Daria Cavallini

From the Typewriter to the Internet: New Tools for the Translator *

I am going to talk about something very practical, that is to say my professional experience as a
translator and a craftswoman who works with languages. I have been doing this job for over twenty
years and I consider myself very lucky for having had the opportunity to grow professionally and
personally in a crucial period in terms of technological evolution.
Among other things, this evolution enabled translators to significantly increase productivity,
which is a very important aspect of freelance work. Many things have changed since when I started
my career as a professional translator in the early 1980s. At that time, we used to have big
envelopes going back and forth from one office to the other since we had no fax or e-mail. My
translations as a student at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators in Milan as well as
my early jobs after graduation were done in a number of very slow stages: handwriting the rough
draft, editing the translation and then typing it on a manual typewriter, using carbon paper to make
copies. Just to give you an idea, it took me an average of eight working hours to type ten pages
containing 25 lines by 60 strokes each, despite the fact that I could type with all ten fingers. The
word processing software packages available today make it possible to avoid all these stages and
you can change and amend your translation up to the very last moment before delivery, until you
are really satisfied with the result. My daily average output today, depending on the type of
translation and the degree of difficulty, ranges from 10 to 12 pages of «finished product».
My other working tools were a few dictionaries. Things at that time were slightly more
complicated than they are today. At the beginning of my freelance career, I was on a very tight
budget – which is not uncommon when you start working – and every time I needed a new
dictionary I had to think twice before I bought it. Those were the days when translators were almost
entirely dictionary-dependent, because there were basically no other sources available, and I often
found myself hating dictionaries and all their intrinsic limitations. This was due both to my own
lack of professional experience and to the way information itself was organized in dictionaries and
provided to the user. Last but not least, I had too few dictionaries, which could not possibly cover
all the specialist fields that I came across in my profession.
Broadly speaking, the most obvious problem for a translator is when you look up something in a
dictionary and «you can’t find it». Maybe you don’t find the word, because it is not included in the
wordlist, or the dictionary omits a specific meaning, or you are not happy with the proposed
equivalent. Sometimes you have to translate an idiomatic expression, and if the dictionary does not
offer any solution, you end up decoding it on a word for word basis, which can lead to serious
mistakes. I am sure many of you have experienced this kind of «frustration».
The problem of not finding the word needed was, and perhaps is, the most difficult one to solve.
In my professional life as a freelancer I have done translations of all kinds, and for a very simple
reason: early on in your career, you can hardly afford «to choose». And there came the problem of
working tools. Of course you could not buy a specific dictionary for each topic that you had to deal
with in a translation (even supposing that this could solve all problems)… – translations that ranged
from mechanics and engineering to medicine, from finance and economics to consumer electronics,
just to name a few. The problem of specialist lexicons was quite tricky, and often tanslators had no
choice but to ask so-called experts in the different fields, who could be friends, acquaintances or the
clients themselves.
When you come across specialist lexicons, it is of utmost importance to be able to access a wide
range of sources, which was such a difficult thing to do until a few years ago. Nowadays, these
problems can be solved partially through the use of the Internet and of other lexicographic and non-
lexicographic resources. In the past, it was not infrequent for a translator to feel «lost» when faced
with specialist language; today, most terminology problems can potentially be solved, even if this

*
This paper is a revised summary of my presentation at the round table. The general tone is therefore informal.
means surfing the net through company websites and translators’ forums or following unusual
paths, which can be time-consuming on the one hand, but interesting and professionally very
rewarding on the other. Of course, looking up a word and finding everything we need in the
dictionary is a lot easier: it means someone else has done the «dirty job» for us. But we should be
aware that all of us possess the tools to find information. Just think of the enormous quantity of
texts and essays that we can access online, including the possibility of finding images through
search engines and even glancing through books. The Internet brings the world to our computer
screens. It is up to us to make the most of this invaluable resource. Whatever we need, we are more
likely to find it than not, provided we can rely on a sound research method that should go hand in
hand with good contrasting and translating skills.
Just to give you a couple of examples, in 2002 I translated Globalization and its Discontents, by
Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz 1. It was an extremely interesting professional experience,
which gave me the opportunity to learn and study a lot. Of course Professor Stiglitz wrote his book
for American readers, which means that he did not feel the need to explain concepts or expressions
that were certainly clear for them, but not equally obvious for Italian readers, however cultivated
they might be. I should also point out that this book was meant for the general public, therefore the
Italian publisher Einaudi attached great importance to making it as clear as possible also for non-
specialists. This is the reason why I introduced translator’s notes whenever I felt that something
might not be readily or fully understandable because of cultural differences. In Chapter Three,
which focussed on the so-called trickle-down economics, I came across the following sentence (p.
78): «It is not true that “a rising tide lifts all boats”». As I did not know this English expression, I
launched a search in Google and obtained as many as 59,000 results. This fact made me think that it
must be a famous phrase, but it didn’t ring a bell with me. So I drilled down and found out that this
expression is associated with John F. Kennedy, who coined it when faced with criticism that his tax
cuts would benefit mostly wealthy individuals. A JFK quote is part of the American heritage, and if
you simply translate it into Italian without explaining what lies behind it, you don’t do a good
service to the Italian reader. So I decided to add a translator’s note explaining that it was a metaphor
used by John Kennedy to uphold his view with respect to tax cuts.
Metafora utilizzata da John Kennedy nell’esporre le proprie argomentazioni a favore di una
riduzione delle imposte che, a suo modo di vedere, avrebbe potuto aiutare i poveri molto più di
altri interventi di ridistribuzione della ricchezza. [N.d.T.] (Stiglitz 2002, p. 87, note 6) 2.

Another case that I would like to mention has to do with the expression fallacy of composition. It
is a mistake that is made when the properties of the parts of a whole are falsely ascribed to the
whole. In Chapter Four (p. 116), Professor Stiglitz wrote that «the [International Monetary] Fund
made the kind of mistake that we warn students about in the first course in economics, called “the
fallacy of composition”». Of course I was unable to find a translation in my dictionaries – despite
the fact that they have increased in number over the years – and again I resorted to the Internet to
find a solution. First of all, I tried to find out whether we had a translation for this in Italian. The
typical trick is to “google” the expression in inverted commas, plus one possible Italian word that
could be included in the translation. In this case, “fallacy of composition” + composizione. By so
doing, I got 8 results (very few, indeed) from which I was able to conclude that the possible Italian
translations were errore di composizione and fallacia di (or della) composizione. At this point, I felt
the need to compare the frequency of fallacy of composition in English (53,600 results) with that of
fallacia di composizione (22 results), fallacia della composizione (13 results) and errore di
composizione (81 results, but not all of them relevant to my case). The great difference in the
number of results in English and Italian pages led me to think that this expression is in common use
1
J. E. STIGLITZ, Globalization and Its Discontents, W. W. Norton, New York 2002 [trad. it. La globalizzazione e i suoi
oppositori, Einaudi, Torino 2002].
2
Metaphor used by John Kennedy in explaining his view in favour of a tax cut which he thought would be able to help
the poor much more than other policies of wealth redistribution. [Translator’s note].

2
in English-speaking countries, but its direct translation into Italian would be meaningful for
probably just a handful of specialists. Again, I opted for a translator’s note:

Quando si commette un errore di fallacy of composition, si parte dal presupposto che ciò che
è vero per i singoli componenti del sistema sia vero anche per il sistema nel suo complesso.
(Per esempio, A e B sono due ottimi cantanti. Insieme faranno uno splendido duo). [N.d.T.]
(Stiglitz 2002, p. 133, note 16) 3.

I really cannot imagine how I would have reached a satisfactory solution say fifteen years ago.
What books would I have consulted to find out who coined the sentence in the first example or to
understand the meaning of fallacy of composition?
Thankfully, today we have very many tools that can help us make up for the dictionary’s limits,
which are also due to the impossibility of keeping pace with the continuous evolution of language
and specialist jargons. It would be insane to even think that the dictionary alone can solve all the
translators’ problems or contain every possible word or expression they may need, but this does not
mean that now we can do without this working tool, which is still a vital one.
Whoever chooses to be a translator needs to be able to draw on a vast store of knowledge – not
only linguistic but cultural as well –, which is essential for in-depth comprehension. It is very
important to use a good bilingual dictionary – better still if it offers grammatical, etymological and
encyclopaedic notes which can help the user understand a text written in a foreign language. This is
particularly true for intermediate users, who may not be able to carry out in-depth Internet research,
but nevertheless need more detailed information on culturally relevant topics than just an equivalent
in terms of translation. And of course it is equally if not more important to write correctly in our
own mother tongue. That’s why we cannot and should not do without a good Italian dictionary,
where we should look up words exactly as we do for English, French, German or any other
language.
Going back to the central theme of our round table – «What dictionaries for the translator?» –,
well, my suggestion is: «All of them». All of them because the benefits of one dictionary make up
for the shortcomings of the other; because maybe you don’t find what you are looking for, but you
can reach a solution summing up the hints from various sources.
Some of you are about to start their careers as professional translators in an era where finding
information is no more a problem. Don’t we live in the «society of information»? But of course,
there are two sides to everything and sometimes too much information can be confusing or
misleading. For this reason it is essential to possess not only in-depth linguistic knowledge, but also
a sound method for selecting and organizing information. This is the challenge for the future. And if
you want to succeed in this job, never forget that translation is mainly a work of patience. So, no
hurry and good luck to you all.

3
The fallacy of composition is the erroneous view that what is true for the parts will also be true for the whole. (For
instance, A and B are excellent singers. They will form an excellent duo). [Translator’s note].