Wednesday, September 28, 2011

International Translation Day - Bridging Cultures

This Friday, Sept. 30, is International Translation Day. In celebration, ProZ.com, the online translator's community, is hosting a virtual conference on Friday, as well as "the great translation debate" tomorrow, Thursday. The International Federation of Translators (FIT) calls on local organizations to commemorate the day in some form.

Some national organizations, such as the British arm of PEN have heeded that call. Here in the U.S., the American Translators Association (ATA) lists the day on its calendar, but has nothing specific scheduled. In fact, that calendar entry simply links to the statement on the FIT website.

That statement encourages us to image a world without translators and asks how we would communicate with each other in such a world. It calls translators and interpreters "brokers of peace and mutual understanding". By contrast, the ATA homepage lists "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says language training critical to U.S. interests, security" as an item in its Twitter feed.

I, for one, chose this profession to enhance global peace and mutual understanding among nations, not to aid U.S. (policy) interests. So I will celebrate the building of cultural bridges between peoples and ignore Mr. Panetta.

6 comments:

  1. This is the good blog and this international day is really good. thanks for nice services.


    translation services london

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great job! you are managing your ongoing business translation projects. japanese website translation

    ReplyDelete
  3. You seem to be reading day and night looking for good stuff to post lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can set up my new idea from this post. It gives in depth information. Thanks for this valuable information for all.
    online translation agency at low cost

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi, I log on to your new stuff like every week. Your humoristic style is witty, keep it up kampala international university

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is a fabulous post I seen because of offer it. It is really what I expected to see trust in future you will continue in sharing such a mind boggling post eLearning

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment. I will review comments weekly, so please be patient if you are expecting a reply. - Barbara