Varia

All presentations are in English unless otherwise noted.

V-1 (F, 10:15am-11:00am) - All Levels
On Dealing with Translation and Languages in Contact
Clarissa Surek-Clark (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), ATA-accredited (English«Portuguese) translator and interpreter

With 11 official languages and a polyglot population, South Africa is a fertile land for situations of languages in contact. Over the course of the country's history, languages borrowed from one another and new dialects of international languages, such as English, emerged. This presentation will deal with the strategies used to translate terms that are part of a common South African reality into other languages.

[CANCELED] V-2 (S, 8:30am-10:00am) - Advanced
Have You Thought of Publishing?
Gertrud Graubart Champe (Surry, Maine), freelance medical translator, and chair, ATA Education and Training Committee

Practicing translators and interpreters accumulate a significant amount of knowledge and understanding as they go about their work. A great deal of what they learn goes far beyond cut and dried skills to be applied to future work, and could profit their colleagues if it could be published. This discussion will present information about various venues for publication in addition to the ATA Chronicle, about what an article submitted for publication should look like, and about the importance of having nonacademicians publish well-reasoned and detailed work.

V-3 (S, 2:30pm-3:15pm) - All Levels
Editing in the (Post) Globalized World: Many Questions… Are There Answers?
Regina Alfarano (São Paulo, Brazil), instructor, New York University online programs, and editor, Tradução & Comunicação
Presenting Languages: Brazilian Portuguese and English

Where (exactly) does the translator stand? How is the translator's responsibility circumscribed? How is it not de-circumscribed? What is the real extent of the translator's responsibility? How can the translator's role as the multifaceted bridge in the technical/scientific/cultural/literary scenario match the translation's ultimately critical social commitment? How has cultural identity been translated? How can translators combine/conciliate/survive the equations: Translator«Editor«Translator; Translator«Writer«Translator; Translator«Translator?

V-4 (S, 3:30pm-5:00pm) - All Levels
National Geographic Television and National Geographic Channels International: Translations for Worldwide Distribution
Anthony F. Barilla (Hyattsville, Maryland), professor and lecturer, University of Maryland, College Park; Wojtek Stremel (Chicago, Illinois), U.S. State Department certified conference simultaneous interpreter and freelance reviewer, Polish National Geographic Television Channel; and Juan F. Tituaña (Washington, DC), director of translations, National Geographic Television

NGT and NGCI television programs are translated into more than 35 languages and are seen by nearly 80 million households around the world. All NGT/NGCI television programs for distribution are translated by our international licensees, broadcasters, and partners in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Translated television scripts and marketing materials are then sent to NGT's Washington, DC, headquarters for review by freelance translators/reviewers. This presentation will focus on the major responsibilities of the NGT Translations Department in ensuring that all television programs maintain high quality translations throughout the world. Short television programs samples in different languages will be shown to participants.

[CANCELED] V-5 (S, 3:30pm-4:15pm) - All Levels
Export Controls: What Every Translator Needs to Know
Alex Lane (Pagosa Springs, Colorado), interpreter and ATA-accredited (Russian®English) translator, and assistant administrator, ATA Slavic Languages Division

In order to protect the national security and to further foreign policy objectives, the U.S. imposes export controls on the transfer of both hardware and information to foreign parties. Inasmuch as the work of translators in the U.S. involves, almost of necessity, the direct or eventual transfer of information between the U.S. and foreign parties, it is important for translators to understand how export control law applies to them. This session will present a general introduction to U.S. export controls, covering basics and summarizing major do's and don'ts, thus helping translators make sure they don't run afoul of the law.

V-6 (S, 3:30pm-4:15pm) - All Levels
In Favor of a Positive Interaction Between Translators and Proofreaders
Michèle F. Landis (Littleton, Colorado), freelance English®French translator
To produce a high-quality document that accurately conveys the meaning of the original, even the best translator in the world needs a copyeditor and/or proofreader. The key to avoiding errors, finding the best terminology, and making the translated document "flow" as if it had been written in the target language, comes from a positive interaction between the translator and the proofreader. This presentation covers the requirements and necessary steps to make this relationship work.

V-7 (S, 3:30pm-4:15pm) - All Levels
What Has Gotten into You?
Camilla Bozzoli Rudolph (Washington, DC), instructor, Georgetown University, and staff translator, National Geographic Society

The main difficulty the presenter has found with teaching Italian as a foreign language in the U.S. is the interference with other, previously acquired, Romance languages. After 30 years of fighting everyday misspellings such asque, qui, porque', etc., the presenter came to the well-known conclusion: if you cannot beat them, join them. So, the presenter joined in and tried to understand what triggers this involuntary, but extremely strong, mechanism to adopt misspellings. In linguistics, there is a theory that states that the student caught between two languages creates for himself a third one, an "interlanguage," which, as the student progresses, gets gradually closer to the language to be acquired. But what about a student caught between three or more languages? This presentation is based on experience and first-hand research on young (and not so young) adults learning Italian who have a previous knowledge of Spanish or French. It will try to find a way of turning the stumbling blocks of language acquisition into steppingstones. Audience participation is welcome.

V-8 (S, 4:15pm-5:00pm) - All Levels
Gods, Kings, Priests, Writing, Encryption, Code Breaking, Decipherment, and Translation
John Rock (Hollywood, South Carolina), freelance technical translator

To draw parallels between such disparate subjects as those cited in the header appears to be a conundrum. But a link does indeed exist¾language, both spoken and written. Today in the media, modern literature, and the theater, spoken language is given all the credit for forging the new frontiers of language. Yet, throughout millennia written language has been the vehicle for historians, culture, and progress. The fascinating process of unearthing the historical roots of language and examining our struggle to understand or, indeed, to conceal it (only to reveal it again), coupled with the ongoing process of fashioning it as an essential tools of human, cultural, and technological progress, holds important lessons that history can teach the translator.