French

All presentations are in English unless otherwise noted.

F-1 (T, 1:45pm-3:15pm) - All Levels
French Language Division Annual Meeting
Monique-Paule Tubb (Chevy Chase, Maryland), administrator, ATA French Language Division, and owner, Advanced Communication and Translation Inc.

[CANCELED] F-2 (T, 3:30pm-5:00pm) - Advanced
French®English Advanced Legal Workshop
Julie E. Johnson (San Francisco, California), French interpreter and translator, and assistant professor, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Monterey Institute of International Studies
Presenting Languages: English and French

In this hands-on, collaborative workshop, the presenter will guide participants through the translation of particularly thorny short excerpts from a variety legal texts. Combining individual work and knowledge sharing in small groups, the exercise will result in sample group translations which will be available to all participants for future reference. Participants are invited, but not required, to bring a laptop and diskette to facilitate drafting and editing. (Come a little early to boot up.)

F-3 (T, 3:30pm-5:00pm) - All Levels
The Many Challenges of the Legal Translator
Frédéric Houbert (Le Havre, France), freelance legal and financial translator (English®French) and instructor (legal and financial translation), Le Havre University, France
Presenting language: French, with English®French examples

So-called "culture-bound" terms are often presented as being the main problem for the legal translator. While such terms as "solicitor," "Home Office," or "common law" are obviously difficult to translate, the professional translator should not forget that more basic legal terms such as "breach" or "jurisdiction" are often even more difficult to deal with. This is due in part to their high frequency in legal texts and to their varying meanings. Polysemy is but one of the many challenges the legal translator must face. This presentation will therefore focus on a number of other difficulties and the awareness of the stylistic differences that exist between English and French.

F-4 (F, 1:45pm-2:30pm) - All Levels
Profile of a Translation Program
Madeleine C. Velguth (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), professor of French and founding coordinator, Graduate Certificate Program in Translation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Presenting Language: French

There are about a dozen graduate translator training programs in the U.S. focusing on nonliterary translation. Most are interdisciplinary, using existing resources and minimally funded. But all share features that are necessarily at the core of good translator education. This presentation will sketch the profile of one such program, emphasizing courses offered in the French®English language pair. Handouts will give an overview of goals and expectations and illustrate the course work. The presentation will be given in French.

F-5 (F, 2:30pm-3:15pm) - Intermediate/Advanced
Swap and Derivative Terminology in French®English Translation
Roxana Huhulea (North Massapequa, New York), freelance French®English translator

This presentation is based on the speaker's work as a documentation analyst for the swap and derivative area of a French bank, as well as on her translation experience in this field. It focuses on the challenges of translating various industry terms from French into English. The documents used are AFB and International Swaps and Derivatives Association master agreements and confirmations. The presentation is designed for translators with experience in financial and legal matters who want to gain insight into the specialized field of swaps and derivatives.

F-6 (F, 3:30pm-5:00pm) - Intermediate
Pharmaceutical Writing for French®English Translators
Michèle A. Hansen (Hinsdale, Illinois), ATA-accredited (French®English) freelance translator and assistant administrator, ATA French Language Division

An examination of some of the challenges of translating in the pharmaceutical industry, with an emphasis on French and English. Topics to be discussed include "medical English," regulatory issues, the International Conference on Harmonization, and training opportunities for medical translators.

F-7 (S, 1:45pm-3:15pm) - All Levels
Seven Recurring Problems in French to English Translation
Christine Durban (Paris, France), freelance French®English translator and co-chair, ATA Public Relations Committee

The Chicken Grouse and other stories. A nuts & bolts look at a selection of vocabulary items and concepts that turn up regularly in French business texts and are just as regularly rendered awkwardly in English, even by experienced translators. Examples are drawn from documents translated in 2001 and 2002. This session will be of particular interest to translators aiming for the "for-publication" end of the market.

[CANCELED] F-8 (S, 3:30pm-4:15pm) - All Levels
Can You Translate Into "Québécois"?
Véronique G. Ponce (Toronto, Canada), translator, Fidelity Investments
Presenting Language: French

"Wanted, person to translate into Quebec French." Such ads are becoming commonplace in Canadian newspapers and websites. What does it mean, and is there such a thing as a "traduction en Québécois"? The presentation will begin with a very brief overview of Quebec's history, followed by a discussion of today's language laws, highlighting this Canadian province's unique linguistic (and geographic) situation. We will discuss the relevance of European French dictionaries, among other tools of the trade, to the North American translator, especially those tools published in French in Canada. What is expected of a French translator in North America? We will talk about the disappearance of a formal linguistics department within a company or government body (which used to cover translation, employee training, language assessment, etc.), and the shift of translators into the background of a marketing department or in-home office and how this effects French translations published in Canada.

Related Sessions: Preconference Seminars (Seminar A), Strategies for Sight Translation, Consecutive Interpretation, and Note Taking; Literary (L-5), Riding the Culture Bumps Roller Coaster; Literary (L-14), Aspects of Literary Translation: Dealing with Multicultural Context; Science and Technology (ST-3), Patents in the Early 21st Century; Science and Technology (ST-5), Translating Historical Technology; Terminology (TERM-2), Firearms Terminology in English, French, Spanish, and German; Terminology (TERM-4), The Language of Risk Management; and Varia (V-6), In Favor of a Positive Interaction Between Translators and Proofreaders)