Translation in media, interpreting and advertising

Different fields use different registers: law, science, technology and medicine each have their own terms, while literary translation needs a feel for the target culture.

News translation is usually 'free': the goal is to communicate the news, so faithfulness to content matters more than elegance. Facts are verified before transfer; bad translation from local languages produces howlers and distorted stories, so reporters should draw on many languages.

Dubbing matches translated dialogue to the actors' lip movements and gestures; subtitles are synchronised captions kept as close to the original as possible. Poor translation can make a serious, even tragic, scene sound comic.

Interpreters translate on the spot so conversations can continue — in multilingual institutions and between ambassadors and leaders — so they must be strongly bilingual or multilingual.

Advertising informs and persuades; an advertisement made for one region may fail in another because of language and culture, so it must be translated or recreated, sometimes even into a dialect. Governments too issue the same notices in many languages.