| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8] > | Second opinion needed on grammar Thread poster: Mirella Biagi
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 20:51
Spanish to English
+ ...
The first one (The Agent declares to have understood...) is so unwieldy and awkward that I consider it to be wrong, and even if it turns out not to be stricly "wrong" grammatically, I think it'd most likely be useless to all intents and purposes. If the verb was "claim" (The Agent claims to have understood...) then it would be correct grammatically, but "declare" doesn't quite pan out so nicely IMHO.
The 2nd option ( Agent declares that he has understood...) is OK, although I'd loo... See more The first one (The Agent declares to have understood...) is so unwieldy and awkward that I consider it to be wrong, and even if it turns out not to be stricly "wrong" grammatically, I think it'd most likely be useless to all intents and purposes. If the verb was "claim" (The Agent claims to have understood...) then it would be correct grammatically, but "declare" doesn't quite pan out so nicely IMHO.
The 2nd option ( Agent declares that he has understood...) is OK, although I'd look for a better way to express it too, if it came up in one of my texts. ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 20:51
Spanish to English
+ ...
Sheila Wilson wrote:
My preference in this particular context would be for a third option: The agent declares having understood. I believe that's grammatically correct - it is to me, anyway.
Whether it's grammatically correct or not, I don't like it. It feels as if there's something missing. I'm sure there must be a better way to express it.... but am rather busy with my own stuff right now. May look at it later.
| | | | Giles Watson 
Italy
Local time: 20:51
Italian to English
In memoriam
Janet Rubin wrote:
Since gender-neutral construction has certainly caught on in the English-speaking world - even though it may not be popular with everyone everywhere - I would argue that using such a construction is perfectly appropriate in an English translation even if it is not used in the source text. (The exception being, of course, if the contract is referring to a particular person who is known to be male or female)
Fair enough but only if you really have to (and you do sometimes). My point was that "he or she" creates a gender distinction that does not exist in the original text.
What I did understand was the dictionary definition of "hereby" (when I looked it up just to be sure), which (IMHO) doesn't appear to leave room to use it with the verb "understand", unless the contract is the actual means for making someone understand something...
That's what I meant by "performative". The agent is acknowledging awareness of the content "by, through or from the fact or circumstance of" (the OED definition of "hereby") signing the contract.
| | | | | Acknowledging vs. understanding (aka beating a dead horse) ;-) | Nov 20, 2013 |
Giles Watson wrote:
That's what I meant by "performative". The agent is acknowledging awareness of the content "by, through or from the fact or circumstance of" (the OED definition of "hereby") signing the contract.
Ahhhh, see to me, there is a definite distinction between "acknowledging" (even acknowledging awareness) and "understanding" - I don't think you can use one to explain or replace the other. We can definitely "hereby acknowledge" in English, but I would stand by my *opinion* that we cannot "hereby understand".
[Edited at 2013-11-20 16:33 GMT]
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Kirsten Bodart
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:51
Dutch to English
+ ...
| my 2 cents too | Nov 20, 2013 |
I don't think 'declares to have understood' is wrong per se, but I wouldn't use it in a legal text as it is better to be clear and hyper-correct.
As to the gender issue, as someone said on the first page of this discussion, in contracts it is perfectly acceptable to use only 'he'. Why would you want to add another pronoun if you can use only one, by law?
Personally I find 'understand hereby' also a bit weird. You can't understand something by virtue of, you can declare ... See more I don't think 'declares to have understood' is wrong per se, but I wouldn't use it in a legal text as it is better to be clear and hyper-correct.
As to the gender issue, as someone said on the first page of this discussion, in contracts it is perfectly acceptable to use only 'he'. Why would you want to add another pronoun if you can use only one, by law?
Personally I find 'understand hereby' also a bit weird. You can't understand something by virtue of, you can declare you have understood it or acknowledge it, make it known, announce it that you have understood and agree with it, but you just can't understand it that way.
I always find it unwise to change anything in the meaning of contracts, as you are dealing with legal issues in the source most of the time, so you just can't assume something will mean the same if you change the meaning. We also use 'declare' where it is called for. What should we use otherwise?
[Edited at 2013-11-21 15:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | The little grammar problem with declare | Nov 20, 2013 |
Kirsten Bodart wrote: I don't think 'declares to have understood' is wrong per say, ... We also use 'declare' where it is called for. What should we use otherwise?
I'm not going to argue against "declare" per se, but the question is a good one. I believe the answer, depending on the particular situation, can be "acknowledge" or "affirm", or even in some cases "represent and warrant" (very standard contract legalese).
aruna yallapragada wrote: I can't understand why the first is sentence is wrong. Isn't it a case of to have + participle? Or am I confusing it with something else?
As for the grammar problem that some people don't quite get (and I can't blame anyone since I don't know exactly how to explain it myself), try this with substitution.
We would not say in English:
"The Agent affirms to have understood"
"The Agent acknowledges to have understood"
"The Agent represents and warrants to have understood"
Since the "sense" of the word "declare" is basically similar to if not necessarily 100% synonymous with these verbs, it stands to reason that the grammar that can be used is also the same.
"The Agent affirms that he/she/it (translator's preference) understands..."
"The Agent represents and warrants that he/she/it understands..."
"The Agent declares that he/she/it understands..."
I'd welcome a more technical explanation from anyone else!
| | | | LEXpert
United States
Local time: 13:51
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
| Why are we assuming... | Nov 20, 2013 |
that the agent is even an individual, rather than itself a legal entity (in which case neither "he" nor "she" is appropriate or adequate?
| | | | Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 20:51
Italian to English
In memoriam
Janet Rubin wrote:
We would not say in English:
"The Agent affirms to have understood"
"The Agent acknowledges to have understood"
"The Agent represents and warrants to have understood"
All of the above verbs, like "declare", can be used both transitively and intransitively. If they are construed as intransitive, the "to" looks as if it has final force and the "have" could even be interpreted as causative (i.e. "affirms to have understood that" = "affirms in order for it to be understood that"), something a pernickety lawyer might try to exploit.
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Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 11:51
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
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| Declares that ... | Nov 20, 2013 |
'Declare' takes a 'that' clause, not an infinitive clause.
| | | | | Unintentionally sexist language | Nov 20, 2013 |
We had this exact discussion at university today: whether there are things we as translators can do to make a text non-sexist. While writers of specialised documents do not intend to be sexist, the fact is that quite often they are. As translators, by using a language that prevents the use of the (historically more frequent) masculine form, we can probably influence a more equal society.
Therefore, I would favour option 1, which while a bit awkward alright, has the benefit of not be... See more We had this exact discussion at university today: whether there are things we as translators can do to make a text non-sexist. While writers of specialised documents do not intend to be sexist, the fact is that quite often they are. As translators, by using a language that prevents the use of the (historically more frequent) masculine form, we can probably influence a more equal society.
Therefore, I would favour option 1, which while a bit awkward alright, has the benefit of not being sexist.
[Edited at 2013-11-20 20:16 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kirsten Bodart
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:51
Dutch to English
+ ...
| It is not about being sexist or not | Nov 20, 2013 |
It is about not making the language you are using unwieldy.
I would think that the use of 'he' is this dated very formal version of English has remained from times when these words still had a real word gender, as is still the case in other languages. The same as a ship is still called 'she'. The word gender (in this case Agent = he) has nothing to do with the gender of the person or entity behind it, it has to do with referring to the word itself. We feel it should be a he. That's ... See more It is about not making the language you are using unwieldy.
I would think that the use of 'he' is this dated very formal version of English has remained from times when these words still had a real word gender, as is still the case in other languages. The same as a ship is still called 'she'. The word gender (in this case Agent = he) has nothing to do with the gender of the person or entity behind it, it has to do with referring to the word itself. We feel it should be a he. That's not sexist, it is just like that. Unless you are really referring to a person and not a concept (like in a contract), the geneder you are referring to is not connected to the gender the word has.
As to warrant, affirm, etc. We tend to use them when that is really what it says. Otherwise I'm always wary of adding meaning, lest I should imply something that wasn't appropriate (did I really use 'lest'??). ▲ Collapse
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The Agent declares to have understood... needs another object. Even in ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo) one'd need a sese with the -isse. There are certain uses of the verb which don't need such an object, e.g. The Macdonalds declared for Prince Charlie and the Campbells for the Hanovarians., but not here.
The Agent declares that he has understood... is okay, althou... See more The Agent declares to have understood... needs another object. Even in ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo) one'd need a sese with the -isse. There are certain uses of the verb which don't need such an object, e.g. The Macdonalds declared for Prince Charlie and the Campbells for the Hanovarians., but not here.
The Agent declares that he has understood... is okay, although it's analytical. Analytical structures always run the risk of being deemed 'non-native', especially in English, which is not quite right (the underlying logic is flawed), but it's a fact regardless.
The Agent declares having understood understood... seems to escape the transitive/reflexive problem to a greater extent but sounds a little odd IMHO.
Mirella Biagi wrote:
No there is no evidence in the context as it is standard legal document that does not specify one way or the other. Hence why I was wondering if perhaps the use of 'he' could create legal problems.
No. Legal interpretation is too conservative and too smart for that. It's clear that 'he' is a personal proun for 'the Agent', not a statement of the Agent's sex.
Phil Hand wrote:
For me "declare" is one of those alarm bell words. I never see it in English contracts, but it seems to crop up all the time in bad translations. I don't know the context of this so I'm not making any assertion here, but I agree 100% with Janet above. If you're having a problem with declare, just pick another verb.
I usually go for either 'represent' or 'state', but Daina is actually right:
Daina Jauntirans wrote:
In a legal context you are conveying a concept from the source legal system, so sometimes it's perfectly appropriate to use a term that may not sound native, if the concept itself isn't native. A professor of mine used to refer to this as the "Verfremdungseffekt" - you are pointing out that this isn't, in fact, an English contract (unless you are also a lawyer and are actually doing drafting work). Of course, you're right in the sense that this approach has to be taken within reason - the text still has to be comprehensible to a target-language native.
Except:
the text still has to be comprehensible to a target-language native.
A non-lawyer rarely understands complex legalese in his own language, forget comparative study. This is something philologists often fail to appreciate in legal translation, some of which concerns difficult legal matters that authors themselves, being lawyers, don't have too lucid an understanding of. Philologists are often oblivious to the fact that they are essentially trying to recast a complex piece of lawyering in plain language, violating the register, running afoul of the skopos, topos and what-have-you, which means they're committing capital crimes in their own field.
(And in any case, a lawyer does not want his translator to be lawyering too much any more than his marketing representative or accountant.)
Janet Rubin wrote: Apologies, Giles, for the words in your mouth, that wasn't the intention! In my defense, I likely got confused about the "level of appropriateness" since - in my very subjective opinion - "not terribly appropriate" seems at best about a half a notch up from "inappropriate". As for the "distinction ... not contained in the original",
The phrase, 'not contained in the original,' is actually a good illustration of what we're talking about, at least with regard to, 'the Agent declares that he (...).' It's the kind of analytical phrasing that's always going to look suspect to an editor or reviewer, except it's legitimate, it's native, and it has its uses. Its only 'fault' lies in not being idiomatic.
It's our job - in most if not all situations - to render the translation such that the translated document reads as if it were written by someone who is a native speaker of the target language.
Yes, but we've got to make a bunch of caveats here. The whole 'native' thing, on the other hand, goes too far in forcing Gauloises to become Chesterfields or the other way round. I love whisky but can't stand the smell of vodka, does this make me a bad Pole? Not all translation is localisation in the sense of making a marketing text from Germany achieve the same effect in the UK, for example.
In legal translation, while layman understandability is a top concern in some situations (e.g. court interpreting for non-lawyers), one needs to think about a target-native comparatist writing about foreign law rather than a target-native layman dealing with domestic legal matters within his own country and before that country's courts.
A translator's job is to translate legal language but not to transplant legal concepts between diverging legal systems and streamline the exchange at a cost to accuracy. The typical notion of 'non-native feel' as it is liable to be (mis)understood by linguists just simply does not work in legal translation. The foreignness of the other legal system is exotic enough already. To use a simple example, the House of Lords is a senate but not a Senate, and neither are republican senators, mayors, appellate judges etc. Lords.
Now, you can say, 'but we have a Senate in Australia and in Canada, even under the Queen, and there's long been one in the non-monarchic United States, and what about Rome.' Well, sure, but that just proves that we're basically talking about various stages and paths of development of representative bodies, especially upper houses in bicameral systems. The same holds true for all sorts of legal institutions, down to the lingo (and down to Rome), including performative verbs.
For a lawyer, all of that is an endless pool of legal theory existing in the abstract and only occasionally and to a limited extent finding application in a concrete, currently existing legal system, while the rest of the bombazine deposit remains known and continues to serve as a reference point, source of de lege ferenda ideas (ideas for new laws) and a source of vocabulary among other things. Just like in history, 'presentism' is ultimately a fallacy, as is localism and any other sort of chesterfieldsintogauloisism.
Also, just like in any other field of translation, unnoticed etymological links and historical parallels are often the cause of problems, especially when modern translators fail to know established geographical names. Or when a non-native editor looks at something that's very similar to his (source) native syntax and thinks it must be the dreaded word-for-word translation... or when a target-native editor knows the translator was a native of the source language and not the target, in which case all sorts of proper grammar, syntax and vocabulary end up being suspect.
After all (for example), if the source text refers to a company as "she" (as it often does in German), we would still use "it" in English. That's not an introduction of information, that is simply "the way we write it in English".
What about ships, though? In any case, that mostly comes down to the absence of proper genders in modern English. The funny thing is that 'person' tends to be a feminine word in languages that have genders. As a result, males are referred to in the feminine whenever the word 'person' is used at some point as a crutch, e.g. 'I'm a person who likes theatre, opera (...),' as opposed to just simply, 'I like theatre, opera (...).' I'm not a person who does/would do sth is fairly frequent in Polish. Or the nth person who did sth.
Giles Watson wrote:
That's what I meant by "performative". The agent is acknowledging awareness of the content "by, through or from the fact or circumstance of" (the OED definition of "hereby") signing the contract.
I still don't think 'hereby' would work there. You can 'hereby' communicate an understanding, but I don't think you can 'hereby understand' something. Sounds like a shortcut to me.
[Edited at 2013-11-20 20:40 GMT]
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
It is about not making the language you are using unwieldy.
I would think that the use of 'he' is this dated very formal version of English has remained from times when these words still had a real word gender, as is still the case in other languages. The same as a ship is still called 'she'. The word gender (in this case Agent = he) has nothing to do with the gender of the person or entity behind it, it has to do with referring to the word itself. We feel it should be a he. That's not sexist, it is just like that. Unless you are really referring to a person and not a concept (like in a contract), the geneder you are referring to is not connected to the gender the word has.
As to warrant, affirm, etc. We tend to use them when that is really what it says. Otherwise I'm always wary of adding meaning, lest I should imply something that wasn't appropriate (did I really use 'lest'??).
In Polish, a contract is masculine and an agreement is feminine.
But it really goes back to contractus and conventio.
[Edited at 2013-11-20 20:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 20:51
Italian to English
In memoriam | For and against | Nov 20, 2013 |
So far, in favour of the "declares to have understood" option we have:
Sergei
Paulinho
finnword
Aruna
Daina
Kirsten
Tomás
and against are:
Bina
Spencer
Victoria
sheila
Janet
Christine
Phil
Giles
Petro2
Oliver
Neilmac
Michele
In the first group, only Kirsten and Aruna translate into English while the second group comprises only native English speakers... See more So far, in favour of the "declares to have understood" option we have:
Sergei
Paulinho
finnword
Aruna
Daina
Kirsten
Tomás
and against are:
Bina
Spencer
Victoria
sheila
Janet
Christine
Phil
Giles
Petro2
Oliver
Neilmac
Michele
In the first group, only Kirsten and Aruna translate into English while the second group comprises only native English speakers. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
[Edited at 2013-11-21 06:31 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 20:51
Spanish to English
+ ...
Christine Andersen wrote:
Otherwise I agree with Janet and Sheila, so I won't say it all again.
Same here. Janet expresses my feelings on the matter. The first phrase - wrong or not - sounds duff and stilted to me. I wouldn't use it if I could help it.
PS: If the asker posted the whole sentence, I might have a stab at translating it more satisfactorily, but as we only have the first part...
[Edited at 2013-11-20 20:54 GMT]
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Giles Watson wrote:
In the first group, only Kirsten and Aruna translate into English while the second group comprises only native English speakers. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
This is quite a torpedo under the waterline, but... you are right.
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