SIGN4 and Conference list website changes

If you want to keep up on linguistics, interpreting and translation conferences internationally the place to go is Helge Niska’s List of conferences within translation, interpreting, LSP, and terminology.  Anyway, one that isn’t listed here is SIGN4, a conference on international sign languages and deaf communities.  It’s in New Delhi in December but I’m not able to go.

We will be in South Africa then at a completely different international conference, an International Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Pretoria (I keep forgetting what it is called now).

Literal interpreting

Interpreters are sometimes asked to do “literal interpreting” or”word-for-word” interpreting. These are foolish requests when a person is actually looking for the full depth of meaning to be conveyed. The more meaning is interpreted, the less literal the interpretation is. What is said in one language is so embedded in culture and syntax that a “literal” interpretation is almost meaningless in another.

A new book I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, by Jag Bhalla and published by National Geographic, illustrates this by setting out common phrases in diverse languages and offering their lexical equivalents in English.  The phrase in the title is the English equivalent of a Russian expression that means “I’m not pulling your leg.”

I came across an interview with the author while listening to PRI‘s The World which also, it seems also offers a weekly podcast on language called The World in Words.

Journal of Transcultural Nursing

New Issue is out (1 July 2009, Vol 20; No 3)

Here’s the Table of Contents:

Standards of Practice for Culturally Competent Nursing Care: A Request for Comments

Marilyn K. Douglas, Joan Uhl Pierce, Marlene Rosenkoetter, Lynn Clark Callister, Marianne Hattar-Pollara, Jana Lauderdale, June Miller, Jeri Milstead, Deena A. Nardi, and Dula Pacquiao

J Transcult Nurs 2009;20 257-269

When Family Means More (or Less) Than Genetics: The Intersection of Culture, Family, and Genomics

Barbara Burns McGrath and Karen L. Edwards

J Transcult Nurs 2009;20 270-277