AUSIT QLD Professional Development

presents

From Here to Tomorrow

Reasons for optimism, or despair?

presented by
Why the need for this talk?
 Chilling news
 Chilling ignorance
 Chilling attrition and death of languages at
the expense of English
 Globalization
 Changes to industry in response to
globalization
The “Revolutions”
 Pen-&-paper => PCs, CATs => other
technologies (are we inadequate?)
 Manual => automatic (are we redundant?)
 Craft => industry (are we becoming
labourers?)
 Home => “English-speaking” world (can we
compete?)

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR US?

Business
World

Translator
Lets start with basics
 Not just any old PC, but
 Change computer every two years
 Top-class coloured printers
 Multimedia, DTP, Trados
 Other software upgrades (every 1/2 years)
 Training costs to master new versions
 Two ISP providers
 Multiple external storage devices
 Clients (agencies) EXPECT us to have software
that fits their requirements..
 Can we afford this? Does the work pay?
No longer just words
 To remain competitive, a translator needs to
be conversant with:
 a number of DTP packages (Adobe, Publisher,
Macromedia, etc)
 web editing/creation software that
changes/upgrades every few months
 electronic translation tools
 the Internet
 Localisation software

Training is not for free!

Translation “tools”
 Software for terminology extraction and
management
 Translation Memory systems
 Subtitling, web site cloning and localisation
software
 Voice recognition software
 Translation workflow management software
 Terminology databases/glossaries
 Membership in forums/lists
What IT Had Wrought on Us
 Has a major impact on the industry
 Created a rift between the have and have
nots
 Created a rift between those who can and
those who can’t (ageism)
 Those who have not are increasingly
dependent on agencies => lower income
=> have not and will continue to have not.
What IT Had Wrought on Us
 Technology User  Technology Utilizer
Word processor +TM As on left + more
+TMS + Internet elaborate
= services/specific type
Low remuneration of materials and media
using sophisticated
software systems
(subtitling/localisation/TP
MS/customized
software
=
High remuneration
The Good..
 E-mail – speedy communication
 WWW – forums, clients, resources,
information, mining terminology, no
isolation, direct access to clients, relatively
cheap marketing, global market,
collaboration on projects
 IT Boom – generated huge translation
markets in web/software localisation,
documentation, etc. 20 -30% annual
growth. Also generated tons of corpora.
The Bad
 MT – 95% poor but 5% very good (and expensive). Will
improve with time. “Wobbly” markets – technical writing,
information monitoring.
 Localization – largest market. Software localization
amenable to MT. Also, needs software coding and other IT
knowledge plus specialized software. Can be prohibitively
expensive to enter.
 Global Village – copywriting and globalizing: big markets.
Need cultural consulting and multimedia skills, must be
creative.
 Global English – majority of translations from and into
English. Other language combinations “poor cousins” –
except for a few Asian languages with economic clout.
 Translator Training does not (yet) include IT.
The Really Ugly
 No longer cottage industry, but an industrial
process: Increased volume => tools to
process => standarization = increasingly
heavy financial and time investment in tools
that will not end.
 Globalization – competing on price
 IT – slaves to computers, contact via
screen. More money only via more
time/money spent on IT.
 WE ARE ONLY PRODUCING MORE TO STAY
IN THE RACE, NOT TO WIN IT.
 WORK PROVIDERS TAKE THE BIGGEST
SHARE OF OUR PRODUCTIVITY.
 WE WORK HARD PRODUCING CORPORA
THAT ARE FED INTO MACHINES THAT
REPLACE US.
The Joys of Industrialization
 The effect of the translation market
becoming industrial
 Affects all professional practices and attitudes
(including ethical ones)
 Affects all the players – freelancers, in-house,
agencies, clients
 Influences how translation is taught (more
techie and business stuff)
 Freelancers as hired, temp labour – no
protection, inordinate demands
The Downward Spiral
New Market
Appears – scarce
resource Translator
invests in
software to
benefit

More translators
invest, more
competition

MT takes over
in the New
Market

translators
OUT!
It Happened before…
 The Industrial
Revolution replaced
cottage industries with
factories, and wage
earners with machines
with which they had to
compete.
MT – the Unfriendly Revolution?
Governments pump heaps of money into MT
research. Why?

MT never complains about

MT never
MT never gets

MT never goes on leave

MT is never in mood.
Why MT flourishes?
 Marketing Spiel (98% “meaningless”
accuracy, etc.)
 Certain types of documents suited to MT
 Clients happy with very rough translation
(POTENTIAL!!)
 Huge volume, tight deadline, no funds,
quality not important, huge corpora
available
 Standardized texts
 Post-MT editing implemented
Levelling the Playing Field
 MT rivals us (so far) only in jobs we don’t
mind it doing anyway: repetitive, not
paying, huge volumes at short deadlines.
(DANGER)
 They compete on price per volume. We can
show that we can produce better quality
under the same conditions (low quality, oral
translation, etc.)
So what’s the POTENTIAL?
 The “Just Want To Know What It Is About”
market – often scientists and academics: offer
“gisting”, synopses, summaries, oral translations
etc.
 Use it to speed up time consumed by typing. Post
edit instead of typing from scratch.
 MT will never “forget” a line or even a word. Use
as dictionary/glossary
 Prepare ST for MT (remove ambiguities, simplify)
 Offer “free” translation, but charge heaps for
post-editing.
The Danger
 MLIS Projects (as example):
 MT of financial statements
 MT of contracts

 Lucrative specialized markets – high use of

language stereotypes, therefore good for
MT - where translators will be reduced to
translating:
 What the machine can’t yet translate, and not
 what they do not want to translate
The Translation Factory
Massification

Industrialisation allows for Mass volumes need

more massive translations to be translated
using IT permitting industrialisation

IT promotes
larger markets
and therefore
more documentation
Processability of Media
 Everything can be made digital
Standardization (aka “control”)
 Standard specifications of the ST
(formatting, style sheets, style guides, etc.)
 Standards of clarity, readability, register,
etc.)

 Facilitate automatic processing of material

@the expense of translator’s creativity and
freedom
Pro-Industrial Work Organization
 Well-organized production process
replicates industrial type models:
 Protocols
 Procedures
 Improvement of quality/productivity ratio
 Path analysis (planning)
 Increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness
 Reduced time-to-market
 Product standardization (style, templates,
terminology models, info-maps, etc.)
Productivity-enhancing Tools
 Software =>
Automation of tasks
 Industrial production
management and
workflow tools
 Translators monitored
and their work checked
automatically
Quality Management
 Quality assurance +
quality control =
quality management
 Just to face the
competition
 Clients increasingly put
translation contracts
under the supervision
of engineers
(professionalism,
highly technical
process, skills and
competence)
“Khello Brisbane, this is India
calling..”
 Global market – service providers
everywhere
 24/7 – shift-based systems
 Competition on prices => “off-shoring” to
“cheaper” countries
 Sub-contracting to smaller, cheaper fry
 Many non-native English speakers
translating into English – no longer
considered unprofessional.
Outsourcing
 Direct clients no longer translating in-house
(too much work)
 Big loss to in-house translators BUT
 Increased translation sales
 Increased number of agencies
 Increased number of freelancers/in-house
translators in agencies
The Rise of the Middleman
 Huge increase in translation companies,
agencies and brokers.
 Large volume necessitates “industrial”
approach
 Largest job rise – project managers and
marketing people.
 Very fragmented market gives freelancers
some degree of independence
 The New Pyramid
Industry Client

Agency/Broker/Translation
Company:
Project Managers, Sales,
Marketing, Quality
Control, Software, etc.

The Cogs (us)

Faster, faster
 The industry (like all others) is driven by the
quest for higher productivity.
 This is measured as #of words per minute
(not quality).
 Enhanced quality and increased productivity
do not go hand in hand. The second wins in
industrialized environment.
Specialize or Perish
 But do not stick to a single specialization,
unless it is piping hot..
 As more and more translation work
becomes IT based, our skills have to be
added as quickly as the materials we work
with – this is the only added value
 Industry = specialization of labour. We
cannot afford this luxury.
Our Future on Assembly Line
 Three main divisions of labour
 Between specialised operators within the same
team
 Between broker and sub-contractors
 Between top brass and “no-value adding”
translators
 No control over our work
 No overall vision of the project
 In future, some workflow software pushes
disassembled segments without any context
onto our workstation
Market Divided

A. “Industrial” translation

B. “Craft” translation

Traditionalists Modernists - consortia

C. “Amateur” translation
The Demise of “Small Agencies”
 Small agencies go out of business or
become “cells” as:
 Business concentrates (like multinationals)
 Multilingual projects are tackled (monolingual
countries at loss)
 Can’t subsidize to take over markets with price
differentials
 Can’t invest in the technology, processes, etc.
necessary
AUSTRALIA?
 No industry as such
 No understanding on government’s behalf
of the potential
 No financial incentives

 WHO WILL WAKE THE SLEEPERS??

Man is Wolf to Man
 We are competing for clients against
 Other translators
 Other agencies
 Here and worldwide

 As a result of productivity gains + quality

not being important
 We can no longer add value by doing a better
job
 It is basically about who can drop their
whatever lower.
Is there a “niche” left
 The niche of niches (was) – sophisticated
material about sophisticated subject using
sophisticated tools
 The niche of niches (is) – what accompanies
translation proper (disassembly,
reassembly, conversion, embedding of
graphics, etc.)
CONCLUSION
 There is a trend towards automation and
replacement of human translators.
 There is a trend towards monopolization by
big money of the translation industry.
 In mass production markets, only the most
highly skilled craftsmen have any advantage
 In Australia, there is no government interest
in translation as industry
WHAT IS TO BE
DONE?
This:
 Effective virtual pools (teams) of
freelancers. This includes the necessary
technology for e-teams.
 United we stand (a better chance)
 Professional = “doing it for the money”.
Need to re-focus. Become realistic.
 Gender issues need to be looked into
 Become better at the business side of it.
 Become consultants (in translation
management, not translation proper)