Quick entry from the dungeons of a LAN house... Oh, to have internet at home again!
I love and hate full-time translation gigs. Love sleeping in if I want to, waking up early if I need to, not having a boss, etc.
I hate poorly written and obviously plagarized crap in Portuguese that I have to try to edit before I translate it to English. I hate that I don´t have nice coworkers to complain about it to. (Hence, this blog entry.)
I highly doubt that I am the first of all of us working as translators in Brazil to come across something obviously plagarized. What do you guys do about it? What if it seems like the plagarism was from a text that was originally in English? Do you just close your eyes to it in a sort of ´´don´t shoot the messenger´´ stance? Say something to the author? To the editor?
I try to do my job honestly. I wish others would do the same.
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I would try my best to (politely) tell the author about it. Something like: "Don't you think there's something here that might belong to someone else?"
ReplyDeleteI used to work with typing-editing stuff in Brazil and there was crap so poorly written it was impossible to understand and you know what? If you're translating something that is so bad that you have to correct it in addition to translating (especially in a language that is not your first) I'd definitely point out the mistakes and it's either they fix it or I'll charge more for the extra work. And, there's more to it... they can blame the translator later for the plagiarism. If you don't talk to them about it, I'd suggest keeping a copy of the original just in case.
Oh dear... Yeah, it has happened to me before too. Two chapters - one on the origin of the word Cuiaba and another on horse and cattle breeds in Brazil (oh the things you learn when translating!). I googled both to find more information and got full page entries of the same text written by other people. I was working for a project manager who was laying out the book and I asked her, but she just shrugged and told me not to worry about it. I figured it was a one time thing, with an incompetent author, but apparently not. Are Brazilian standards for plagiarism as loose as those for passive voice construction and comma splices?
ReplyDeleteOops, that was me by the way--- formerly - lovelydharma... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Samia. I think you need to mention it to the author. I don't translate many academic articles or texts that would be more prone to plagiarism, so I don't have much experience with that. If something is poorly written, however, or appears to be forged, etc., then I definitely mention it. Of course, I also work primarily with agency clients, not direct clients, so I don't have to be so "gentle" with my comments. It's a little different when you're telling your client to then tell their client.
ReplyDeleteAck! No updates!
ReplyDelete