IIA Style Guide for French Translation and Localization ... - IIA Global

THE INSTITUTE OF INTERNAL AUDITORS (IIA) STYLE GUIDE FOR FRENCH TRANSLATION AND LOCALIZATION PROJECTS PREPARED BY: Contextual Communications
a division of Carmazzi Global Solutions [pic] January 2009 www.carmazzi.com / www.contextualinc.com TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1 Purpose of this Style Guide 1 ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS 2 Acronyms 2
Abbreviations 3
Most Common Symbols 4 COMPOUND WORDS, COMMON PREFIXES 5
CAPITALIZATION 6 General Guidelines 6
Geographic Names 6
Institutional Names, Government Departments, Agencies 6
Document Names 7 CREDENTIALS 8
PUNCTUATION, ORTHOGRAPHICAL MARKS 9 General Guidelines 9
Comma 9
Colon 9
Dash, Hyphen 10
Periods, Parentheses, Brackets, Quotation Marks 10
Semi-colon, Exclamation Mark, Interrogation Mark 11
Slash 11 HEADINGS, TITLES, FOOTNOTES 12 General Guidelines 12
Consistency in Structure and Tone 12
Italics 12
Footnotes 12
Line Breaks in Titles, Subheads 12 NUMBERS, MEASUREMENTS 14 General Guidelines 14
Commas, Decimals 14
Dates 14
Time 14
Ranges of Numbers, Dates, Pages 15
Ordinal Numbers 15 UNITS OF MEASUREMENT 16 General Guidelines 16
Units of Measurement in Text 16
Percent, Percentage Point 16
Billion, Trillion 16
Currency 16
Phone Numbers 16 NAMES 17 Country Names 17
Other Geographic Areas 17
Country Classifications 17 REFERRING TO THE IIA AND ITS MEMBERS 18
PROOFREADING THE FINAL PRODUCT 19
REFERENCES 20 The IIA and Its French-Speaking Institutes 20
Grammar, Punctuation, Dictionaries and Books 20 APPENDIX: DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN FRENCH EUROPEAN AND FRENCH CANADIAN 22 Overview 22
Grammatical and Orthographical Differences 22
Key Vocabulary Differences 22
INTRODUCTION
A translation is not just a transcription from one language into another.
It needs to render not only the meaning of words and sentences but also the
correct meaning of the original product. Good translation reads as if the
text had originally been written in the target language. Bearing in mind that the various French-speaking countries have their own
linguistic customs and preferences, the aim in translating IIA products is
to use "international" French in terms of style, syntax and vocabulary
(also avoiding Anglicism)-in short, a language acceptable to the widest
possible French-speaking audience. However, the Appendix provides a short
list of distinctions between French European and French Canadian
vocabulary, style and grammar rules. .
Purpose of this Style Guide This Style Guide aims to establish grammar, style and terminology
guidelines for IIA internal staff and freelance translators, editors and
proofreaders with regard to the language preferences to be used in English
to French translations and localizations that are carried out for or by The
IIA. This document is directly primarily towards translators with the
understanding that it will be used by other aforementioned parties as well.
This Style Guide is considered a "living" document with periodic updates
to be expected as terminological changes and stylistic preferences are
approved by IIA. As a general rule, and unless instructed otherwise, you, the translator,
are expected to respect and replicate the format of the source text. In
addition, translations need to reflect direct correspondence to the
original text, accuracy of content and style as well as term consistency.
The key to achieving success in this direction lies in your scrutiny of all
aspects of the original document and supporting your choice of proper terms
based on a glossary that will be provided. This is particularly important
when dealing with proprietary product names and slogans. Consistency also means double-checking to verify that: . Items in a table of contents match section/chapter headings (unless
there actually is a divergence from the original text). . Company slogans and non-trademarked products names are translated
identically each time they appear. . When titles of charts, tables and graphics are used within the body
of the document, they match the actual titles used as captions with
graphics. You should strive to maintain the same voice and style in every
translation. Keeping the original voice and style helps to render the
translated document as a true translation of the original. Of course,
these elements do not always translate easily into the target language.
Please use your best judgment. "Doctoring" should only be applied for the
purpose of improving the readability of text and the clarity of meaning.
However, always do your best to avoid literal unnatural translations.
ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS Acronyms Acronyms are formed with the initial letters of a word or by combining the
initial and final letters of a word or series of words. They behave as
common nouns. An example is "IIA" which stands for "The Institute of
Internal Auditors ", as this is the proper name of our organization, it
should always be kept as that when talking about IIA Global Headquarters.
In addition, please note how to treat the translation of the The IIA
belonging to different countries. [1] The IIA's International Standards for the Professional Practice of
Internal Auditing specifies that... Les Normes internationales pour la pratique professionnelle de audit
interne de l'IIA stipulent que...
The IIA-UK and Ireland produced a useful position paper on fraud in
2003. L'IIA du Royaume-Uni et de l'Irlande a publié une importante prise de
position sur la fraude en 2003. In general, acronyms are translated into French the first instance they
appear in the text, with the English acronym and name in parentheses.
Thereafter, the English acronym is used. Individuals may also install a rogue access point outside an
organization's premises and purposely broadcast its Service Set
Identifier (SSID) - a sequence of characters that uniquely names a
wireless local area network access point... According to Microsoft,
when a client computer is near two wireless access points, it will
connect to the one that is broadcasting its SSID, regardless of the
preferences configured in the computer's Preferred Networks List.
Des individus peuvent aussi installer un point d'accès non autorisé à
l'extérieur des locaux d'une organisation et diffuser
intentionnellement son identifiant (SSID - « Service Set Identifier »)
- une séquence de caractères qui identifie de façon unique un point
d'accès sans fil au réseau local...Selon Microsoft, un ordinateur
client placé près de deux points d'accès sans fil se connectera à
celui des deux qui diffuse son SSID, indépendamment de la
configuration des paramètres enregistrés dans la liste des réseaux
auxquels il accède habituellement.
However, the use of abbreviations and acronyms is not as common in French
as it is in English. Avoid overusing them in French texts. "There has to be a dialogue among the chief audit executive (CAE),
senior management, and the audit committee to ensure respective roles
and responsibilities are clear and accepted. The first role of CAEs is
marketing", Tobin argues.
« Il doit y avoir un dialogue entre le responsable d'audit (RAI), la
direction générale et le comité de audit pour s'assurer que les rôles
et les responsabilités respectives sont claires et acceptées. Le
premier rôle des responsables d'audit est le marketing », selon Tobin.
Acronyms that have official translations and are known worldwide should be
translated: ONU, CE, OEA. Avoid coining acronyms on your own. Whenever
available, you should use the French abbreviation or acronym instead of the
English one. As a general rule, abbreviations of country names (e.g., É.-
U.) or other common ones should never be used in text (their use in tables
or bibliographies is acceptable). For other types of abbreviations, the
same rules as in English generally apply in text: the name or term should
be spelled out on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviation in
parentheses, and the abbreviation can be used in later occurrences. For example: Une augmentation du produit national brut (PNB) par habitant
Unlike in English, acronyms and abbreviations are never pluralized in
French. The article (un,
une, le, la, les, etc.) will differentiate between singular and plural. For
example: Correct: Un CIA, les CIA
Incorrect: les CIAs
Correct: Les MPA
Incorrect: Les MPAs Abbreviations In general, abbreviations should only be used if there is a space
restriction (i.e., in tables and similar forms of display) but, as a
general rule, not in text. However, this does not apply to abbreviations
used in titles of address preceding a proper name. Correct: Mme Mary Brown...
Incorrect: Le Bilan est transmis au dépt. financier pour révision. When the last syllable or syllables are cut in order to abbreviate a word,
the abbreviated word cannot end in a vowel. Correct: exemple = ex., français = fr.
Incorrect : exemple = exe., français = fre. Words should not be abbreviated by omitting only one letter.