TRANSLATION IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE BETWEEN THE CANARY ISLANDS AND AFRICA: THE CASE OF ENGLISH

Abstract

The specific location of the Canary Islands constitutes a point of union between three continents: Africa, America, and Europe, and one of the main strengths of the potential of the Canary Islands lies in their growing trade relations with the African continent. The commercial relations between these two areas generally entail translation requirements as there is a linguistic and cultural barrier that separate them. In this framework, we can find several docu-ments associated with the different international trade stages that are translated for the purpose of accomplishing a commercial transaction, in which suppliers, clients, shippers, managers, cus-toms agents and other stakeholders take part. Moreover, English is considered the global language in international trade, whereas the geographic areas involved in this Research are not English-speaking, but mainly Spanish- and French-speaking, as the Canary Islands are Spanish-speaking, while many African countries located close to the islands have French as the official or administrative language.

The objective of this Research is to determine the most frequently used documents the Canary companies need to translate when exporting products or providing services to African countries: this includes the way these services are covered and how often they request these services when it consists of translating texts from or into English.

To this effect, a questionnaire regarding these translation requirements was issued to Canary companies that operate in Africa. Several document classifications in the field of international trade have been included in the questionnaire to ensure the utmost variety of possible answers. A total of sixty-one completed the survey, and the results obtained thanks to the collaboration of these companies show that even if most of the neighbouring African countries are not English-speaking, it is the language from or into which 70% of the sample needs to translate documents, particularly invoices, commercial correspondence, and technical reports.