hi, i would like to find out if anyone can make a translation
commentary on the two texts below in the following manner.

About the english text: what type of text is it?, it overall
characteristic, intended audience, cultural background and assumptions,
detailed linguistic characteristics.
About the target text (french) : it is coherent,cohesive, idiomatic,
culturally sensitive? Would you know the intended readership?would you
know that is was not an original? if so, how does it exploit the
linguistic resources of the TL.

finally some detailed examples of linguistic problems and their solutions
Important legal notice
The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer, a copyright
notice and rules related to personal data protection.
Disclaimer
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access to information about its initiatives and European Union
policies in general. Our goal is to keep this information timely and
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correct them.
However the Commission accepts no responsibility or liability
whatsoever with regard to the information on this site.
This information is:
?	of a general nature only and is not intended to address the specific
circumstances of any particular individual or entity;
?	not necessarily comprehensive, complete, accurate or up to date; 
?	sometimes linked to external sites over which the Commission
services have no control and for which the Commission assumes no
responsibility;
?	not professional or legal advice (if you need specific advice, you
should always consult a suitably qualified professional).
Please note that it cannot be guaranteed that a document available
on-line exactly reproduces an officially adopted text. Only European
Union legislation published in paper editions of the Official Journal
of the European Union is deemed authentic.
It is our goal to minimize disruption caused by technical errors.
However some data or information on our site may have been created or
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guarantee that our service will not be interrupted or otherwise
affected by such problems. The Commission accepts no responsibility
with regard to such problems incurred as a result of using this site
or any linked external sites.
This disclaimer is not intended to limit the liability of the
Commission in contravention of any requirements laid down in
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may not be excluded under that law.
Copyright notice
© European Communities, 1995-2005
Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save
where otherwise stated.
Where prior permission must be obtained for the reproduction or use of
textual and multimedia information (sound, images, software, etc.),
such permission shall cancel the above-mentioned general permission
and shall clearly indicate any restrictions on use.
Personal Data Protection
The European Union is committed to user privacy.
The policy on "protection of individuals with regard to the processing
of personal data by the Community institutions" is based on Regulation
(EC) N° 45/2001   [234 KB] of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 18 December 2000.
This general policy covers the European Union's family of
institutional Web Sites, within the eu.int domain.
Although you can browse through most of these Web Sites without giving
any information about yourself, in some cases, personal information is
required in order to provide the e-services you request.
Web Sites that require such information treat it according to the
policy described in the Regulation mentioned above and provide
information about the use of your data in their specific privacy
policy statements.
In this respect:
?	For each specific e-service, a controller determines the purposes
and means of the processing of personal data and ensures conformity of
the specific e-service with the privacy policy;
?	Within each Institution, a Data Protection Officer ensures that the
provisions of the Regulation are applied and advises controllers on
fulfilling their obligations (see art. 24 of the Regulation);
?	For all the Institutions, the European Data Protection Supervisor  
[27 KB] will act as an independent supervisory authority (see art. 41
to 45 of the Regulation).
The European Union's family of institutional Web Sites, within the
eu.int domain, provides links to third party sites. Since we do not
control them, we encourage you to review their privacy policies.
What is an e-service?
An e-service on EUROPA is a service or resource made available on the
Internet in order to improve the communication between citizens and
businesses on the one hand and the European Institutions on the other
hand.
Three types of e-services are or will be offered by EUROPA:
1.	Information services that provide citizens, media, business,
administrations and other decision makers with easy and effective
access to information, thus increasing transparency and understanding
of the policies and activities of the EU;
2.	Interactive communication services that allow better contacts with
citizens, business, civil society and public actors thus facilitating
policy consultations, and feedback mechanisms, in order to contribute
to the shaping of policies, the activities and the services of the EU;
3.	Transaction services that allow access to all basic forms of
transactions with the EU, e.g. procurement, financial operations,
recruitment, event enrollment, acquisition or purchase of documents
etc. (end of the english text)


Avis juridique important
  Les informations qui figurent sur ce site font l'objet d'une clause
de non-responsabilité,
d'une déclaration concernant les droits d'auteur et de règles
relatives à la protection des données à caractère personnel.
Clause de non-responsabilité
Le présent site de la Commission européenne vise à promouvoir l'accès
du public aux informations relatives à ses initiatives et aux
politiques de l'Union européenne en général. Notre objectif est de
diffuser des informations exactes et à jour. Nous nous efforcerons de
corriger les erreurs qui nous seront signalées. Toutefois, la
Commission n'assume aucune responsabilité quant aux informations que
contient le présent site.
Ces informations:
?	sont exclusivement de nature générale et ne visent pas la situation
particulière d'une personne physique ou morale;
?	ne sont pas nécessairement complètes, exhaustives, exactes ou à jour; 
?	renvoient parfois à des sites extérieurs sur lesquels les services
de la Commission n'ont aucun contrôle et pour lesquels la Commission
décline toute responsabilité;
?	ne constituent pas un avis professionnel ou juridique (si vous avez
besoin d'avis spécifiques, consultez toujours un professionnel dûment
qualifié).
Notez aussi qu'il n'est pas possible de garantir qu'un document
disponible en ligne reproduise exactement un texte adopté
officiellement. Seul fait foi le texte de la législation de l'Union
européenne publié dans les éditions papier du Journal officiel de
l'Union européenne.
Nous souhaitons limiter autant que possible les inconvénients
occasionnés par des erreurs techniques. Cependant, certaines données
ou informations présentes sur notre site peuvent ne pas avoir été
créées ou structurées dans des fichiers ou des formats exempts
d'erreurs, de sorte que nous ne pouvons garantir que notre service ne
sera pas interrompu ou autrement affecté par de tels problèmes. La
Commission décline toute responsabilité quant aux problèmes de ce type
pouvant résulter d'une utilisation de ce site ou de tout autre site
extérieur auquel il renvoie.
La présente clause de non-responsabilité n'a pas pour but de limiter
la responsabilité de la Commission de manière contraire aux exigences
posées dans les législations nationales applicables ou d'exclure sa
responsabilité dans les cas où elle ne peut l'être en vertu desdites
législations.
Déclaration concernant les droits d'auteur
© Communautés européennes, 1995-2005
Reproduction autorisée, moyennant mention de la source, sauf
spécification contraire.
Si la reproduction ou l'utilisation de données textuelles et
multimédias (son, images, logiciels, etc.) sont soumises à
autorisation préalable, cette autorisation annulera l'autorisation
générale susmentionnée et indiquera clairement les éventuelles
restrictions d'utilisation..
Protection des données à caractère personnel
L'Union européenne est attachée au respect de la vie privée.
La politique en matière de "protection des personnes physiques à
l'égard du traitement des données à caractère personnel par les
institutions et organes communautaires" se fonde sur le règlement (CE)
n° 45/2001   [242 KB] du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 18
décembre 2000.
Cette politique générale couvre la famille des sites web
institutionnels de l'Union européenne relevant du domaine eu.int.
Bien que vous puissiez naviguer sur la plupart de ces sites web sans
donner aucune information sur vous-même, une information personnelle
est parfois nécessaire pour pouvoir fournir les services en ligne que
vous demandez.
Les sites web qui exigent cette information la traitent conformément à
la politique décrite dans le règlement précité et fournissent une
information sur l'utilisation de vos données dans leur déclaration sur
la politique en matière de respect de la vie privée.
À cet égard:
?	Pour chaque service en ligne spécifique, un contrôleur détermine les
finalités et les moyens du traitement des données personnelles et
veille à la conformité de ce service avec la politique en matière de
respect de la vie privée;
?	Au sein de chaque institution, un délégué à la protection des
données veille à l'application des dispositions du règlement et
conseille les contrôleurs sur le respect de leurs obligations (voir
article 24 du règlement);
?	Pour toutes les institutions, le contrôleur européen de la
protection des données   [28 KB] exerce ses fonctions en tant
qu'autorité de contrôle indépendante (voir articles 41 à 45 du
règlement).
La famille de sites web institutionnels de l'Union européenne relevant
du domaine eu.int fournit des liens vers des sites tiers. Comme nous
ne les contrôlons pas, nous vous incitons à vérifier leur politique en
matière de respect de la vie privée.
Qu'est-ce qu'un service en ligne?
Un service en ligne sur EUROPA est un service ou une ressource
accessible via l'internet afin d'améliorer la communication entre,
d'une part, les citoyens et les entreprises, et, d'autre part, les
institutions européennes.
EUROPA offre ou offrira trois types de services en ligne:
1.	Des services d'information, qui fournissent aux citoyens, aux
médias, aux entreprises, aux administrations et à d'autres décideurs
un accès facile et efficace à l'information, permettant ainsi
d'accroître la transparence des politiques et des activités de l'UE et
de les faire mieux comprendre;
2.	Des services de communication interactifs, qui permettent
d'améliorer les contacts avec les citoyens, les entreprises, la
société civile et les acteurs publics, ce qui facilite les
consultations politiques et les mécanismes de retour d'informations,
afin de contribuer à l'élaboration des politiques, aux activités et
aux services de l'UE;
3.	Des services de transaction, qui permettent d'accéder à tous les
principaux types de transactions avec l'UE, par exemple pour la
passation de marchés, les opérations financières, le recrutement,
l'inscription à des manifestations, l'acquisition ou l'achat de
documents, etc. ( end of the french text)

Dear feelingbro,


This is a formulaic and legalistic text that appears in the fine print
of a website. Although it should be accessible to all visitors of the
website, the authors expect that most will not wish to read it. It is
primarily intended for an audience of bureaucrats, lawyers, and other
personnel who must verify the presence of such disclaimers. The chief
purpose of a text of this kind is to appear formally on a corporate or
institutional website as a safeguard against litigation. For example, the
fact that this website links "to external sites over which the Commission
has no control" will be common knowledge even to casual Internet users,
requiring enunciation only for legal reasons that have nothing to do
with the website's usability.

A secondary purpose of the text is to serve visitors who may be seeking
reassurances about the confidentiality of their transactions on the
website. The penultimate section mentions some measures undertaken
by the website to comply with the provisions of the EU's policy on
data protection. By publicizing this policy, it also functions as an
advertisement of sorts. A tertiary purpose of the text, therefore,
is to persuade the public of the virtues of the EU. The final passage,
which enumerates the three types of "e-service on EUROPA", is perhaps
the only portion of the text that offers objective information that
would suit the needs of the typical website visitor.

The text is somewhat disjointed, consisting of four distinct sections. The
first section is a litany of disclaimers intended to ward off lawsuits
related to information that is incomplete, erroneous, or provided by a
third party. The second section warns against unauthorized reproduction of
the intellectual content embodied by the website, and the third invokes
EU policies on user privacy. The fourth and final section advertises
the EU's broader electronic services.

As for the qualities of the prose, it is punctilious in substance
and inelegant in form. The bureaucratic tone carries over from
the legal passages to the marketing copy, occasionally with awkward
results. Consider this sentence: "An e-service on EUROPA is a service
or resource made available on the Internet in order to improve the
communication between citizens and businesses on the one hand and the
European Institutions on the other hand." A native English speaker with
any sense of style would have omitted the article "the" in the phrase
"improve the communication", and would have dropped the "hand" from
"on the other hand".

Thus, the cultural background of the text is not an essentially English
one. This text emerges from a subculture in which prose is (a) informed
by legal and political imperatives, (b) composed by a cosmopolitan group
of bureaucrats, and (c) meant largely for consumption by a similarly
cosmopolitan and bureaucratic audience. The assumption is that most of
those reading it will, by virtue of sharing the same background, not be
perturbed by the stiff tone and the outright solecisms. For example,
we can observe missing commas in the following phrases: "However the
Commission accepts no responsibility", "However some data or information
on our site may have been created", "civil society and public actors
thus facilitating policy consultations". A comma should be inserted after
each "However", and before the word "thus" in the last case. It will be
evident to sophisticated English-speaking readers that the text is not
merely stilted but ungrammatical.

The target text is marked by the same coherence, or lack thereof,
as the source text. Like the English original, the French rendition is
characterized by a four-part structure in which a disclaimer, a warning, a
piece of self-promotion, and an advertisement follow upon one another. The
target text is not culturally suited to the literary palate of the typical
Frenchman, in the same way that the source text would not agree with the
average Englishman. Nonetheless, it is culturally appropriate in the sense
that it is directed at an audience of cosmopolitan bureaucrats who happen
to speak French rather than English. It is quite evident from the plodding
style and the legalistic content that this is the case. The translation is
successful in imparting a similar flavor in French as it does in English.

Like the source, the target text is marred by a few grammatical errors
and by many awkward constructions. It is difficult to tell, however,
that it is a translation rather than an original. The mistakes and
infelicities are not ones that would result from an imperfect translation
effort, but ones that arise from just the kind of formulaic writing by
committee that produced the English text. There are, it is true, numerous
Anglicisms in the text, but of the kind that native French speakers often
use in a similar context. For example, the phrases "n'assume aucune
responsabilité", "professionnel dûment qualifié", and "les acteurs
publics" have a somewhat foreign or novel flavor. They are relatively
recent neologisms and therefore still somewhat awkward. However, they
are not outright mistakes and native French speakers do use them when
composing original text.

One exception is the following sentence.

    Cette politique générale couvre la famille des sites web
    institutionnels de l'Union européenne relevant du domaine eu.int.

It is not the phrase "politique générale" that jars, even though it is a
direct translation of "general policy", nor the foreign borrowing "sites
web", but the phrase "couvre la famille". The closest meaning of the
French verb "couvrir" to what was intended by the English verb "cover"
is that of accepting responsibility for the actions of an employee. For
example, a government agency "qui couvert" a deed committed by a clerk
is understood to be extending legal shelter to him. The above usage,
however, departs from that narrow sense of the verb and is quite clearly
an attempt to directly transpose English into French. This transposition
is not yet sufficiently widespread to be accepted as proper French. It
would be far better to use the verb "s'appliquer", so that the sentence
would read as follows.

    Cette politique générale s'applique à la famille des sites web
    institutionnels de l'Union européenne relevant du domaine eu.int.

Another mistake occurs in the following sentence.

    Notez aussi qu'il n'est pas possible de garantir qu'un document
    disponible en ligne reproduise exactement un texte adopté
    officiellement.

This is a grammatically flawed construction that would be criminal on
the part of a Frenchman and should not be forgiven a less fluent French
speaker either. The "que" in "garantir qu'un document" should not be
followed by the subjunctive "reproduise", since it does not express
a hope or an intention. The question of whether an online document
exactly reproduces a given text is one of fact, not of hope or desire,
and therefore takes the indicative. The sentence should be corrected to
the following.

    Notez aussi qu'il n'est pas possible de garantir qu'un document
    disponible en ligne reproduit exactement un texte adopté
    officiellement.


It has been an interesting challenge to address this question on your
behalf. If you find fault with my answer, please let me know through
a Clarification Request so that I have the opportunity to fully meet
your needs.

Regards,

leapinglizard