This thesis is a study of the inter-institutional translation process through which the Swedish versions of EU legislative acts are created, focusing on the conditions for plain language work within this process. These Swedish translations have long been considered incomprehensible. Complicated originals and strong demands for close correspondence to the source text have been considered the main reason. This study aims to examine the translation process, to see how institutional factors shape the scope for plain language work. The theoretical and methodological bases of the study are the sociology of translation, focusing on translation as a social activity, and ethnography, focusing on the participants’ perspective. The data analysed consist of field notes, interviews, video recordings of participants translating, and revised translations. A key factor for plain language is shown to be the demands for close correspondence to previous texts – not only the source text but also previous Swedish translations. Close correspondence is necessary due to special demands on legal translation but is also supported by other institutional factors, such as translators’ insecurity regarding legal language, short deadlines and the needs of internal readers. The use of CAT tools such as TWB further reinforces this dependence on previous texts. Other institutional factors that stand out are the relative isolation of the translation units, with limited feedback from outside the unit, and the position of the translated documents within the EU legal system. The results indicate that the difficulties for a Swedish reader are often not due to linguistic or textual formulation of the documents, but to the gap this EU position creates, between the reader’s (Swedish) and the text’s (EU) frame of reference respectively. Support for plain language is strong at the units, but the concept appears to have been partially given a local meaning, showing that the traditional understanding of plain language may not be fully applicable in this setting. This shows the necessity to identify the aspects most central to comprehensibility, for different types of texts and in different settings – a necessity not only for plain language work within the EU, but in national settings as well. / I avhandlingen studeras den interinstitutionella översättningsprocessen, till svenska, för EU:s rättsakter, med fokus på hur villkoren för klarspråksarbetet ser ut inom denna process. De svenska översättningarna har länge ansetts svårbegripliga. Svårt skrivna original och starka krav på nära överensstämmelse med källtexten har pekats ut som huvudsakliga skäl till detta. Undersökningen syftar till att ta reda på hur institutionella faktorer formar utrymmet för klarspråksarbete inom översättningsprocessen. De teoretiska och metodiska utgångspunkterna för undersökningen är översättningssociologi, som betraktar översättning som en social aktivitet, och etnografi, som betonar deltagarperspektivet. Materialet består av fältanteckningar, intervjuer, videofilmade observationer av översättnings­arbete samt granskade översättningar. Krav på nära överensstämmelse med tidigare texter visar sig vara centralt för klarspråksarbetet; inte bara överensstämmelse med källtexten utan också med tidigare svenska översättningar. Den nära överensstämmelsen är nödvändig till följd av de särskilda krav som ställs på juridisk översättning, men stöds också av andra institutionella faktorer, exempelvis översättarnas osäkerhet omkring juridiskt språk, korta tidsfrister och interna läsares behov. Användandet av CAT-verktyg som TWB förstärker ytterligare denna bundenhet till tidigare texter. Andra institutionella faktorer är enheternas relativa isolering, med begränsad återkoppling utifrån, och den position som de översatta dokumenten har inom EU:s juridiska system. Resultaten pekar på att svårigheterna för en svensk läsare ofta inte är kopplade till texternas språkliga eller textuella utformning, utan till det avstånd som skapas mellan läsarens (svenska) och textens (EU-) referensram, till följd av just textens position inom EU-systemet. Stödet för klarspråk är starkt på enheterna, men begreppet förefaller ha getts en delvis lokal innebörd, vilket visar att den traditionella innebörden av klarspråk kanske inte är helt tillämpbar i det studerade sammanhanget. Detta visar behovet av att identifiera de aspekter som är mest centrala för begripligheten, för skilda sorters texter och i skilda kontexter – en nödvändighet inte enbart för klarspråksarbetet inom EU, utan även i nationella sammanhang.

This thesis deals with the translation process in Czech central state administration bodies - more precisely in the ministries. The theoretical part of the thesis presents a definition of the terms institution and institutional translation and specifies the activities and functions of individual ministries. Ministries can be divided into two groups based on the presence of a translation department in their organizational structure: ministries with a translation department and ministries without a translation department. After that, selected publications on institutional translation in national institutions and in the institutions of the European Union are summarized and a model of translation process in institutions is created based on these publications and adjusted to every ministry individually. The empirical part focuses on the results of the survey and structured interviews conducted in the ministries. The conclusions are presented for every ministry individually and then for the whole group. The models of translation process are compared and commented on. Key words: International institution, institutional translation, Czech central state administration bodies, ministry, translation process, model of translation process, translation department Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This thesis investigates the rate of translation errors in Czech legal texts published in the Official Journal of the European Union using automated quality assurance tools. In the theoretical part, the aim of the thesis-to determine the error rate of analyzed text-is set, and individual hypotheses are defined. Subsequently, individual reasons which make translation for the EU institutions specific and why it is a separate subcategory within legal translation are listed. The method used to achieve the set objective and to confirm or disprove proposed hypotheses is described as well as the corpus which has been created for the analysis is presented. The corpus is comprised of legally binding texts- regulations, directives, and decisions published in the Official Journal of the European Union between 2004 and 2018. In the theoretical part, a definition of an error established for the purpose of this thesis is also provided. The definition was created based on QA tools options and a comparative analysis of different metrics used to evaluate the error rate in translation. The empirical part focuses on the research itself and discuss various issues encountered. The results of the analysis-whether the hypotheses have been proven-are then presented, and future research is outlined.

Cette thèse explore la manière dont le modèle de traduction institutionnelle qui s’est mis en place au sein de l’Union européenne pourrait être adapté à la situation africaine afin de résoudre ce que son auteur considère comme le principal obstacle au développement de ce continent, à savoir sa fragmentation ethnolinguistique. Rédigée en anglais et composée de six chapitres, elle se situe au croisement de la Traductologie (son principal point d’ancrage théorique), des politiques linguistiques et des théories du développement. Avec plus de deux mille langues différentes, l'Afrique constitue en effet le summum de la fragmentation ethnolinguistique. Dans la Babel africaine, les États sont constitués de différentes tribus dont les seuls liens sont les langues européennes métropolitaines fonctionnant comme langues officielles. Cependant, moins d'un quart des Africains parlent ces langues officielles. Parallèlement, l'accès aux bienfaits de l’existence – emploi, soins de santé, justice et éducation – est lié à la capacité de parler les langues officielles, ce qui entraîne l'exclusion et la non-participation d’une grande partie des populations. Les Africains n'accèdent, ne créent ni ne diffusent de connaissances dans leurs propres langues. De même, il y a très peu de fertilisation croisée des savoirs, ce qui conduit à l'existence d’innombrables Afriques parallèles et incompatibles. L'intégration régionale, proclamée urbi et orbi comme la solution à la « tragédie de la croissance africaine », est pour l’essentiel un échec. Se fondant sur l'exemple de l'Union européenne, cette thèse affirme et entend démontrer que la traduction institutionnelle, par assurance, familiarisation et hybridation, réduira la souffrance des Africains, favorisera la bonne gouvernance grâce à la participation universelle et à la responsabilisation des élites, tout en facilitant la fertilisation croisée des Afriques parallèles et incompatibles d’aujourd’hui. La traduction permet de nouer des liens affectifs positifs ; la véhicularité métaphorique de la traduction engendre une identité africaine hybride et collective qui renforcera l'intégration régionale, permettant ainsi de réduire, voire d’éliminer, la souffrance perpétuelle en Afrique. En revanche, la théorie et le modèle opérationnel de traduction institutionnelle pratiqués actuellement en Afrique, à la fois européens et pro-institutions, sont mal adaptés pour réduire la souffrance en Afrique. L’auteur propose donc une théorie et un modèle opérationnel de traduction institutionnelle pro-personnes pour l’Afrique. / This thesis is a reflection on how the European Union’s translational model could be adapted to alleviate what its author considers the main hurdle to Africa’s development, i.e. ethnolinguistic fragmentation. Written in English and comprising six chapters, it is thus at the crossroads of translation studies (its mainstay), language policy-making and development, and nurtured by works from those three disciplines. With over two thousand different languages, Africa is the epitome of ethnolinguistic fragmentation (the sheer number of languages, the proliferation of very small minority languages and the hundreds of linguistic groups that straddle two or more states), leading to low intercommunity linguistic bonding indices. In the African Babel, metropolitan European languages bind different tribes into nation states. However, less than a quarter of Africans speak the official languages. At the same time, access to the good things of life – employment, health care, justice and education – is tied to the ability to speak the official languages, leading to exclusion and non-participation. Africans do not access, create and disseminate (indigenous) knowledge in their own languages and there is very little cross-fertilisation of knowledges leading to the existence of many parallel and compartmentalised Africas. Regional integration, widely acclaimed as the solution to the African “growth tragedy”, has all but failed. Drawing from the example of the European Union, it is argued that institutional translation, through assurance, familiarization and hybridization, will make the good things of life accessible to all Africans, promote good governance through universal participation and elite accountability as well as facilitate the cross-fertilisation of compartmentalized Africas. This will reduce suffering in Africa thereby engendering positive affect, which in turn boosts the vehicularity of institutional translation. Institutional translation will ultimately help create a hybrid and collective African identity that will boost regional integration and alleviate, if not end, perennial suffering in Africa. The European institution-centred theory and practice model of institutional translation currently pertaining does not reduce suffering in Africa. An Africa-specific people-centred theory and practice model of institutional translation is outlined.

The translation of metaphors has been analyzed and discussed for several decades, but there are not many multilingual studies that examine how metaphors are translated. The present study takes a cognitive approach to metaphor and investigates how translators at the European Commission handle metaphorical expressions and the underlying conceptual metaphors in political discourse. The source text is the English language version of the policy document A European Agenda on Migration, and the Swedish and Spanish language versions of it are included as target texts. The study identifies the conceptual metaphors that conceptualize migration and other topics that are closely related to the European migrant and refugee crisis of 2015 and the translation procedures that are used. A total of six translation procedures were found in the target texts, and the most used procedure in the Spanish target text was to retain both the conceptual metaphor and the metaphorical expression, whereas the most used procedure in the Swedish target text was to replace the metaphorical expression with a completely different one and thereby using a different conceptual metaphor. The parallel analysis of all three language versions also revealed that non-metaphorical expressions in the source text were occasionally replaced with metaphorical expressions in the target texts, which proves that adding a conceptual metaphor is one of many translation procedures. The most frequently used source domains in the source text, i.e. water, enemy and applied force, were transferred to both target texts. Some source domains were eventually lost, but a couple of new ones, such as disease and weight, were added instead.

The aim of this master's thesis is to examine the topic of using style guides in institutional translation, especially in the context of translation in the EU institutions. The theoretical part of the thesis first defines institutional translation and then describes the topic of translation in the EU institutions and of translation manuals and style guides in institutional translation in general and specifically in the EU. The empirical part is focused on the analysis of the Interinstitutional Style Guide as a set of rules and guidelines used in institutional translation in the EU institutions; the IISG is also compared with the grammar and spelling rules of the Czech language in the Czech Internet Language Reference Book by the Czech Language Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences. The thesis examines the observance rate of those rules in the Czech language versions of legal documents published in the Official Journal of the EU from 2004 to 2020. The analysis is conducted in a corpus compiled of EU legislative texts through ApSic Xbench. The results of the analysis are then compared to the occurrence of the examined language phenomena in a corpus of original Czech legal documents. The findings shall contribute to the research of the specificities of institutional translation, especially to the...