Today I offer you these two cartoons to cheer up your Monday morning, from Mark Anderson’s website Andertoons.
and
Legal considerations – machine translation and copyright
This guest post is published under a GNU version 2 licence, and comes from the Open Translation Tools Manual (more about that in a forthcoming post). It was written by Ed Bice in 2009, with modifications by Thom Hastings also in 2009. Despite being 3 years old, I think it brings up some very interesting topics for discussion. I look forward to reading your comments!
American copyright law considers a translation a derivative work. As such translators must obtain permission from the copyright or derivative right holder of the source language text. With regard to online translation, we expect that as Machine Translation (MT) and Hybrid Distributed Translation (HDT- strategies combining human and machine translation) come of age significant changes will need to be made to the legal framework to accommodate these technologies.
Quantifying the cost of poor quality in translation – sour cherries
The Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission has made available a report written late last year, as part of the ‘Studies on translation and multilingualism’ series, on Quantifying Quality Costs and the Cost of Poor Quality in Translation. The document can be downloaded in PDF format here.
Items such as prevention of poor quality, evaluation, and clarification of original texts may be of interest to those of you procuring translation as well as to translators. Some case studies from ‘real life’ have been given. One interesting example relates to protective measures on the import of sour cherries which accidentally became “sweet cherries” in the initial German version.
Lexique des termes juridiques
This is a fantastic little tome for all those dealing with French law. Published by the highly respected legal publisher Dalloz, and currently in its 20th edition, the Lexique des termes juridiques is really useful to have on hand. The visual layout is very clear too.
Here is what the publisher says about the new edition to be published this month:
Reminder: English legal terminology webinars
Just a reminder of my previous post – eCPD Webinars are presenting a series of five 1-hour webinars in June and July, on legal terminology in England and Wales. Of course, being webinars, they can be accessed from anywhere in the world, and if you’re not free at the time of the webinar, you can watch the recording later on.
The speaker is David Hutchins of Lexacom, who teaches law and terminology at face-to-face workshops and seminars, both to translators, and to lawyers from civil code systems who are less familiar with common law.
Webinar 1, 26 June: Contracts and Contract Formation for Legal Translators
Webinars 2 & 3, 28 June: The English Legal System for Legal Interpreters and Translators
Webinars 4 & 5, 3 July: Criminal Law and Procedure for Legal Interpreters and Translators
Call for volunteers – the China Guiding Cases Project
Stanford Law School is making a call for volunteers who can read Chinese. I have reproduced the details below (with permission). Apply by 30 June to work with the CGCP over the coming year! It’s an excellent opportunity to gain experience, and with two highly prestigious institutions (Stanford and Monterey). Even if you are not personally concerned, please pass this post on to those you know who might fit the profiles. Thank you! 🙂
Spanish bailout conditions impenetrable behind a thicket of legalese (or not)
As readers know, I do like a bit of legalese 🙂 – see recent posts on whether Business-ese is worse than legalese, and Translating through the fog.
Today, hot off the presses of Reuters and the UK’s New Statesman, questions are being raised about the legal conditions governing the ranking of Spain’s creditors, citing part (Section 2.19, (b), (i), (B)) of the Credit Derivatives Definitions issued by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA).
The following paragraph is being used as an example of impenetrable legal theory. You will notice liberal use of acronyms in the above articles (one of my favourite things… see here):
- CDS – credit default swaps
- EFSF – European Financial Stability Facility
- ESM – European Stability Mechanism
Monday smiles – Appropriate shoes
From 2009, a wonderful motion about a lawyer using shoes with holes in the soles to convince the jury that he is a “humble and simple” man and so frugal that he has to wear old shoes. He also apparently stands with his foot “crossed casually beside the other so that the holes (…) are readily apparent to the jury”.
Less amusingly, the media coverage of the shoe incident actually led to a mistrial verdict.
Translation of ancient Chinese legal texts ‘as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls’
The University of California Santa Barbara has issued the following press release:
UCSB History Scholar Translates and Interprets Ancient Chinese Legal Texts
In an ancient tomb in China’s Hubei Province, archeologists discovered a basket of medical, mathematical, and legal texts that date back to the late third and early second centuries B.C. A historian at UC Santa Barbara is working to translate and interpret the legal texts, of which there are two, and describes them as “a gold mine of social and legal history.”
Taniguchi case outcome – A good or a bad thing for justice?
Following on from my February post about the US Supreme Court case differentiating translation costs and interpretation costs, today we have a second thought-provoking guest post from Tony Rosado (see his earlier post here). In addition to discussing the outcome of the case, he also gives some very good advice on how to deal with its aftermath.
Tony has been a freelance conference interpreter for almost 30 years and is Federally, Colorado, and New Mexico certified. He also qualified as an attorney from the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City. You may also be interested in his English/Spanish blog. Tony runs Rosado Professional Solutions in Chicago.
“After watching many of our colleagues celebrating because the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the definition of an interpreter in the Taniguchi case, and more importantly, after reviewing the briefs, oral arguments, full written decision, and the dissenting opinion by Justice Ginsburg, I wonder if this decision should be cause for joy or grounds for concern.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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