Translation in process

To conduct my research in Austria meant that there were problematic issues in translation that I had to address from the beginning:

• Ethical and epistemological issues

• Collaborating with colleagues in the translation processes • Translation and analysis in Grounded Theory

• Challenges of using two languages to carry out the research.

The first challenge involved interacting with participants who had no knowledge of English and on the other hand native speakers of English. Little is written about using translators in cross-language research, language difference or use of a third party across languages (Temple, 1997; Birbil, 2000). The only suggestion in literature is that there is no one correct translation but there are options to choose from rather than using word for word translation in different language. Suggestions to increase validity are well discussed, and examples are given in the arguments presented below.

Involving my colleagues created ethical issues especially of privacy and anonymity (BERA, 2004). I discussed with them the need to protect the information that emerged out of the data collected. But mostly, I relied on the trust that we had built in working together as colleagues.

Epistemological challenges were observed in conveying the meaning that the participants put across. Temple (2002) and Temple and Young (2004) warn that the

social world influences the perspective of people and colours the way the translator interprets and translates data. I had chosen to work from the interpretive- constructionists perspective, which supports and acknowledges the difference in the way people view social reality. I experienced various ways of presenting meaning, especially in describing the complex reality of trainers and learners. I also had to guard against my colleague imposing her beliefs and experiences in the translation process, which could probably distort the real picture of the data collected. Another challenge that occurred was identifying suitable words or concepts that reflected the participants’ interpretations rather than my own standpoint. To minimise the misrepresentations, I engaged in discussions with my colleagues and also checked that I did not impose my framework on the colleagues. This was necessary because in the early data collection stages, experience had taught me to collaborate with others in all processes of translation in order to do away with getting a feeling of being ‘detached/alienated’ from my own research. This had happened at the beginning of the research, it was based on the initial words chosen by the translator that had made me feel like a stranger to own my research.

Another difficulty that occurred was located in finding conceptual equivalence, which was not found in the dictionary (Birbili, 2000). There was a certain degree of doubt whether the meaning was comparable in both languages. I was aware that certain aspects like emotions or utterances probably would not be captured in the translation and would therefore get lost. During the interviews, Cynthia an interviewee talked about the concept of teaching quality but found it difficult to match/access an equivalent concept. My colleague and I had to look at the contextual factors and other stakeholders because literal translation did not sound natural. We

decided to approach some words from the cultural meaning and then assessed how they fitted in the target language. The concept of education has so many meanings, but for our context we settled for the German word ‘Ausbildung’ which incorporates: training, apprenticeships, instruction, school, vocational training, In- service training, training-on-the job, development, and staff training. While deciding on the equivalence of the word education and the concept of adult education, there were so many words used synonymously, therefore ‘Weiterbildung’ was fitted with further education, continuing education, advanced training, on-the-job training and professional development.

During translation, I preferred to use front translation, which is translating data from the source language to the target language (Nurjannah et al., 2014). The second type was backward translation, which is translating data from the target language back to the source language. In the initial data collection stage, we tried to do backward translation but it seemed to be more of trying to fit the data instead of seeking validity. What became useful was the frequent use of interactions in transcribing because we realised that backward translation did not make it any easier to deal with conceptual equivalence nor cultural differences (Brislin, 1970). By writing memos, I was able to capture some of the decisions made on choice of words and preferred concepts. My observations were that the translation process took longer than I had expected. To check for validity and reliability, I consulted a third person who is a linguist to confirm if the data translated was close in meaning.

Translation in Grounded Theory was linked to how data was analysed especially in the early stages where data was broken down into fragments to enable initial coding.

In this particular framework of analysis, it was difficult to remain neutral during the analysis stages and it became necessary to engage with a colleague to reflect on the nature of the research. Data was coded line-by-line and the most appropriate label identified. I used gerunds as recommended by Charmaz (2006) where nouns are formed from verbs. Gerunds in English have no equivalent in German. So that was another reason why we ruled out backward translation as a method of verification. There was need to write memos to consolidate the codes into a narrative that could present the difficulties of teaching unemployed learners. Language was used to describe the experiences of the participants’ constructions. Sometimes it was difficult to capture the meaning, especially when the participants began with the words ‘I don’t know how to say…. how can I describe’ (Selena, an interviewee). The challenge of using two languages is presented in the examples below.

Grammar and linguistic rules in the two languages, mostly about how words are arranged and linked to make sentences created problems in translation (Wagner, 2009). German has often long complicated sentences, which the researcher/translator sometimes found difficult to translate into short and precise sentence. Rubin and Rubin (1995) argued that in translating quotations the risk of losing information from the original language is greater and even editing quotations in ones language could lead to misrepresenting the intended meaning. Often this occurred in the fact that some nouns are attached together, for example ‘Volkshochschule’- adult education centres with three nouns or Weiterbildungsangebot- further education offer.

Other problems experienced were in words, which look similar (false friends) but have different meanings, ‘Bekommen’ and ‘become’. ‘Bekommen’ is the equivalent of (get, obtain....) while ‘become’ in German is the equivalent of ‘werde’ other examples are ‘sensitive’ and ‘sensibel’ and ‘sensible’. The use of articles before nouns ‘die’, ‘der’ and ‘das’ became cumbersome when translated in English. This is reflected in my writing too where I have sometimes tended to overuse the article ‘the’ before nouns, a rule that has ‘hang over’ from German grammar, because all nouns have an article defined in feminine, muscular and neutral. Therefore, in learning German, nouns have to be literally learned together with the correct articles. Certain adverbs too presented challenges during translation because English can do without them since they are mostly used for emphasis only. From the experience gathered during research, there was no direct translation for the word ‘doch’ which is used in many different ways to mean: but, however, after all, anyway and indeed. It is a small word but the challenge was time-consuming in trying to fit it in a suitable context in English. The next challenge fitted with what Rossman and Rallis (1998) question, whether translated words could be perceived as direct quotations. This was not only a dilemma but also a slow process, which called for discussions to decide on the appropriate words to represent the participants’ meaning.

During the interviews, I noted no difference of meaning on occasions that I shared a common language (English) with the participants. The data collected, transcribed and analysed seemed to stay close to the data during initial coding as suggested by Glaser and Strauss (1967). In contrast, where the researcher did not share a common language, data was discussed during translation about how to express particular words, for example the word ‘Spass’ was taken to mean fun in learning rather than

enjoyment, delight, amusement, pleasure and relaxation. It seemed to express the intended meaning of learning. Moreover, for the native speakers of English, they seemed to capture the meaning linguistically. This challenge occurred in our first phase of data collection even though my colleague is a bilingual trainer who studied modern languages and translation. Hence, we discussed key words like:

Qualität =quality

Qualitätstraining =quality teaching

Erwachsenebildungsanbieter =adult education provider

Professionelle Entwicklung von Trainerinnen = professional development for trainers.

It was important to represent the participants’ voice and to stay close to the data because loss of meaning would reduce validity (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000).

To increase validity I did the following:

• Looked for strategies to deal with translation problems

• Considered the advantages and disadvantages of back translation • Consulted others

• Discussed problematic words

• Got interpretations from respondents

• Used many quotations from participants to increase trustworthiness, and used reflection in the process of translation and analysis (Temple, 2008).

My role and that of my colleague was to produce accounts that represented the subjective reality of the research participants within the cross-cultural context. On

the other hand, in my research I have not given the translators who supported me a visible role although I have acknowledged them.

The following section will describe the measures taken to reduce bias.