UNIVERSITY OF BUEA

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ADVANCED SCHOOL OF TRANSLATORS AND INTERPRETERS (ASTI)

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PAN-AFRICAN UNIVERSITY

PROGRAMME OF MASTERS’ OF ARTS IN

TRANSLATION
PMAT 611: COMPUTER-ASSISTED TRANSLATION

TRANSLATOR-CLIENT COMMUNICATION AND

INFORMATION TRANSFER

Student Lecturer
EBANGA NTONGA Bienvenue (AS19P090) Dr. Tanyitiki

ACADEMIC YEAR: 2019-2020

INTRODUCTON
Translating is a business process that requires appropriate professional conduct by the translator.
This is especially true to the extent that the translation of any given text is just part of a wider
business process. The translator thus exchanges and interacts with their clients. This work will
look into the translator-client communication mechanism and how they exchange information.

I- Importance of translator-client communication in translation

business
Translation is the type of work that requires patience and coordination with others. One of the
best ways to ensure that a customer gets the best possible translation is for the translator to
communicate with the customer to resolve areas that need clarification.
The importance of communication cannot be overemphasized. What could possibly be more
important than communication? The answer is effective communication. Thus for a translator-
client communication to be effective, three principles are taken into account "start with good
people," then, "lay out the rules" and "communicate with your employers."

As soon as contact is made by a client, it is vital to open lines of communication which will help
assure clear understanding and assessment of the client's needs. In an effort to do so and
determine what services are being requested, the appropriate questions should be asked. The
following are some among the many potential questions:
What are the client's objectives?
Are there any technical or other special knowledge requirements?
Is localization a factor, or is a general, universal language appropriate?
When is the deadline?
Are there any special formatting or graphic design considerations?
Will there be client review?
In fact, translators need to communicate with their client to gather important information for the
translation job in hand: finding out why he/she wants the translation done, who it is intended for,
is there a house style, does he/she know of target language competitors who sell the same
product/service etc., sending queries regarding the document in hand etc.
Furthermore, communication with the client should be concise and clear. In addition, whenever
questions or issues arise, suggestions on how to resolve them should be provided for the client.
Communication between the client and the translator should not be a one-sided affair. Both
parties need to effectively convey what they expect and need from each other to ensure the
success of the project.

II- Means for translator-client communication

Many translators only know how to send documents through the traditional method of attaching
the document to the e-mail. However, we cannot always send documents this way, especially
when they are bigger than 10 MB. Generally, the transferring capacity of e-mail servers does not
allow for attachments bigger than 10MB. There are other tools which can handle the transfer of
large files. Among those tools, the most prominent is the FTP server. For those who are not
familiar with the term or the tool, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. As indicated by the
term, an FTP is very useful when it comes to transferring very large files. Using an FTP server is
very simple. You enter a user name and password, which are normally provided by the company
that hosts the particular FTP server. It is accessed through traditional Internet browsers, such as
Mozilla, Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. The server setting is specific for each
browser and with just a few clicks. For example, Internet Explorer allows you to use the server
just like a regular Windows Explorer, where you can copy and paste files in the same way you
would on a Windows desktop.
For translators who often have to handle large projects, the use of FTP servers is essential
because it facilitates the task of assigning and receiving files, and also they do not have to waste
time downloading large attachments. If the connection is good, a 30 MB file can be downloaded
in a few minutes.
In any case, e-mail is the most common communication tool when it comes to real time
exchange between the translator and the client, during their time of cooperation. People
nowadays resort to the multitude of social network solutions available because they are faster
and easily accessible. However, using e-mail is more professional and secure.

III- Information transfer

The main task of translation − the transfer of technical and cultural information − can now only
be achieved through the use of extensive knowledge. As a knowledge-based activity, transferring
information includes mainly two processes: analysis and transformation through various
methods. The methods which are chosen and the emphasis depends largely on the design of the
translation languages systems, however, most systems include at least the following stages:

 Morphological analysis. Surface forms of the input text are classified as to part-of-
speech (e.g. noun, verb, etc.) and sub-category (number, gender, tense, etc.). All of the
possible "analyses" for each surface form are typically made output at this stage, along with
the lemma of the word.
 Lexical categorization. In any given text some of the words may have more than
one meaning, causing ambiguity in analysis. Lexical categorization looks at the context of a
word to try to determine the correct meaning in the context of the input. This can
involve part-of-speech tagging and word sense disambiguation.

 Lexical transfer. This is basically dictionary translation; the source language lemma
(perhaps with sense information) is looked up in a bilingual dictionary and the translation is
chosen.
 Structural transfer. While the previous stages deal with words, this stage deals with
larger constituents, for example phrases and chunks. Typical features of this stage include
concordance of gender and number, and re-ordering of words or phrases.
 Morphological generation. From the output of the structural transfer stage, the target
language surface forms are generated.
CONCLUSION
Client communication was probably not a skill translators learn during their studies. Being a
professional translator is a pretty solitary occupation but translators still need solid
communication skills. Client communication is a lot more critical for success in the industry.
Effective client communication will make the job easier and will help retain clients.

REFERENCES
https://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/the-use-of-ftp-in-translation-projects-2012-07-18.html
https://books.google.cm/books?id=dOJ9AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA18&ots=-v9R4A5sm4&dq=Translator-client
%20communication%20and%20information%20transfer&hl=fr&pg=PP6#v=onepage&q=Translator-client
%20communication%20and%20information%20transfer&f=false
https://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/importance-better-client-communication-
translation-business-01969742
https://translationjournal.net/journal/41communication.htm
https://matterhornlanguages.com/what-is-effective-communication-and-what-does-it-mean-for-your-
translation/
https://www-
06.ibm.com/software/globalization/translationcommunications/userguide/TCTUserGuide_v2.0.pdf