Volume 8, No. 2 
April 2004

 
 


 
 
Front Page  
 
 
Select one of the previous 27 issues.

 

  From the Editor
A Unique Resource
by Gabe Bokor

 
Index 1997-2004

 
  Translator Profiles
The Dinosaur Hunter's Tale
by Ingrid Gillmeier

 
  The Profession
The Bottom Line
by Fire Ant & Worker Bee

 
In Memoriam
In Memoriam: Alicia Gordon—1950 - 2004
by Robert Killingsworth
 
In Memoriam: Emilio Benito—1947 - 2004
by Danilo Nogueira

 
  Translation Nuts and Bolts
Navigating through Treacherous Waters: The Translation of Geographical Names
by Gilberto Castañeda-Hernández, Ph.D.

 
  Science & Technology
English ⇔ Spanish Maritime Glossary
by Ana Lopez Pampin and Iria Gonzalez Liaño

 
  Legal Translation
Réflexions sur la traduction des formes de sociétés
by Benjamin Heyden

 
  Biomedical Translation
Características del discurso biomédico y su estructura: el caso de las Cartas al director
Esther Vázquez y del Árbol, Ph.D.
 
Translating SOPs in a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Environment
by Anne Catesby Jones

 
  Literary Translation
The Translator's Dilemma—Implicatures and the role of the translator
by Antar Solhy Abdellah
 
Bridging the Cultural Divide: Lexical Barriers and Translation Strategies in English Translations of Modern Japanese Literature
by James Hobbs

 
  Interpretation
His Excellency and His Interpreter
by Danilo Nogueira
 
Some Advice on Preparing for Simultaneous Interpretation of Current Political Themes
by Igor Maslennikov
 
Bibliography on the Profession of Interpretation
by Heltan Y.W. Ngan, Ph.D.

 
  Translator Education
To Be a Good Translator
by Leila Razmjou
 
The Importance of Teaching Cohesion in Translation on a Textual Level
by Aiwei Shi

 
  Book Review
The Talking Parcel Learns to Speak Russian
by Mark Hooker
   
Science in Translation
by Beverly Adab, Ph.D.

   
  Translators' Tools
Translators’ Emporium

 
  Caught in the Web
Web Surfing for Fun and Profit
by Cathy Flick, Ph.D.
 
Translators’ On-Line Resources
by Gabe Bokor

 
Translators’ Events

 
Call for Papers and Editorial Policies
  Translation Journal



 
 

In Memoriam: Alicia Gordon

1950 - 2004

by Robert Killingsworth

 

licia Gordon died suddenly in her home in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles, on January 19, 2004. She was 53. She is already sorely missed by the many who knew her in the translation and Apple Macintosh user communities, in Southern California and more especially in cyberspace.

As for many of us, translation was a second or even a third career for Alicia. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and attended Hunter College High School, a competitive magnet school in Manhattan. Upon graduation, she ventured away from the city to Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she majored in economics and minored in physics. After college, she ventured even further afield to spend a decade living and working in Europe. For two years, she taught English and business at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce et d'Administration d'Entreprises in Nantes, France. For eight years, she lived in Seville, Spain, where she coordinated an overseas study program for the University of North Carolina, studied music at the Seville Conservatory, played in some flamenco rock groups, and worked as a translator on the side.

When she returned to the United States in the 1980s, she settled in Los Angeles and soon moved to Topanga, which she then never left. She put her foreign-language skills to use in jobs in sound engineering (she worked on the Spanish soundtrack of Star Wars) and producing advertising commercials, which led her deeper into the entertainment industry. As Gordon Artists, she became a talent agent representing jazz and international musicians, handling booking, management and public relations. Her clients included guitarist Pepe Habichuela and modern flamenco groups Pata Negra and Ketama from Spain, Limpopo from Russia and Ivan Lins from Brazil, for whom she arranged U.S. tours and, for the latter two, appearances at the Fifa World Cup in 1994.

In the mid-1990s Alicia switched careers entirely to become a full-time translator, renaming her business Gordon Word Artists. She obtained ATA accreditation in Spanish>English and French>English and acquired the first of a series of Mac computers, of which she became an ardent devotee. She was soon working for clients around the world by phone, fax and e-mail from her remote canyon location. As she put it, she specialized "in a fairly broad range of fields, from highly technical to creative, with legal and business in between." Her experience in the entertainment industry gave her an edge in subject matter related to it, especially broadcasting and licensing but not excluding adaptation of scripts for lip sync or subtitles. She became an active contributor to online forums including Flefo on Compuserve (where many of us first came to know her), Mac user groups and the Wordfast yahoogroup (to which she had posted just days before her death). For the ATA conference in Los Angeles in 2002, she drew on her music industry background to book the band and make the arrangements for the Friday evening "World Dance Party" at the conference hotel.

Alicia leaves behind a sister, Jane Gordon, who has arranged a memorial site on the Web celebrating Alicia's life. The site features a guest book, where contributions of memories and photos of Alicia may be posted.

Thanks to Kirk Anderson, Manuela Cerruti, Judy Langley and Isabel Leonard, who provided information for this notice.