English Today V: “Doing Language”

So what is it exactly that language professionals do all day? This year’s English Today takes a deeper look into the many considerations editors and translators working in and out of English have to keep in mind as they go about their work.

Our keynote speaker this year is the award-winning translator of English into Finnish, Kersti Juva, who will share many valuable insights she has gained over her five-decade career working intimately with both languages. She is joined by translator Tiina Kinnunen, who will present best industry practices for presenting yourself as an expert and negotiating with clients. Researcher Hanna-Mari Pienimäki will reveal what recent translator and editor workplace observations have concluded about day-to-day working processes, and finally, publisher Graham Lees will talk about the highs and lows of getting some very interesting clients published.

From left: Pienimäki, Kinnunen, Juva, Lees

The popular English Today program sells out fast each year, so act quickly! Registration through Eventbrite here

After the presentations, there will be plenty of time for mingling and networking, as everyone is welcome to stay and enjoy a light dinner and glass of wine (included in the registration price).

Time: Friday, 15 March 2019
Doors open at 2:30pm, program starts at 3pm

Place: Finnbrit offices at Fredrikinkatu 20 A 9 in central Helsinki

Cost: €40 for NEaT and Finnbrit members, €50 for non-members
The cost of the seminar includes a coffee break, light dinner and glass of wine.

The English Today Seminar is a yearly event, proudly presented by NEAT and FINNBRIT.

Programme

Kersti Juva: Exploring Finnish in relation to English

Kersti Juva, MA, has translated literature, novels and plays, from English into Finnish from 1972 including old masters (Shakespeare, Laurence Sterne, Charles Dickens), children’s books (A.A. Milne), fantasy (Tolkien) and modern writers (AS Byatt, Julian Barnes). She has won several prestigious prizes: the Finnish State award in 1976 and 1986, the Agricola Prize in 1998, the Finnish Cultural Fund Prize in 2006, and the Pro Finlandia medal in 2018, as well as having the titles Artist Professor 2008–2013 and Doctor HC Itä-Suomen yliopisto 2014. She has promoted literary translation actively in the media, through lecturing and running courses. Currently she is finishing a book exploring the Finnish language in comparison to English, with examples from her own translations.

Abstract: I aim to discuss some fundamental features of Finnish by presenting examples from my own translations. Topics will include word order, modal expressions and deixis.

Tiina Kinnunen: From whining to shining

I’m a professional subtitler and translator/editor and work with YLE and major Finnish production companies. My work helps Finnish films and TV series reach a wider audience, and I get to work with many interesting projects. I like to give back to the translation community, and together with my colleagues, we put together The Translator’s Guide to the Industry, a hands-on web guide for people entering the field. I frequently give guest lectures at Finnish universities and participate in translation conferences.

Abstract: How do you position and present yourself as an expert and command expert fees? It’s time to step into the limelight as highly qualified and educated language experts instead of the lonely geek burning the midnight oil. How do we accomplish that? I will be showcasing a Finnish initiative by independent translators, The Translator’s Guide to the Industry, a crowd-sourced online publication helping both beginners and experienced freelancers to position themselves as experts commanding respectable fees. The book offers practical advice on networking, brand image and management, price negotiations and much more.

Hanna-Mari Pienimäki: Language professionals as language regulators: The maintenance and production of language quality

Hanna-Mari Pienimäki (MA) is a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki. She works in a research project called Language Regulation in Academia (LaRA, web page https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/language-regulation-in-academia) funded by the Kone Foundation. The LaRA project explores different forms of language regulation in academic settings. Language regulation is understood in broad terms; as the various ways in which language users intervene in and monitor their own and others’ language. Language regulation targets either language choice (what languages can be used) or language quality (what kind of language can be used). Hanna-Mari’s research focuses on language professionals and studies what kind of language the language professionals regulate, how and why. In her ethnographic research she studies the everyday work of translators and language editors working in a multilingual Finnish university. In her PhD she investigates what quality means in translation and language editing – both ideologically and in practice. Before joining the LaRA project, Hanna-Mari worked as a translator. She translated and proofread texts for an engineering office. She also translated children’s cartoons as a subcontractor for a company that provides voice-over translations for Finnish TV channels.

Abstract: In my PhD research I study the everyday work of translators and language editors working in a multilingual Finnish university. My ethnographic research focuses on how the participants regulate the language of different academic genres, such as administrative texts and journal articles, particularly in English. Language regulation refers to the ways in which language users manage, monitor and intervene in each other’s or their own language use. In the unit I studied, the translators and language editors collaborate to sustain institutional multilingualism and language quality: they ‘rewrite’ texts, monitor the norm adherence of texts and intervene in content-related, structural or stylistic features of texts if they deem it necessary. In the unit, the English translators and language editors act as language regulators of local, institutionally established norms and ideals that they both monitor and develop. In this presentation I employ the concept of language regulation and try to unpack what intervening in language use means in the everyday work of the translators and language editors I studied. I will explore what triggers the language regulation, in other words, why the interventions might be happening in the first place. In addition, I explore what goes on in the interventions; what kind of norms are being mediated and what kind of normative conceptualizations of language use the interventions draw from.

Graham Lees: Translating 101: Art or Science?

Graham applied to university to be an aeronautical engineer. After just one incomplete day of engineering at Cambridge, he switched to Natural Sciences comprising maths, physics, chemistry and physiology, whatever that was. Fascinated by a subject he couldn’t even define at the time, he ended up with a PhD in biophysical neurophysiology. A postdoc in France was followed by a whimsical switch to scientific publishing in Amsterdam, New York, San Diego and then Helsinki-Kirkkonummi, where he published his own journal. Fortune again shined and he co-wrote a book on Drug Discovery, followed by a sequel. Both books were translated into Japanese and Chinese. Luckily, his co-author is a genius. He has language-corrected articles in science and surgery, and latterly translated a work of history from French to English. He has reignited his inner dramatic tendencies and adapted and acted in “The Finnish Play”, taken on numerous other roles, and is currently directing with Zoë Chandler “Immaculate” to be staged February 2019.

Abstract: “Your order is a chaos full of hard work” (From the Diary of a Snail – Günter Grass) The publisher has always been betwixt and between the author and the reader. The interface. The organizer. Graham will share highlights and lowlights in his journey from scientist, to publisher, to editor, to author, to ad hoc translator. How it is to work with English written by non-native English-speaking scientists and surgeons? And, after all is said and done, how do you get it published? PS: If you want to consider translation as a primary or secondary source of income, best not to start with Finnish.

Finnish Literature Exchange Non-Fiction Translators Course

NEaT member Kate Sotejeff-Wilson of KSW Translations participated FILI’s non-fiction translators’ course organized in Helsinki in October 2018. Here are her thoughts.

FILI non-fiction translators’ course in October 2018; photo credit FILI

1. What makes a translator?
What makes you, you?
I started translating because people asked me to. I was doing my PhD archive research in Poland and met academics who wanted to publish in English. Some sources were written in makaronizm; Polish liberally sprinkled with Latin(ate) phrases. In curly handwriting that looked like hair in need of intense conditioning treatment. I loved it, it was like coming home. I did a lot of other things before translating full time. Every translator’s story is different.
For a week this October, the Finnish Literature Exchange (FILI) brought a couple of dozen translators from three continents to Helsinki to focus on translating non-fiction. Each one of us got there by a different route.

2. What makes a book translator?
Bookishness?
When people think of translators, they may imagine our patron, St Jerome, at a desk in a cave, manuscripts piled high, labouring over the perfect phrasing of his bible translation. But not all translators translate books. If someone’s written it, someone else probably translated it: the dosing instructions on your medicine, the surtitles at the opera, the financial reports for a global company. Like different species of butterfly, there are medical translators, subtitlers, high-performance business translators… and the ones who only do books.
Perhaps the key is writing so that people want to read the book, which means wanting to read it yourself. Like people choose a film based on the lead actors, I sometimes pick my next novel based on who’s translated it. If they translated other works I loved, maybe I’ll like this one. Like a good actor, a good translator will convey the author’s voice, the role. The same one feels different every book, every time.
Some of the book translators I met on the FILI course have been translating literature for decades. Some had studied Finnish literature, some lived here and ended up translating, some were born bilingual, straddling cultures. They all knew how to write well in the languages they were translating into. And they were writing a lot of the books – unlike in the US or UK, where only about 3% of literature is translated, in other countries about half the books published are translations.
The FILI course fed our bookishness. Specialists gave us an excellent overview of the literary scene in Finland: what’s happening in children’s books, graphic novels, academia, fiction and creative non-fiction. This was especially helpful for the translators who don’t live here and get less local news. It meant we could go to Helsinki Book Fair fully prepared, knowing what was out there and where to find out more.

3. What makes a really good book translator?
What does it take for someone to trust you with their book/baby?
If someone’s going to take your baby and make her speak another language, dress her in different clothes, so you might not understand her anymore at all, perhaps not even recognise her, you need to trust that person. With your life.
Trust and a close working relationship are essential to a good book translation. You need to be able to ask awkward questions tactfully, give and take criticism.
The FILI course allowed us to forge the relationships that make a good book translation happen. We met agents, publishers, representatives of organisations like the Finnish Institute for Children’s Literature, Association of Finnish Non-fiction Writers, and National Archive. Most importantly, we met each other, and stayed in touch. The translators into English were the biggest group; four Americans and three Brits. Two were NEaT members, myself and Pamela Dieck Kaskinen. Through NEaT, we are more used than most to working collaboratively, with fellow translators, revisors, and editors.

4. What makes a really good non-fiction book translator?
Besides creativity, is it laser-eyed attention to detail?
NEaT members will have plenty of other answers. I had the confidence to apply for this course because I’ve translated my first two (academic and non-fiction) books from Finnish this year. FILI has focused exclusively on literature, but now they want to promote Finnish non-fiction too. Their course was so oversubscribed that it will run again next year, and FILI did a similar seminar in November for international publishers.
At Helsinki Book Fair, I was struck by how many authors said their translators are their closest readers. Nobody else picks up on inconsistencies in the same way. Johanna Sinisalo said that a translator might notice, “your heroine is taking the letter out of her apron pocket on page 72, but it was in her skirt pocket on page 56.” Maria Turtschaninoff said, “through my translators, I see my work with new eyes.” This highlights an issue that several translators raised during the course. Finnish authors may work more in isolation, or the editing culture is simply not as strong yet as it is in the US and UK. So translators may end up making improvements to a Finnish text that an editor should have spotted before it got published in the first place.

 Johanna Sinisalo in conversation with her
translators, Lola Rogers (US), Linda Dejdarová (CZ) and Maima Grönberga (LV), from left to right

5. What makes a really good non-fiction book translator from Finnish?
How well do you know both cultures?
You need to know what works in Finnish, and why. But also what works in the culture you’re translating into, and why.
One of the most useful things the FILI course taught me was how the book market works. Before attending, we had to survey non-fiction bestsellers in the languages (and countries and cultures) we translate into. Then two publishers and a literary agent described what sells and why in Finland, and what Finnish titles have captured readers internationally. Biographies of famous people like Kimi Räikkönen do really well. Lifestyle stuff does too – sauna, wild food, and getting päntsdrunk (Kalsarikännit; the book launch in Murmansk was a big hit, apparently, and the memes have been all over social media). History is hugely popular in Finland; but would an international audience be that interested? Many experienced literary translators on the course thought not. However fascinating a very Finnish topic might be at home, readers abroad might not care. This puts FILI in a tricky position, as their role is to promote Finnish culture internationally.
One way forward would be to promote non-fiction simply because it is well written. Books like Hi, It’s germ! (Heippa – täällä bakteeri!) worked in translation because they combine things Finns do best – early education, child-centredness and a down-to-earth, practical approach – with a subject that’s not ‘Finnish’ at all, but universal. Historian Mirkka Lappalainen talked to us about two of her books, The Lion of the North (Pohjolan Leijona) which won the Finlandia Non-Fiction Prize in 2014, and The Witches of the North (Pohjoisen Noidat) which won the Kanava Non-Fiction Prize in 2018. The lion is Gustav II Adolf Vasa and that book is about the Finnish part of his kingdom. Since, unusually, most Finns accused of witchcraft were men, international readers might be more interested in the witches book. Perhaps her next one will be about a wardrobe…

6. What makes a really good non-fiction book translator from Finnish into English?
What could FILI and NEaT do together to make them?
Both organisations have a vast amount of expertise in a specialised field. One publisher told us he sometimes feels that the Finnish book world is confined to a block or two in central Helsinki – NEaT could help it spread its wings. The English-language market is huge and information about Finnish books in English opens doors for translation into other languages, too. NEaTers are skilled translators and editors but they might not have the literary and publishing contacts they need to find the books that would be a perfect fit for them. The two organisations are looking at ways of collaborating more closely.

Maria Turtschaninoff at Helsinki Book Fair 2018

Annual Christmas Party 2018

Welcome to the NEaT Christmas Party on December 5!

The theme this year is DIY, as NEaT members will build a party to remember! Don’t miss this – a few of our most special members will provide a bit of amusement for our program, both language-based and completely frivolous.

We’ll do a potluck for food, so bring something festive to put on the Christmas table. The NEaT board will provide the opening sparkling toast.

Time: 5th of December from 6 pm onwards
Place: PAM’s premises in Hakaniemi, Helsinki
Street address: Säästöpankinranta 4 C 21 (on the door/buzzer it says “C21 Tietoranta”)

Bring:

  • A good mood
  • A dish to share (savory or sweet)
  • Your own drinks for the evening

Please RSVP to Albion by November 30, and let us know what you will bring for the table!
The party is free of charge to NEaT members and 5 euros to non-members. Welcome!

Annual Summer Picnic 2018

Don’t miss the language professionals’ highlight of the summer, the always popular picnic meetup. We will meet on the 18th of August at 2 pm at the HSL ferry at Market Square. If you happen to be late, you can call Albion at 045 316 9363 or Julie at 041 523 1272 for directions to where we are sitting.

Bring a picnic lunch, and if you have a special treat that you would like to share, thank you! NEaT will provide sparkling wine to help us celebrate the summer.  

You can also bring an outdoor game for after we eat. Surprise us!

In the case that the day is rainy, we will meet at Suomenlinnan Panimo, which is directly ahead once you exit the ferry at Suomenlinna. However, the pub does not allow dogs inside.