Page 59 - Translation Journal July 2015
P. 59
Pre-workshop preparation
2.1.1 One week before the programme started
The workshop in this report was marked as “Swedish Public Administration, by Dr. Paul Levin, July 8” on the programme itinerary.
With these two important sources of information available, the interpreter can either start seeking online data and library references on
public administration in Sweden, or visiting the personal website of Dr. Levin for his biography, research interests, achievement and
so on. Generally these two dimensions, i.e., information about the speaker and his topic for presentation, will run across each other
during preparation, and it is usually the case that among universities of the western world, professors or researchers in the academic
field furnish their homepages with not only resumes, but also lecture slides, notes, audio or video clips of former talks and so on for
open download and study. Therefore, the author decided to approach the speaker as a starting point, before more “dots” of relevant
documents were connected.
It is not difficult to locate Dr. Levin’s homepage on the web. Logging onto the website (http://su-se.academia.edu/PaulTLevin), one can
browse through the items of his publication and spot one paper titled as “瑞典公共行政—分权化单一制国家中的治理, Paul Levin.
聂勇浩, 张照译” (“Swedish Public Administration--Governance in a Decentralized Unitary State”). Already translated into Chinese and
uploaded in PDF format on the web, it is an article that was published in“公共行政评论” (“Commentary on Pubic Administration”,
Vol.6, 2008), a Chinese journal on public governance. It summarizes the three basic levels of Swedish political structure, the working
principles and distinctive qualities of its public administration, and how the EU membership affects its governance. The best part of
discovering this paper is that it provides rich theoretical knowledge and term clarification about the subject concerned in Chinese, the
target language the author was supposed to work into.
However, it is also important for the interpreter to be conversant with the subject involved in the source language so that she would
be more perceptive to the ideas conveyed by the speaker, and more expressive and “terms-conscious” (in the sense of choosing
the “right” words) when rendering feedback to the speaker. Therefore, the author continued with the research by googling more
relevant papers by Dr. Levin on the same subject. One article was found also on the web, titled as “The Swedish Model of Public
Administration: Separation of Powers—The Swedish Style” (Vol.4, No.1, 2009) in JOAAG (The Journal of Administration and
Governance), an official journal of the network of Asia Pacific Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and Governance. Closely
associated with the contents in the aforementioned paper, this article investigates Swedish structures of public administration and
discusses the three characteristics that distinguish it from other political systems. Related key terms are clearly defined and illustrated
in various cases, many of which are matched with translated versions established in the Chinese paper, such as “labor peace” with “
劳资关系的和谐”, “dualism” with “二元主义”, “openness and accountability” with “开放性与问责性”, “decentralization” with “
分权化”, “Ombudsman” with “监察专员”, to name but a few. The benefit of these bi-lingual resources and cross references lends
convenience to glossary preparation, a very important learning process for the interpreter to understand and memorize terminology.
These two background papers serve, to some extent, to outline a general picture of how Swedish public administration is
methodologically described and approached by the academics, and thus suggest a clue of how the interpreter could prepare for the
subject. Apart from learning technical terms, she is also building a knowledge structure. It starts with introducing the Swedish political
system, which contains the central, regional and local levels, and then the relations between state and citizens, central and local levels,
and politicians and civil servants, in order to demonstrate the Swedish system as something broader than the famous “cradle-to-grave”
welfare type that most people are likely to think of when Swedish welfare is mentioned. Following the introduction are the three factors
contributing to the success of the Swedish system: openness and accountability, dualism, and decentralization. Finally, the structure
ends with discussion of the existing and possible impact internationalization brings to Swedish governance, the challenges it face and
the opportunities it embraces in cross-cultural communication.
To sum up, early preparation in absence of any substantial documents provided by the organizers or speakers usually takes into
consideration two important perspectives: the bi-lingual glossary of relevant terminology, and more critically, the knowledge structure
out of which the subject involved is generally discoursed on. To put it in a metaphor, if glossary constitutes the flesh of an organic
entity analogous to a quality interpreting service, then the knowledge structure could be regarded as something fundamental as the
skeleton. It is a framework where the interpreter could contextualize herself, conveniently locate the technical terms and increase their
“availability”, so that they will be on the tip of her tongue when she needs them.
2.1.2 One day before the workshop started
Now that we have the flesh and the skeleton, where is the running blood?
Translation Journal - July 2015 | 59
2.1.1 One week before the programme started
The workshop in this report was marked as “Swedish Public Administration, by Dr. Paul Levin, July 8” on the programme itinerary.
With these two important sources of information available, the interpreter can either start seeking online data and library references on
public administration in Sweden, or visiting the personal website of Dr. Levin for his biography, research interests, achievement and
so on. Generally these two dimensions, i.e., information about the speaker and his topic for presentation, will run across each other
during preparation, and it is usually the case that among universities of the western world, professors or researchers in the academic
field furnish their homepages with not only resumes, but also lecture slides, notes, audio or video clips of former talks and so on for
open download and study. Therefore, the author decided to approach the speaker as a starting point, before more “dots” of relevant
documents were connected.
It is not difficult to locate Dr. Levin’s homepage on the web. Logging onto the website (http://su-se.academia.edu/PaulTLevin), one can
browse through the items of his publication and spot one paper titled as “瑞典公共行政—分权化单一制国家中的治理, Paul Levin.
聂勇浩, 张照译” (“Swedish Public Administration--Governance in a Decentralized Unitary State”). Already translated into Chinese and
uploaded in PDF format on the web, it is an article that was published in“公共行政评论” (“Commentary on Pubic Administration”,
Vol.6, 2008), a Chinese journal on public governance. It summarizes the three basic levels of Swedish political structure, the working
principles and distinctive qualities of its public administration, and how the EU membership affects its governance. The best part of
discovering this paper is that it provides rich theoretical knowledge and term clarification about the subject concerned in Chinese, the
target language the author was supposed to work into.
However, it is also important for the interpreter to be conversant with the subject involved in the source language so that she would
be more perceptive to the ideas conveyed by the speaker, and more expressive and “terms-conscious” (in the sense of choosing
the “right” words) when rendering feedback to the speaker. Therefore, the author continued with the research by googling more
relevant papers by Dr. Levin on the same subject. One article was found also on the web, titled as “The Swedish Model of Public
Administration: Separation of Powers—The Swedish Style” (Vol.4, No.1, 2009) in JOAAG (The Journal of Administration and
Governance), an official journal of the network of Asia Pacific Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and Governance. Closely
associated with the contents in the aforementioned paper, this article investigates Swedish structures of public administration and
discusses the three characteristics that distinguish it from other political systems. Related key terms are clearly defined and illustrated
in various cases, many of which are matched with translated versions established in the Chinese paper, such as “labor peace” with “
劳资关系的和谐”, “dualism” with “二元主义”, “openness and accountability” with “开放性与问责性”, “decentralization” with “
分权化”, “Ombudsman” with “监察专员”, to name but a few. The benefit of these bi-lingual resources and cross references lends
convenience to glossary preparation, a very important learning process for the interpreter to understand and memorize terminology.
These two background papers serve, to some extent, to outline a general picture of how Swedish public administration is
methodologically described and approached by the academics, and thus suggest a clue of how the interpreter could prepare for the
subject. Apart from learning technical terms, she is also building a knowledge structure. It starts with introducing the Swedish political
system, which contains the central, regional and local levels, and then the relations between state and citizens, central and local levels,
and politicians and civil servants, in order to demonstrate the Swedish system as something broader than the famous “cradle-to-grave”
welfare type that most people are likely to think of when Swedish welfare is mentioned. Following the introduction are the three factors
contributing to the success of the Swedish system: openness and accountability, dualism, and decentralization. Finally, the structure
ends with discussion of the existing and possible impact internationalization brings to Swedish governance, the challenges it face and
the opportunities it embraces in cross-cultural communication.
To sum up, early preparation in absence of any substantial documents provided by the organizers or speakers usually takes into
consideration two important perspectives: the bi-lingual glossary of relevant terminology, and more critically, the knowledge structure
out of which the subject involved is generally discoursed on. To put it in a metaphor, if glossary constitutes the flesh of an organic
entity analogous to a quality interpreting service, then the knowledge structure could be regarded as something fundamental as the
skeleton. It is a framework where the interpreter could contextualize herself, conveniently locate the technical terms and increase their
“availability”, so that they will be on the tip of her tongue when she needs them.
2.1.2 One day before the workshop started
Now that we have the flesh and the skeleton, where is the running blood?
Translation Journal - July 2015 | 59
