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STAR – Your single-source provider for corporate product communication March 2009 American Translators Association Volume XXXVIII 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590 • Alexandria VA 22314 USA Tel: +1-703-683-6100 • Fax: +1-703-683-6122 Number 3 Contents March 2009 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.atanet.org A Publication of the American Translators Association 12 Grow Your Client Base, Increase Your Rates, and Make LSPs Love You: A How-to By Terena Bell and Madalena Sánchez 12 Learn how translators can grow their client base, increase rates over time, and become a language service provider’s go-to person. 16 Translation in Every Classroom: Stepping into the Center for the Art of Translation’s Poetry Inside Out School Program By Marty Rutherford, Olivia Sears, and Sarah Valor By combining literary translation and poetry in urban classrooms, we can address our nation’s growing multilingual population while increasing students’ literacy skills. 20 Capturing an Elusive Truth— and Earning Recognition for It, Too By Jill Timbers (with passages by Kersti Juva) Finnish literary translator Kersti Juva is the first translator ever appointed Artist Professor by the Arts Council of Finland, an award which brings recognition to the entire field of literary translation. 24 Environmental Translation: Market Overview By Patrick Oblander An introduction to the field of environmental translation, including an overview of the documents in demand and some of the skills you will need to work in this area. 16 24 Columns and Departments 6 Our Authors 37 Certification Exam Information 7 From the President 37 New ATA-Certified Members and 9 From the Executive Director Active Membership Review 30 Upcoming Events 38 Success By Association 31 Business Smarts 39 Dictionary Review 32 GeekSpeak 42 The Translation Inquirer 34 Certification Forum 44 Humor and Translation 36 Member News 46 Directory of Language Services 3 The ATA Chronicle (ISSN 1078-6457) is published monthly, except bi-monthly in November/December, by the American Translators Association, 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA. Periodicals postage paid at Alexandria, Virginia, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The ATA Chronicle, 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA. The American Translators Association (ATA) was We Want You! established in 1959 as a not-for-profit professional society to foster and support the professional development of translators and interpreters and to promote the translation and interpreting professions. The subscription rate for a member is $43 (included The ATA Chronicle enthusiastically encourages in the dues payment). The U.S. subscription rate for a nonmember is $65. Subscribers in Canada and members and nonmembers to submit articles of Mexico add $25; all other non-U.S. subscribers add interest. For Submission Guidelines, log onto $45. Single copies are available for $7 per issue. ©2009 American Translators Association www.atanet.org/chronicle. The ATA Chronicle is published 11 times per year, with a combined Reprint Permission: November/December issue. Submission deadlines are two months Requests for permission to reprint articles should be sent to the editor of The ATA Chronicle at [email protected]. prior to publication date. Editor Jeff Sanfacon [email protected] Proofreader Sandra Burns Thomson Art Directors Ellen Banker Amy Peloff Advertising Advertising Matt Hicks McNeill Group Inc. Directory [email protected] +1-215-321-9662 ext. 19 Fax: +1-215-321-9636 Executive Director Walter Bacak [email protected] Membership and Across Systems Monterey Institute of General Information 5 www.across.net 33 International Studies Maggie Rowe http://translate.miis.edu/ndp [email protected] Association of Language website: www.atanet.org 11 Companies Multilingual Group www.alcus.org 33 www.multilingualgroup.org Moving? 47 Central Intelligence Agency Star Group America, LLC Find an error with www.cia.gov 2 www.star-group.net your address? Send updates to: The ATA Chronicle 225 Reinekers Lane Suite 590 Alexandria, VA 22314 USA Fax +1-703-683-6122 [email protected] 4 The ATA Chronicle I March 2009 We chose Across. And so did more than 7,000 of our colleagues. Now it is your turn. FREE OF CHARGE As a freelance translator, REGISTER NOW to get your Our commitment to innovative, customer-driven and easy to use software free full version of the solutions has made us what we are today: the first choice for all parties Across Personal Edition. within the linguistic supply chain. Follow your successful colleagues and www.my-across.net choose the Across Personal Edition now. » Powerful multi-format translation editor » Translation memory and terminology system » Quality assurance and project management Across Systems, Inc. Phone +1 877 922 7677 [email protected] Across Systems GmbH Phone +49 7248 925 425 The No. 1 independent technology [email protected] for the linguistic supply chain. www.my-across.net AZ_ATA_12/08.indd 1 02.12.2008 9:37:41 Uhr Our Authors March 2009 Terena Bell is the chief executive her time between the Center for the Art of Translation and the officer of In Every Language in University of California, Davis teacher education program. Contact: Louisville, Kentucky. She has a BA in [email protected]. English from Centre College and an MA in French from the University of Madalena Sánchez is the interpreting Louisville. coordinator for In Every Language in Louisville, Kentucky. She holds an MA in Spanish from the University of Louisville, where she is also a part-time Kersti Juva has been translating litera- Spanish instructor. ture and plays from English into Finnish for over 35 years. She has won many awards for her work, and, in September 2008, became the first translator ever Olivia E. Sears is president and founder of the Center for the Art appointed Artist Professor by the of Translation in San Francisco. She works closely with TWO LINES national Arts Council of Finland. World Writing in Translation publications and the Lit&Lunch program Contact: [email protected]. at the Center. A poet and translator of Italian, she specializes in medieval and Renaissance poetry. Contact: Patrick Oblander is a freelance ATA-certified Japanese¡English [email protected]. translator in Portland, Oregon. With training in both Japan regional studies (BA, University of Washington) and forestry (MS, Oregon Jill Timbers translates from Finnish into English. Her specializa- State University), he has provided translation services since 1994 tions are forestry and the forest products industry, scholarly publi- to clients concerned with the natural resources and environment of cations, and literature. She is ATA-certified from Finnish and French Japan and beyond. These clients include government agencies docu- into English. Contact: [email protected]. menting ecological impact, landowners applying for international sustainability certification, and industries seeking to boost their Sarah Valor uses her expertise in rhetoric and language acquisi- public image while reducing their environmental footprint. Contact: tion, along with 10 years of experience working in public educa- [email protected]. tion, to enhance her understanding of school policy and pedagogical issues. Her fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, and Marty Rutherford is an expert in language acquisition and lit- Catalan further augment her understanding of translation in eracy, with a 30-year career in education as a public school classroom settings. Contact: [email protected]. teacher, researcher, and curriculum developer. She currently splits ATA’s Court Interpreting and Translation Seminar Enter ATA’s School Outreach Contest April 25-26, 2009 www.atanet.org/ata_school/school _outreach_contest.php Find out how you can win a free registration ONLINE to ATA’s 50th Annual Conference with your Bubble NOW session in the classroom! Register for ATA’s Court Interpreting Windows Visit and Translation Seminar www.atanet.org www.atanet.org/pd/court Don’t miss this unique opportunity to enhance your skills and advance your career! NXTwww.star-transit.net 6 The ATA Chronicle I March 2009 From the President Jiri Stejskal [email protected] Our Strengths: Conference, Size, Headquarters In the last issue we reviewed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) identified by the Board during the It is no surprise that ATA’s Annual Conference came up January Planning Day. However, identification of these individual com- at the top. In the past 10 years, each of our annual ponents is not the sole purpose of the SWOT analysis; rather, it is an impor- gatherings has attracted between 1,200 and 2,000 tant step toward the goal of identi- fying strategic options. Strengths, attendees from dozens of countries, making it the which are internal to the organization, should be used to maximize the largest event in the translation and interpreting opportunities and minimize threats in the external environment.