Before, you read any further it is important to note that this article is not for grandstanding or showing off some academic or intelligence prowess. I am just sharing a recent translation experience I had a couple of days ago, through someone’s LinkedIn post. The post was originally written in French and translated into English. Some markedness struck me about the translation. Somehow, I regard it as a “translation pitfall” that is a result of cultural differences or a phenomenon of pragmatics. So, I care to share it with some individuals who translate/edit documents for a living or any other curious individual.
The part of the post read like:
“Today, I successfully DEFENDED my PhD thesis…..”
I almost rubbished it as a bad translation or simply badly written work, because it did not make sense how one does that. I spent hours thinking, how the hell do you defend a thesis? How do you get past the proposal stage, only to defend a complete product in the end? To my sweet shock, I discovered that indeed there is a process called “THESIS DEFENCE” in other countries for M & D qualifications. It reminded me of the importance of inter/multicultural experience when you are a language or communications professional. One should forever open the borders of the mind, so the mind can cross borders of countries beyond culture, race or language. Inter/multicultural experience beyond books and the media is gravity necessary – it’s very important.
One Response
Not so sure it was worth hours of thought. Maybe a few seconds at most. Only a minor amount of empathy is needed to put oneself in the shoes of a student presenting a thesis and imagine that the subsequent interrogation would require, well, a defence.
And let’s be honest, a 30 second perusal of Google might have saved you some time too.
At least you had the tenacity to see it through, no matter how much time it took. Most people simply discard new information that does’t conform to their prejudices.