Written by Mr. Denis Atabong, English Reviser with the African Union’s (AU) Directorate of Conference Management and Publications (DCMP)
Article originally published in Issue 6 (January 2016) of The BRIDGE, Mouthpiece of the AU’s DCMP
Writing, just as translation, is often a challenge of finding the right words to say exactly what you have in mind. The translator may read the source text and understand it well, but in putting down what [s/he] understands, [s/he] conveys a completely different meaning or allows [his/her] words to be interpreted in varying ways. In the worst case, a translator may fail altogether to understand the source text; [s/he] may misunderstand individual words or the whole sense of the sentence or the text.
Revision, or seeing the text again, is a natural process that everyone uses to improve on what they have written. Many people will often write and read and rewrite and correct a text several times before it becomes final or goes to the press. Even then, they keep seeing and reading things into the text which they have only in their heads.
In the world of translation, it has been established in many organisations that translations have to be revised. This has been done to remedy the many difficulties cited above. But revising translations done by others is a real challenge. First, most people shiver and quake and tremble if the slightest thing is altered in what they have written. It does really take time and some amount of getting used to for all translators to take revisions with light-heartedness and as a routine. Second, not all corrections can be rationally justified, given that language is not only an intuitive subject, but also a question of usage. Some translators would seek out one rare or even wrong usage that they found in some old book to justify their translation, or even argue that their own usage is the more current one! We often have the illusion that once something enters a book, it has gained authority thereby! The worst part is that some revisers never even explain to the translators why they corrected the work the way they did.
A careful reviser is not only one who masters the language, but also one who masters the reasons behind language and its usages. He or she must see into the mind of the user, because concepts, verbs, conjunctions, demonstratives change depending on what one is seeing in the mind. I give you the example: “in the continent” and “on the continent”. If you are a reviser, which one would you would you say is right, and which would you say is wrong? I leave it to you, but a careful reviser would see in what sense the translator is visualising continent before [s/he] decides, because the key here is to know the mental image of the writer. Similarly, French people think of hunger as a condition, as something you have, whereas English people see it as a state in which you are.
Therefore, a careful reviser must not always be rigid in their views, unless where all other possibilities are excluded. [S/he] must always be open to suggestions and different ways of looking at the same thing. [S/he] must begin by appreciating the work already done by the translator, because work already done provides the basis of the revision. We must always note that doing work from scratch is often more challenging than improving on work already done. That is why a careful reviser will always commend the things that are right in the translation before [s/he] says the things that are wrong.
Revision is not intended to replace the words of the translator with those of a reviser. If you give the same text to ten different translators, you will get ten different translations, although all of them are translations of the same text. This obviously arises from the great flexibility of words and their arrangement to say the same thing. Thoughts can be dressed in different clothing, and yet we recognize them as the same thoughts. The careful reviser always recognizes the fact that [his/her] work is to improve the translation, not to rewrite it. [His/her] work must add value to the translation, not simply changing and cancelling here and there because [s/he] would have said it differently. It is not by mistake that we speak of “seeing” what a person is saying, precisely because words are derivatives of the visual field that forms in the background of the mind.
The ability to explain to the translator each and every change done, especially where the change may be doubtful or controversial, is a great mark of an accomplished reviser. But this depends on his thorough insight into the target language. How many people really know what a “benchmark” or “stakeholder” is? Words get into a language and thoughtless writers seize them and spread them everywhere! Yes, language has a certain amount of dogma, but the reviser must try to transcend the dogma and understand the whys of language, otherwise [s/he] would make [himself/herself] ridiculous to the translator. If a correction is based on usage, [s/he] should so explain. If it is based on grammar, s/he should show it, etc. It cannot simply be that the translator should listen to [him/her] because [s/he] is the boss.
Language is not just meaning. It is also rhythm and music. It is poetry. It is not enough for the translation to be faithful to the original. The careful reviser must also ask the questions: Does it flow? Does it sound nice? Can it be made to go straight to the heart so that we don’t need to read it several times before we understand it? And it is [his/her] business to work the translation to that state where it reflects all of the above.
A careful reviser will not take it upon [himself/herself] to do the work of the translator, for example, to check references, find the meanings of acronyms, and so on. That is and remains the work of the translator. The reviser has the duty not to induce any laziness in the translator, but to lead the translator to do [his/her] work completely. If the translator sends uncompleted work or work very badly done to the reviser, it is the place of the latter to send it back to the translator and insist that [s/he] completes it.
A careful reviser will also note that each field has its own jargon, style and terminology. In philosophy, phenomenology and other disciplines, expressions are very different from the common language. Thus the fact that certain expressions are not used in the common language does not mean that they are not used in certain fields of knowledge.
Language indeed is a beautiful and fascinating subject. We can go on and on, but we cannot practically exhaust its intricacies. The reviser is called upon to master as much as [s/he] can, because [s/he] is in that position where [s/he] must explain what [s/he] does in revising other people’s work. An analytical mind is a must for a careful reviser. Revision is not good for dogmatic minds, or those minds that say because a thing has to be said this way, it must always be said the same way. Inevitably, imperceptibly, language changes, for we can see that the English of the 10th century is not the English of today. Let the careful reviser flow like the language itself, while all the time staying within the boundaries of the language stream.