ABSTRACT

This project is a translation of a document titled Guía país Ghana (Guidebook to Ghana) from Spanish into English. Authored by the Commercial and Economic Office of Spain in Lagos, this source text is a broad-spectrum document presenting some vital statistics on Ghana in the area of industry and international relations among other topics. The choice of the document for our translation project is motivated by our desire to make known to our English audience the challenges that Ghana had to grapple with for some time after her independence up to the year 2008 when it was updated. We believe the translation of a document of a semi-technical nature such as the present one would provide our English audience useful insight into the economic life of Ghanaians. It is also our hope that fellow translators, translation students and the language-loving public would appreciate the input we made in order to produce a target text that can hardly be recognized as a piece of translation, one devoid of all the twitches and jerks akin to translated documents. Most importantly, we pray that fellow translators who shy away from specialized texts in view of their massive load of information and unfamiliar terminology take a cue from our work.

INTRODUCTION

Translation, one of the oldest professions the world has ever known has been in existence especially in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Spain several centuries before the birth of Christ.

Initially, translation was done into and from Greek and Latin, the two most important languages of instruction at the time. With the passage of time, new trends and approaches started building up contrary to the mere transfer of words from one language to the other. Cicero‟s (1^st century translator) assertion that lexical operations play an important role for the competent translator and Jerome‟s strictly literal style of translation paved a way for the above situation. The 20^th and 21^st centuries have witnessed a proliferation of concepts and theories more than previously.

Linguists and theorists of this period either criticized or teamed up with their colleagues to propound more theories. Among the array of linguists and translation theorists are Schleiermacher and Bolt ( Creativity in translation) Vinay and Darbelnet (Translatability) Bassnett (Translation Studies) Nida and Taber ( Dynamic Equivalence) just to mention a few. Below are citations from three theorists (Wills, Nida and Taber) whose definitions of translation, in our opinion appear more complete than others:

Wills (1982) describes translation as follows:

“Translation is a transfer process which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL” (Wills quoted in Noss, 1982:3). By his submission, Wills sees translation as an entire operation based on the structure, grammatical and conceptual implications of a word and the final message that could be deduced from the

Source Language (SL) rather than an exercise that entails the substitution of SL words with Target Language (TL) words.

However, taking into account Hariyanto Sugeng‟s work titled “The Implication of Culture on Translation and Practice” as cited from www.translationdirectory.com, it is clear that Nida and

Taber provide a more comprehensive definition of translation because it embraces culture, though not explicitly. According to Nida and Taber (1969), translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language, the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. Hariyanto suggests that it can be inferred that “closest natural equivalent” gives consideration to culture as part of the translation process. Hariyanto reinforces this notion with Nida‟s translation of “Lamb of God” as “Seal of God” in the Eskimo language. Today, the importance of culture still finds expression in translation, given the vast intercultural experiences of the global world. The translation field boasts a number of translation theorists, among whom Eugene Nida stands out as the pioneer and champion in the development of theory and praxis especially with regard to the Bible translation revolution.

Today, as the world, our global village keeps bubbling with activity across continents, regions and countries as humans converge in conferences, symposia, seminars, crusades, etc. at both national and international levels irrespective of race or creed, thanks to the work of the translator, the vital information contained in the massive documentation from conferences and seminars are translated into the appropriate European languages for both present and future generations.

The translator must however bear in mind the fact that translation is a risky job. Thus s/he  must try to avoid pitfalls such as faux amis (loan expression from the French language meaning false friend) and malapropisms. Marcy Powell, cited by Child (2009: p.2), tells of a Christmas card from a Chilean student that included this greeting “May the Lord bless and can you”. According to Child, the student must have used the first of the two dictionary definitions of the Spanish word “preservar”: “to can, preserve”. This literal translation is a classic example of faux amis.

Since errors created by literal translations such as the one cited above can lead to confusion, they must be avoided where possible.. Let‟s imagine how ridiculous it would sound to translate into Spanish, for instance, “football made in Ghana” as “fútbol hecho en Ghana”. Whilst suggesting “fútbol a la ghanesa” as a solution to the above, we acknowledge the fact that there may be better renditions. Similarly, when a French speaker observes that a television programme is regarded all over the world, they mean the particular programme is watched all over the world. Regarder (French) and to regard (English) are false cognates or faux amis.

A translator who wants to do a good job must pay special attention to punctuation, proper nouns and even dates. Nothing must be taken for granted in translation. Universities the world over now offer Translation Studies in their curriculum, having realised the importance of the discipline for world development. All kinds of translation aids such as electronic dictionaries, translation software and corpora have  been formulated to facilitate the translator‟s job. Most European nations, especially those of the European Union have formulated their own national corpora. The British National Corpora (BNC) for example, a collection of compendia on different branches of knowledge, serves as a useful aid for the translator.

Translation consists of two parts, namely literary translation and technical translation. The former deals with the translation of poems, novels, stories, plays etc. and depicts the style and values of the author or writer while the latter deals with the translation of purely scientific and technical material such as a chemical or technical process as well as specific subjects or topics of a general nature such as politics, economics, communication , business management, law, international relations , terrorism, natural disasters, maternal health, child abuse etc.

The specialized language pertaining to these fields and topics is precise, concise and impersonal as compared to the poignant, high-flown, passionate, euphemistic, utopic, gloomy, or even outrageous language required in literary translation. The immense contribution of technology to development has resulted in the proliferation of technical documents which has in turn brought into sharp focus the ever-increasing demand for technical translations. Technical translations can be picturesque and emotive if they relate to political speeches, advertisements, natural disasters, terrorism, etc. as the case is nowadays.

Lekperq (2009:7) has this to say about translation:

“Translation can be viewed as part of the process of information transfer in science and technology. Millions of scientific and technical articles, reports, patents and books are published annually, of which a significant portion are scientific and technical translations. The dramatic increase in technical writing over the last ten years in particular has led to a growth in the number of languages used in specialized fields as well as the need for technical translations as an aid to the flow of information”.

Since our project is based on technical translation, we shall focus on this aspect of translation.

Whilst there is no such thing as a perfect translation, a piece of translation can be described as good or very good. To help translators meet world standards in translation, the American Translators‟ Association (ATA) has drawn up a nine-point “Code of Professional Conduct and Business Ethics” as a key to good performance. At the University of Ghana, trainee translators go through an internship programme to enable them perfect their skills after the Master of Arts Degree in Translation programme. They put into practice the techniques they acquired during their  training,  working  as  interns  either  in  the  University  of  Ghana‟s  Transbureau  or  in Embassies and other International Organizations.

Both Larson (1998) and Nida (1964) are advocates of meaning-based translation where meaning takes precedence over form, thus bringing deep meaning to the fore for re-expression or coding through synthesis to produce the Target Language. This Idea is clearly demonstrated in J. Child (2009:16, 17). We could not agree better with the above postulation which informs essentially the translation of our Spanish corpus Guía país Ghana into English. We hope that our target reflects the true meaning of the Source Text.

Translation is not only an academic exercise these days; it is also a brisk commercial venture that has to be managed, marketed and backed by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within the framework of global trends. Some translators do machine translation in order to save time and make more money, but in our opinion, the real intrinsic value of translation is faithful delivery of message, not monetary profit from surface value. The translator will do

well to consider the following as highly important to their career:

1. Computer literacy is key to professionalism in translation. No translator worth their salt can do without it even if they were to be die-hard technophobes.

1. The translator who reads far and wide is able to identify the different levels and varieties of language, as a result of which s/he makes the right choice of words. For instance in formal language, “niño” will be translated as “child” instead of “kid”. Today “casket”, instead of “coffin”, will be considered a better rendition for “ataúd”. S/he should be able to distinguish between British and American English and also between Castilian and Latin American Spanish. Thus, s/he will not conclude that “tidbit”  (US)  is  wrong  spelling.  Avid  reading  increases  the  translator‟s  word-power and makes them acquire a large collection of registers, idiomatic expressions, sentence connectors, collocations, etc. all of which help them to use the correct diction. Sentence connectors bring cohesion and coherence in the target text whilst collocations, i.e. the association of interrelated words, gives the translation a natural touch. As J. R. Firth puts it, “You shall know a word by the company it keeps” (1968:179). Reading enables the translator to appreciate the conceptual configurations (general notion resulting from cognitive processes), the grammatical properties (e.g. proper nouns and punctuation) and the itsy-bitsy stylistic ingredients (e.g. malapropisms and  inappropriate registers) of a  source text. For instance, „imminent‟ should   not   be   confused   with   eminent   as   in   „eminent   danger‟   and   „imminent personality‟  instead  of  „imminent  danger‟  and  „eminent  personality‟.  Similarly,  the expression „electioneering campaign‟ is wrong. The right usage is „election campaign‟ or simply, „electioneering‟.
   1. The translator needs to be a cheerful person capable of rising above stress and frustration. S/he must be able to socialize with others or take time off to relax and visit places of interest. This will enable him/her to be abreast of the times, a sine qua non for success in translation.We executed our translation project Guía país Ghana taking

into account all of the above and Zakhir‟s Translation Procedures which formed our theoretical framework as illustrated in chapter 2 of this work. As the name suggests, our source text is a broad-spectrum document which provides vital information on certain areas of Ghana‟s political,  economic  and  social  life  namely,  political parties and system of government, economic growth and reforms, role of the Bank of Ghana as well as the infrastructural development of Ghana involving mainly the rehabilitation of roads. Despite the document‟s massive load of information, we paid particular  attention  to  every  detail  in  order  to  remain  faithful  to  the  compilers‟ intentionality.

To start with, for the pre-translation stage, we attempted the translation of a text which appeared to pose similar translation challenges with those of Guía país Ghana. We, for instance, rendered the Spanish word panteón as burial ground instead of the English cognate pantheon, the four definitions of which have  nothing to  do  with the word „burial‟.  Although the text is very brief, we had to do a lot of recasting to give the translated version precision and originality. As a precursor to our Guía país Ghana translation, this short text from the Spanish magazine, Los Hechos provided the needed impetus for our work. See Appendix 1 for our warm-up source and target texts.