PUBLISHED ENGLISH TEXTS OF FOREIGN PERIODICALS

Abstract

I hope that no one here thinks that I have come along today to offer an alternative to the translation pools we heard about earlier this morning. On the contrary, I think that we need more pools and bigger ones. Nevertheless, although existing translation pools can be improved the point will eventually be reached when any further increase in the size and scope of a particular pooling system will result in it becoming so unwieldy that, from the user's point of view, it will be uneconomical either in terms of the cost of maintaining and using it, or in terms of the time taken to get an answer out of the system. To delay that time as long as possible I think we shall have to try to limit the rate of growth of these translation pools. One way of doing this would be to encourage the more extensive simultaneous publication of scientific texts in several languages. There is nothing new about this type of publication. For example, foreign authors may, if they wish, submit their manuscripts for publication in the regular English‐language journals. It is also common practice to find the papers of international conferences published in several languages and most people are familiar with the multi‐language Unesco publications and journals like Progressus which have been published in several languages for many years. In general, however, this practice has tended to be haphazard, but there is a notable exception in the case of the cover‐to‐cover translations of important Russian scientific journals. Here there has been a deliberate systematic approach and now there are about seventy of these publications appearing regularly. The rate of growth of these Russian cover‐to‐cover translations has been spectacular but this, I think, is the only peculiar thing about them. In point of fact the speed with which they have been launched merely reflects the speed with which we have all become uncomfortably aware of the high status of present‐day Russian research and technical development. The Russian translation situation, therefore, should not be regarded as an isolated or unusual phenomenon, and we should be prepared to see and encourage the growth of similar translating developments with other languages. We all know how quickly yesterday's underdeveloped countries can set up important scientific and technological research establishments, and, bearing this in mind, the necessity for a massive translating programme anologous to the Russian programme in a variety of languages which, hitherto, have not been very important for the communication of scientific information, may not be too far in the future. A detailed examination of the Russian translating situation will therefore be useful and may help us to decide how best to tackle the general translating problem.

Citation

HILL, E.G. (1960), "PUBLISHED ENGLISH TEXTS OF FOREIGN PERIODICALS", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 144-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb049739