It is known to most of us that in order to succeed with a translation you need good language skills, both in the source language and in the target language. But in the work of translating a text in a specific field, the translator also needs certain knowledge of that specific domain. In this essay, I analyze to what extent one needs that knowledge, and to what extent dictionaries, secondary literature and research on the Internet can help during the translation process.   The main subject for this essay is however an analysis of the translation of astrological terms, taken from a French book on medical astrology from which I have translated three whole chapters. The target language is Swedish. These two languages have separate origins, and therefore the terminologies could differ a lot. But, since the subject – astrology – comes from Ancient Greece and doesn’t depend on neither the French nor the Swedish culture, it is more likely that the astrological technolect looks partly the same in both languages: the terminology should presumably have been borrowed from the language of the ancient Greeks.   The seven translation strategies suggested by Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet in Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais, written in the 1950’s, helped me analyze the translation. With their method, I could for example see if the translation was mostly literal or oblique, and what kind of strategy is preferable in the translation of technolects.

Organizations increasingly use communication as a strategic function to maneuver in a challenging, complex, and demanding social landscape. Based on assumptions of centralized control and planning, the strategic communication concept aims for coordination and consistency of communication. Implied is a view of actors as intentional, rational, and deliberate decision makers. Such a conventional view on strategic communication, however, cannot satisfactorily explain the underlying characteristics of communication practices in contemporary organizations. Nor does it explain how organizational members in their everyday work interpret and relate to such practices. This thesis adopts neo-institutional theory and the translation approach to study how strategic communication operates along an institutionalized recipe for communication that through various translations is reformulated to fit local organizational contexts and preferences of the people occupying these contexts. To illustrate the process of both following and adapting the institutionalized recipe of strategic communication, qualitative and quantitative material on the role of social media in sixteen Swedish universities are examined. The material is generated and gathered through an ethnographically inspired approach and includes: interviews, a six-month observation period, the study of documents, and a content analysis of Vice-Chancellor blogs. The findings show that work with social media is pervaded with inconsistencies and contradictions, but simultaneously relating to a shared recipe for communication. Shared elements for communication at the universities include the purposes for communication, notion of one university and integration. However, in translations people rely on local organizational conditions, personal values, ambitions, and experiences. This produces tensions between: control and independence, centralization and decentralization, and one voice and multiple voices. The findings suggest that translations differ across universities and between communicators on different levels, some being more “true” to the recipe than others. Thus, differences are inevitable, underscoring the issues of managing and controlling communication in the conventional approach of strategic communication. As a result, the empirical and theoretical concept of strategic communication benefits from acknowledging its social embeddedness and local recontextualization. Strategic communication is like dancing to music. Everyone hears the music, but the dance varies with each dancer ́s experiences, ambitions, and opportunities. / Strategiska universitet på kunskapens marknad?

Avhandlingen behandlar idén om medarbetarskap med utgångspunkt från hur begreppet medarbetarskap tolkas och används. Syftet är att öka kunskapen kring idén och hur den tar sig uttryck i organisationers praktik. I den teoretiska referensramen har nyinstitutionell teori integrerats med teorier kring lärande och implementering. Strukturen i analysen utgörs av en metafor som behandlar hur populära idéer reser in i och genom organisationer. Centrala begrepp i tolkningen av vad som sker i mötet mellan idé och subjekt vid de olika anhalterna på resan är översättning, lärande och ömsesidig anpassning. Studien har genomförts i form av fallstudier vid ett statligt bolag och vid ett landsting där medarbetarskapsprogram bedrivits. Resultaten grundar sig huvudsakligen på intervjuer, vilka kompletterats med observationer och dokumentstudier. Resultaten visar att det skett en ömsesidig anpassning mellan idé och subjekt vid den studerade enheten i landstinget med ökad delaktighet, förståelse för varandra och ett förbättrat arbetsklimat som följd. Idén integrerades i hög grad i den vardagliga verksamheten. Vid det statliga bolaget passerade idén förbi utan några större bestående avtryck i de studerade grupperna och idén integrerades inte i den ordinarie verksamheten. Resultaten kan förstås med grund i hur programmen genomförts tolkat utifrån lärandeteorier och olika perspektiv på implementering. Genomförandet i det statliga bolaget kännetecknades av central styrning och snäva frihetsgrader vad gäller form och innehåll för medarbetarskapsutvecklingen. Vid landstinget var däremot behoven vid de lokala enheterna en grundläggande utgångspunkt för inriktningen på medarbetarskapsutvecklingen där delaktighet i idéutvecklingen och genomförandet av programmet var en ledstjärna. I översättningen av idén om medarbetarskap i ord finns skiljelinjen mellan personer på olika nivåer i organisationen, snarare än mellan organisationerna. Medarbetare vid enheterna ser medarbetarskapsbegreppet i första hand som ett kollektivt begrepp, där gruppens funktion är i centrum, medan de som representerar organisationsnivån i större utsträckning betonar individens ansvar och agerande. Vilket perspektiv och vilka intressen individen har ser ut att ha betydelse för hur idén uppfattas. Vidare kan den spridning och det genomslag som idén om medarbetarskap fått i svenskt arbetsliv, förstås utifrån dess samstämmighet med tidsandan och den generella utvecklingen som skett i samhälle och arbetsliv. / The aim of this thesis is to increase knowledge of the idea of co-workership and how it is manifested in the practice of organizations. The point of departure is how the concept of co-workership is interpreted and used. The theoretical framework is based on an integration between new institutional theory and theories about learning and implementation. The starting point of the analysis is a metaphor about popular ideas travelling into and through organizations. Central concepts are learning, translation and mutual adaptation. The study is based on a qualitative case study with two cases, a county council and a state-owned company, where co-workership programs have been implemented. The empirical material consists mainly of interviews. In addition observations and document studies have been used. The results indicate that a mutual adaptation between idea and operation occurred in the studied unit in the county council, with consequences in the daily work, while the idea passed without any lasting impressions at the unit level in the state-owned company. These findings may be understood in terms of how the co-workership program was implemented, interpreted through theories of learning and implementation. The co-workership development in the county council was characterized by employee participation in identifying needs and choice of areas of work as well as a high level of integration in the daily operations. In the studied groups in the state-owned company, the employees did not participate in the planning, and the co-workership program was not actively integrated into daily operations. Hence, there were not the same opportunities for a mutual adaptation between idea and operation as we found in the unit at the county council. In translating the idea into words, differences were found mainly between people at different levels in the organizations. At the organizational level co-workership was viewed as an individual concept emphasizing the responsibility and actions of the individual. Employees in the studied units, on the other hand, mainly expressed co-workership as a collective concept, focusing on the team and how it functions. The interpretation of the concept seems to be connected to the perspective of different parties within the organizations. Furthermore, the spread and the popularity of the idea of co-workership in Swedish working life can be understood in terms of the ideas correspondence with the current zeitgeist, and in relation to the general development going on in society and working life.

Automatic translations, or machine translations, get more and more advanced and common. This paper aims to examine how well Google Traduction works for translating an ideological text. To what extent can a computer program interpret such a text, and render the meaning of complex thoughts and ideas into another language ? In order to study this, UNESCOS World Report Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue has been translated from french to swedish, first automatically and then manually. Focusing on denotations, connotations, grammar and style, the two versions have been analysed and compared. The conclusion drawn is that while Google Traduction impresses by its speed and possibilites, editing the automatically translated text in order to correctly transmit the mening and the message of the text to the target language reader, would probably be a more time-consuming process than writing a direct translation manually.

Denna kandidatuppsats utgår från en egen översättning från franska till svenska av delar ur pjäsen Hôtel Pacifiqueav den franskkanadensiska författaren Fanny Britt.Syftet med examensarbetet är, förutom att skapa en spelbar text som fungerar i sin målspråkskontext, att undersöka det specifika i att översätta dramatik. I syftet ingår också att belysa och skapa förståelse för Québecfranskan och problem relaterade till att översätta språklig varietet. Det talade ordet står genomgående i fokus: replikerna i dramatexten och de karaktäristiska muntliga dragen för Québecfranskan. Newmarks kommunikativa översättningsmetod används som övergripande översättningsprincip för arbetet och visar sig vara kompatibel med texttypen trots vissa undantag. Resultatet blev en modern svensk pjäs med talspråkligt och idiomatiskt språk i replikerna. För att avgöra om texten är spelbar krävs dock att dramat uppförs på scen, vilket är ett framtida mål. / This essay is based on my own translation from French to Swedish of parts of the play Hôtel Pacifiqueby the Québécois author Fanny Britt. The purpose of the essay, apart from creating a text performable in its target language context, is to discuss and analyze the specialized nature of translating drama. The essay also aims to provide new perspectives on Québécois French and problems related to translating language varieties. The spoken word is the focal point: i.e. the lines of the drama and the characteristic oral features of Québécois French. Newmark's communicative translation method is used as the main translation principle. The method proves to be compatible with the text type despite certain exceptions. The result was a modern Swedish play with colloquial and idiomatic language. However, in order to determine if the text is performable, the drama must be presented on stage, which is a future goal.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur den finska passiven översätts till svenska. Materialet består av tre moderna finska skönlitterära romaner och deras svenska översättningar. Ur dessa excerperas de 100 först förekommande finska passiverna i varje roman tillsammans med deras svenska översättningsmotsvarigheter. Passiverna analyseras med utgångspunkt i de översättningsstrategier och -procedurer som ingår i modellen jämförande stilistik (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995). Av resultaten framkommer att den finska passiven oftast översätts till svenska genom olika omskrivningsstrategier, varav närmare två tredjedelar resulterar i en aktiv sats i svenska. Av den tredjedel som översätts till passiv i svenska är den stora merparten s-passiver. Resultaten visar också att definita subjekt, såsom vi och de, är vanligare i de svenska aktiva satserna än indefinita subjekt, såsom man. Slutsatsen är att den finska passiven i översättning till svenska uppvisar en betydligt större variation än vad som framkommer i tidigare forskning och finska grammatikor.

This study examines how the word ʾillā is treated in the Swedish Qur’ān translation from 1917 by Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen. The analysis is based on Swedish and Arabic grammar and translation theory, and considers the fact that this Qur’ān translation is considered to be quite faithful to the source text. The study finds that the textual equivalent of ʾillā varies greatly in the target text, and further that it is not limited to exclusive conjunctions nor exceptives; rather, it often consists of a restrictive adverb in an affirmative clause, when ʾillā in the source text is in a negative clause. This points to a unique problematic of translation where ʾillā is concerned, which warrants further examination in future studies.

New spaces open up when you lose someone. A disappearance is the beginning of an emergence. This project is about mourning the loss of my nai nai (paternal grandmother in Mandarin) and the spaces that have opened up during the process. Through personal experience and by mapping my psychogeography of the place where I grew up with nai nai, Visättra, this project deals with the meaning of places, memories and objects. I have worked with the translation between immaterial and material things while reflecting on contemporary questions such as: attachment to places and objects, highlighting placeness that is entangled with culture, identity and politics, and situating a subjective experience in a larger narrative. What happens to the places that are attached to the memories of a person after their death? What kind of new places are born out of grief and loss? How are they manifested through different scales—from the personal to the universal and the psychological to the geographical? I have explored my questions intuitively along with theoretical frameworks followed by a process of tracing, collecting, translating and recreating carriers of memories, revealing scenes of a dichotomy between brokenness and wholeness—from then to now and from there to here.

Denna studie ämnar undersöka rollspråket, det vill säga sättet fiktiva karaktärer talar på, i den japanska översättningen av Pippi Långstrump och jämföra det med den svenska källtexten. Syftet med studien är att ta reda på om rollspråk förekommer, vilken kategori det tillhör samt hur rollspråket förändrar läsarens uppfattning av karaktärerna. Studien bygger på en analys som följer Satoshi Kinsuis teorier om rollspråk. Analysen visar att det finns nyansskillnader i karaktärernas språk men huruvida de ska räknas som rollspråk eller inte är en öppen fråga. / This study intends to investigate the role language, which is the way fictional characters speak, in the Japanese translation of Pippi Longstocking and compare it to the Swedish source text. The purpose of this study is to find out if role language occurs, what category it belongs to and how the readers perception of the characters change due to the use of role language. The study is based on an analysis that follows Satoshi Kinsui's theories regarding role language. The analysis shows that there are nuances in the characters way of speaking but whether it could be valid as role language or not is an open question.

The metaphor is known for creating problems when it comes to translation, not only because of cultural aspects but also because of a lack of a unified terminology and theory for translation strategies. This also applies to conceptual metaphors which are the subject of analysis in this paper where an English survival guide to the Japanese culture has been translated into Swedish. As both languages are of the Germanic family, the hypothesis argues that the relation between them is noticeable in the translation work as well as a tendency towards paraphrasing due to a richer vocabulary in the source language. Regarding conceptual metaphors, the aim is to analyse if there are any correlations between the type of metaphor and the choice of translation strategy as well as what factors affects said strategies.  The results not only showed that the distribution of translation strategies supports the preferred order of priority in the background theory but also that there were very noticeable differences within the three metaphor categories. Factors affecting these results were found to differ between the categories due to the distinct differences in the metaphorical structures. These findings suggest that there indeed are correlations between the metaphor categories and their translation strategies. The closeness between the source and target languages were also found to be evident while at the same time indicating a tendency toward paraphrasing.