The Circular and the ‘Coming 15th’: Tamil-to-English Judgement
You are producing the English version of a Tamil school circular for the parent portal while also moderating the translation item in the terminal examination. The circular reads: 'அன்புள்ள பெற்றோர்களே, வரும் 15-ஆம் தேதி சனிக்கிழமை காலை 9 மணிக்கு ஆண்டு விழா நடைபெறும். மாணவர்கள் வெள்ளை உடை அணிந்து வர வேண்டும். விழாவில் பெற்றோர் கலந்து கொள்ள அன்புடன் அழைக்கிறோம். - தலைமை ஆசிரியர்'. Draft A renders it literally: 'Dear parents, on the coming 15th, Saturday, at 9 a.m., the annual festival will take place. Students should come wearing white dress. We invite parents affectionately to participate in the festival.' Draft B renders it idiomatically: 'Dear Parents, the Annual Day will be held on Saturday the 15th at 9 a.m. Students are requested to attend in white uniform. Parents are cordially invited.' The examination item asks for a Tamil-to-English rendering of the same circular, marked 5 for accuracy, 3 for register and 2 for fluency. Nineteen scripts reproduce Draft A's 'coming 15th' and 'white dress'.
1. Which draft goes on the portal, and why? Identify the one place where Draft A is more defensible than Draft B.
Read the worked answer
Draft B, with one repair. The audience is parents scanning a phone screen, many reading English as a second language. 'The Annual Day will be held on Saturday the 15th at 9 a.m.' front-loads event and time, and 'cordially invited' is the established English equivalent of அன்புடன் அழைக்கிறோம், whereas Draft A's 'invite parents affectionately' transfers the Tamil idiom word for word and reads as an emotional claim in English.
One addition in B is unwarranted: வெள்ளை உடை is 'white dress', not necessarily 'white uniform'. If the school has no prescribed uniform, 'white uniform' alters the instruction and parents will go and buy one. Repair: 'Students are requested to attend in white.'
That is the transferable lesson for the examination item too: idiom may be naturalised, facts may not be invented. A script that keeps 'white dress' earns full accuracy marks even if less elegant; a script that silently resolves an ambiguity in the source loses accuracy marks.
2. Handle 'வரும் 15-ஆம் தேதி' - is this a translation choice or something else? State the marking position for scripts that render it one way or another.
Read the worked answer
Neither choice is correct: this is a query to the source. வரும் 15ஆம் தேதி means 'the upcoming 15th', and the circular simultaneously asserts that it is a Saturday. Two defects are possible: the month is unstated, so a parent reading on the 20th cannot tell whether the date has passed; and the weekday claim may not hold for the intended month.
A translator who writes '15th of this month' has invented a fact. One who writes 'the coming 15th' has faithfully reproduced the defect in the target language - defensible in the exam, indefensible on a portal. Correct procedure: flag it, obtain the month from the headmaster, then print 'Saturday, 15 March'.
Marking position: in the examination, a script rendering 'the coming 15th' loses fluency marks, not accuracy marks, because the ambiguity belongs to the source. A script that silently inserts a month loses accuracy marks, because there the candidate has resolved what the source left open.
3. Grade the script line: 'Students must come without fail wearing white dress.' Which error is meaning-changing and which is style, and how do you prevent double penalty?
Read the worked answer
Award roughly 4/5 accuracy, 1/3 register, 1/2 fluency - about 6/10, and show the split on the script.
Meaning preserved: வர வேண்டும் is rendered as obligation, and வெள்ளை உடை as white dress without over-specifying uniform. No reversal, no loss of an instruction, so accuracy is near full.
'Without fail' is one degree stronger than வர வேண்டும், a plain obligation; in a school circular that strength reads as scolding. Mark it under register, not accuracy, and write that on the script, because candidates otherwise cannot tell which of the three scales they lost marks on.
Style: 'must come wearing' is clumsy; 'are requested to attend in white' is the expected register. The important rule is negative: do not let 'without fail' cost accuracy marks as well, since penalising the same word on two scales is precisely the double-dipping that loses revaluations.