29 April 2013

Management speak II

Now let me move on to a couple of preliminary points on the challenges of translating MS&BW.

First, IMHO MS often proves one of the most difficult text categories for the conscientious translator.

Second, bad MS -- by which I mean MS that remains incomprehensible even to those familiar with the BWs, the company and its policies -- presents translation challenges that are literally beyond the pale, hence  beyond anything except painful case-by-case analysis.
Allow me, therefore, to restrict this discussion to MS that is comprehensible to the initiated.

Third, it's always important to identify the 'real' intended audience. While the declared audience of a company's annual report nominally includes all 'stakeholders' (I'm using this BW in its true sense), the 'real' target audience of some sections of may be far smaller. More on this later.

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...