Minutes from the Translation "working group" meeting
(During Stamp meeting, lyon, june, 4th, 2006).
We really still need more people to deal with the Translations job. This meeting was only about how to find ideas about how to deal with the Translation job, how to organize it, but almost everything has to be done, and we're not enough people. Here's a summary of the discussions we had.
THE "SPIRIT" (principles ? hallmarks ?) OF THE TRANSLATION JOB
Translation is not only a practical issue but it is really a political issue. It has things to do with how we consider this gathering, language issues, power within the discussion activity... We have three proposals, that still need to be discussed. It's gonna be important to deal with this during the next international preparation meeting (Dijon, france, around july 15th) as the translation job brings fondamental discussions as PGA is a network that goes beyond the (languages and other kind of) borders. We really think this issue has to be raised during the iternational preparation meeting and during the conferences itself. (two persons are preparing a discussion about this for the Dijon international meeting)
Here are the three proposals :
-The ideal aim of the job translation might be that anyone who wants to talk or to listen to could be able to do it in his/ her own language, in order to avoid inequalities within the speeches (inequalities being important when everyone speaks english, by example). This would also help to have more precise and interesting speeches, which cannot happen when you speak a language you're not very good at (as when i try to translate this strange sentence !). This idea goes against some "activist habits" that always want to be efficient and quick. But this idea also brings us to a practical thing :
- We need to "self-organize" the translation job. This means that there shouldn't be one small group of people working on every translation, toward which anyone who needs a translation goes, and on the other side, people who "consume" the translation group's job. Anyone should be "active" toward translations, which means that anyone should try to organize the translations, if they need some or if they can "offer" some. I mean : if you need a translation, don't wait patiently for the people to offer it to you, ask for it and organize it, and if you're able to translate, tell it and try to organize it. Off course it cannot only be dealt "spontaneously" by everyone at anytime, so there should also be a coordination group.
- So we need a lot of different translators, so that there won't be only a small group of specialists spending there whole time translating.
There was also a discussion about the idea of learning together a common language (english ? ), during the PGA conference or during the preparation work, as it should be dealt collectively and not everyone on his/ her own. The idea of chosing an international language and to put the other languages apart is not ok for everyone. (we had the same discussion about esperanto some time ago)
DISCUSSION ABOUT THE SPECIALIZATION OF THE TRANSLATORS
(i mean, about some people to be some "specialists" of translation)
This discussion started during the international meeting in budapest (april 2006) (and also before within the network). If we face the lack of translators, shall we try to find some people who don't really care about PGA and these gatherings ?
Discussion about the "apolitical" translators issue : (We have ways to invite some students who could come and translate, and who'd only have the aim to improve for their studies, but we think they don't care about the PGA story). Some people who don't know our networks and our special habits of language may don't understand well what we say, and it might be some kinf of a mess when they translate. Then we could maybe introduce them seriously to the conference project, give them some documents to read, so that they will understand more the "sprit" of the conference, and get used to some special ways of talking, and so on. And we should also try to invite people who are interested in the conference, at least a little. There's also the same kind of problem with written text's translation, that's why someone advices to try to re-read the texts that have been translated, so that we're sure there's no misunderstanding.
Precision : off course, according to the way most of us (people from Stamp that attended at this discussion) understand the PGA hallmarks, there's no way that we pay some professional in what we organize. But actually this is not so "easy" and simple, as there were some discussions about this before within the PGA network, during some previous conferences. It was also different according to some special needs and circumstances... Anyway, it seems that we're ok within our group not to pay anyone for translating...
Proposal (No consensus, anyway it's not a great proposal) : We're actually against the tasks specialization, so we're not really ok to invite some people who'd only come to translate. But as translation is very important to us, we could "change our opinion" if we realize in july there's a big lack of translators. Anyways we'll look for people who're interested by PGA.
NEEDS WE HAVE CONCERNING TRANSLATION
Before the conference :
- When we send e-mails to the Pga europe process mailing list. It's impossible for us to translate in several languages every e-mail that's sent to the list. We propose that we try to send any e-mail at least in two languages (french and english for the people from STAMP ?) And we will write as a heading (?) of every message some sentence, in several languages, inviting the people to translate and re-send this e-mail around them or to the list. This means "Self organization" of the PGA europe process's translation.
- When we send e-mails to the "pga announce" mailing list (informations about the next conference). people who'll write and send messages will mind the translation.
- For the various texts made by STAMP (and other texts who will be about the conference ant its content), the people who wrote the texts should mind about their translation (i'll explain somewhere else how to deal with this)
During the conference :
- there will be a subscription form to send us back, on which we will ask to the people which translation they need, and in which language they can translate.
- We will need written translations for : different signs, schedules, minutes...
- And oral translations for the meetings, workshops...
- We will need at least one translation coordinator for every "decentralized" (local) gathering. Local preparation groups will try to find their own translators, and if they don't have enough, they will ask to the translation coordination group... that should exist soon.
CONTACTING AND FINDING SOME TRANSLATORS AND ORGANZING THE COORDINATION OF THESE CONTACTS
First of all, there is a diference between being ok to translate from time to time and organizing the translation job's coordination which is an important and big job.
- Everyone could try to find some people who are able to translate. For the moment, some people are coordinating the translators' contacts : Iann, OdM and hinode(at)no-log.org. They will tell us soon how they want to work on this coordination job. At least, they will have a list of translators and you can ask them when you need some translation. And write them if you want to be on the translators' list. This list may be published on STAMP wiki (collective working website : http://stamp.poivron.org) but they still need to know if the people are ok to have their contact published on a website. Maybe these three people's job will go further and they will coordinate most of the translation job (they will tell us what they really want to do soon).
For the moment, when we write a text, we have to deal with the translation ourselves and we can ask some contacts to Hinode, Iann and odM who have the translators contacts list.
- A special page is published on STAMP's wiki about the translation work (http://stamp.poivron.org/PreparAction/TransLation), and a call to translators will be published soon, and there will be one on the PGA websites (pga conference and agp).
CALL TO VOLUNTEER TRANSLATORS
- There will be (soon ?!) a call to people who'd like to create an international translation working group, sent on mailing lists and to our friends... and we will see (?!)
- On the subscription form for the conference participants, we will ask the people what translations they are able to make.