Mediating a Bulgarian Notice into French: Faithfulness vs. Fluency
A mediation task asks a B1 candidate to relay the following to a French-speaking friend in 3–4 sentences: "Студентският съвет организира безплатен курс по фотография. Курсът е всеки вторник от 18:00 до 20:00 в зала 214. Местата са ограничени - запишете се до петък на имейл [email protected]. Приоритет имат студентите от първи курс." The candidate produces: "Le conseil des étudiants organise un cours de photo. C'est gratuit. C'est le mardi de six heures à huit heures. Il y a peu de places, donc inscrivez-vous par email avant vendredi. Les étudiants de première année sont prioritaires. Le cours est dans la salle 214."
1. Evaluate the mediation for fidelity and for communicative adequacy. Which details are preserved, distorted, or lost?
Read the worked answer
Preserved: free photography course, Tuesday, 18:00–20:00, limited places, email registration by Friday, first-year priority, room 214. Distorted: "Il y a peu de places" weakens "местата са ограничени" - "limited places" is a factual constraint, not "few places"; better: "Le nombre de places est limité." "Inscrivez-vous par email" drops the address ([email protected]), which is the actionable detail a listener needs. Lost: nothing major, though the order is rearranged. Communicative adequacy: good - a friend could act on it, except they would not know where to write. The mediation judgement is that actionable details (addresses, deadlines, prices) must survive mediation, while stylistic compression is allowed. A strong version keeps the email address and renders "ограничени" precisely.
2. The candidate asks whether "six heures à huit heures" is acceptable for 18:00–20:00. What is the correct guidance, and why does it matter in mediation?
Read the worked answer
It is ambiguous and should be avoided. In French, six heures normally means 6 a.m./06:00; to express 18:00 you need dix-huit heures or six heures du soir. In a scheduling message, ambiguity is a faithfulness failure, because the listener could arrive twelve hours early. The guidance: use the 24-hour clock (de 18h00 à 20h00) or add du soir. The broader mediation principle is that precision trumps brevity when the detail affects the listener's action. A revised sentence: "Le cours a lieu chaque mardi de 18h à 20h, salle 214." This also fixes a second issue - the candidate split the time and the room into separate sentences, making the logistics harder to grasp; grouping time + place + deadline into a coherent mini-paragraph is better mediation practice at B1.