AND HAPPY TRANSLATOR

Successful translators are not made overnight, you have to work hard to be one of them. It is not only about getting B.A degree, but there are certain things you should follow if you want to improve yourself and your ability in translation, I collected these tips for you from different books and articles, keep them in mind  before you start your career in translation:

1- A good translator will use a dictionary and other resources to find the precise words to express the concepts, terms and ideas in the target language, but should also remember that such tools are there to assist only, and cannot do the work for him.

2- Get into the habit of checking yourself on any term you are not 100% sure of. Check yourself against the opinion of friends, family, and the internet.

3- Keep up to date with developments and proper terminology through websites, blogs, magazines, journals and books written in both your source and target languages. Enjoy the wealth of free resources available online – from twitter to online newspapers, software, and RSS feeds.

4- Basic computer skills are a must in this job, good, efficient, reliable software and hardware can make your task a lot quicker and easier. Typing speed is also very significant.

5- Take notes and study the subject matter in which you will be required to translate or interpret. For example, if your job is to interpret at a conference on heart disease, it will be helpful to obtain a copy of the agenda so that you can research any words or concepts with which you are currently unfamiliar.

6- Being a translator is not a job everyone can do. Even being bilingual doesn’t necessarily make you a good translator. Translation is not simply a matter of looking up words in a dictionary, one by one – if it were that simple, we could all do it. The reason why it’s complex is that languages express ideas in different ways – with different grammatical structures, different word orders and different nuances of meaning.

A good translator is one who can understand the “ideas” being conveyed by the source text, and then reformulate them in the target language so that they sound as if they had originally been written by a native speaker of the target language. To do this, the translator needs to have a mastery of both languages and great flexibility of thought.

7- Do not accept a project which you know is not within your abilities. It is perfectly professional to turn down jobs translating highly technical product specifications or lengthy legalese if you have no experience in those fields.

8- Do not accept jobs with impossible deadlines, the quality of your work may suffer under the pressure of an unreasonable deadline and that, in the end, only reflects poorly on you.

9- Do not accept a job without seeing the text first. What someone might describe to you as a business text may turn out to be medical, someone might say the text is 1500 words, but then you find its 1500 words of difficult to read handwriting - nightmare! It's always best to see the text before committing to it.

10- “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do".

Prepared by: Sahar T. Sulaiman

Sources:

http://lingocode.com 

http://www.eusere.com

CRAZY TRANSLATION memes are designed by Haneen Skull and Yaser Ahmed) 

TRANSMAG 2013: Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ "Bet Nahrin") is the area of Tigris and the Euphrates, corresponding to modern-day Iraq, the northeastern part of Syria and to a lesser extent southeastern Turkey and smaller parts of southwestern Iran.

Mesopotamia is considered as the cradle of civilization in the west. Assyrians, Babylonians & Sumerians represent Mesopotamia and they were pioneers in Architecture, Warfare, Science, Art ,Laws … etc.

City-states of Mesopotamia created the first law codes, drawn from legal precedence and decisions made by Kings. The codes of Urukagina and Lipit Ishtar have been found. The most renowned of these was that of Hammurabi, as mentioned above, who was posthumously famous for his set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi (created c. 1780 BC), which is one of the earliest sets of laws found and one of the best preserved examples of this type of document from ancient Mesopotamia. He codified over 200 laws for Mesopotamia.

The conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and much surrounding territory by the Assyrians created a larger and wealthier state than the region had known before, and very grandiose art in palaces and public places, no doubt partly intended to match the splendour of the art of the neighbouring Egyptian empire. The Assyrians developed a style of extremely large schemes of very finely detailed narrative low reliefs in stone for palaces, with scenes of war or hunting; the British Museum has an outstanding collection. 

They produced very little sculpture in the round, except for colossal guardian figures, often the human-headed lamassu, which are sculpted in high relief on two sides of a rectangular block, with the heads effectively in the round (and also five legs, so that both views seem complete). Even before dominating the region they had continued the cylinder seal tradition with designs which are often exceptionally energetic and refined.

Although works of precious gems and metals usually do not survive the ravages of time, some fine pieces of Assyrian jewelry were found in royal tombs at Nimrud.

There is ongoing discussion among academics over the nature of the Nimrud lens, a piece of quartz unearthed by Austen Henry Layard in 1850, in the Nimrud palace complex in northern Iraq. A small minority believe that it is evidence for the existence of ancient Assyrian telescopes, which could explain the great accuracy of Assyrian astronomy. Other suggestions include its use as a magnifying glass for jewellers, or as a decorative furniture inlay. The Nimrud Lens is held in the British Museum. The Assyrians were also innovative in military technology with the use of heavy cavalry, sappers, siege engines etc.

And this is just some of their many great achievements, and speaking as an Assyrian, I'm more than proud of my ancestors for knowing that they have given this much to humanity, thus we should appreciate the work of our ancestors and pay more attention to our history, and that's the least that we can do.

Prepared by:

Daniel Nichola

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Sources:

The British Museum [http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk]

Ancient History Encyclopedia [http://www.ancient.eu.com]