When Germans buy a mincer (US meat grinder, DE Fleischwolf), they are anxious to ensure that it has an attachment for making piped biscuits (DE Spritzgebäck).

Wikipedia EN Spritzgebäck

Continuing from yesterday: article in MDÜ:
Stefan Bonath: Herausforderung Rechtstexte.

There’s a brief summary of this in English and French in the MDÜ (print copies of each issue can be ordered for 15 euros)

Stefan Bonath did the first part of German law studies, then changed to translation at the Fachhochschule in Cologne – as far as I know, this is the highest-level institution in Germany offering a reasonable study of legal translation, for unless things have changed a lot, the universities that teach translation just dip a toe in the subject. He has worked as an in-house legal translator for a law firm and for a translation agency, but mainly freelance.

This is a sound basic introduction to the problems of legal translation. For example, it explains the particular problem that each legal term is embedded in a system, so it carries a lot more baggage with it than some people realize. Bonath finds it particularly problematic than many legal terms are also terms of the general language – for example ownership and possession. He emphasizes the importanbce of comparative law and suggests it might be a good idea for legal translators to specialize more narrowly ‘sodass sich sein Rechercheaufwand mit wachsender Erfahrung verringert und die Arbeit wirtschaftlich rechnet’ (perhaps I would say: to improve the quality of the translator’s work).

The article also quotes its sources (something I missed in the second article). I haven’t read Arntz, Fachbezogene Mehrsprachigkeit in Recht und Technik (I only have his co-authored book on terminology), but Sandrini on legal translation in Übersetzen von Rechtstexten. Fachkommunikation im Spannungsfeld zwischen Rechtsordnung und Sprache, and Gérard-René de Groot on translating legal terminology in Recht und Übersetzen are both familiar. I see on looking at them again that both point out that legal terminology work cannot be done in the same way as that for other subjects (a topic I need to come back to). I can’t accept the standard recommendation of Black’s Law Dictionary as the English-language equivalent of Creifelds, Rechtswörterbuch: there is none.

One thing I found a bit odd in the article may have resulted from the lack of a concrete example. Bonath writes that it might be wrong to translate owner as Eigentümer, because in English and US law, an owner could even have acquired the property by theft.

So triff die Eigenschaft eines owner im angloamerikanischen Recht auf eine Person zu, die infolge Kauf, Schenkung oder Herstellung usw., aber auch durch Besitzergreifung oder Diebstahl das Eigentum an einer Sache oder sogar an einem Recht erlangt.

But if the English text says that someone is an owner, I would want to write Eigentümer in German, since the text is not about German law. It would be twisting the meaning of law to change it to Besitzer. However, I suspect Bonath was thinking of a different situation when he wrote this.

I see that Dieter Henrich, in Einführung in das englische Privatrecht, writes

Eine etwas merkwürdige Regelung enthielt Sec. 24 (1) Sale of Goods Act 1891: Auch an gestohlenen Waren kann gutgläubig Eigentum erworben werden (nämlich bei einem Erwerb in market overt).

This is the old edition of Henrich – the newer one is hiding – and I know that market overt has been removed from the law now, following a rather amusing case a few years ago. (This isn’t relevant to the general point under discussion). Anyway, Henrich has to use the term Eigentum here.

The other question that occurs to me, which is not intended as a criticism, is: who is going to read this article? Presumably to students of translation – although, as I said, the most academic of those are not likely to be studying legal translation, at least not in any depth. Legal translators are going to be aware of the points made. The article provides information about legal translation perhaps to those thinking about a future career, and to non-legal translators.

LATER NOTE: The comments attached to this post seem to belong to a post about Lena at Eurovision. Something must have gone wrong in the import from Serendipity. What is the opposite of serendipity?

As Usain Bolt wins in Berlin, ‘the fastest man planet Earth has seen‘, we recall Jesse Owens’ triumphs in 1936.

It was before my time, but I’ve grown up with Jesse Owens being referred to regularly in conversation.

Wikipedia (inter alia) reports that Owens was not insulted by Hitler. Hitler was privately annoyed that he was doing so well, but he was not rude to him in public. Owens got no acknowledgement from the US President, however
.

He also stated: [12] “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor bestowed any honors by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower acknowledged Owens’ accomplishments, naming him an “Ambassador of Sports.”

…
Despite Hitler’s feelings, Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria.[7]

Hitler apparently told Speer that those whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive and had a better physique, and they ought to be excluded from future games.

The MDÜ, the journal of the BDÜ. always takes one special topic, and the issue 3/09 takes terminology and law.

I hope I’m not too rude about it in coming entries. I mean, I don’t know any translators’ periodical that has good graphics:

No need to comment on the laptop with no number keypad and no second monitor attached, or the attack by the large shiny paragraph sign. These covers aren’t supposed to mean anything, just to add a bit of colour and interest.

I’ve read the three title articles and will come back to them. They are:
Demands on legal translators – about the difficulties of legal translation in general
Legal language in Germany, Sweden and England
Terminology, law and justice in South Africa

I’ll turn first to Barbara Kochhan’s review of the volume in the series German Law Accessible (nomen ist omen): Employment and Labor Law in Germany, by Lingemann, Steinau-Steinrück and Mengel, 2nd ed., price 98 euros.

I am particularly interested in this because I translate a fair amount of employment and labour law. This is a problem area when one is translating for Britain and the USA, because their employment law differs so greatly.

I also have a similar volume that I got last year: Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Germany, by Manfred Weiss and Marlene Schmidt, 4th ed., Wolters Kluwer, price 55 pounds at that time. Originally published as a monograph in the International Encyclopaedia of Laws/Labour Law and Industrial Relations. This book is well organized. It has a reasonable English index, but a German one would be excellent, as it gives the German terms in brackets. It’s in good English, but it reads a bit heavily, like a rather close translation.

I have seen other books in the series German Law Accessible, but not this one. The one I have on Family & Succession Law is in somewhat non-native English and its main use would be to compare terminology suggestions. These books written first in German and expounding German law, then translated into English, may be of some use for those who don’t speak German. For me, a comparative approach would be more useful, but it would have to compare the situation with that in England and Wales, or at least with the USA.

The review briefly describes the field and the structure of the book (94 pages general, 486 pages synoptic presentation of various legislation. It is critical of the lack of detail about the translator, Bedene Greenspan (Google indicates she translates in-house for a big law firm in Berlin). It comments on inconsistencies in spelling and translation.

I don’t agree with the reviewer on all the translations into English. I do agree that to use service agreement for Anstellungsvertrag and then contract of service is not a good idea. I would avoid the terms service and services altogether, because they are confusing – and service agreement can have a completely different meaning too. Contract of employment seems better.

But when it comes to criticizing the reference to Aktiengesellschaft as company (‘Company lässt an die limited liability company denken, um die es ja hier gerade nicht geht’), I can’t see the problem. Or at least, apparently the book is mainly in American English, and then there really is a problem. One could say corporation in American English, true.

Apparently the term Scheinselbständigkeit (a freelance does so much work for one client that it is effectively employment) is translated as pseudo-independence. The reviewer suggests pretended self-employment and bogus self-employment. Well, this is a tough term to judge a book on. I dislike all suggestions! I even recorded a long note by Beate Lutzebaeck, who is usually very good, on ProZ, who says that sham and bogus imply intent on the part of the person (right) and prefers fictitious self-employment (but to me that also suggests a construction selected by the person). I would say ostensible self-employment is the way to go. But it’s out of the news now, fortunately.

The reviewer concludes that the book might be of use to translators and interpreters, but is probably better for its intended readers, international lawyers, accountants and so on.

Englischer Fußball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game is the English title of a book whose German title, when it appeared a couple of years ago, was Harder, better, faster, stronger: Die geheime Geschichte des englischen Fußballs

The author, Raphael Honigstein, studied law in London and is a football reporter, inter alia for the Guardian.

I don’t think I’ll get round to reading this, for lack of time (I did read Tim Parks on following Verona). Honigstein apparently links English football with the British class system.

I don’t know if translators were involved – probably unnamed ones, I suppose.

Review in today’s Observer:

He is rarely kind to the English in this curious book – first written by Honigstein, who was part-educated in London, for a German readership in 2006 – and he is often absurd (“Let us recall the Reverend Edward Thring and the Victorian fear of masturbation … “). But he offers a perspective on England’s football and its culture that is stimulating and rather fascinating in its peculiarity.

The review mentions two things that seem odd to me:

Thus vile tower blocks from the post-war era are called ‘courts’. Victorian ‘mansions’ are not villas on the edge of town but apartment blocks.”

Perhaps Honigstein hasn’t lived in Germany enough? There are plazas being built here, and areas of rough ground become parks. That is typical estate agents’ language, or language coined with selling/letting in mind.

But it is England, “the place where they codify everything, from human rights to cricket”, that is Honigstein’s subject for earnest translation.

‘The place where they codify everything’ somewhat contrasts with an article I just read in the MDÜ according to which all English law is ‘spoken law’. Of that, more anon.

But it’s always interesting to read others’ views of national character.

Article by Honigstein in German on German football players being introduced to English football rituals – for instance, when all new players for Chelsea had to stand on a chair and sing a song of their choice to the rest.

Interview with Ralph Honigstein in German

Views of two ends of this street in recent weeks. Replacing the cobbles

Mending the new pedestrian zone so fewer people in high heels come to grief (note plaque for famous Fürth person in foreground):

Meanwhile, the Oberbürgermeister has had the originally green ticket machine touched up in bronze and refurbished bronze rubbish bins and seats reinstalled, and this lighting is appearing everywhere, though not yet functional – note the huge length of cable on this one:

And here is what has to be done to conceal the cables:

Unfortunately, one of these lamps has been placed directly beneath and in front of the Hirsch Apotheke webcam. It can, today, be seen at the bottom of the picture, but when it is lit it may obscure a lot of the picture. Webcam.