Lesson 17: Translation and thinking

Posted by Marta Stelmaszak Nov 21, 2011 in Big strategies, Getting started, Lessons

In our work as translators we have to deal with numerous problems every day. Here’s a sentence we don’t understand, here’s a word we can translate into 15 different equivalents, here’s a mistake we have made. Solving problems is our specialty, and one of our most precious tools. However, we don’t really pay attention to all different thinking processes we can use to tackle our problems. I’ve prepared this short synthesis concentrating on different thinking processes hoping that a reflection on our abilities will make the problem-solving process faster and more efficient.

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Practical thinking

This type of thinking focuses on the actual process of happening. You use your previous experience in translation and you try to solve practical problems based on your existing knowledge. It happens very often, doesn’t it? We use our experience to tackle new translation problems; we compare new problems with our library of already tested solutions.
Key word: experience

Convergent thinking

This kind of thinking uses all information and thinking processes from different domains and brings them to a common point. It is most commonly used when there are too many possible solutions and differing ideas, while you need to come up with only one choice. It’s like with some translation problems we come across: there’s so many procedures we can use, so many differing theories, while we have to find only one equivalent.
Key word: synthesis

Divergent thinking

It’s the other way round. You start with a translation problem and you move further away from it to find more and more creative and diverse solutions. This type of thinking lets you leave traditional (practical) ways of solving problems (that didn’t work out for some reason) and look for new ideas and perspectives. So, if you’re stuck with a really tough translation problem, start harvesting ideas from different domains or areas of your experience.
Key word: diversity

Critical thinking

It uses convergent thinking as a starting point, but then uses our experience, context, and criteria to assess ideas and choose the most appropriate solution. In critical thinking, you actually have to take a stand and be able to explain why you assumed that this solution is the best one. It happens very often during our translation degrees: we’re asked to translate and then critically explain our translation choices.
Key word: assessment

Inductive thinking

In this type of thinking, we start with parts of the issue and we work our way towards the whole. It’s like with understanding a complex sentence in legal English (my oyster): you can’t get it in one attempt, you need to go bit by bit in order to understand the whole sentence.
Key word: from parts to whole

Deductive thinking

This one works the other way round. It very often happens that we read a text we’re supposed to translate, we understand it all in general, but then we move on to analysing specific problems or solving particular dilemmas. And we solve them in the light of the whole text, using the most appropriate translation method.
Key word: from whole to parts

Comprehension thinking

This is our most commonly used type of thinking. It relates to understanding what on Earth the text is about. We concentrate and use all our powers to understand.
Key word: understand

Reflective thinking

Reflective thinking concentrates on what we know and believe. Being reflective makes us weigh up the reasons for our choices. And it also helps us in assessing our development, leads to improvement and introduces change.
Key word: reflection

Investigative thinking

Well, from time to time something goes wrong. If you delivered a text with an unusual number of mistakes and it’s been sent back to you, you need to act as a detective and investigate why so many things went wrong.
Key word: detective

Social thinking

It’s related to emotions, thoughts and beliefs of others. And this is what translation is largely about, isn’t it? We translate for certain audience and we need to know at least a bit about them to prepare a text that will fit into their society.
Key word: audience

Which one do you use most in your translations?

Marta Stelmaszak

Marta Stelmaszak is a translator between Polish and English, combining language skills with a thorough understanding of economics and business to help SMEs make as big an international impact as possible, providing translation and interpreting services for the legal, business and marketing sectors.