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En composant la Chartreuse, pour prendre le ton, je lisais chaque matin deux ou trois pages du code civil, afin d'être toujours naturel; je ne veux pas, par des moyens factices, fasciner l'âme du lecteur. Stendhal (1783-1842)
In one his letters, the great French novelist Stendhal revealed that he started off his writing day by reading the French Civil Code. He was aiming for a “natural” style and was against using rhetorical devices to capture the reader’s interest.
Although Stendhal’s advice was intended for novelists—and more specifically, for Stendhal himself—it is even more pertinent to translators. We must abandon the notion that translators merely sit back, fold their arms and think of new words to enrich their mother tongue. Translation is an industry. It is more about business than about creative writing.
Only a handful of translators ever actually translate an excerpt from a novel or a poem. Few ever translate subtitles, which is the first thing that occurs to most people when someone mentions being a translator. The overwhelming majority of translators make their living by translating technical manuals, financial statements, legal contracts, advertisements and medical reports.
THE COMPUTER IS THE TRANSLATOR'S TOOL PAR EXCELLENCE.
The translation business also relies on special translation software which ensures that the same expression is translated the same way throughout a document, thus making the job quicker and increasing consistency. This tool, known as Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT), is one of the most outstanding features of the modern translation industry and some of the latest versions are extremely sophisticated.
CAT is not the same as machine translation. Ever had a text translated by a machine? Remember how devastating the result was? Unlike machine translation, CAT is only a tool. It does not dictate the translation. The translator still does the job.
Between the harsh realities of the translation industry and the human feel for language, the best thing a translator can do is to follow Stendhal’s advice and take his or her stylistic cue from a supposedly “dry” genre like the Civil Code. Chances are, the Civil Code is part of the source material anyway. If the advice was good enough for Stendhal, it is good enough for any translator.
