Review by Valérie Chataignier Seminar C: From Soap to Drugs and Back, via Quality Assurance & StandardOperating Procedures; Dr. Karen Tkaczyk Dr. Karen Tkaczyk deftly polymerized a number of topics across the diverse domains of her cosmetic/pharmaceutical/chemical experience from the perspective of the technical translator. Seminar C, “From Soap to Drugs and Back via QA and SOPs,” held Wednesday morning at the ATA Conference in the “Mile High” city of Denver was indeed a refreshing overview and cross-section of this broad industry. Conjuring up the trials and tribulations in translating handwritten records and tackling terminological obstacles, she emphasized strengthening one’s …
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We’re having a great time in Denver. There have been two highlights for me: the pre-conference tour of NIST (it was described as ‘geek heaven’ by one attendee!) and the division’s annual meeting, where an enthusiastic group of about twenty people discussed our areas of expertise and what we can provide and share to help one another, and the division, grow.In the following weeks we will post more about that, along with reviews of sessions of interest to our division.Karen
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From the 51st ATA Annual Conference in Denver. We’re looking forward to the pre-conference Seminars on Wednesday, Oct 27. Especially Seminar C From Soap to Drugs and Back via Quality Assurance and Standard Operating Procedures, Karen m. Tkaczyk; Seminar D Nuts and Bolts: A Visit from the Entrance Gate to the Dispatch Dock of an Industrial Plant, Paulo Lopes and Seminar G Biomedical Translation Seminar, Damián Vázquez
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Having begun my translation work through engineering (nearly twenty years ago in an industrial research centre), I have often faced suspicion from linguists who wonder what on earth I’m doing “invading their territory”. However, when faced with translations on nuclear reactors or catalytic converters these people grudgingly accept that I can translate texts they themselves won’t touch. That said, this suspicion is mutual; I have also faced it from engineers who wonder why they need a translator (“what do linguists know about bridge construction?”). These attitudes give rise to misconceptions such as the myth that “good grammar doesn’t matter in …
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How interesting that Steve Marzuola’s September, 22, 2010 post to the SciTech list would refer to Aristotle and rhetoric in relation to PhD programs in Technical writing. Our next article to be posted to the ATA SciTech blog also refers to philosophy. We technical translators are privileged to be possessed of two minds or perspectives, technical and linguistic. From reading Blaise Pascal, I came away with an impression of these two minds as being géometrique and romantique. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the perspectives are named Classical and Romantic. It is fairly unusual in the U.S. to …
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Another post will follow on the core conference sessions, but for now this is a summary of Wednesday’s events that might be of interest. Morning: Three seminars look like they will be specifically of relevance to technical translators, depending on your field and language.The first one session is language neutral, and it’s mine. If you’re not sure whether this would be useful for you, just ask and I’ll give you more information. Seminar CFrom Soap to Drugs and Back, via Quality Assurance and Standard Operating Procedures Karen M. Tkaczyk, PhD, CT This second one looks great if you work with …
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Tower of BabelThirty-six nationalities were represented by the 200 translators present at this two-day conference held in Lisbon on 28-29 May 2010. That alone made it a stimulating environment for any member of the T&I community, even before we consider the technical sessions. English was the language of almost all of the sessions, but the hallways and meeting areas exhibited great diversity. Conversations were sometimes held in several languages at once, it seemed. Many English dialects were represented, from both southern and northern hemispheres. There were people from many European countries and from most of the Portuguese speaking countries. There …
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Two things happened recently. First, I had cause to translate a job on textiles, and second, I edited a job on cherry-pickers— you know those truck mounted mobile platforms which maintenance crews use to work at height. The two jobs could not be more different, but in a strange way they were related.Early on in the textile job, I realized that my technical dictionary resources had next to nothing on textiles. This is not surprising since most dictionaries are at least 10 years out of date and the majority of them anywhere from 20 to 50 years out of date. …
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Here is the very first post for the new ATA Science and Technology Division blog. It’s a short one, just to get us started.