Little Essays on the Rules (8) Translators and Computers

Philip Harvey

Hans Küng ; [possibly translated by author].

Is this Statement of Responsibility allowed by RDA? It appears in the download record for his new book called ‘Can we save the Catholic Church? We can save the Catholic Church!’

Hans Küng’s personal note in ‘A Word of Thanks’ (p. xi-xii) reveals a web of intrigue all its own: “I am deeply grateful to Collins for publishing this English edition; many of my most important books since the early 1970s have been published by Collins. My thanks go especially to Andrew Lyon, Editorial Director, Religious Publishing, who cared for this publication with tremendous competency and energy. The Sprachendienst Dr Herrlinger, a translation company in Tubingen, provided the basic translation. Dr Thomas Riplinger, a theologian and native English speaker, reworked and amended the text with extraordinary diligence in close collaboration with Andrew Lyon.”

Is Sprachendienst Dr Herrlinger’s translation work done by a computer, a human, or both? The answer is not much clearer when we visit its site and read its Teutonic claims for Translation Quality:
 A top quality translation demands more than outstanding linguistic ability and experience in the relevant specialist field. It demands an exceptional degree of empathy and creativity too. As we see it, an expert translation is one in which the intention of the message is internalized and expressed in another language to reproduce the spirit of the original so that the reader would never guess it was a translation at all.
For us, quality is a plannable attribute. Our procedures provide the assurance of no-compromise quality right from the start: Including careful selection of the most suitable specialist translator – always a native speaker – and the provision of all the necessary technical and company-specific terminology for the job. And an exceptionally painstaking final checking process allows the identification of any inconsistencies and ensures an optimum end result. In this way we are moving ever closer to the achievement of our ultimate goal: Zero defects.
For us, another aspect of quality is the assurance of security for our customers: Our services are fully insured. Just in case. We consider this part of our all-round service package. If you have any questions about our insurance cover, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

To judge by Hans Küng’s words, the company on this occasion did not meet its stated ambition of zero defects.

This tangled web still leaves unclear the author’s role in the English translation. Was the book “possibly translated by author” with the aid of all sorts of other entities, human and otherwise? Or is the cataloguer just guessing, having not read pp. xi-xii? And does RDA allow cataloguers to write claims in square brackets like that? Or should all the garble about translation be placed in a Note?

A message to this effect on a couple of e-lists inspired responses.

Stephen Morton of Christian Heritage College in Queensland assures us that “quite apart from the intrigue of the truth Vs. “possibility” of the words in the square bracketed statement that is provided as an example, RDA not only provides for the use of square brackets, it also encourages the use of such words as “possibly”” Stephen copied some examples of just such a presentation.

Mark Hangartner of the University of Auckland Library wrote:

“Hi all,

A quick look in WorldCat reveals other cataloguers including mentions of this computer based service, as well as other technology assistance eg photoelectric sensor.

The fields used: Responsibility, Note(s):,

Example

Light beam switches : technology and applications

Reinhard Huschke;  Thomas Reinecke

2000

German Book Book 70 S. Ill., graph. Darst. 19 cm

Landsberg/Lech Verl. Moderne Industrie

….

[Transl.: Sprachendienst Dr. Herrlinger. Visolux]

As to Philip’s question is it done by a computer or a human:

On this page they list the file formats that they can deal with:

and on this page they explain how the technology works including use of translation memory (TM).

Essentially there are still human beings involved but the bulk of the work is done by an automatic process.

But perhaps the nuances in Theology are such that even allowing for specialist vocabulary you need a theologian to render the ideas into English.

Mark’s and Stephen’s research is very useful.  It seems that with translations produced by outfits like Sprachendienst Dr. Herrlinger, the reader may never know which lines of the translation were machine-produced and which ones resulted from human editorial intervention. The company does not disclose the names of its “native speakers” on staff, leaving both reader and cataloguer at a loss as to who may be responsible for details of the text. The company name and its impressive modern technology are all cataloguers have to go on.

This is an interesting literary situation, unimaginable say twenty years ago. Hans Küng, by his words of explanation about the translation process, has exposed the quandary inherent in such a process. The computer is fallible. Humans are fallible too, but sentient beings with fine linguistic tuning. This is especially useful when translating newfangled German compound theological terms (that would be one word in German) into meaningful English. Translation memory ™ may know the words, but not the context or the verbal inventiveness of the great Swiss theologian. Some people believe that none of us are infallible.

Mark’s parting words about ‘nuances’ are absolutely right. Hans Küng and his two colleagues have sat down with the output of Sprachendienst Dr. Herrlinger to do what academics nowadays call nuancing. He doesn’t say that he has anything to do with the finished translation, but if he was working with them then it is true to say, at least in part, that the book is [possibly translated by author]. It was also translated by at least two other human beings of advanced theological intelligence, albeit fallible in their humanity.

Today I will attempt to write up all of this complex teamwork history into a Note. This Note will include hints that the author himself “possibly” had a hand in the English translation.

Reveries of libraries, the second : GENTLEMEN’S CLUBS

Philip Harvey

Yesterday a friend asked so how’s library-land, with all the nonchalance of the professional small-talker. How is the library going, I thought to myself, trying to think how it was going without resorting to the scintillating rejoinders of small-talkers like “Good!” or “Could be better” or “Could be worse”. Instead of describing how the library was though, I suddenly burst forth into visions of how libraries could be. Libraries should become gentlemen’s clubs, I claimed, where people sit about in large armchairs all day talking about the contents of the books, following some haphazard timetable of their own design. Libraries are where readers visit to spend their hours in worthwhile pursuits like reading and talking. Libraries should be for the enjoyment of knowledge.

Taken aback by this view of the future of libraries, my friend blurted something kneejerk about technology. What about computers? Say what. This is the cliché of the age. The computers can take care of themselves, said I. Let the computers read to their heart’s content! They can stretch out and make themselves at home, as well. The library will only be ‘gentlemanly’ to illustrate a meaning. Ladies and others can also join in, all taking advantage of the spacious interiors to talk and read and talk about what they read, at their own pace. We do not live in the 19^th century.

The practical requirements of information delivery have formed the libraries of today. Long shelves, book turnover to meet some imaginary predicted demand, screens at every opportunity, and a super efficient human, or machine, to loan out objects are the common features. This is why no one stays in libraries anymore, because the science has increasingly pushed for practical service, forgetting in the process what it is that made these places attractive in the first place. Electronics threaten to make the library little more than a download site. Or just possibly, offer the promise of accidentally turning the library into a social oasis, and I am not just talking about more training for librarian-baristas.

The gentleperson’s club has chairs and couches, plush ones and sensible firm ones, positioned for views and conversations. Reading is acceptable on the floor. It is a place you secretly want to visit, whenever the opportunity arises. The collection itself is not just a backdrop to the reading habits of a lifetime but the source of inspiration for words and thoughts expressed at ease in the hospitable spaces of the club. Inhabitants of the library, we never call them customers thank you, gravitate towards their favourite areas of the collection, where closeness to the physical reality of the literature increases their sense of belonging to traditions of written thought and inspires them to be involved in the traditions. Gadgetry that beeps is left to chat to itself as persons of interest notice faces again, the smile of recognition at an agreed statement, the frown of displeasure at something strange or different, the scratch of the head as pennies drop or questions arise. The club reminds them of a world that is more than a rectangular screen. It reminds them of the world they really live in. The club is well-lit with natural as well as artificial light. Pictures are placed strategically on walls where there are not books, pictures to live with for a lifetime, pictures that don’t change shape every five seconds, or at the flick of a finger. The club invites in, it wishes you to stay if you wish, if you wish for some hours, while outside it could be sunny, or have started to rain, or become night without you noticing. More books are taken down for reading. We are not living in the 19^th century anymore.

Reveries of libraries, the first : COMPLETE WORKS

Philip Harvey

                                                            Diane Keaton's personal library

They say that your books define you. Your library is a sign of what you really want, as well as what you wish to keep out, or avoid, or deny, or have no use for, or don’t believe in. The books you want beside you all the time are the books that must mean the most. We know the feeling of reading something utterly beautiful or brilliant or unforgettable and wanting to have all the works by that person, in the hope of enjoying even more beauty and brilliance we will never forget. I once read a novel by the unknown Englishwoman Ivy Compton-Burnett and was so stunned by its verbal originality that I had to order more and more of her fictions until Miss Compton-Burnett became quite the best known Englishwoman in the neighbourhood. Her interviews and biographies increased the enjoyment because they were about her while being written in English that was unlike hers in every way. Ivy moved at a noticeable pace along the walls. Eventually though her skills with laconic dialogue and sparing, usually unsparing, adjectives grew familiar, thus leaving me with a long shelf of Compton-Burnett and a strong desire to read Joseph Conrad. This is how personal libraries grow. The question being, if Conrad hadn’t stepped in to save the day, would I have kept on ordering books even remotely connected with the formidable life of a moderately famous Englishwoman? Where would it all end?

The American character actress Diane Keaton likes taking photographs. She emulates the behaviour of her heroes Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander, going around the place taking art pictures, especially of building interiors, with her Rolleiflex. She has collected photography books for years, even admitting this week in The New York Times that these books encourage many fantasies. One, though, stands out. Ms Keaton says, “I’m still trying to turn it into a reality. This is it: Purchase every photography book ever published. I know, I know — ridiculous. But so what?” So what, indeed. While some would accuse Diane Keaton of conspicuous consumption, of succumbing to the capital sin of gluttony, or both, her reverie (for that is all it is, “ridiculous”) is readily understood by many book lovers. It is not the books themselves but the type of book that is important. The desire to collect all the books of a certain kind together is no more than the normal feeling of someone with an admiration or passion or fascination with that particular literature. I know someone who buys every book about Antarctica that he can discover. Another with every 1937-1939 Penguin first edition, which he arranges in number order in a special cabinet. What gives? What one does with every photography book ever published, once the objective reaches possibility, is anyone’s guess, but it is sometimes out of such madcap reveries that great collections start and mighty bequests are initiated. Being a woman of high intelligence, Diane Keaton already has an answer. “My mission is to buy an old warehouse I can transform into a massive library of image-driven books and open it to the public. Some of my new additions to this fantasy library include Mitch Epstein’s “New York Arbor”; Linda Fregni Nagler’s “The Hidden Mother”; the catalog for the Fraenkel Gallery exhibition “The Unphotographable”; and David Plowden’s “The American Barn.” What is charming about this proposal is her love of the individual title when compared with the scale of the proposed dream collection. The ratio of four moderately well-known American “image-driven” photography books up against the total of all photography books is a considerable fraction. However, given that she is a well-paid actress with backing as well as backbone, Diane Keaton may establish her warehouse sooner than expected.