ISO 20771 Legal translation – Requirements

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There is a new standard for legal translation. I am not interested in acquiring a standard, in particular this one, but I do think it’s interesting what the committee who prepared the standard thought about legal translators.

It’s for individual legal translators but it seems the ATC (Association of Translation Companies) is considering selling packages to help people apply.

The new standard for individual legal translators has been widely reported. Legal translators are wondering if they will feel obliged to have it, what it will cost them in time and money, whether clients will require it and so on. I followed a webinar by the ATC on it. I honestly can’t see this standard going anywhere. The German authorities aren’t going to adopt it because they think that ISO 10771 with an appendix suffices.

The document can be bought for CHF 118 from iso.org. It can be bought as a PDF and downloaded.

Background can be found at Slator: Germany Rejects ISO Standard for Legal Translation, Experts Defend ISO Standard for Legal Translation.

So,I will pick out just a few things: There are definitions, incidentally, of check (source and target language, by the translator), revision (source and target language, by the reviser), review (only target language) and proofread (target language). Those are terms often confused. (Presumably dealt with in the earlier ISO for translators, 10771).

There are also definitions of authorized legal translator and lawyer linguist.

An authorized legal translator would include what is sometimes called a sworn translator in Germany. There are a number of terms used by the various Länder. So this is useful.

Note 1 to entry: Court or government body authorization is generally given on the basis of relevant national legislation, to translate specific documents used in judicial settings, by public authorities or as part of legal proceedings and to take part in legal proceedings in the capacity of an authorized legal translator.

Note 2 to entry: Depending on the national legislation or convention, an authorized legal translator may in some countries or regions also be referred to as a court-appointed translator, sworn translator, court authorized legal translator or a certified legal translator.

A lawyer linguist in this context sounds here like the way I have always understood it – a lawyer with language skills who makes a legal contribution to international legislation, for instance in the EU. Maybe not a practising lawyer, but there as a lawyer rather than a translator, in the main. Some of my colleagues who are qualified lawyers and translators and work as freelances call themselves lawyer linguists, I think to emphasize the fact that they are lawyers, which always impresses clients (as I know to my advantage), not that being a qualified lawyer makes you a competent translator.

person with legal background and linguistic competence who provides legislative linguistic advice

Note 1 to entry: The lawyer linguist can also provide advice within the context of bilingual or multilingual co-drafted legislation, and comparison services to ensure equivalency and consistency between different language versions of legislation.

Note 2 to entry: Depending on the custom or convention a lawyer linguist can in some countries or regions also be referred to as jurilinguist.

Note 3 to entry: A lawyer linguist can, from time to time, also translate, revise or review legal texts, provide advice on legal terminology, legal analysis, etc. 

 There follows a general description of legal translation. It looks rather inflated to me, or rather, the description would apply equally to technical, economics, medical or much other translation:

Given the highly specialist field, potential legal consequences of mistranslation, and formal and liability issues, legal translation requires specific competences and qualifications and a very professional approach from the specialist translators involved in providing the legal translation service. 

5.2 sets out the required qualifications. There are five possibilities of meeting the criteria. Most require at least three years’ experience in translating in the legal field. However, the last does not:

has obtained an officially recognized qualification as an authorized legal translator on the basis of relevant national requirements and regulations.

I am a sworn translator for the Bavarian courts, so presumably I would qualify even if I did not fit the other categories (not quite sure I do, as I have a Ph.D. in German and am qualified as a solicitor). But a person with this qualification, at the time I did it, did not have to have law as their special subject. The only nod towards work for the courts for translators whose main subject was technical or economics translation, for example, was a sort of gap-filling paper on the terminology of the German courts.

I’m skipping over large amounts of definitions of what legal translation consists of and all the stages the individual legal translator is responsible for.

One issue which has been questioned among translators relates to ‘signing off’.

6.7 Signing off and record keeping

In order to ensure full transparency and traceability when the translation is completed, even if there is no formal authorization requirement, the legal translator should sign off the translation as part of the deliverable in a manner agreed previously with the client or required by any other relevant agreements. This may, depending on the specific requirements or convention, include: electronic signature, signing or coding the document, file or TM segments, etc. If required to do so by the client, circumstances or appropriate agreements, the legal translator should provide a short written statement of the translator’s and the reviser’s qualifications, compliance of the translation with the relevant legal requirement and the source text.

NOTE Signing off and record keeping of legal translations can also be covered by regulations.

This seems a bit heavy but in its simplest form it is similar to the stamp and formula added to a certified German translation. It seems to me that the most important element of that is that the trnaslator is identified and can be traced.

Man penalized for farting at police in Vienna

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This document is the Austrian equivalent of the German Strafbefehl. It is part of the Austrian Mandatsverfahren (German Strafbefehlsverfahren).

Mandatsverfahren: Muhr/Peinhopf Wörterbuch rechtsterminologischer Unterschiede Österreich-Deutschland offer the translation mandating procedure.

That is a weird translation.

The story came to my attention because it was widely reported, originally in Österreich, then in Der Standard, in a joky way, and thereafter in the New York Times and The Guardian.

Sie haben den öffentlichen Anstand verletzt, indem Sie vor Polizeibeamten laut einen Darmwind haben entweichen lassen.

You offended public decency by loudly breaking wind in the presence of police officers.

The newspaper articles are classic examples of wordplay. Wikpedia too has articles on Blähung and Flatulence, and on Blowing a raspberry – apparently the latter went into US usage despite their lack of rhyming slang.

Der Standard:

Ein Wiener muss für einen “lauten Darmwind” vor einem Polizisten 500 Euro Strafe zahlen. Wie die Tageszeitung “Österreich” online berichtet, soll sich der Vorfall in der Nacht des 5. Juni in Wien-Josefstadt zugetragen haben. Die Polizei sprach auf Twitter von “voller Absicht”. “Und anfurzen lassen sich die Kollegen dann doch eher ungern.”

The Guardian:

A man in Vienna has been fined €500 (£447) for breaking wind loudly in front of police in a move the Austrian capital’s police force was at pains to defend.

The Österreich newspaper reported that the penalty stemmed from an incident on 5 June and that the offender was fined for offending public decency.

City police wrote on Twitter that “of course no one is reported for accidentally letting one go”.

It seems there have been earlier cases, sometimes with a fine of 50 euros. In this case, the fart was only one part of wider conduct, and is described as fully intentional. (ORF) The man can appeal, but would probably be safer not to.

Judgment / judgement

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I have been here before (Judgment and judgment), in 2012, and I quoted Lord Neuberger.

Now, Joshua Rozenberg, in A bad day for Jay J, in the Law Society Gazette, mentions the spelling difference again:

It was the family lawyer James Turner QC who set Twitter alight by observing that Wilson had taken the trouble to refer to ‘editorial judgement’ (following the spelling in the statute) but the court’s judgment (following conventional usage). Many of my followers recalled being taught, as students, that a judge uses judgement to write a judgment. News to me; but perhaps I am too judgmental.

(The reference is to Lord Wilson in the Supreme Court).

I missed the Twitter storm, but it doesn’t seem new.

Translation blogs

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I mentioned translation blogs on April 15 and intended to follow it up, but every time I wrote about translation blogs I got bogged down.

Luke Spear had collated a list of translation-related blogs, not so rare now as they were in 2003. 

75+ of the best translation, language and linguistics blogs to follow

This list dates from April 9 2020 and has links to every blog mentioned. In most cases, you need to click on the links to see what the blogs are about. Quite an achievement! Luke asks if there are more blogs that could bring the total up to 100. And he wonders if people are blogging less.

The blogs listed are in English – I follow some in German and they would not be of interest to a FR>EN translator.

But now, Nikki Graham has updated her own blogroll, comprising 350 blogs, mainly about translation but some about interpreting, editing and so on.

Not only is it a huge list, but there are asterisks marking which blogs have actually had a post in 2020 (up to 21 May, which is today). The blog names are coloured according to which language some posts are in – most are in English.

You’ll find over 350 blogs listed on this page. Although most are about translation, I’ve also added some on interpreting and some non-translation blogs related to grammar, writing and editing. ..

Although this list started out based on blogs in languages I can understand (English, Spanish and German), I’m quite happy to add colleagues’ recommendations in other languages too.

When I started, in 2003 blogs played a different role. I was lucky enough to be a member of the FLEFO forum on CompuServe, which was the main way translators exchanged information in those days. Nowadays it is easier to pick up quick information on Twitter. Facebook is also an important resource, but I don’t use it for translator links. Journals are often online too, and mailing lists still work very well (I remember when discussions of terminology on lists would call forth complaints that we were wasting bandwidth). 

My own blog has moved through three different software systems – losing some formatting in the earliest posts – but I’ve tried to keep the content. Old links no longer work.

I also used to use Google’s feed reader. Now I use Feedly (free version), which may be more flexible in the paid version. I have a huge number of feeds but many have not posted for years.I have not only translation blogs, but also blogs on law and food, and other miscellaneous topics. I still follow Language Log and languagehat. I’ve got a blogroll and linkroll if you scroll down to the bottom but I can’t guarantee that the blogs are still alive or the links work.

When I started, there were only a few blogs by translators. I mainly followed lawyers, in Germany, the UK and the USA. Translators included Céline Graciet, whose blog was originally called The Naked Translator (the URL is still that); Michael Wahlster with Translate This and others.

I do follow London’s Singing Organ-Grinder, as it is now called, but its language content fluctuates greatly.

Blogs tend to run actively for a few years and then quieten down (like this one) so I tend to follow a few active ones.

The blog I and many others were most curious about was by The Masked Translator, whose identity I never discovered.

I was proceeding in a northerly direction

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I’ve just received a comment on a post I wrote in 2004: I was proceeding in a northerly direction/Polizeisprech.

The comment is actually a link to an article on another blog written by a police officer who picks up factual errors in TV police shows. He writes that no policeman has ever ‘proceeded in a northerly direction’, by which he means not that they never go north, but they never use the expression. But that’s exactly the point: it’s when a police officer is in a magistrate’s court refreshing his memory from his police notebook, which is standard practice and permissible, and reads out what he has written – it doesn’t come over naturally.

On this subject I can’t help remembering the German TV series Ein Fall für Zwei, where the German lawyers would strut up and down in court as if there had been a jury in the German court – US TV was the inspiration for that.

Here’s another article on the same topic

Leo Whitlock, one of the editors at the Kent Messenger group of newspapers, has penned an interesting blog looking at the how individuals use overly complicated words when speaking to people in authority.  

It is, I suspect, an attempt to appear not just ‘posh’, as Whitlock claims, but to appear better educated and to gain the respect of their peers. 

This inflated use (or abuse) of the English language is no better illustrated when engaging with the legal community. 

Take, most likely, the apocryphal PC writing in his notebook.  “I was proceeding in a northerly direction, when I apprehended the suspect…..”

No one talks like that.

That’s the situation, I think: talking in a courtroom setting.

Blog birthday in lockdown

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Today is the 17th birthday of this blog, started on 15 April 2003, when it seemed obscure to have a weblog with such a narrow focus. Some other blogs of that time still exist.

We are currently in lockdown.

  • In Marks & Spencer Simply Food in Upminster

Machine translation

Meanwhile, a thought about machine translation. There is a lot more to be said about this, especially DeepL in connection with legal translation. One thing that strikes me is that in the old days, one might adapt machine translation systems to allow for context. But if you go to the WHO site and allow it to translate into German using Google Translate, you get a map of Turkey labelled Truthahn. Context is not taken into account here!

By the way, do people pronounce WHO double-u aitch oh? I usually say World Health Organization. But I heard someone on radio callilng it The Who recently, which I liked.

Screenshot:

Translation blogs

Luke Spear has chosen this auspicious occasion to collate a list of translation-related blogs, not so rare now as they were in 2003.

75+ of the best translation, language and linguistics blogs to follow

This list dates from April 9 2020 and has links to every blog mentioned. In most cases, you need to click on the links to see what the blogs are about. Quite an achievement! Luke asks if there are more blogs that could bring the total up to 100. Abd he wonders if people are blogging less.

Biut more about that in another post.