Translating Accounting Texts: Documentary Resources, Covert Translation and Back-Translation

Abstract

The translation of accounting documents has traditionally been one of the areas of specialization that poses the greatest difficulties for students of economic translation. This is due to their lack of subject competence but also to the differences between the accounting system of the culture of origin and that of the target culture or cultures. Although the adoption in an increasing number of countries of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) as the reference accounting framework has partially reduced these differences, the harmonization is far from complete and has brought new difficulties for translators. Thus, an unexperienced translator still has to manage a series of complex factors that hinder the decision-making process. These include the alternation of accounting rules within a single system, the absence of a single target culture for the translation, the lack of consistency in the use of accounting terminology or the coexistence of several translations of the IFRSs. This paper reviews the main implications of the adoption of IFRSs in the translation of accounting documents, with a special focus on the translation of the standards themselves and of financial statements. Next, it presents the results of an analysis of learning strategies and documentary resources that can help economic translation students in their work. The analysis is organized from a practical perspective, based on the analysis of translation assignments of real annual accounts excerpts. In particular, it assesses the usefulness of different resources in helping the students to make an appropriate translation while reinforcing their subject competence in order to improve their decision-making ability. Based on the results, the paper draws some conclusions on the presence of covert translation as a recurrent phenomenon in the preparation of financial statements and on the advantages of back-translation as a tool for the training of translators.