Translators In The Age Of Image And Speech
The ways in which translators work, particularly industrial translators
, have been undergoing dramatic change since the advent of the computer, the Internet, globalization, the growing use of machine translation and CAT tool programs, and, in the case of into-English translators, the growing use of English as the lingua franca of international business, law, technology, and the sciences. The pace of this change is accelerating at such a rate that it is difficult to predict how we shall be doing our work and what the
translation profession will look like five years from now.
If current trends continue, the industrial translators of the future will need to be talented copy-editors and proofreaders, not talented writers.
There is another factor at work, one to which I think we translators have not paid sufficient attention in our discussions of the subject. Our society has come to the end of the Gutenberg Era, the age of the primacy of the written word as source of information and education, and is now in the era of the moving image and the spoken word, embodied in film, radio, television, the telephone, the phonograph player, and the innumerable offspring of these seminal inventions. This sea-change is affecting every aspect of our lives.
The problems facing the newspaper industry provide one example of this evolution. Why buy a newspaper to learn about the day's events when we can learn about them from television, radio, and the computer screen? An even more eloquent example is the visible decline in the quality of writing, particularly in the American print media. Examples of incorrect use of prepositions, incorrect collocations, and ignorance of basic idioms of U.S. English abound in every newspaper and magazine and in signage of every kindthis notwithstanding the lip service that our society and its educational systems still pay to the importance of learning to read and write effectively. We are already reaping the first fruits of the continuing transition to the new era, a transition that began only a century or so ago, barely a blip in the history of our human race.
The writing professions are not going to disappear completely during the new era I doubt that the print versions of newspapers and magazines are going to vanish from the earth. I expect that authors will not stop writing poems and short stories and novels and non-fiction pieces, even if their works reach the public via the Internet or hand-held computer devices rather than on paper, and that those very devices may lead to the creation of new types and styles of writing, possibly in the form of ad hoc partnerships with other media to create multi-media productions.
But I also venture to predict that the influence of the text will continue to decline, along with the emphasis once placed on the importance of learning to write in clear, grammatically correct
language and developing a good writing style.
Translation is one of the writing professions. How are we translators going to be affected by the changes that will occur in the new era? I believe that the brunt of the change will be borne by us industrial translators, and particularly those of us for whom the translation service companies are the primary sources of work. Most of us are free-lances. Depending on language pair and subject specializations, many of us have seen our incomes at least stagnate if not diminish in recent years because of out-sourcing to the low-labor-cost countries, the increasing use of machine translation and CAT tool programs by the translation companies and many of their clients, and, in the case of into-English translators, the growing use of English as the lingua franca of international business, law, technology, and the sciences, the traditional end-users of translations.
There seems to be a consensus of opinion in the translation industry that the translations produced with the assistance of computer programs are often not completely satisfactory. However, what counts in industrial translation is acceptability to the end user. The downside of this long-accepted principle of industrial translation is that end users' increasing indifference to and ignorance of correct and effective writing, and their increasing desire to "keep costs down," comes at the expense of the copy-editors, proofreaders, data managers, and translators and other writers, who are paid at lower per-word rates.
Translation as writing profession is not going to disappear. Translators are not going to disappear, any more than are other writers. But if current trends continue, the industrial translators of the future will need to be talented copy-editors and proofreaders, not talented writers. Those of us who want to be writers will need to change our attitudes and our work habits, particularly if translating has been our livelihood.
Aunes Oversettelser AS has been in the business for 26 years, and we are specialized in technical translations. We are specializing in the Nordic languages, and can offer services into Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic. The premier translation agency for Norway and the Nordic region! Technical translation services for businesses in the Nordic countries and translation agencies world-wide.
by: carmen
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