Botha, at the International Translation Day celebrations
29 October 2007
Programme Director, Ms Ntombentle Nkosi (CEO) Pan South African Language
Board (PanSALB) and members of the Board
Members of the portfolio committee on arts and culture led by the Chairperson,
Honourable Tshivhase
Language practitioners and specialists
Members of the academia
Students
Representative of the South African Translatorsâ Institute (SATI)
Acting Chief Director of the Department of Arts and Culture National
Language
Service, Dr Jokweni and Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) officials
Distinguished guests
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Good afternoon!
I am, indeed, very happy that we are today celebrating the 2007
International Translation Day and I also wish to thank the organisers for
inviting me to address this gathering. International Translation Day is
celebrated every year on 30 September but I understand that due to unforeseen
circumstances, the celebration had to be postponed. This is a bit disappointing
and I hope that we will, in future, mark the day appropriately.
In celebrating the work of translators throughout the world, the
International Federation of Translators decided that this yearâs theme for
International Translation Day would be âdonât shoot the messengerâ. It was
chosen, I believe, âto draw attention to the hazards faced by translatorsâ.
Whilst it is important for South Africa to be affiliated with international
organisations, we should also sound a word of caution that we should not follow
international trends without contextualising their aims and objectives to our
own situation.
In South Africa today we are faced with different challenges to what the
theme suggests. The translation and interpreting professions are still in their
infancy, so it may be a little early for us to talk about blaming the
translator or interpreter for misrepresentation or misinterpretation. Our
current concern is to see to it that translation becomes a fully-fledged
profession that will encourage the establishment of small to medium companies,
particularly for the African languages, that can, in turn, create work
opportunities for the youth and women who studied African languages at tertiary
level.
We all know that the tertiary institutions are struggling to reach the quota
required to offer courses in African languages. The numbers of students
enrolling for African languages are very low because, among other things, there
are so few economically viable language professions when they complete their
studies. These are some of the challenges that the translation and interpreting
profession has to grapple with in this country.
To counteract the dwindling number of students at tertiary level in the
language field the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), through the National
Language Service, established a post-graduate bursary scheme in 2004. By the
end of this year 79 of those students assisted by this scheme will have
obtained qualifications. Nonetheless, one wonders how many of these students
will find job opportunities in the language field.
Statistics furnished by DAC indicate that there were no students who
received bursaries in siSwati, while seSotho and isiNdebele had two students
who received bursaries. SeTswana had three students. It is pleasing to learn
that the highly marginalised languages, Xitsonga and Tshivenda, had 22 and 18
students, respectively, who received bursaries. The bursary scheme points to
the fact that the aims of Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South
Africa (ASGISA) can be realised and new avenues to implement its purpose should
be explored. Such efforts can only improve the quality of the development and
promotion of multilingualism as enshrined in the Constitution.
I believe that more people would like to study at a university or technikon
using their home languages. This calls on us to have more translators for our
indigenous languages. Just imagine if all the university books were to be
translated into the different indigenous languages. That would be very
interesting because we would be able to translate and also understand the
meaning of words like "trigonometry", "psychometric" and "vector algebra" in
either Tshivenda or isiXhosa. Can you imagine how many sustainable jobs would
be created in this way?
As the Department of Arts and Culture, we are trying to instil a culture of
reading in our South African society. However, the majority of our people are
still unable to read English and would rather read a book written in their own
language. If all the books that are written in English were to be translated
into our indigenous languages can you imagine how much employment could we
create? When it comes to terminology, can you imagine the skills our elders in
rural society have ready to be transferred to us and to future generations?
This can make us achieve the objectives of ASGISA and Joint Initiative on
Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) sooner than we envisaged.
Most of the private companies that are used by the private sector, and to
some extent by government, to translate their work, are companies that belong
to production houses and we are not sure whether their staff are professionally
trained to do the job or not. We would like to see translation companies that
are owned by the speakers of the indigenous languages and companies that employ
the speakers of those languages. We should not forget that historically, with
the previous political dispensation, these languages were not developed as
Afrikaans and English were preferred as official languages.
Ladies and gentlemen, we as a government have promised the citizens of this
country that we would do everything possible to create job opportunities in
order to eradicate poverty and unemployment. The use of indigenous official
languages should, therefore, be one of the instruments that can be used to
enhance the status of the poor and the less fortunate and to enable them to
access government resources. I am also talking here about rural women and men
who cannot read and write but comprehend what is communicated to them orally in
their own languages.
In the public and private sectors gender considerations should take centre
stage in the employment of language practitioners. For example, according to
the South African Translatorsâ Institute (SATI) they have 14 translators from
English to Xitsonga both male and female but only four of them are women out of
14. They also have 14 translators from English to Sesotho and only 4 are women;
from English to Sepedi out of 17 translators only 4 are women. This indicates
that there are still serious imbalances. These numbers are much less if we take
into consideration the number of those who are accredited by SATI.
Let us also take two examples from the provinces. Mpumalanga Department of
Culture, Sport and Recreation has only two women translators, one for
isiNdebele and one for siSwati, and none of the Mpumalanga provincial
departments have sections that are dedicated to translation. The Eastern Cape
Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture has a translation unit that
is comprised of five translators, three women and two men, for Sesotho,
isiXhosa, and English, and they are in the process of appointing an Afrikaans
translator. The Office of the Premier in the Eastern Cape has translators for
isiXhosa and Sesotho and the legislature has a translation unit. Like
Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape Provincial Government has no other departments
that have a dedicated translation unit
The state of affairs regarding translators in South Africa needs to be taken
very seriously. Why do we only have one or two Xitsonga, Setswana, isiZulu,
Tshivenda, Sesotho, and isiXhosa accredited translators? Why canât we have more
per language to correspond with client demand?
Other encouraging examples are found in some of the national Departments of
Government. For example, the DAC National Language Service has eight women and
five men translators. In the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, there
are two men and two women translators. This is a promising feature that we
should see in all of government departments and the business Sector. I would
like to appeal to all other government departments nationally, provincially and
locally to follow the example of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture in
Limpopo, The Limpopo Legislature, and the South African Police Service are
paying for their employees to be members of the SATI. This should be enough
motivation for other departments and the private sector.
The other critical factor that we should consider is the salary scale of our
translators. Are their salaries competitive both in government and in the
private sector? Is the remuneration attractive enough to entice the younger
generation to follow a career in translation and interpretation?
I understand that the National Language Service is losing a number of
translators, and other language practitioners, to other departments and
particularly the legislatures, due to salary differences. This matter needs to
be addressed as soon as possible because the national departments have to be
trendsetters in language matters rather than followers.
African literature is not in a good position at present. It does not have
the wide readership one would wish for, compared to English and Afrikaans.
Translation could play an essential role in expanding readership by translating
literature from one African language into the other. Such translation would
expose the non-speakers of the African languages to some of the cultural issues
in these languages.
The translated literature would be a means of promoting social cohesion and
nation building. Translation would also help to develop and promote African
languages literature. The translation of our literature into foreign languages
could play a major role in familiarising readers in foreign countries with the
linguistic values in our classic literary collections. The other critical issue
that I am concerned about is terminology. We have so many elders in our rural
communities who are uneducated but very conversant with the terminology of our
indigenous languages. Is the wisdom of our elders being properly used? If so,
are they compensated for their knowledge? Probably not, because they do not
have their own companies and no co-operatives. Yet, the specialists, that is,
those who have qualifications in this field, will come to them and ask for
assistance (to explain the meaning of this or that word) without compensating
them. After obtaining the information, the specialists will use the information
as if it is theirs and get paid but without acknowledging the source of the
information.
How do we address the question of technical terms that may be found in an
English text such as âbureaucracyâ? Would it be convenient to Africanise the
term or look for an equivalent term in the African languages? These are some of
the challenges that the Translation and Editing Directorate, together with the
Terminology Coordination Service, will have to solve with the collaboration of
institutions of higher education. This manner of including institutions of
higher education, particularly in translation and education, will encourage the
study of African languages at these institutions.
Conclusion
It is not often that I reluctantly agree to address an occasion like this one.
Whilst I appreciate the work that is being done by translators in our country
as well as the challenges that they face, I think more could have been done.
All of us, that is, government and government institutions, PanSALB, SATI,
Parliament, we all need to examine to what extent we are making an impact in
promoting the equitable use of the eleven official languages, enhancing the
Translation Profession and improving the Translation Services.
We can no longer carry on with business as usual. There are so many
challenges and we have to be more proactive and focused. Not all our
translators are qualified to do the work. In 2005 I appealed to you to learn as
many languages as you can in order to become better communicators, professional
translators and interpreters and builders of a South Africa that belongs to all
who live in it. But I sense that there is a lot of resistance to this.
We cannot continue to work in silos. We must look at how we can transform
this sector in order to make an impact. We have a serious challenge of
promoting the equitable use of all eleven official languages as well as sign
language and Braille, yet we have not been able to effect a strategic alignment
of our programmes. Furthermore, I believe that our translation industry is
still not regulated. May I, today, once again, ask all of you to recommit
yourselves to placing this profession at the top of the transformation
agenda?
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
29 October 2007
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za/)
