Press release term choice under deadline
You are translating a 620-word press release from English into French for a fictional EU environment agency. The deadline is 90 minutes. The source mentions a “deposit return scheme” four times and uses the acronym “DRS” once after the first mention. Your CAT tool contains an approved glossary entry: deposit return scheme → système de consigne. A colleague suggests système de retour des dépôts because it is more explicit. The style guide says: public audience, avoid unnecessary jargon, keep metaphors only where they sound natural in French, and never introduce a synonym for an approved term without a query. The press officer has added a note: “Keep the quote vivid; it is the only human line in the text.” The sentence to translate is: “The polluter pays principle is not a slogan; it is the invoice that finally arrives.” You have no time to wait for a terminologist before filing, but you can add a translator’s note.
1. Which French term will you use for “deposit return scheme” throughout, and why? Address glossary compliance, audience, and the acronym.
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Use système de consigne. It is the approved glossary term, it is shorter than système de retour des dépôts, and in French environmental communication consigne is widely understood as the deposit paid on a container and returned when it is brought back. The longer alternative is transparent but creates a synonym for an approved term, adds repetition in a 620-word press release, and makes the text sound more technical than the public audience requires. For the first mention, write système de consigne (DRS) only if the source’s acronym is needed for later reference; otherwise spell it out and avoid the English acronym in a French public text. If you keep DRS, add a translator’s note saying the glossary does not specify acronym handling and that DRS was retained because the source defines it. Do not silently switch to système de retour des dépôts: that would breach consistency and the style guide’s query rule.
2. Translate the metaphor sentence. Explain what you preserved, what you avoided, and how you would justify it to a reviewer.
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A defensible rendering is: « Le principe pollueur-payeur n’est pas un slogan ; c’est la facture qui finit par arriver. » The metaphor is preserved because the press officer explicitly asked for the human line to stay vivid. Facture keeps the concrete image of a bill arriving, and finit par arriver conveys inevitability without adding an explanation that is not in the source. I avoided a literal calque such as la facture qui arrive finalement because it is flatter and sounds like a translation. I also avoided turning the image into a flat statement such as les pollueurs doivent payer, which would lose the rhetorical point. Justification to a reviewer: the style guide permits metaphors where they sound natural in French; this one does, and it does not alter the legal meaning of the polluter-pays principle.
3. Draft a two-sentence translator’s note covering the term decision and the acronym, and state your fallback if the reviewer rejects the approved term.
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Translator’s note: « “Deposit return scheme” est rendu par “système de consigne”, conformément au glossaire approuvé. L’acronyme DRS est conservé après la première occurrence parce que le source le définit ainsi ; le glossaire ne précise pas son traitement. » This is short, records the glossary basis, and flags the only unresolved point without reopening the whole terminology debate. If the reviewer rejects the approved term, my fallback is système de retour des dépôts on first mention, then le système or la consigne where the context is clear, with a note explaining that the fallback was imposed for clarity. I would not use both terms interchangeably in the same text.