direcciones

10:37 Jul 26, 2017 

in the unlikely event of not understanding "directorate" only has to look up the word in a dictionary. I am sure every American has heard of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. This really is a no-brainer.

10:01 Jul 26, 2017 

Precisely the point to which I allude with 'below departments/ministries' in the note to my suggestion, which also includes 'bureau' (which you mention in your previous post). @AllegroTrans - While you're certainly correct that the target audience hasn't been specified, it may be more than reasonable to think it might include readers in the US, where 'directorate' may sound as foreign (or even 'eyebrow-raising') to some readers as 'boot' or 'bonnet' would in the context of cars. Similarly, how should we render 'vicerrector' (in higher education), as 'vice-rector,' or would we not consider other options?

09:13 Jul 26, 2017 

if one goes with the "reality" of the source term as used in the source country. I don't mean to be agressive but if a term translates literally into comprehensible English (and in ths case I would go as far as saying that "directorate" is virtually universal English) then I really don't think it matters a fig what the "local" version in some other country "might" be. In any event the asker has not specified who his target audience is, so I cannot see why some of us are discussing "localization" at all.

07:14 Jul 26, 2017 

Notice that Robert proposed 'department', and yet a 'department' is usually the equivalent of a ministry--as the State Department's counterpart is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Directorates typically come under ministries. That's why I would have suggested 'bureau' if I had wanted to go the "localization" route. See how quickly it can get confusing? General Theory of Terminology tells us to always go with the term that is most widely used and discourage competing terms, as they inevitably lead to confusion.

22:57 Jul 25, 2017 

...that a naturalizing approach could go hand-in-hand with one that promotes transparency as well, as readers would know what the source text is because it will appear in parenthesis the first time the term is translated; further, as Robert suggests (in Discussion), its initials or acronym could then be used throughout the text as well. Is this not a fairly standard practice?

19:15 Jul 25, 2017 

Our translations aren't isolated events. A huge percentage of them end up on the Internet. I think it would be ludicrous to use a US-culture-specific term and add an explanation so that it can be searched, as Marcelo suggests. The world is so globalized that we often have to "go with the flow" even though the terms we use would not be our first choice. I have been working almost exclusively for international organizations for over 4 decades and I had to learn the hard way not to insist on my favorite culturally appropriate translations.

13:34 Jul 25, 2017 

Except that the context of the present query - and of my comment - was *national* rather than *international* bodies. The US example you cite for "directorate" seems to be a fairly rare exception.

In any case, I am not looking to prescribe best practices for others. I simply don't feel comfortable with translations such as "Secretariat" and "Superintendency" for national government offices, and I avoid using them in such contexts.

I also agree with Marcelo's point that the "golden mean" between using unnatural English and wholescale localization of a translation is to provide a natural translation of a government body once (or very sparingly) and mostly use the source acronym of the agency involved.

Proceeding in this way helps avoid a document about, say, public transportation in Lima sounding like it involves the bus and local train systems in Chicago.

13:04 Jul 25, 2017 

"Directorates" are used in many international bodies such as the UN. It ought to be a reasonably familiar term in the US, for example The Defense Trade Controls Directorate, to name only one use.
The same goes for Secretariats. I think this is a case of "if it isn't broke, you don't fix it".

02:00 Jul 25, 2017 

And one way to address 'searchability' might be to include the original in parenthesis or brackets. In the end, I favor a naturalizing approach, which would require using terms that are at least used, if not widely, in the English-speaking world (but doing so with a certain degree of transparency, letting readers know, even if only when first mentioned, what it refers to in the source language).

01:58 Jul 25, 2017 

These are just three terms that exist in dictionaries, but that are generally not used in the titles of government bodies anywhere in the English-speaking world. I therefore do not feel comfortable using them.

01:44 Jul 25, 2017 

May I point out that 'ministry' is also not used in the U.S. Government, but in English we respect the cognate of "Ministerio" when referring to those bodies in foreign countries. We do not change it to 'department'. Almost every document I translate has a reference to a ministry or a directorate. My biggest concern is consistency over time and searchability. If we come up with a term that sounds "nice" in U.S. English, we would have to get all translators to agree. And if we were looking for the document with the reference to that institution online, we likely wouldn't find it, because 'directorate' is by far the most common translation. Translation is about taking everything into account, not just the cultural equivalent.

23:38 Jul 24, 2017 

...notions of equiivalence. While I agree with Muriel's (thoughtful) point about it getting confusing when the question then becomes 'subdirección,' this is where distinctions could be made with a variety of terms I've suggested. I don't know how much of a naturalizing effect that a word like 'directorate' may or may not produce. It's certainly not (commonly) used in the context of the U.S. government.I don't know about elsewhere.

23:17 Jul 24, 2017 

I have struggled with this term for decades; it comes up all the time in my work. While I prefer 'bureau' because it corresponds more closely to the English-speaking culture, I finally settled on 'directorate' because it has rippling effects. The directorate is headed by a director, and there may be assistant directors, general directorates, subdirectorates, etc., etc. If you use 'bureau' you end up trying to find English equivalents for the many derivations and it can quickly get complicated and inconsistent.