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The dream of any linguist translator candidate, in short, is: to take heart, get good clients, provide quality translation services, get out there translating and make a a profitable living out of it. But once translators get active and manage the first transalation projects, they are faced with very complex challenges, which were not in their plans when they first dreamed of this. One of these challenges has to do directly with the raw material: texts. Or rather: the wide variety of types of texts that we will encounter in an even larger variety of topics.
Many people think that the freelance translator’s job consists only in receiving the original text from the client, adapting it to the target language, or simply do a word for word translation, delivering the project and getting paid for it. It would be great if it were that easy! But what many people ignore, or don’t pay enough attention to, is the fact that most of these texts are different, both in nature and in structure and language. In large part, this depends on the subject matter and the specific terms with which these texts were constructed. It is like each and every topic speaks using it own topic-specific codes.
For a translation to be considered faithful, the translator must be very familiar with the world on which the text was written. For example: The language used in a technical computer text is not the same as that used in a medical text. Would you agree? Each text has its own characteristics and specific terms that, in many occasions, only someone who works in that area can know them perfectly and translate them properly.
If you hire translators on a constant basis, we invite you to read further and get an idea of the translation challenges faced in our communication industry.
The profile of translators in the early 20th century was that of retired professionals, who restricted themselves to translating the specific texts of the area in which they had dedicated most of their lives, for example: Physicians translated medical texts; Engineers translated technical manuals and instructions; Scientists translated scientific texts; Writers translated literary texts; and so on.
text types in the translation industry
This is exactly where things get complicated for the modern translator, who, in most cases, are people who have lived for a long time in a foreign country, and have learned to master a second language perfectly. In this case, knowing one language well is not enough. It will be necessary to have several research tools at your disposal, such as: specific dictionaries; reliable Internet sources; frequent dialogues with the client, to clear up any doubts about a specific term used in the text; and good contacts with other more experienced translators.
Let’s highlight some types of texts, giving a brief explanation about the structures and the types of languages the translator may encounter.
SOME TYPES OF TEXTS
Human society distinguishes different types of texts each according to discursive practices. This criterion allows us to differentiate, for example, a military order from an advertisement or a telephone conversation from a sermon in church. According to this criterion, we can make a conventional classification of texts as follows:
Scientific texts
These are those produced in the scientific community, with the intention of presenting or demonstrating the advances produced by research. Some examples are the Doctoral Thesis, the Graduate Record, the Scientific Article or the Scientific Monograph.
Administrative Texts
These are texts produced as a means of communication between an individual and an institution or between institutions. They are highly formalized texts, with rigid structures, and often have an enunciated performative function. Examples include official communiqués, business letters, bulletins, certificates, the salutation, the instance or an official note.
Legal texts
These are texts produced in the context of the process of administering justice. They are widely used by forums, law firms, political offices, police stations or public agencies. Examples of legal texts are contracts, summonses, judgments, appeals, and laws.
Journalistic texts
It consists of all the texts that are likely to appear in the context of journalistic communication. They are divided into Informative Genres (which have the function of transmitting a certain information to the reader) and Optative (which value, comment, and judge the information from a point of view of the journalist or the publication). Examples: Press releases, texts produced for written or audio visual media, articles for blogs, etc. Another characteristic of journalistic text is that it has the sole function of informing something without the intention of changing the situation.
Literary texts
Literary texts are all those that manifest the poetic function, either as a fundamental element (such as poetry) or as a secondary one (such as certain historical or didactic texts). Popular literary texts include fiction, novels, self-help and children’s literature, such as fairy tales,
Advertising texts
They should not be confused with journalistic texts, because it is a special kind of text, whose function is to convince the reader about the qualities of a consumer good, and incite him/her to acquire this good. The need to attract the reader’s attention makes the advertising text generally use resources such as: the combination of words and images, word games, double meaning expressions, slogans or flashy typography. The Advertising Genre, fundamentally, is the advertisement.
Digital Texts
The new technologies have brought about the appearance of new types of texts that do not exist in the analog world, and that have their own characteristics. Some examples of these types of texts are found in blogs, e-mails, social networks, SMSs, chats or in the pages of any website. These texts can also be characterized according to the function they fulfill in communication.
Directive text
Generally, this type of text is inserted in the administrative environment, and incites, or orders, the receiver to perform some action.
Expressive text
This is the kind of text that someone reads and does not easily forget. This is not due to mere mechanical memorization, but rather to the fact that the text is well crafted and holds the reader’s attention from beginning to end. In this way, the reader is able to retell the text read in his or her own words. When the reader is able to express what he or she has read in words, it is, therefore, an expressive text. In short, expressive text reveals the subjectivity of the speaker.
Narrative text
Narration is a type of text that tells real or imaginary facts. When approaching the analysis of narrative texts, it is necessary to study: the story and the actions that compose it; the characters that carry it out; the time and space where the story develops; how all these elements are ordered; and from which point of view they are told. Narration, especially in literary texts, is usually intertwined with dialog and description, giving rise to complex texts with different sequences.
Descriptive Texts
If, on the one hand, narration is a textual modality that presents successive facts in time, on the other hand, description consists of the characteristics of an object in a static way and without the passage of time. The object of the text should be understood in this case in a broader sense, that is, it covers any human or non-human reality, concrete or abstract, real or fictional. Everything that is imaginable is describable. Within the descriptive texts we can find the:
Scientific texts
Which has already been mentioned above. Their purpose is to show the procedure for carrying out an investigation or an experiment, or the results of previous experiments and investigations.
Technical texts
These show the components, shape and operation of any type of object or set of objects, such as: a machine, a lamp, a computer, etc.; or an artistic or instrumental creation, such as: painting, sculpture, sports, medicine, etc. Among the most popular technical texts are: instruction manuals for the use and assembly of appliances; kitchen recipes; drug brochures, among others.
Social texts
They offer information about the behavior of people and institutions. They are of the prescriptive type.
Argumentative texts: These are texts in which the reasons in favor or against a certain position or thesis are presented, with the aim of convincing the interlocutor. It is fundamentally, but not exclusively, about: value judgments and positive or negative evaluations about something exposed (good or bad, ugly or beautiful, valid or invalid, adequate or inadequate). Argumentative discourse is characteristic of essays and criticism in general. Some typical examples of argumentative texts are: a political speech or an opinion article.
Expository text
Unlike argumentation, expository texts do not try to convince, but rather to show that the abstract difference is not always so evident in concrete texts. This is why we often speak of expository-argumentative texts. Typical examples of expository texts are scientific texts. The purpose of these texts is to inform.
Informative text
An informative text is one in which certain facts or realities are presented in a neutral and objective way. It should not be confused with purely journalistic texts, although they are related. There are at least two types of informative texts:
- The first are the dissemination texts, also known as informative: It is the type of expository text that goes addressed to a wide audience that uses little specific information and of formal format, that is, neither technical nor specialized. We can find them in notes, textbooks, encyclopedias, analyses, conferences, collections, etc.
- The second are the specialized texts, also known as argumentative text: This is the type of specialized text that is directed to a specific public in a specific area of knowledge, which requires or uses a specialized tone and technical information. We find them in reports, laws, scientific research articles, etc.
The characteristics of informative texts are as follows:
- Clear and objective information on a topic of general interest.
- It is aimed at a majority audience.
- It is easy to understand.
- Uses a standardized vocabulary.
- It possesses objectivity.
The characteristics of specialized texts:
- It informs a very concrete topic.
- It is aimed at a receiver who is an expert in the content.
- It is difficult to understand for those who do not know the subject.
- It uses a specific terminology.
Parallel to the types of texts exposed in this post, there are many others, which vary in idiomatic, cultural, racial and ideological aspects, such as religious or ancestral texts. Therefore, the life of a translator is not always easy. But it is still a great professional choice!