Publishers Weekly (11/19/24) By Ed Nawotka
Earlier this month, several publications in the U.K., among them The Bookseller and The Guardian, revealed that the Netherlands’ largest publisher, Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK), which was bought by Simon & Schuster in May, had announced plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) for English-language translations. The news prompted immediate pushback from industry organizations.
“We’re using AI to assist in the translation of a limited number of books,” Vanessa van Hofwegen, VBK’s commercial director, said. “This project contains less than 10 titles—all commercial fiction. No literary titles will be used.” Van Hofwegen added that the initiative focuses on titles with limited English-language market potential: “We’re only including books where English rights have not been sold, and we don’t foresee the opportunity to sell English rights of these books in the future.”
The announcement comes amid growing industry concerns about AI’s impact on translation work. On November 18, PEN America condemned the move, calling for more investment in translation and translators.
“The purported distinction that this trial is for commercial fiction and not literary works speaks to the global publishing industry’s lack of appreciation for the art of translation and the vital role of literary translators in providing context, style, voice, and nuance to the texts they render in other languages,” said members of the PEN America Translation Committee in a statement. “Translators cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence. Culture cannot be automated without causing harm to literature and global culture. We urge them to reconsider their decision.”
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BBC (11/02/24) By Charles Hughes
The leaders of a research project undertaken by universities in the U.K., France, and Germany hope it will allow deaf people to receive training and boost employment opportunities in the interpreting field.
Part of the project will include exploring differences between the U.K., France, and Germany in terms of how deaf people help others understand what is being interpreted.
“This research will probably influence our colleagues across Europe, and potentially more broadly globally,” said Christopher Stone from the University of Wolverhampton in the U.K., who will lead the three-year project in collaboration with professors from the University of Toulouse and the University of Berlin.
Stone, an interpreter who can hear, conducted similar research for his PhD about 20 years ago. He expects the results from the new project will show that deaf people find it easier to understand deaf interpreters rather than those who can hear.
“What we’re interested in is…how has the interpreting profession developed in the U.K., and in France and Germany?” Stone said. “What does that tell us about the ways deaf people work as interpreters that are similar and different in different places?”
Stone said he and his colleagues hope their research findings will contribute to increasing opportunities for deaf people to interpret and open doors for deaf communities.
“Hopefully it means we’ll be able to teach better. Hopefully it means we’ll be able to influence policy at a national or maybe international level.”
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EdSource (10/28/24) By Zaidee Stavely
California schools will soon have a template for special education programs translated into 10 languages in addition to English.
Advocates and parents of children with disabilities who speak languages other than English say it’s a tiny step forward, but there is still work to be done to fix long waits and faulty translations experienced by many families statewide.
“Ultimately, if parents can’t receive translated documents, they can’t meaningfully engage in their child’s education,” said Joanna French, senior director of research and policy strategies at Innovate Public Schools, an organization that works with parents to advocate for high-quality education. “They can’t provide informed consent. They can’t ask questions or push back on the services that are being proposed.”
A bill introduced last year by state Senator Anthony Portantino would have required school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education to translate individualized education program (IEP) documents within 30 days. But the bill stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers decide whether the state has enough money to pay for legislation. This spring, Portantino revised the bill to require the California Department of Education to create guidelines suggesting, rather than mandating, timelines for translation and how to identify quality translators and interpreters. But that version was also eventually scrapped.
The version of the bill that finally did pass the legislature and was signed by the governor requires a template for IEPs to be translated into the 10 languages most commonly spoken in California other than English. The translated template must be made available online by January 1, 2027.
“Obviously, whenever you get a partial victory, you take it and celebrate,” said Portantino. “This is an incremental improvement. Having the template is a good thing. But obviously, these are individualized plans, so my hope is that someone takes up the mantle to get individual plans translated in a more timely manner.”
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The Guardian (11/25/24) By Philip Oltermann
The Norwegian government has announced the establishment of the Jon Fosse Prize for Literary Translators. The award is designed to celebrate the work of an often overlooked and underpaid profession facing an existential threat from artificial intelligence.
Named after the Norwegian novelist and playwright who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, Jon Fosse, the Fosse Prize for Literary Translators will award one author every year with 500,000 NOK (£36,000) for making “a particularly significant contribution to translating Norwegian literature into another language.”
Funded by the Norwegian government and managed by the National Library in Oslo, the prize is exclusive to those translating from Bokmål and Nynorsk, the two official written standards of the Norwegian language. The prize money makes it one of the most lucrative translation awards in Europe, second only to the Netherlands’ annual 50,000 euro Martinus Nijhoff Translation Prize, which has been awarded every year since the 1950s.
“For a small language like Norwegian, the work of dedicated translators is crucial,” said Aslak Sira Myhre, director of the National Library of Norway. “It’s a strenuous, creative, and partly invisible work that brings literature to people and cultures closer together.”
This year’s inaugural prize is being awarded to one of Fosse’s longstanding translators into German, Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel.
“The award feels like a kind of Nobel prize for translators, thanks to the attention it brings to our contributions to world literature,” Schmidt-Henkel said.
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PhysOrg/American Institute of Physics (11/12/24)
There are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, each offering unique ways to express human emotion. But do certain emotions show regularities in their vocal expression across languages?
In the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, an interdisciplinary team of linguists and bioacousticians, led by Maïa Ponsonnet (Université Lumière Lyon 2), Katarzyna Pisansk (University Jean Monnet of Saint-Etienne), and Christophe Coupé (University of Hong Kong), explored this by comparing expressive interjections (like “wow!”) to nonlinguistic vocalizations (like screams and cries) across the globe.
Pisanski said studying cries, screams, and laughter can shed light on the origins of speech.
“Why did we humans start to speak, and other primates didn’t? We all produce laughter, and hundreds of species produce play-like vocalizations,” said Ponsonnet. “Yet we are the only species that evolved spoken language. Looking at these commonalities across species can help us understand where humans diverged and how.”
Ponsonnet added that by comparing interjections to vocalizations expressing the same emotions, “we can test whether the acoustic patterns we observe in interjections can be traced back to vocalizations.”
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