The essence of the professional ethics and morals of the translator.

The profession of an interpreter, which arose many centuries ago, aroused much controversy, and its necessity constantly had to be proved. With the change in the public attitude to translation, ethical norms also changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, ethical standards of translation activity took on certain forms and they were constantly improving. In the middle of the twentieth century, a full understanding of the need for translation and an interpreter came. But even to date, many scientists argue that the social status of translation activities and the profession as a whole is not high enough. As noted by European and American researchers, not all customers thoroughly understand the essence of the profession of an interpreter. Many believe that an interpreter can damage a text or spoil it beyond recognition. To this day, translators are struggling to raise pay standards, improve working conditions and the availability of social protection.

Many of our compatriots in our days of the idea of ​​transfer are frivolous enough. It can be safely said that since the first grade of the school, children, perform the role of translators in foreign language lessons. In this case, no teacher will really explain how to do it correctly and not one student will not think that he does not know enough for such a task. Everyone is sure that to work with translations it is quite good to know a foreign language. And if a person has also a philological education, then he can perform oral and written translations easily and quickly.

The situation that has developed with the translation to date has its roots, historical and social. Professional ethics of an interpreter in the post-Soviet space did not have time to finally form in the early twentieth century, after which it was destroyed to the ground. Contributed to this manifestation of interest in atheism, as well as ignoring the Christian values ​​in our country. Affirmation permissiveness also spread to the translation, which turned it into a powerful ideological weapon. If it was necessary to distort anything in translation to achieve ideological goals, it was done. In this connection, the notion of an “ideologically sustained translation” appeared. This led to the fact that the translator was primarily a professional in the ideological field, and not in the field of translation.

However, professional decency is not completely lost. In recent years, many publications reflect the restoration and validation of the honor of translation. It can be said with certainty that professional ethics are necessary for an interpreter.

Moral principles of translation activity refer to the professional ethics of an interpreter. It is not possible to determine exactly what can and can not be done by an interpreter. The opinions of domestic practitioners on this issue are very different. All scientists came to a common opinion only that with an oral consecutive interpreting, a qualified translator is able to transmit about eighty percent of the source material without loss of meaning. For this kind of communication services, these data are objective. But if the translator does not observe professional ethics, then in this case, complete blocking of information can occur. Observance of ethical standards has a significant effect on the result of translation. Considering that interpreting is a work that requires direct contact with people, an interpreter must observe ethical norms when communicating. Every employee of the translation bureau should be able to behave and show their upbringing. Of course, everyone can understand the importance of being educated in their own way, but its basis is observance of certain rules that allow a person to treat respectfully other people. You can show disrespect if, in the presence of a person, talk about him in the third person. Correctly executed translation does not allow the person to change the pronoun, namely the change of one grammatical form to another.

Knowing the possible errors, you can try to make a list of the basic ethical rules of each translator:

  1. The role of an interpreter is to convey the meaning of the material received in another language, he is not an interlocutor or opponent.
  2. The translator does not have to change the meaning and style of the work material at will. Reduction, the increase in the text should not be, if the customer does not ask for adaptation of the text.
  3. A qualified translator seeks to convey the invariant of the source text, paying attention to the functional dominants of the original, while using professional skills.
  4. Observance of the ethics of oral communication, an obligatory task of an interpreter, he should not violate the personal space of the client.
  5. Regarding the content or presentation of your opinion in the translation process, the translator must not do this.
The essence of the professional ethics and morals of the translator. обновлено: July 31, 2017 автором: azurit