Translation Project

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Translation Project

Background:

The Honour-Related Violence Project features a translation project.
The point of this is to translate material concerning the Honour-
Related Violence Project into the languages of its target groups.
Translated material covers subjects concerning everything from
violence against women to themes dealing with equality on a general
level. The material produced is mainly in Finnish but texts in other
languages are also welcome. The criteria for selecting materials are
their quality and the suitability of their content. One aim of the
translation project is to get young people interested in the broader
subject matter and to provide information on equality-related issues
in everyday life. The translated material is also intended to be of
use to other interested readers.

Production group:

The people involved in producing the translations are immigrants who
are interested in the Honour-Related Violence Project. The ideal, in
terms of the aims of the Honour-Related Violence Project, is to
involve as many women as possible in carrying it out. In practice,
anyone who is interested in the project can take part in it regardless
of age or gender. For the purposes of running the project we hope that
participants have relatively good language skills, though this is not
a prerequisite for taking part in it. The educational aim behind the
translation project extends to improving language skills. The person
running the project will oversee the linguistic quality of the texts
while the main task of others taking part in it will be to get a good
understanding of their contents.

Working method:

The project is being carried out in various ways, both by individuals
and in groups. The two approaches are guided by the project
coordinator. The point is to ensure that each person involved does the
work when and where it is most convenient. In the start-up phase
group work is best done on a voluntary basis, while in other
situations people are free to take part in the project on an
individual basis. In terms of the success of the project it’s
important that all participants are able to maximise their input – and
it’s with this in mind that we try to avoid creating a stressful
working environment. A key obstacle to good cooperation can be a sense
of mistrust between people of different sexes. Cooperation has to give
special attention to ensuring that participants get to know one
another and overcome any mistrust based on gender. In other words, it
is through the results of working on similar tasks that participants
get to know about one another’s interests and in this way cooperation
proceeds smoothly. The project coordinator also has a mediating role
in this respect.

Actual translation work is just one part of the project. The
translation process is carried out in different phases. The procuring
or material, assessing and selecting what to use form the first phase.
This stage enables people to learn about the existing information kept
by the Honour-Related Violence Project, but it also enables young
people to improve their critical faculties: there has to be a good
reason why each text suggested for translation should be selected for
the project. This stage of the work is carried out in interaction
between the coordinator and the translation group or individual
translator. Ideally, this stage will become as broad a form of
cooperation as possible between different people. It ends with the
actual start of translation work by each group or individual. As the
translation work proceeds the coordinator follows its progress from
afar but is always available to offer help when needed.

The third stage in the process starts once the texts have been
translated. After each translation is completed the translators write
a short analysis of the text’s contents. In the future we will also
assess the translated texts in relation to other matters. Discussion
on text contents is an essential part of the overall goals of the
translation project.

At the final stage the project coordinator checks the language of each
text to ensure there is consistency in the material’s contents and its
linguistic style.

Other tasks:

In future it will be possible to extend the forms of the translation
project. Translation work can be understood in a broad framework. It
is not simply a matter of putting one language into another but
involves the translation of values and ideas from abstract forms to a
written one. In this sense, within the project’s framework, and
addition to translation in a narrow sense, it is possible to write
articles or conduct research.

Publicatio of translated texts:

The Honour-Related Violence’s homepage is the main site for publishing
translated texts. These will also useful for the project’s radio
programmes. Possible collaboration with other websites will make it
possible to ensure that the translated texts are available to people
other than those who check out the Honour-Related Violence Project’s
pages. Translated texts may also be published in newspapers, and
sequential texts could also be published as a collection in book form
as part of the output of the Honour-Related Violence Project.



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