A source of light

Translation Center, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

As we all know, language is, in most cases, far more than just a number of symbols and expressions. Instead, language is a reflection of a nation’s civilization, its unique thinking and behavior patterns and its geographic location as well.

我们都知道，在大多数情况下，语言不仅仅是一系列象征和表现形式。相反，语言能够反映一个国家的文明程度、独特的思维与行为模式以及地理位置。

As a result, translators must do more than merely translating from one language to the other. Translators are also playing the roles of editors and copywriters, as they need to polish their translated work and make it sound as natural and elegant as possible in the target language. Here arises an inevitable dilemma for translators, as they are expected to be faithful to the original language and are usually not encouraged to change the content and sentence orders in the original language and are thus influenced by the original language. That’s why many knowledgeable Chinese call translators “dancers with shackles”. Most of the time, translated texts are slightly, if not too much, different from those directly written by a native copywriter due to different ways of thinking and structure development. At Illuminant, to maintain the high quality of our translation work, our language team always tries its best to offset the abovementioned influences by polishing the text afterwards and by always having a designated internal third party to contribute as a polisher to proofread our finished translation work in an objective manner.

因此，译员要做的不仅仅是将一种语言翻译到另一种语言。他们同时还发挥着编辑和撰稿人的作用，因为他们需要润色自己的翻译成果，从而尽可能地使翻译的目标语言变得自然而优雅。而译员在这里就难免陷入一种困境，因为他们仍然需要忠实于原文，不轻易变更原文的内容或是语句的排列顺序，所以他们将或多或少受到原始语言的影响。这就是为什么人们将译员称为 “带着枷锁的舞者” 。在大多数情况下，翻译出来的文本与直接撰写的文案，二者有一定的区别，这是因为不同的语言总是有不同的思维方式和文章构架。为了尽量减少上述影响，在朔光，我们翻译团队总是尽力保证在翻译完成之后对译文进行润色与审译，并在交稿之前让其他同事以客观的角度再次审查译文，从而保持翻译工作的质量。

So our translation procedure is usually consisted of three parts: translatio； internal proofreading and polishing； external polishing, before we hand our work over to our clients, and from time to time, post-translation communication with clients is carried out to best understand and satisfy our clients’ specific needs and requirements.

因此，我们的翻译工作程序通常包括三个部分：翻译；翻译团队内部的校对与润色；其他同事的审译（有时是我们亲爱的媒体部门的同事）。另外，我们会不时地与客户展开积极的沟通，从而更好地了解并满足他们的特殊要求与需要。

Also, the Illuminant language team takes pride in a number of house glossaries we have compiled for each of our major clients based on their specific fields, such as architecture, mining, high-tech, tourism, and other sectors which our agency is expert in. Glossaries are very important for all of our language-related work at Iluminant, because most of our clients are long-term retainer-based and thus keeping our copywriting and choice of words professional, accurate and consistent is a key priority for our language work. That’s when our glossaries come into play: ensuring accuracy and consistency.

此外，令翻译团队倍感骄傲的是我们针对主要客户以及他们所处的领域而汇编的词汇表，这些领域涉及建筑、矿业、高科技等等。这些词汇表对朔光而言，是一种非常重要的语言工具。这是因为我们的大多数客户都是长期客户，所以保持语言服务的准确性、一致性与专业性是语言工作的重中之重。而通过使用我们所编撰的词汇表，我们就可以简易地找到过去使用的所有专业词汇以及它们的特殊用途。

Graceful language and elegant wording is always appreciated and enjoyed like a refined art. But there are occasional cases where clients don’t want their copywriting – words that powerfully represent themselves and their products – to be “high-brow”. In other words, they want “plain” language to represent them (in the Western sense, this might be thought of as “tabloid” language). When this happens, we will actively communicate with them to know about their specific needs and “play down” our choice of words accordingly, in order to cater to their special requirements. After all, clients’ needs and satisfaction form the priority. But the good news is: most clients LOVE beautiful language the way they appreciate refined arts.

优美的语言、典雅的措辞，如同精致的艺术一般，是一种愉悦的欣赏与享受。但是，有时有些客户却不希望我们为他们撰写的文案太过“风雅” 。换句话说，他们希望用“平实”的语言来表达自己。在这种情况下，我们将积极地与他们展开沟通，从而了解他们的具体需求，并在措辞方面为他们量体裁衣，以满足他们的特殊要求。毕竟，客户的需求与满意是市场经济的重点所在。而好消息就是：我们的大多数客户，正如喜爱精致的艺术一般，也喜爱美丽的言辞。

Article by Illuminant’s head of language services, Monica Lin （林敏）

Chinese print media, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

Illuminant Partners, as a world-class public relations and strategic communications agency in China and Hong Kong, implements our disciplined methodology to every communications project we undertake. One important hallmark of our work is high-quality copywriting in English, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese/Hong Kong Chinese.

Our view of the important writer’s tool, the inverted pyramid, is as follows.

The Inverted Pyramid

Traditionally when you write, you begin with an introduction and foundation and gradually build to a conclusion. In journalism, however, you use an inverted pyramid style. Journalists generally begin with the main conclusions and progressively include more details:

* Conclusion
* Supporting information and relevant details
* Background and technical details

What is the inverted pyramid?

To understand what the inverted pyramid means imagine and upside-down triangle. The narrow point is at the bottom, while the widest point is at the top. The widest point contains the most newsworthy information in the news story. The narrow end represents the least newsworthy information. Begin by telling the reader the conclusion, follow with the most important supporting information, and then give the background.

Deciding what information is important is actually quite logical. If, for instance, you are describing your chance meeting with the Australian prime minister to your friends, you would not begin your story with inconsequential details such as: ‘I woke up late and had to skip breakfast,” and then add, “so on my way to work I stopped for coffee at Starbucks and standing in line in front of me was the prime minister!” In fact, you would be so excited that you’d begin your story with: I just met the Australian prime minister standing in line at Starbucks. That would be the “lead” to your story and this would be followed by the next most important information and finally the smaller details such as what you both were wearing. The lead is the news story opening paragraph. All good leads summarize the ‘what,’ ‘where,’ ‘when,’ ‘who,’ ‘why,’ and ‘how’ of a story.

A practical example.

Here are some basic facts for a news story:

An accident happened.
An airplane crashed.
Happened last night—Sunday night at 9pm.
Happened in Los Beach, California, 2 miles south of Los Angeles International airport.
Airplane was a twin engine plane. It was a Cessna 310.
Pilot was killed.
The only passenger in the aircraft also killed.

Pilot name is John Smith.
Passenger identity unknown.
Plane crashed 50 meters from the Pier.
Plane was headed to San Diego, California.
Air traffic control said pilot lost control of the aircraft.
Pilot had 50 years experience.

The lead would contain the following information:

A twin-engine plane crashed near Long Beach pier Sunday killing the pilot and the sole passenger.

The next paragraph would give more details of the accident:

The Cessna 310 went down just before 9 p.m. approximately 50 meters south of the popular Long Beach pier only minutes after taking off from Long Beach airport.

The next paragraph would give more details about the victims:

According to air traffic control, the pilot, 50 year-old John Smith of Portland, Oregon, lost control of the aircraft resulting in the death of the only passenger on board.

Other details would be included in the final paragraph:

Smith was a veteran pilot of over 50 years. The identity of the passenger is still unknown. The plane was en route to San Diego.

Note the use of transitions that both connect to the previous paragraphs and add details.

Why use the inverted pyramid?

In the journalism field, editors often must make a story a particular length. As deadlines are inflexible and timeliness urgent, if a story is written in an inverted pyramid format, editors will simply trim the story from the bottom up until it matches the required length. The editor can do so knowing that all vital information will be contained in the beginning of the story. Also worth noting is that paragraphs are deliberately kept short. Short paragraphs best deliver information and looks best when typeset in a narrow column.

While especially useful in story writing, using the inverted pyramid format is useful for any writing that must make an important point quickly and clearly.

Woods Bagot full-page ad for China Connections magazine 2008-01, originally uploaded by Illuminant Partners.

Illuminant Partners provides commericial and communications support to our clients by the design and implementation of public relations campaigns. Our campaigns commonly include proactive media articles, feature and column insertions, event design and implementation, market research, government relations, and other below the line activities. It is not often we get a chance to go through the line and deliver good old-fashioned advertising for our clients.

One of our favourite clients, the multinational architectural services firm Woods Bagot recently briefed us to create a press advertisement as a part of our ongoing China market awareness campaign for them. Our client doesn’t often use above the line techniques, but the special issue of Australia China Connections made sense — the January/February issue (with a special architectural and building services feature) would reach a key target market segment with comparatively little wastage.

After taking the communications and business objectives for the ongoing campaign into consideration, and thinking about the readership and competing advertising and editorial, we recommended an old-fashioned long copy ad (in an homage to the great, late David Ogilvy) in an attempt to break through the clutter of the typical advertising style in the publication, and to tell Woods Bagot’s authentically good and interesting story.

Our client is great: they had the bravery to approve an ad that was distinctly different from the typical advertising style in their sector. We’ll be doing some recall testing on the ad once the issue has been in circulation for a few weeks.