Saturday, 9 June

14:50–15:50, PRESENTATION SESSIONS 1

14:50–15:20

Ellen Singer, Linguists and Laymen (Or: Fit for purpose)

General

Linguists tend to be so immersed in language that they are prone to forgetting that others are not swimming in the same waters. Language evolves through time. Texts do not all have to be works of art; sometimes fit-for-purpose is enough!

On the other hand, we practitioners need to make laymen understand that correct grammar, punctuation, etc is important.

This talk focuses on the discussions we have with laymen to indicate why our expertise trumps their expectations and why their priorities sometimes trump our preferences.

The idea is to present a few ideas and examples and then briefly discuss the issue with the room. We need to be conscious of the different sides of the coin to be able to discuss issues with customers properly.

This session is suitable for any person working with English texts.

 


About the presenter

Ellen SingerEllen Singer is a freelance translator with more than twenty years of experience as a full-time translator and project manager. She owns a small technical translation agency with her husband that focuses on quality. Ellen has been working with CAT tools since the 1990s. She loves challenges and knowledge and enjoys cooperating with others. A speaker of English, Spanish and Dutch, Ellen has been presenting at conferences since 2013. She has covered a wide range of topics, from technical translation to Donald Duck, from file conversion to QA, and even Why translate? She enjoys conferences and meeting other translators.