Register Shift in a Notice Translation
A Class X Karbi teacher is marking the 5-mark translation item. The source text is a school notice in English: 'Students are requested to submit their scholarship forms to the office by 15 August. Late applications will not be considered.' One student's Karbi version reads, in effect: 'Students! Submit your forms to the office by 15 August. We will not take late forms.' The sentence order and vocabulary are accurate, and all three content points are present: the office, the 15 August deadline, and the rejection of late forms. The rubric gives 5 for accurate content and appropriate formal register, 4 for accurate content with a minor register slip, 3 for mostly accurate content with inconsistent register, 2 for partial content, and 1 for a fragment. The teacher must decide between 4 and 3, revise the second sentence to restore the impersonal tone, and explain to a student why 'I translated every word' is not enough for full marks.
1. Score the translation against the 5-mark rubric and justify the score.
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Score: 4 marks. All content is accurate: the office, the 15 August deadline, and the rejection of late forms are present, and no information is added or lost. The weakness is register. The source uses 'are requested,' which is polite and institutional, and 'will not be considered,' which is impersonal. The student uses a direct imperative ('Submit!') and an active first-person threat ('We will not take'). The second sentence adds an agent ('we') that the source does not name.
Under the rubric, this is accurate content with a minor register slip, so 4. It is not 5 because register is part of the task. It is not 3 because the content is complete and the notice is still understandable; the problem is tone, not missing information.
2. Revise the second sentence to restore the impersonal formal register without changing the meaning.
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The revision should remove the first-person agent and the threat tone. In English, the model is: 'Late applications will not be considered.' The Karbi version should use an impersonal passive or an official formula meaning 'late forms will not be accepted,' without saying 'we will not take.' The deadline and the office remain unchanged.
The key point is not a single magic word but the function: the notice speaks for the institution, not for a person. A useful classroom test is to ask, 'Who is the subject of the sentence?' If the answer is 'we,' the register has probably become too personal for a notice. Students should also keep the polite request in the first sentence rather than replacing it with a bare command.
3. A student says, 'I translated every word, so I should get full marks.' How do you explain the missing mark?
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Translation is meaning-for-meaning, not word-for-word. The words 'requested' and 'submit' can both be translated, but they do different things: 'requested' signals institutional politeness and distance, while 'submit!' signals a command. 'Will not be considered' is impersonal; 'we will not take' names an agent and sounds like a personal warning. Every content word can be present while the function of the notice changes.
Full marks require both content and register because the notice has a practical purpose: it must inform students and maintain the school's official tone. The student has earned the content marks and lost one mark for tone. The feedback should be specific: 'Your information is complete. Now revise the second sentence so that no person is blamed and the school speaks impersonally.'