Le monde en crise et les industries de la langue? - … · Conférence internationale Le monde en...

International Conference

The World in Crisis – And the Language Industry?

Geneva, 13 & 14 November, 2009

Conférence internationale

Le monde en crise – et les industries de la langue?

Genève, 13 et 14 novembre 2009

Internationale Konferenz

Die Welt in der Krise - und die Sprachenindustrie?

Genf, 13.-14. November 2009


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International Association Language and Business

International Vereinigung Sprache und Wirtschaft Association internationale Langues et Économie

© ASTTI – IALB/IVSW/AILE, 2010

Association suisse de traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes Schweizerischer Übersetzer-, Terminologen- und Dolmetscherverbands Associazione Svizzera dei Traduttori, Terminologi e Interpreti

Compiled and edited by JM Vande Walle

Editions Tradulex, Genève

PDF version distributed on CD


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Geneva, 13 & 14 November, 2009

Proceedings

Le monde en crise – et les industries de la langue?

Genève, 13 et 14 novembre 2009

Actes

Die Welt in der Krise - und die Sprachenindustrie?

Genf, 13.-14. November 2009

Akten


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Committee

Prof. dr. Jean Klein, President IALB

Nicole Carnal, President ASTTI

Dr. Catherine Greensmith

João Esteves-Ferreira

Manfred Schmitz

Catherine Gachies

Jean-Marie Vande Walle


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Contents – Sommaire – Inhalt

Deborah Fry 1

Crisis, What Crisis? Industry, What Industry?

Nancy A. Locke 23

Translation: From Art to Industry

Kristiina Abdallah 32

The Language Industry in Crisis?

Translators’ Agency in Production Networks

Luigi Muzii 41

Community, collaborative, social. Will the language industry

survive crowdsourcing?

Manfred Schmitz 52

Normung für Übersetzungsdienstleister: Qualität ist schon

längst messbar

David J. Kosh 65

Navigating the Economic Downturn

Áurea Fernández Rodríguez - Iolanda Galanes Santos 93

La traduction de textes économiques et financiers :

les métaphores et la dernière crise mondiale

Marie-Evelyne Le Poder 110

Le langage de la crise à l´étude

Viviane Grisez 122

Crise économique, crise linguistique:

la petite histoire belge…

Sofia Moreno de Cayeux 131

How language professionals can cope with the new situation :

From the Standpoint of a Freelancer

Siôn Aled Owen & Eleri Llewelyn Morris 138

Challenges and Opportunities for Minority Languages

Teaching in a Time of Recession


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Ralf Lemster 153

Internationale Netzwerke – gemeinsam den

Herausforderungen begegnen

Wie Sprachdienstleister aktiv Nutzen aus der Globalisierung

ziehen können

Anne van Wylick 168

Freelance Translators and Interpreters : An Integral Part of

the IMF’s Language Services Team

Anne Aboh-Dauvergne 189

La terminologie comme une piste de réflexion linguistique

pour répondre à la crise ?

Dagmar Dichtl 201

Gefragt in der Krise: Der ÖNB-Sprachendienst

Herausforderungen und Kooperationen

Helen J. L. Campbell 207

How International Organisations and Universities cooperate

in training ventures – an example: Universities Contact Group

of the IAMLADP Working Group on Training

Anne Rosnoblet 209

Le traducteur économique et la crise : situation et perspectives


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Crisis, What Crisis? Industry, What Industry?

Deborah Fry

Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft

Abstract

The financial crisis of the past two years has impacted the top and bottom

lines of many language service providers, from individual freelances to

global corporations. Nevertheless, the current recession does not in itself

represent a new quality, even though it is undoubtedly a catalyst for further

change. More interesting - and more profound in their implications - are

the underlying business and technology trends that continue to dominate

what can now clearly be called the language industry. In the past twenty

years, there has been an unprecedented change in the way we work. Speed

and integration, differentiation/specialization and sophistication have

increased dramatically, as has the size of some of the players. In the

aggregate, these processes are set to continue, thanks to ongoing

globalization, the unfolding digital revolution, and far-reaching structural

and content-driven changes in our own and our clients' sectors. This

presentation positions language services providers in this complex

environment and examines key factors driving the development of the

language industry and its submarkets. Leading on from this, it identifies

and analyzes critical success factors for language service providers in a

world in which multilinguality - of whatever level of complexity - can

increasingly be seen as a component of other, often highly standardized

processes.

Goals of this Presentation

My goal today is to promote thought and debate. In the past few months,

both I and my partner and husband Robin Bonthrone have talked with

many other colleagues. These people are in various functions, sub-

segments of the market and locations around the world. What we all have

in common is a widespread feeling that translation is about to change

radically.

This presentation attempts to examine why this should be, with a focus on

the broader trends that are driving developments. I would like to stress at

the outset that I am neither an economist nor a banker, nor am I a tools

specialist. I lay absolutely no claim to infallibility in these areas. Equally, my

views are subjective, anecdotal and impressionistic rather than the result


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of rigorous academic research. Nevertheless, they represent a systematic

attempt to make deeper sense of the signals we are now receiving, and I

look forward to hearing your take on them.

The situation we are now facing is a new one. Riding the globalisation wave

for the past fifteen years or so has been an exciting and dynamic

experience, but a linear one. Visibility has been clear, growth more or less

continuous, and the human-centric process of translation unchanged

despite certain technological advances. In my opinion, this model is now

under threat. In the longer term, economic dynamics, technological

innovation and of course wider environmental and social issues will

profoundly change the way in which we do business.

Theses (Slide 1)

Before I go any further, let me set out my main theses.

The first point to be made is that we are all still standing. This may sound

obvious, but it was not a given. Last autumn, Armageddon was averted

with about 48 hours to spare. What is more, many eminent economists are

cautioning that we are still not out of the woods, having built up massive

debt with no clear way of paying for it. Nevertheless, for most of the

translation professionals I have spoken to, things could have been worse.

Despite this, I maintain that a new paradigm is emerging for translation:

that of an industry, rather than a profession. Of course, industries are not

necessarily bad things. They produce the cheap, generally reliable goods on

which all our lives are based. And, at least in theory, large companies may


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offer advantages such as career paths, fringe benefits and pensions that

small, undercapitalised ones may not. However, industries are definitely

characterised by highvolume, largely automated throughput and largely

interchangeable, commoditised output.

One consequence of this is that the role of humans, and particularly of

human translators, is being redefined. Translators already need to do less

and less of the work associated with standard jobs, and this process will

continue. Equally, the new translation and project management systems,

coupled with client-side developments, will change the role and position of

project managers in the next few years. And the larger the client and

supply-side companies concerned, the more far-reaching and rapid this

process is likely to be.

The implications for translation are significant. In certain defined

environments, machines can already offer time and cost benefits that

humans (including crowdsourced ones) cannot. Moreover, even on the

quality front – the high ground where human translators regularly stake

their colours – the gap between a good system and a poor translator is

closing. We therefore need to think seriously about what makes us unique

in this brave new world. There is, in my opinion, no one single answer, and

flexibility in this changing environment is important. But passivity – let

alone denial – is not an option.

© Deborah Fry, Fry & Bonthrone 2009

The Financial Crisis

• Credit “superbubble” emerges, fuelled by securitisation, derivatives, ratings, low interest rates…

• Severe lack of transparency

• Market turns, first bankruptcies, widespread uncertainty

• Interbank market stalls, central banks pump liquidity into the system

• Fully-fledged panic breaks out, major bank failures

• Governments bail out/nationalise systemically relevant institutions

• Global financial crisis, global recession


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The Financial Crisis (Slide 2)

So, what actually happened? In an extremely small nutshell,1 cheap debt

over several years fuelled a superbubble in a number of different areas,

including subprime mortgages and credit card debt. This process was made

possible, among other things, by what is known as securitisation.

Securitisation pools non-tradable assets and repackages the pools as

securities, which are backed by the cash flows from the underlying assets.

Once created, the securities (enhanced by ratings) can be sold on to

investors, who share in the underlying profit or loss. Since the debt – and

hence the risk – is no longer on their books, banks are free to lend all over

again to other people, while also earning fees for performing the

securitisation itself. Investors benefit by gaining exposure to asset classes

that they cannot easily invest in directly. And, at least in theory, the

securities’ high credit ratings satisfy investment criteria while offering a

superior yield.

This process quickly became a self-perpetuating machine. Assets of

dubious provenance were vacuumed up, repackaged and sold on to

investors. In addition, a number of other types of derivatives became

established in other areas. What all these instruments have in common is

that they are highly complex financial products, and that they were black

boxes to many investors. In some cases, they were also not recorded on

banks’ books but issued and managed via off-balance sheet special purpose

vehicles.

Then, in 2004-2006, US interest rates rose by over 4%, subprime teaser

mortgage periods ran out and defaults on housing loans started

ballooning.2 In 2007, the first specialist US mortgage lender filed for

insolvency, and banks and hedge funds were hit by the debt it had sold on.

As the crisis spread, banks ceased doing business with each other, as there

was a lack of transparency as to who was holding what securities and what

these were worth. The interbank market – where banks lend to each other

– dried up. Institutions refinancing themselves via this route rather than via

more long-term funding found themselves in trouble.

1 For those wishing to delve further into this issue, the best single account of the origins of

the financial crisis that I have read is: Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tett, 2009, Little, Brown, ISBN: 9781408701645 2 The information in this paragraph is taken from: “Timeline: Credit Crunch to Downturn”,

available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7521250.stm


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At the same time, insurance companies such as AIG and monolines

(specialist bond insurers) found that securitisation had not diversified risk

as they had thought, but had in fact aggregated it – with them, since they

insured the securities against default. They, and a number of banks, had to

be rescued or went under, and the shock and uncertainty that this caused

sent the markets into free fall. The central banks stepped in, shoring up the

money markets and – with the help of governments around the globe –

avoiding meltdown.Nevertheless, the crisis spread from Wall Street to

Main Street and around the world.

The size of the rescue operation mounted by the national governments is

spectacular. To quote the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King3:

―The sheer scale of support to the banking sector is breathtaking. In the

UK, in the form of direct or guaranteed loans and equity investment, it is

not far short of a trillion (that is, one thousand billion) pounds, close to

two-thirds of the annual output of the entire economy. To paraphrase a

great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much

money been owed by so few to so many.‖

And that was just one country, and just one sector.

Even despite this level of support, losses have been and will continue to be

horrendous. The IMF estimates that global write-downs by banks will

amount to US$2.8 trillion between 2007 and 2010, of which $1.5 trillion

still have to be charged. And although forecasts have improved in the

course of the year, the IMF is still predicting that global output in the real

economy will fall by 1.1 percent in 2009.4 The stimulus measures taken will

cause G20 debt to hit an average of 118% of GDP in 2014.56 We – and I

mean all of us – will be paying for all of this for a long time to come.

In other words, the next decade or so will be dominated by economic and

financial rebuilding and recovery, plus other minor issues such as global

warming, resource shortages, and demographic change. Even in the best-

case scenario, we are entering a much more sober and constrained age.

This will inevitably take its toll on our business environment.

3 The full speech is available at: “Speech by Mervyn King, Governor” 20 October 2009

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/speeches/speaker.htm#king 4 In: IMF World Economic Outlook 2009, available at:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/02/pdf/text.pdf 5 Quoted in: “Ten years of cuts and tax rises lies ahead, IMF says”, Financial Times, 4

November 2009


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The Effect on Translation

• General growth trend unbroken, fuelled by

ongoing globalisation

• “Pinpricks rather than sledgehammer blows”

• Operational management is more difficult

• Price pressure (but not just for this reason)

• Longer-term developments are much more

important

The Effect on Translation (Slide 3)

Let me now turn to translation.

The first thing that can be said is that, at the high end of the industry, the

healthy levels of business seen over the past decade do not generally seem

to have gone into reverse. As one colleague said, the effect has been more

one of “pinpricks than sledgehammer blows”. Another pointed out that the

collapse of Communism twenty years ago had much more of an effect on

peoples’ lives. These impressions would seem to be borne out by research

firm Common Sense Advisory. In his speech to the BDÜ conference in

Berlin in September, its president Don De Palma indicated that initial

soundings for 2009 suggested a slight slowdown for the crisis period but

nothing dramatic.6

That having been said there are, of course, variations within this general

picture.

6 Oral aside by Don De Palma in his speech to the BDÜ conference in September 2009:

“The role of language and translation services in a global economy.” In Übersetzen in die Zukunft: Herausforderungen der Globalisierung für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer: Tagungsband der Internationalen Fachkonferenz des Bundesverbandes der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V. (BDÜ): Berlin, 11.-13. September 2009. Eds: Wolfram Baur et al. Berlin: BDÜ, 2009, 42-49. ISBN: 978-3-938430-24-8


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The first is due to the quality of management. As Warren Buffet famously

said: “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”7

Risk management, long-term business relationships, solid funding and

client diversification suddenly took on a new urgency for translators in the

course of the crisis. Of course, sheer luck – or the lack of it – also played a

role. Unsurprisingly, pain also tended to be greater in those areas most

affected by the crisis, although some saw a short-term increase, due to all

the words being written on the subject. What is more, translation in

sectors such as the extractive industries has been seeing buoyant growth

regardless of the turbulence on the financial markets.

Additionally, for “business as normal” projects, operational management

became more difficult. Clients in large organisations were often

overworked, making interaction and project planning more difficult. Some

projects suffered additional rewrites, while for others recycling of existing

texts reduced the load. Another common issue was more pronounced

peaks and valleys in demand and a growing number of on-off-on projects.

This increased the management effort, often without any opportunity to

charge clients for the trouble.

Now that the acute phase of the financial crisis is subsiding, it seems that

cost sensitivity is increasing, both in terms of unit prices and with respect

to total budgets. This will continue as corporate cost-cutting programmes,

which in some cases runs into the billions, gather steam and as the supply-

side trends we shall look at in a moment take effect. While buoyant

demand accompanied by simultaneous cost pressure may seem like a

paradox, it is in fact typical of many expanding sectors and heralds a

fundamental structural shift.

7 Available at: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2001ar/2001letter.html


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Is Translation an Industry?

• Large headcount and capital?

• Manufacturing paradigm?

• Similar technological infrastructure of

production?

• Technically substitutable goods?

Is Translation an Industry? (Slide 4)

This brings me to the second part of my presentation. Is translation an

industry, and if so, what does this actually mean?

A couple of years ago I was talking to a client at a major bank and

mentioned the term “translation industry”. His reaction was one of

genuine surprise. He had not thought that there was such a thing – unless

prefixed by the word “cottage”. Equally, when I worked for LISA, the

Localisation Industry Standards Association, in the 1990s a venture

capitalist told me that he and his peers were not interested in translation,

as the human factor meant that it was nonscalable. In other words, at that

point translation for him was not an industrialised, automated process.

Nevertheless, a quick linguistic test suggests that we may be onto

something. Can you talk about the accounting industry? No. The legal

industry – definitely not! But what about the translation industry? Does the

phrase sound right? I think so, and so does Google. Typing in the relevant

words reveals 147,000 hits for “translation industry”, but only 28,100 for

“translation profession”8. However, since the Internet can be used every

day to prove that 100,000 lemmings can’t be wrong, it is worth taking a

deeper look at what an industry actually is.

8 Results as of 8 December 2009, 16.30.


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According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary9, an industry is

“a division of productive or profit-making labour; esp: one that employs a

large personnel and capital, esp. in manufacturing”. It is also “a group of

productive or profit-making enterprises or organisations that have a similar

technological structure of production and that produce or supply

technically substitutable goods, services, or sources of income.”

In other words, there are four tests that we can apply to discuss whether

translation is in fact, or is becoming, an industry:

• Does it have a large headcount (to someone from the United Kingdom,

the phrase “a personnel” sounds horrible) and capital?

• Does it produce according to a manufacturing paradigm?

• Do its enterprises have a similar technological infrastructure of

production?

• And are its products technically substitutable?


Large Headcount and Capital?

Yes!

– Large companies with triple-digit million revenues

– Thousands of smaller companies

– Hundreds of thousands of freelance translators

– US$ 14.25bn revenues for translation in 2008 (CSA)

But...

– Still minnows compared with other industries

– Consolidation has some way to go

9 Merriam-Webster, 1993, ISBN: 0-87779-201-1


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Does Translation Have a Large Headcount and Capital? (Slide 5)

As you will know, it is very difficult to obtain reliable data on translation. So

when I started asking people recently about the size of the market, I was

not really surprised that I did not get any precise figures. Everyone is

agreed, however, that the number is pretty large.

Of course, the fact that a large number of people are involved in doing

something does not make it an industry. Nevertheless, a look at the

corporate end of translation reveals that a “group of productive or profit-

making enterprises” does now in fact exist. According to research firm

Common Sense Advisory, there are now six companies with revenues in

excess of US$200m p.a., and seven with revenues in excess of US$106-

166m p.a.10 What is more, a generation ago almost all translation

companies were small entities financed from cash flow, but the top tier

today shows a much more sophisticated mix of funding sources, including

listed enterprises and private equity-backed organisations.

Equally, Common Sense Advisory says that language services as a whole

have also grown rapidly to the point where revenues are in the double-

digit billions worldwide. Of course, we should not get carried away here –

after all, the figure of US$14.25bn11 is less than one quarter of what US

insurer AIG lost in the fourth quarter of 2008.12 And our sector is still

dwarfed by the telecommunications industry, for example, where annual

revenues are forecast to grow from “under $1.7 trillion in 2008 to over

$2.7 trillion in 2013.”13

Similarly, despite this new tier of large players, translation is still

fragmented. According to Common Sense Advisory, the 30 largest players

only account for somewhat more than 26% of the market.14 This goes

against the “Rule of Three” outlined by management consultants Jagdish

Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, whereby the top three full-line companies in

an industry hold between 70 and 90 percent of the market.15 So there is

still some way to go on the consolidation front. Moreover, the many

10

In: De Palma, Donald A., op. cit. 11

In: De Palma, Donald A., op. cit. 12

“US takes another crack at AIG rescue. Wracked by turmoil in the credit markets, the insurance giant posts $62 billion quarterly loss.” Quoted in: http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/02/news/companies/aig/index.htm 13

Available at: http://www.insight-corp.com/reports/review08.asp 14

In: De Palma, Donald A. op. cit. 15

Quoted in “Caution: Rough Road Ahead”, available at: http://www.atkearney.com/index.php/Publications/caution-rough-road-ahead-eaxii-1.html


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variables involved in translation mean that there are natural limits to the

economies of scale that can be produced. Nevertheless, a trend is clearly

discernible.


Manufacturing Paradigm?

Increasingly:

• Taylorisation of translation process; role differentiation

• Cost-driven: as volumes rise, series production is the only

way to cut (unit) costs

• Time-driven: market pressures require large capacity

• Complexity-driven: allows secured production, variations

on a theme

• Intermediation (aggregation/sourcing/management)

• Translation integrated into other, taylorised workflows

• Combination of humans and technology

Does Translation Comply With a Manufacturing Paradigm?

(Slide 6)

The second test of an industry is whether production uses a manufacturing

paradigm. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary16 defines the verb

“to manufacture” as “to produce according to an organised plan and with

division of labour.” Here, too, this is increasingly the case. The corporate

translation process is becoming taylorised, or split into simpler component

parts. Even an extremely small company like ours differentiates between

the translation, administration, technology, terminology and resources,

project management, quality assurance and corporate management

functions, and larger companies are much more complex.

This organisational approach is necessary to meet client needs and

preserve our own sanity. As we all know, translation volumes have

increased dramatically over recent years, while turnaround times have

been slashed. The need to seriously manage large projects, and hence in

many cases large numbers of translators, has grown.

16

op.cit.


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At the same time, clients rightly do not see this as their core business. For

them, translation is a means to an end. It is a complex ancillary process

that requires a large number of non-core skills, entails a large number of

variables and is often time-critical. This is precisely why they want to

delegate it. In return, they need to be sure that they will get the right

translations in the right place at the right time and at the right price.

This leads on a point that is often overlooked. For us as translators,

globalisation has meant a ten-year period of buoyant demand. For

companies, it has meant rapidly increasing costs and, if things go wrong, a

threat to their business goals. This combination of cost and strategic

importance necessarily attracts management attention. The pressure to

increase efficiency – and therefore cut unit costs if not absolute costs – is

therefore on. And the only way to do this is to adopt an increasingly

manufacturing-based approach.

These developments explain the emergence of the larger supply-side

companies. These act as intermediaries, sourcing, aggregating and

managing the translation process. But they often go beyond this, delivering

a range of additional services and/or a finished product of which

translation is only an embedded and subordinate component. Good

examples include film subtitling, the delivery of localised and fully tested

software, and the multilingual translation, printing and fulfilment of

documents such as IPO prospectuses. Here, too, these flexible and

sophisticated workflows depend on organised structures and differentiated

functions, both within and across enterprise boundaries. This is light years

away from the envelope-changers of a generation ago with their “all

languages, all subject areas” model.

These large organisations also make heavy use of technology, enabling the

blending of human- and machine-based offerings. Although we have all

shifted to a computer-based production and delivery model, they are

taking automation further, linking systems and putting the machine at the

centre of the workflow. To this extent, they are increasingly offering a

service that also looks more like a manufacturing process in the narrower

sense of the word.


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Technological Infrastructure?

Yes, and rising!

– Basic infrastructure (IT/Internet, retrieval, security…)

– Source text management (controlled language, reuse…)

– Target production (TMs, MT ...)

– Workflow and process management

– Format/delivery technology (CMSs, DTP...)

Issues:

– Expensive automation is for large organisations

– Growing gap between proprietary and generic tools

– When does the competitive advantage become critical?

– How far down the chain will this stretch?

Does Translation Have a Technological Infrastructure? (Slide 7)

The issue of automation naturally leads on to the next test – whether there

is a similar technological infrastructure of production. Here, too the answer

is an increasing yes.

The dominant infrastructure for translation is now computerised, whatever

the size of provider concerned. This applies throughout the entire

production chain: to the general infrastructure, to the management of the

translation workflow and, increasingly, to the narrower linguistic process

itself. The pace of change is incredibly fast. Within my own working life we

have gone from much-loathed daisy wheel typewriters, dictating machines

and telexes to paperbased faxes and word processors, which were

followed by standalone and then networked computers and now the Web.

These new resources have been a great help to human translators

producing high-quality work. Nevertheless, technology also has a disruptive

potential that is becoming increasingly evident.

Many conventional tools, such as translation memories, aim at redefining

rather than replacing the role of humans in the translation process. These

can be categorised as computerassisted human translation. At the highly

industrialised end of the market, however, humanassisted machine

translation – the reverse paradigm – is gaining ground. In addition to


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process automation, the old, comfortable idea that machine translation

(MT) is for gisting and “hacking wood”, while humans are a prerequisite for

accuracy and style is breaking down. Machines are getting better with the

ability to feed them large corpora. Of course, this does not mean in the

slightest that they are perfect. It will take a long time, and quite probably

cost much more than the one billion dollars currently on offer, before

President Obama gets his “automatic, highly accurate and real time

translation between the major languages of the world”1718. Nevertheless,

there is a growing feeling that technology is coming to dominate

translation and that MT, in defined areas, is about to go mainstream.

What is more, in the real world there are also limits to the humans. In the

ATA press release “American Translators Association Cautions White House

on Future Language Policy”, Association president Jiri Stejksal replied to

the Obama initiative by saying that “only an experienced human translator

has the skill and cultural awareness to convey every nuance when you

absolutely have to get it right.”1819 In practice, a great deal depends on

the word “experienced”, and on having access to such people. With all due

respect to the eminent colleagues with whom I am privileged to work, on a

bad day sourcing specialist human translators can remind one of the old

Woody Allen joke: “The food here is terrible, and the portions are too

small”.19

Moreover, in a seamless and highly automated process the distinction

between humans and machines is increasingly meaningless anyway. All

that clients care about are effective – and cost-effective – solutions. Talking

about the big players, a recent BusinessWeek article stated that:

“Companies have combined the power of humans and computers to

simultaneously double the speed of translation and nearly halve its costs.

Where each translator once converted 2,500 words a day at a cost of some

25c per word, they can now offer 5,000 words per day at around 12-15c a

word”.20 The article also gave concrete examples showing that MT is alive

and well in a large company near you. The reason is obvious: no client in

17

Available at: https://www.atanet.org/pressroom/news_release_obama.pdf 18

In: “A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving Towards Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs”, available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/SEPT_20__Innovation_Whitepaper_FINAL.pdf 19

Quoted (among other places) in: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_Quotations_of_Woody_Allen 20

In: “White House Challenges Translation Industry to Innovate” BusinessWeek, 1 October 2009, available at http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2009/id2009101_196515.htm


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the multiverse is going to turn down a business proposition like that, if

companies can indeed deliver on it.

This means that conventional translators now have a growing structural

problem. Since it costs large amounts of money, heavy automation is the

preserve of the big battalions. For around two decades, large technology

and translation companies have been pouring big dollars into tools

development. The BusinessWeek article suggests that this is paying off.

Conversely, progress for the rest of us has been relatively slow. One of the

frustrating things over this period has been how little non-proprietary

technology has made it into the public domain for the long term.

Consequently, the rewards of automation will not be evenly spread. Does

this mean we shall reach a tipping point at which the advantages of the

new business model blow away the old one? Of course, economies of scale

work in reverse to protect niche players. At present, for example, real gains

can only be obtained in machine translation with high-volume,

homogeneous client environments, but this may not always be the case.


Technically Substitutable Goods?

Yes!

• Technological substitution:

– Reuse (TMs, CMSs)

– MT

– Crowdsourcing, etc.

• Inter-translator substitutability through standards (reproducibility and repeatability)

• Client/translator and vendor substitutability (improved knowledge of English, supplier triage, FYI MT)

Does Translation Offer Technically Substitutable Goods? (Slide 8)

This brings me to my last test, technically substitutable goods. For any self-

respecting translator, the knee-jerk answer is clear: I produce high-quality

translations and clients come to me because they get a service they can’t


ASTTI - IALB 16

find anywhere else. For any fan of Garrison Keillor, this sounds in the

aggregate a bit like Lake Wobegone, where “all the women are strong, all

the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”.21 In

practice, many translations – and hence translators – are already more

substitutable than we would like to think, and this trend will increase in

future.

Firstly, increased text reusability is already serving to reduce volumes over

time. This applies both to translation memories and to source-based

technologies such as multilingual content management systems.

Secondly, to the extent that MT can indeed replace human translators,

these translations are substitutable as well. Of course, technology also

expands the overall market, by allowing material that would never

otherwise be translated to be made available. Nevertheless, the

boundaries are often muddied in practice.

Thirdly, the use of technologies such as crowdsourcing, which aggregate

translators, also entails a risk of substitutability at the translator level. On

the one hand they make large translation projects possible, but on the

other they increase the pool of translators and therefore allow their

translations to be substituted by those from other suppliers.

In addition, there are also at least two sources of human-human

substitutability, despite the increasing automation of the translation

process.

Firstly, translators can be defined as being substitutable. At the logical

level, standards – with both a small and a large “s” – by their very nature

permit and accelerate individual translator substitution by increasing

reproducibility and repeatability. These are the characteristics needed for

an industrial approach to translation. It is therefore no coincidence that the

large translation agencies are so interested in this area.

This obviously has implications for pricing models. If translator quality is

perceived to be interchangeable, it inevitably becomes less of a driver:

price, timing and value-added features become more important. Access to

a large number of alternative suppliers always increases client choice and

drives prices down over time. Incidentally, this, and the related ability (at

least in part) to dictate supplier rates, is probably another reason why large

21 Quoted at: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/about/podcast/


ASTTI - IALB 17

translation enterprises can charge such competitive prices. What is more,

clients are increasingly triaging their quality requirements, with single or

multiple providers offering different levels of defined quality to cater to

this.

Lastly, it should be borne in mind that other humans can also be

substituted for translators. The need for translations is not constant,

especially during recessions. Although we are profiting from an age of

globalisation, we are also seeing the supremacy of English as a global

business lingua franca. For example, many business professionals now

receive part of their training in English. This means that non-native clients

increasingly understand documents in this language. In consequence, the

volume of “for your information” translations outside the MT area is

declining, and their average complexity is increasing.


What Does All This Mean?

• The industrial, automated paradigm will increasingly dominate the industry

• Heavy IT use/standard workflows mean success

• A lot of translation is (or will become) a subordinated, commodity business…

• “Two legs good, no legs bad” no longer works

• The future of translation is not just with translators

• More and less qualifications are required

• Translators, associations and trainers need to see the big picture

What Does All This Mean? (Slide 9)

So, if we pull all this together, what do we come up with?

Firstly, we are looking at an increasingly automated industry. To recap: this

means a process that generates economies of scale from high throughput,

standardised workflows and increasingly heavy use of information

technology.


ASTTI - IALB 18

What this means is structural change. As more of the process disappears

into the machine, the role of humans will adapt. Firstly, translators in the

narrower sense of the word will occupy less of the value chain, and

therefore have less of a stake and a say in the process. Linked to this, we

will see a deskilling in some areas. To give just one example, most people

are seeing a rise in what we at F&B call “fill-in-the-gaps translation”.

Moreover, where knowledge and technological barriers are low,

commodity status exists or is fast approaching. Conversely, though, job

requirements at the high end are likely to be even more complex and

require more intellectual input and judgement.

In such a situation, the role of associations and trainers becomes

increasingly crucial, as forums for debate and facilitators. Much progress

has been made in recent years, but there are still issues to be solved.

Universities in particular are faced with an almost impossible task. It was

absolutely necessary for them to broaden their curricula so as to capture

the increasing diversity of the translation chain. However, it has led to an

ever-larger gap between university graduates’ skills and what employers

providing translation in the narrower sense of the word need. Especially

when coupled with the introduction of B.A. courses, this has become

painful for all concerned. Naturally, M.A. courses are designed to provide

more of these in-depth skills. Nevertheless, our experience is that, in

practice, the chasm is widening.

Above and beyond that, the past few years have seen a fragmentation of

industry bodies. While perhaps inevitable, this is not beneficial. In addition

to a certain tradition of internecine warfare within translation associations,

translation has split along sub-segment lines. Localisation became a

separate industry in the early 1990s and has since fragmented in its own

right. Equally, in both Europe and the United States translation companies

have their own organisations. And, last but not least, relations between

translators and computer linguists have long been characterised by mutual

incomprehension and/or suspicion. This is not helpful. What we need now

is a clear view of the bigger translation picture.


ASTTI - IALB 19


So You Want to Be a Translator?

• Offer quality:

– Stylistic specialisation

– *Real* subject area specialisation

• Offer related skills:

– Linguistic (post-editing, terminology)

– Technological

• Aggregate, integrate, consolidate

• Define and manage your space professionally

• Build a brand

• Adapt to reality *all the time*

So You Want to Be a Translator? (Slide 10)

Of course, this also applies at the personal level, too. Increasingly, mass-

market translation no longer generates enough for single translators to live

off comfortably, and this will be even truer in future. This slide outlines a

number of potential solutions to the problem, which are naturally not

mutually exclusive.

The most crucial thing is, obviously, to have something to sell – i.e.

something that is not easily substitutable. And first up here is to offer

quality.

In practice, there are two main axes of quality for translation in the

narrower sense of the word: stylistic quality and content quality. The

former is becoming an increasingly popular topic at the moment, as high-

end translators seek to maintain their margins. However, while absolutely

agreeing with its necessity, I have my doubts about its viability as a general

strategy. Firstly, despite not being easy to achieve in practice, it is the niche

that everyone is trying to pile into. The reason is simple: it frequently has

the lowest barriers to entry. In principle, good style spans all text types and

subject areas, even though registers will, of course, vary. However, this

also means that it may be threatened by commoditisation in the longer

term. Secondly, as we have seen, clients are sometimes surprisingly


ASTTI - IALB 20

insensitive to quality, and this trend is set to increase in price-driven

market segments. With so many words being produced every day, the

question of what quality is needed for what texts is a real and thorny one.

Thirdly, for individuals this approach is limited by throughput constraints –

even with the intelligent use of technology, single human translators

simply cannot handle some of the larger jobs on the market. Since many

clients demand a single point of contact, splitting up such jobs may not be

an option if you want to retain control of the client relationship.

The next line of defence is subject area specialisation in the meaningful

sense of word. Industrial processes require a certain scale, meaning they

focus primarily on mass or semispecialised content. Niche expertise offers

a good defence. Equally, understanding the texts (in the sense of

understanding what the words are about) is something that machines can’t

yet do properly. However, true expertise is rare. Of course, a lot of

translators offer “commercial, technical and legal translation”, but this is

not what we are talking about. Specialisation goes much further and is not

easily reproducible. It is hard to build up and hard to maintain. At the high

end, understanding your clients’ business and subject areas means

reproducing knowledge systems in multiple languages that clients

themselves spend years to acquire, and that are also changing rapidly. This

is a lonely business. Indeed, it has to be so in order to be effective as a

strategy. And a further word of warning: even here, the process of

commoditisation is surprisingly rapid.

Another tack is to provide complementary skills in other areas, be they

linguistic or technological. In other words, you are aiming to change your

position on the human-machine continuum. This strategy can be

interesting, although there is also competition in these areas. In some

cases, it may also come from non-translators (such as MT post-editors) and

may also be locale-independent. People frequently tend to forget that

diversifying away from one’s own core business generally means

diversifying into someone else’s, and that this may conceivably entail more

rather than less competition.

All these approaches depend on deepening and/or broadening translators’

offerings. As such, they are open to the justified criticism that they require

translators to assume a greater and greater burden. There are a lot of very

tired people in this industry, even or possibly especially among the

successful ones. Since individuals cannot hope to cover the entire

spectrum, increased integration and aggregation, in the form of networks,

crowds, or whatever will be needed. Judging by a number of presentations


ASTTI - IALB 21

at this conference, this idea is alive and well. Alternatively, translators can

consider stopping being freelancers and pool their activities, or can join an

existing enterprise. Such consolidation is a common feature of maturing

industries.

Whatever approach is adopted, though, it is important that it is chosen and

implemented professionally, and that translators promote themselves. A

strong brand image is an important way of convincing clients that you are

non-substitutable, and also helps reduce your marketing effort.

Above all, though, we must recognise that we shall need to adapt to

change on an ongoing basis. The developments I have attempted to set out

today are long-term trends that will not materialise overnight. There are

also many variables involved in the process. As the Arab proverb says,

“Anyone who pretends they can foresee the future is lying – even when

they are right”. Nevertheless, this does not mean that we should not try.


A Closing Thought

“Trend is not destiny. The future based on a

logical extrapolation of existing trends is

not inevitable, and neither is doomsday. ”René Dubos

A Closing Thought (Slide 11)

Allow me to leave you, therefore, with a comforting thought. One of the

great advantages of researching this presentation has been that it has

taught me about people I had previously never heard of.


ASTTI - IALB 22

René Dubos is one of them. This French-American microbiologist and

environmentalist is credited as being the author of the phrase “think

globally, act locally”.22 This makes him a particularly appropriate choice for

a conference of people involved in globalisation.

In the context of our looming and serious environmental problems, Dubos

said, “Trend is not destiny. The future based on a logical extrapolation of

existing trends is not inevitable, and neither is doomsday.”23

I hope for the planet and for translation that we can prove him right.

About the author

Deborah Fry has been involved in the language business on a professional basis since 1982. She is a managing partner of Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft, a specialist financial translation company based in Mainz-Kastel, Germany. She has tertiary and professional qualifications in law and translation and has worked as an encyclopaedia compiler, technical writer and press officer, among other things. She also set up and ran the language services department for a major German software manufacturer before co-founding her present company in 1995 with her partner and husband Robin Bonthrone. In the course of this work she developed a keen interest in terminology, serving on a number of industry association boards. She also edited the LISA (Localisation Industry Standards Association) newsletter for several years. In addition to her day job as a company manager, reviser, specialist translator and trainer, she lectures nationally and internationally on topics such as translation quality and style, and developments in the translation profession.

Deborah Fry can be contacted at

Fry & Bonthrone Partnerschaft • Language Consultancy and Services In der Witz 29 55252 Mainz-Kastel Germany [email protected]

22

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Dubos 23

Quoted in http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC24/Brown.htm


ASTTI - IALB 23

Translation: From Art to Industry1

Nancy A. Locke

Writer, translator

Abstract

At the beginning of the 19th century, weavers in the English Midlands

militated against new technology. They blamed new-fangled looms for the

downward pressure on wages, and decried abuses in the organization of

production and the shoddy quality of the final product. United under the

banner of the mythic leader Ludd, the militants came to be known as the

Luddites. The story of the Luddites figures prominently in the history of the

Industrial Revolution.

Now, almost exactly two hundred years later, another revolution of

breathtaking scope and magnitude, and intimately tied to economic

globalization, is underway: the Information Technology (IT) Revolution.

Translators, like many knowledge and creative workers, find themselves

buffeted by a rapid evolution of their professionals lives engendered by

technological innovation in a context of a quickly shifting political and

economic landscape.

Some translators readily embrace information technology. Others see the

evolution of their working lives as inevitable and the nature of the changes

immutable. Many, however, fear that new tools may taylorize, automate,

commoditize and banalize their work so thoroughly that the creative

essence may simply disappear. Like the Luddites, translators worry about

producing work ―inferior in quality, not marketable at home and merely

hurried over with a view to exportation.‖ Not surprisingly then, the term

―luddite‖ has regained currency to describe those who do not embrace

new tools or, according to Canadian scholar John Ralston Saul, ―anyone

who wants to work out a non-exclusionary approach to technical

progress.‖

The working hypothesis of the proposed paper is that the current crisis is

one episode that threatens to accelerate and deepen a more far-reaching

economic/political transformation comparable to the Industrial Revolution.

The IT Revolution will inevitably and irreversibly alter the professional

lives of translators. As such, if translation and translators still form its

core, the language industry is, indeed, in crisis, (defined by the Merriam-

Webster dictionary as ―a radical change‖ or a ―paroxysmal attack of pain,

distress, or disordered function‖). The paper poses a fundamental

question: Are translators destined to go the way of the weavers?

1 This paper distils the concepts and arguments developed in a book-length work in

progress.


ASTTI - IALB 24

By the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed

the work of many and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of

employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was

inferior in quality, not marketable at home and merely hurried over with a

view to exportation.2

In 1811, in his maiden speech to Parliament, the Romantic poet Lord

George Gordon Byron took up the cause of weavers whose violent

militancy against the adoption of new technology had the English Midlands

in an uproar. The weavers blamed new-fangled looms for the downward

pressure on wages, decried abuses in the organization of production and

the shoddy quality of the final product. United under the banner of the

mythic leader Ludd, the militants came to be known as the Luddites. The

story of the Luddites figures prominently in the history of the

Industrial Revolution.

Now, almost exactly two hundred years later, another revolution of

breathtaking scope and magnitude is underway: the Information

Technology (IT) Revolution. This time, translators, like many knowledge

and creative workers, find themselves buffeted by a rapid evolution of

their professional lives engendered by technological innovation in the

context of a quickly shifting political and economic landscape.

Some translators readily embrace information technology. Others see the

evolution of their working lives as inevitable and the nature of the changes

immutable. Many, however, fear that new tools may taylorize, automate,

commoditize and banalize their work so thoroughly that the creative

essence may simply disappear. Like the Luddites, translators worry about

producing work “inferior in quality, not marketable at home and merely

hurried over with a view to exportation.” Not surprisingly then, the term

“luddite” has regained currency to describe those who do not embrace

new tools or, according to Canadian scholar John Ralston Saul, “anyone

who wants to work out a non-exclusionary approach to technical

progress.”3

The working hypothesis of this paper is that the current crisis is one

episode that threatens to accelerate and deepen a more far-reaching

economic/political transformation comparable to the Industrial Revolution.

2 From Lord Byron’s maiden speech to Parliament in 1811 cited in Bailey, Brian, The

Luddite Rebellion (©1998, New York University Press), page 161. 3 Saul, John Ralston, The Collapse of Globalism (©2005, Towards Equilibrium Inc., Viking

Canada), page 94.


ASTTI - IALB 25

The IT Revolution will inevitably and irreversibly alter the professional lives

of translators. As such, if translation and translators still form its core, the

language industry is, indeed, in crisis. This paper poses a fundamental

question: Are translators destined to go the way of the weavers?

Craft Becomes Art

Translation, to repeat an old chestnut popular with word nerds, is the

second oldest profession in the world. In fact, and at the risk of offending,

if by profession we mean exacting payment for an activity that, in other

circumstances, might be offered naturally, for centuries translation was no

more a profession than the infamous first. If, however, we use a more

modern notion of profession, i.e., the practice of an activity that requires

formal training or apprenticeship and vetting, and adheres to a set of

established recognized processes and best practices, translation is in its

infancy. Indeed, initially and for centuries, translation happened quite

naturally as needed and was performed by those best suited, but not

specifically trained, to undertake the task.

What skills suited a translator to the task of translation? Typically, mastery

of the subject relevant to the task came in handy as did a firm grasp of two

or more languages one being, of course, the mother tongue. Educated

bilinguals or polyglots usually fit the bill and they frequently provided

translation as a sideline not a fulltime occupation.

As for tools, traditionally translators relied on those used by writers. They

used dictionaries, grammars, subject-specific references, lexicons and style

guides, and, to transcribe their work, stylus and clay, pen and ink, papyrus

then paper, manual then machine stenography, typewriters. Later,

electricity and audio technology would make recording and transcription

tools available. These tools increased efficiency and volume, and no doubt

lowered costs. They also had a significant impact on what languages could

be translated.

What training a translator received came in the form of apprenticeship,

informal at first, then more formally within the framework of guilds and

association. Indeed, the very fact that translators first sought formal

training within guilds suggests that translation, at least initially, shared a

stronger kinship with traditional crafts than with the arts or sciences

faculties of the universities.


ASTTI - IALB 26

Translation finally did make the leap, albeit a slow and gradual leap, from a

craft to an art when universities began teaching translation-specific

curriculum. By the 1970s, universities taught translation as a sort of

auxiliary discipline within established academic departments such as

modern languages, comparative literature and linguistics. As a result, the

study of translation became conflated with the study of literature, i.e.,

texts used to teach translation tended to be literary despite the fact that

the vast majority of texts have always been and will continue to be of a

technical nature.

As translation curriculum matured, questions of prerequisites, course

content and competency evaluation were debated. In addition, academic

discussions focused on whether translation studies should be a full-blown

undergraduate degree requiring four or five years of study, whether the

discipline should continue to be taught as a specialization embedded

within more traditional disciplines like comparative literature or modern

languages, or whether it should be a light-weight one- or two-year degree

that would complement practically any discipline. Today translation studies

have gained hard-won respectability as a distinct discipline still firmly

rooted in arts faculties. No global consensus about the length or content of

translation programs, however, has emerged.

The translator’s toolbox didn’t really evolve much until the advent of the

PC and low-cost, high-speed Internet. Except for integrating transcription

and recording technology, and despite well-funded and vigorous research

projects devoted to developing the elusive “translation machine” we find

translators functioning much as they had for centuries until almost the end

of the 20th century. In the 90s, however, as more and more translation

companies began adopting CAT tools, these tools became a hot topic in

debates about course content.

Another topic, again related to market realities, also emerged: the

translator’s role in production models that integrated translation into

increasingly complex, increasingly industrialized processes the most talked-

about being localization. As the world prepared for the new millennium, a

globalized scramble commenced to re-think translator curricula as well as

to re-position graduates for the brave new world of translation. Thus began

what I call the “one brief shining moment” moment for translators and

translation.


ASTTI - IALB 27

One Brief Shining Moment

As the millennium dawned, globalization was in full swing. Multinationals

flourished; a new international non-governmental organization “without

borders” was born daily. Both multinationals and INGOs advanced their

objectives through multilingual web sites and that was only the tip of the

communications iceberg.

Globalization took a hit when the tech bubble burst in 2000 and yet

another on September 11, 2001. After 2001, national governments began

taking a serious look at, then acting on cultural and linguistic diversity.

Diversity caught on in the private sector, too, as companies who never

envisioned straying far from home discovered the wonders of cultural-

linguistic market segmentation. In the book The World is Flat, author

Thomas Friedman fairly vibrates with wonder as he writes,

A computer tracks how many pallets each employee is plucking every hour

to put onto trucks for different stores, and a computerized voice tells each

of them whether he is ahead of schedule or behind schedule. ―You can

choose whether you want your computer voice to be a man or a woman,

and you can choose English or Spanish,‖ explained Rollin Ford, Wal-

Mart’s executive vice president, who oversees the supply chain and was

giving me a tour.4

Never before had there been such a demand for translation and

predictions were that demand would continue to rise at a phenomenal rate

for the foreseeable future. Pundits appeared. Specialized journals, surveys

and reports flourished, and confabs were organized in chic hotels in world-

class destinations. Norms and standards were hammered out and

globalized. Worries about the critical lack of qualified translators surfaced.

Orthodox economic theory would predict that there was gold in them thar

hills.

Heady times for translators and translation. A debate over the role for

translators in the modern workplace ensued. Some architects of translation

curriculum hewed to a conservative position. Translators are professionals;

professional translators translate. Teaching translators the use of

computer-assisted translation tools is a waste of precious time akin to

teaching architects the finer points of hammers. And, lest we forget,

architects don’t actually use hammers.

4 Friedman, Thomas L., The World is Flat (©2005, Farrar, Straus, Giroux), pages 133-134


ASTTI - IALB 28

Others imagined an expanded role for translators in what were, after all

and despite the integration of CAT tools, translation-centric processes. This

school of thought produced the profile of the über-translator:

[A] profile emerges for that particular species of translators: that of the

―ultimate translator‖ in terms of domain specialisation, writing and

rewriting skills, control of ergonomics, quality management abilities,

project management skills, project team management know-how, and

naturally enough, mastery of anything that has to do with computer

science, computer technologies and computer assisted whatnots.5

A third opinion weighed in unofficially, perceived variously as a deafening

silence or a smug indifference evidenced by the unpronounceable

encodings assigned to the new processes (l10n, i18n, g11n), since it came

from the ranks of the computer geeks. Had they been aware of the debate

raging among translators, the IT contingent might have found it amusing

given the obvious, obvious to them anyway, IT-centricity of localization,

internationalization and enterprise-level globalization.

A fourth and ultimately more realistic point of view might be described as

PMs LOL (translation: project managers laughing out loud).

Life Is What Happens ...

... while you’re busy making plans.” – John Lennon

In the wake of all this fomentation, new-fangled programs in translation

studies have come; some have come and gone. New tools content has

found its way into translation course curricula. Labs have been built; some

have been built and then neglected or even abandoned. And the debate

about the new and improved future for translators has quietened to a dull

roar as university translation schools settle down to the business of

producing (ideally instantly) productive graduates for the still growing

language industry.

With a significant boost from globalized markets, together industrialization

and commoditization of translation and other knowledge fields have

turned orthodox economic theory on its head. Lower supply and high

demand has not meant higher wages and more respect for translators and

translation.

5 Gouadec, Daniel, “Le baggage spécifique du localiseur/localisateur : Le vrai « nouveau

profil » requis,” (META, vol. 48, no. 4, © 2003 Les presses universitaires de l’Université de Montréal), page 526.


ASTTI - IALB 29

Armed with new IT tools, processes and standards, translators—the vast

majority freelance, unschooled and unaffiliated with any professional

organization—and translation have become another link in a complex

production chain with a global shop floor. Hundreds of thousands of

translators (if you can believe the brag) regularly haggle for contracts in on-

line reverse auctions, contracts awarded on the basis of cost and speed-of-

work, contracts that must pay for all the social benefits—insurance,

training, vacations, sick days—traditionally assumed by employers.

Professional translators, the minority with diplomas and sterling

credentials, might scoff at those reduced to such strategies. They do so at

their peril for the sheer numbers of translators working under disturbingly

sweatshop-like conditions cannot but have a depressive effect on all

translators.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from

age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different. —

Aldous Huxley

Historical parallels, as seductive as they are, have their limits. Indeed, the

Luddites of the 19th century and translators in the 21st century are

completely different in some very important ways.

First, the original Luddites enjoyed an advantage that their contemporary

translators do not: geographical proximity that promoted a sense of

community impossible in the virtual world. Translators and many other

knowledge workers, telecommute or work freelance from home offices.

What on the face of it might seem like independence can, in reality, be

experienced as profound isolation as they battle an inchoate but

oppressive sense of helplessness in the face of faceless forces. The

“inevitability of technological progress”6 coupled with daily news and

rumors of aggressive outsourcing and off-shoring only exacerbates an

increasingly profound sense of insecurity.

In the 19th century, as weavers and other artisans left their cottages to

work in the mills, guilds and associations evolved to become powerful

unions built on Marxist notions of class struggle. While it’s hard to dismiss

the importance of unions to workers as a counterbalance to the profit-

driven power of the employers, traditional unions rooted in the concerns

of the manufacturing sector have lost much of their power and many see

them as a soon-to-be-extinct relic of the 20th century, an institution that

6 Saul, op. cit.


ASTTI - IALB 30

has lost all relevance. Without the counterbalance of unions, however,

profit-driven power continues to grow. Unlike the mill workers, translators

and other knowledge workers, once lumped into the “white collar”

category (a designation that has become almost meaningless), don’t

benefit from powerful unions with their interests at heart, interests that

might not always be the same as their employers and clients.

Taking into consideration history and its limits, the “crisis” as I see it is the

on-going race between professionalism and industrialization. And, in my

opinion, it’s a dead heat.

While the growth of professional associations, the re-thinking of

professional orders and standards’ initiatives are a step in the right

direction, larger, more inclusive, more active and more vocal professional

organizations—so that they are heard above the deadening din of the

bean-counters and technocrats—might give professionalism an edge. If

industrialization wins out, translators will indeed go the way of the

weavers. A tiny number might survive providing services to haut couture

boutiques. The rest will be confined to long hours, lousy conditions and

poverty wages on a virtual assembly line without borders that is until the

demand for quality dips so low that machine translation becomes an

attractive, translator-free alternative.


ASTTI - IALB 31

About the author

A freelance writer and public speaker specializing in language matters, Nancy A. Locke draws on twelve years experience in the language industry as a desktop publisher, translator and reviser. An instructor at Université de Montréal, and director of the localization certificate program (2003 to 2004), she teaches courses on language and globalization, and the professional environment to translators. A regular contributor to Multilingual, her work has also appeared in The Globe and Mail (a national Canadian daily), The Chronicle (ATA), Intercom (STC), Localisation Focus and tcworld. Ms. Locke has also been invited to speak as an expert on language matters at a wide range of conferences in Canada, the United States and Argentina including Localization World, American Translators Association (general conference and translation company division), Society for Technical Communications, Usability Professionals Association, UAWriters, Association de l’industrie de la langue/Language Industry Association (Canada), IMTT (Argentina).

Contact [email protected]


ASTTI - IALB 32

The Language Industry in Crisis?

Translators’ Agency in Production Networks

Kristiina Abdallah

University of Tampere

Abstract

Economic globalisation with its ensuing crises, including the degradation

of work, has not spared the translation industry, where production

networks have been identified as the prevailing working environment.

Production networks consist of inter-firm relationships that bind a group

of firms of different sizes, including micro entrepreneurs, into larger

economic units. A typical, although simplified, case in the translation

industry consists of a client company needing translation services, a

translation company providing such services, and a translator, either

inhouse, freelancer or subcontractor, doing the actual translating.

(Abdallah and Koskinen 2007: 674-675.)

This paper approaches translators' agency through their own experiences

in production networks. I want to find out how translators are able to

perform their work in this economic configuration, and more importantly,

what is translators' ability to act for the primary principal, the end-user of

translations. In looking for answers to these questions, I will draw from my

interview data that includes in-depth interviews conducted during 2005-

2009 with eight Finnish translators, who, at the start of the interview

process, worked for various translation companies, either as

subcontractors (3), freelancers (1), or in-house translators (4). Purposeful

sampling method has been used to select interviewees for this in-depth

study (see Patton 2001).

The theoretical framework relied on in the analysis of the translator

experiences is agency theory. Agency theory deals with cooperation in

principal-agent relationships, which can be detected anywhere where

someone works or acts on someone else's behalf. (Eisenhardt 1989: 58).

When the interview data is analysed within the framework of agency

theory, goal-conflicts, including moral hazard and asymmetry of

commitment, are revealed between principals and agents in translation

production networks.


ASTTI - IALB 33

This paper is based on an article that is in press at the moment. It is also

part of my forthcoming PhD thesis Translation Quality in Production

Networks. From Conflict to Cooperation. Translators are a typical muted

group. By focusing on translators’ experiences, the aim of this research is

to give voice to the otherwise “silent and invisible” translators (Simeoni

1998: 12) and to find out what factors their agency and power depend on.

By telling you about this ongoing research, I also hope to answer the

question whether the translation industry is in crisis or not.

I will first define some of the most important concepts that I use here.

Concepts

Agency = the ability to act for oneself, the

ability to act as an agent for the Primary

Principal, i.e. the end-user of translations

Production network = inter-firm relationships

that bind a group of firms of different sizes,

including micro entrepreneurs, into larger

economic units

Moral hazard opportunism= purposeful self-

interested behaviour


ASTTI - IALB 34

Example of a translation production

network

Production networks have been identified as the prevailing working

environment in present-day translation industry. The salient point is that

these vertically organised and therefore highly hierarchical and

undemocratic production networks consist of multiple actors whose roles

and performances are defined in interaction. In this economic

configuration, subcontracting translators are at the outskirts of the

network and its central hubs.

Research data and research question

In-depth translator interviews with 8 Finnish

translators 2005-2009 (3 subcontractors, 1

freelancer, 4 in-house translators in translation

companies)

How do the translators perceive their agency in

production networks? How are they able to act

for the end-user of translations, the Primary

Principal?


ASTTI - IALB 35

I have used agency theory in analysing the translator interviews. Agency

theory originates from information economics and it deals with principal-

agent relationships, which can be discovered anywhere where someone

works or acts on someone else’s behalf (Eisenhardt 1989: 58; Kivistö 2007:

11).

Agency theory

focus: economic cooperation in principal-agent (P-A)

relationships which can be discovered anywhere where

someone works or acts on someone else’s behalf

consider: the roles of incentives, interests and

information

assume: self-interest, opportunism and goal conflicts

explain: the consequences of delegating authority

beware: moral hazard/hidden action

(Eisenhardt 1989; Kivistö 2007)

Agency theory explains the consequences of delegating authority and it can

be used to analyse cooperation from an economic point of view in

principal-agent relationships. It forces us to consider the role of incentives,

interests and information in organisational thinking, as it assumes that

much of organisational life is, at least to some extent, based on people’s

self-interest, opportunism and goal conflicts. It has been said that agency

theory arises from mistrust, control, and compliance, as it assumes that

once principals delegate authority to agents, they cannot simply trust the

latter but need not only economic incentives but also certain instruments

to monitor their agents’ actions. Korten discusses the importance of

complete information in market theory, emphasising that information

should be freely available to all. This would require, then, that when buyers

and sellers, or principals and agents, enter into business relationships and

sign contracts, they should be fully aware of the attributes and the quality

of the goods or services in question. Agency theory, however, takes a

different baseline from market theory by admitting that there is

asymmetric information and uncertainty in most business relationships.


ASTTI - IALB 36

This being the case, opportunistic action tends to occur, leading to moral

hazard. Moral hazard may arise in situations where the principal cannot

monitor the agent’s actions and where the self-interested agent pursues

his private goals at the expense of the principal’s goals. Furthermore,

agency theory assumes that when it is difficult for the principal to observe

the agent’s actions, the agent tends to produce poor quality or exercise too

little effort in the work required.

The four principal-agent dyads in

Production Networks

Abdallah (in press): Translators’ Agency in Production Networks

The translation production network can be seen to consist of at least four

different dyads as depicted in the figure underneath. Dyad 1: the

relationship of the primary principal (PP) - the end user of the translation-

and the client company as the agent (A). Dyad 2: the relationship of the

client company as the intermediary principal (IP) and the translation

company as the agent (A). Dyad 3: the relationship of the translation

company as the intermediary principal (IP) and the translator as the agent

(A). Dyad 4: the relationship of the primary principal (PP) and the translator

as the agent (A). Translators do not only feel responsibility towards the

party paying for their work, but by way of their professional ethics, they

also feel that the Primary Principal has delegated authority to them to

represent their interests in production networks. In this model the end

user of translations, always holds the role of a principal: he/she is the

primary principal (PP) for all the other actors. This is the case even though

there is no explicit contract to that effect. Here, it is useful to note that


ASTTI - IALB 37

although contracts are a central element in agency theory, they do not

need to be written and signed but can be metaphoric as well. In other

words, even if the contract is implicit, it is, nevertheless, ethically binding

and ties all parties to it. No economic actor can deny the fact that

consumers and buyers do have their rights in the marketplace, and these

rights include the right to have true information about the products and

services. The end-user always has the role of a principal, the translator

always holds the role of an agent; the translator is agent to two principals,

the reader and the translation company. The client company and the

translation company, however, have dual roles; they either have the role of

an intermediary principal or an agent, depending from whose point of view

we are approaching their role in the production network. Dual roles, as we

know, can lead to conflicts of interest between the two roles, i. e.

opportunism.

Agency as perceived by the translators

8/8 networks -> asymmetric

information (”The translator

does not know whether the

gadget in question is room-

size or palm-size.”)

6/8 no contact with the

major client, 2/8 sometimes

have contact

5/8 conflicts of quality

(”Quality has gone down the

tube”) -> ethical stress

4/8 powerlessness at work

(”No one listens to the

translators.”)

7/8 salaries and fees are low

5/8 translator status is low

Second round of interviews:

4/8 had left the translation

industry!

Information does not flow freely in production networks. As we saw from

the previous figure, the translator enters the economic configuration only

in the third dyad as the agent, and, as to the accessibility of information,

this position is by definition structurally unfavourable because of the

general principles of scale-free, and therefore highly undemocratic,

networks. But it is not only the structure of such economic networks that

impedes the flow of information but also the fact that the translator has to

serve two masters, which makes their work difficult, particularly if these


ASTTI - IALB 38

masters, or principals, have conflicting interests. The salient question here

is whether the translator is able to perform his/her work properly in this

economic configuration. As agency theory gloomily points out,

opportunistic, i.e. self-interested and unscrupulous, behaviour is not

uncommon in principal-agent relationships, and ethical dilemmas and an

agent’s opportunism leads to moral hazard. Putnam has pointed out that in

vertical patron-client, such as in principal-agent, relationships opportunism

manifests itself on the part of the patron, or principal, as exploitation and

on the part of the client, or agent, as shirking. Conflicts of quality arise in

this data when the translator as the agent tries to satisfy the unaligned

demands of the two principals, the reader and the translation company.

Being in between a rock and a hard place causes translators much

consternation, in some cases even ethical stress. This stress is due to the

fact that the translators would like to do their work well, i.e. to act in the

best interests of the primary principal by fulfilling the requirements of their

professional ethics, but they do not receive support from the intermediary

principals in this task.

Conclusion: there is a crisis

Asymmetric information -> restricted agency

Opportunistic, self-interested behaviour -> ethical

dilemmas, moral hazard -> double moral hazard

Lowering of the quality of the products/services

produced in the network (market for lemons!)

Principals and agents in the various dyads define quality

using different criteria -> their goals regarding quality

are in conflict with each other

Based on my interview data, there are delegation failures between

principals and agents in translation production networks, such as

informational asymmetries and goal-conflicts, and these conditions, in

some cases, give rise to moral hazard and asymmetry of commitment. As

long as the translator compensates for the inadequate working conditions

provided by the intermediary principals by putting in extra effort into


ASTTI - IALB 39

his/her task, there is a case of moral hazard in the production network.

However, if and when the translator succumbs to the demands of the

intermediary principals (faster, cheaper), moral hazard turns into double,

even triple, moral hazard, resulting in the client company, the translation

company, and the translator collaborating to cheat the primary principal by

producing poor quality services/products. The conclusion of the analysis is

that translators’ agency and ability to act in the interests of the primary

principal is presently highly restricted in translation production networks. It

is therefore important to start looking for ways to solve moral hazard

problems by creating incentives that prevent quality cheating. And this

concerns all the three agents.

Thank you! [email protected]

© Tähdenlennon siilit

www.tahdenlennon.com/index_yleistietoa

.htm

© Careers at Sea org:

http://www.ca.courses-careers.com/images/merchant-

navy2.jpg&imgrefurl

One solution could be the development of a quality classification system

that coordinates the unaligned definitions of quality in the various

principal-agent dyads. Creating such an information system can be

considered an investment in trust formation in translation production

networks, where lack of trust is currently widespread. Promoting

translators’ ability to participate as legitimate experts in translation

production networks is an integral part of sustainable development in the

translation industry and this should be in the interests of all the parties in

these dyads. So, lets solve the crisis in the industry and work together.


ASTTI - IALB 40

About the author

Kristiina Abdallah, MA, is a graduate from the School of Modern Languages

and Translation Studies at the University of Tampere, Finland. She works as

Assistant at the Department of Translation Studies, and is currently

pursuing her post-graduate studies, specialising in translation quality and

translators' agency in production networks.

Kristiina has worked as a freelance translator and subtitler as well as a

technical writer. She has held several posts at the Department of

Translation Studies, including those of a researcher, coordinator, and

lecturer at the Technical Communications Programme.

Contact

[email protected]

References

Abdallah, Kristiina and Koskinen, Kaisa (2007): “Managing Trust: Translating and the Network Economy.” In Héléne Buzelin and Debbie Folaron (eds) Meta: Translation and Network Studies, 52(4), 673-687.

Abdallah, Kristiina (in press): ”Translators’ Agency in Production Networks.” In Koskinen, Kaisa and Kinnunen, Tuija (eds.) Translators’ Agency. Tampere Studies in Language, Translation and Culture, Sarja B. URL: http://tampub.uta.fi/sarja.php?Sarja_Id=9

Eisenhardt, Kathleen (1989): “Agency theory: An assessment and review.” Academy of Management Review, 14(1), 57-74.

Kivistö, Jussi (2007): Agency Theory as a Framework for the Government-University Relationship. Academic dissertation. Faculty of Economics and Administration, Department of Management Studies, Tampere: University of Tampere.

Korten, David C. (1999): The Post-Corporate World : Life after Capitalism. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Putnam, Robert D. (1994): Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Sturgeon, Timothy J. (2001): “How Do We Define Value Chains and Production Networks?” IDS Bulletin, 32( 3), 1–10. URL: www.ids.ac.uk/ids/global/pdfs/vcdefine.pdf. Accessed 1.3.2005.


ASTTI - IALB 41

Community, collaborative, social.

Will the language industry survive crowdsourcing?

Luigi Muzii

Università degli Studi "S. Pio V"

Abstract

In a report of December 2007, Renato Beninatto and Don DePalma of

Common Sense Advisory envisaged "The End of Localization Taylorism

and the Beginning of Postmodern Translation".

The economic crisis and the consequent turmoil affected the language

service industry too. Translation has traditionally been viewed as a craft,

now it's time to shift to a different approach where highly skilled

individuals are no longer enough to perform increasingly composite jobs.

Translation is a business and should finally be considered as such.

Translators must speak money and tune their business on their clients'

business.

Translation is increasingly bound to money, time, and accuracy.

Contents increase in volume, volatility and complexity, and many a

company invest in machine translation to meet this growth.

To keep pace with the changing situation, the translation process must be

rearranged. Agile should become the new buzzword of the industry.

Not only are highly skilled individuals no longer enough, technology is no

longer enough. A combination of the two with a new process model could

be one answer.

The new process model will be based on real-time collaboration: the whole

cast concurrently work on a project. The model is inspired to the scrum

iterative incremental framework, a holistic approach to increase speed and

flexibility in software development. Scrum enables the creation of self-

organizing teams by encouraging co-location of all team members, and

verbal communication across all team members and disciplines that are

involved in the project.

In the collaborative translation model, projects revolve around

communities that come together for each project. It is a distributed model

based on the concept of "participation" as the defining feature. Wikinomics

will eventually change also the language service industry, and the problem

is in transition: crowdsourcing will prevail; is it convenient to hamper the

power of the crowds?


ASTTI - IALB 42


ASTTI - IALB 43

We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when

we created them.

Albert Einstein

Despite the unchanged and even increasing demand for translation, the

economic crisis and the consequent turmoil have spread their effects on

the language service industry too with lower and lower pays and worse

conditions, and a deep change is approaching.

The approach to crises is usually of two kinds, conservative or innovative.

The conservative approach is typical of the language services industry,

where any change is seen as a major change. Companies resorting to the

conservative approach to face crises usually go for cutting costs. Since

reducing staff is impractical in an industry almost entirely based on

outsourcing and freelancing, cutting costs is pursued through lowering pays

and using but not investing in technology. Unfortunately, as a recent

Common Sense Advisory report showed, the translation industry is

generally a low-tech industry where do more with less is an imperative that

very few can follow.

The innovative approach to crises relies on products. However, since very

small product innovation is possible in a century-old activity, this could

happen only with the so-called value-added services. This could explain in

part why many still look at translation as a cost, and the consequent

competition on prices. Therefore, only process innovation can be effective,

but for process innovation standards and interchange are needed to build

productive solutions. Developing standards, however, is not enough per se;

standards should be used, and industry fragmentation retards or even

impedes the adoption of standards.

Again, technology is used to make process simpler, lean, and parallel, while

being open, easy, lean, agile is the only way to face the new translation

industry mantra of “cheaper, faster, and better”. Doing more with less

costs more, and technology is not enough; technology can help increase

volume and speed, but it is almost useless to streamline processes.

Processes pivot on people, and there are not enough good people in

translation.

The demand for translation is increasing; content is doubling every year,

while the number of translators can’t follow the same growth rate: it takes

many years to create a professional translator. The only way to approach

this growth in content is by increasing translators’ productivity, but


ASTTI - IALB 44

education and training play different roles in building a translator’s profile,

and language skills and domain-specific knowledge should be kept separate

from productivity skills.

In fact, technology alone can produce only poor quality increase or no

increase at all, and customer satisfaction decreases, together with industry

reputation.

Translation has traditionally been viewed as a craft, now it’s time to shift to

a different approach where highly skilled individuals are no longer enough

to perform increasingly composite jobs.

Translation is a business and should finally be considered as such.

Translators must speak money and tune their business on their clients’

business.

Translation is increasingly bound to money and time, while quality has also

definitely lost the meaning it has had for long in translation studies.

Quality is doing it right the first time. This means having efficient processes

in place and first-class people at work, as everyone could translate but few

can do it right.

To keep pace with the changing situation, the translation process must be

rearranged. As it was for the software industry a few years ago, “agile”

should become the new buzzword of the translation industry.

On the contrary, the translation industry is still tied to the axioms of quality

and assets.

Quality is the unique selling proposition of the whole industry, making

offers indistinguishable, whereas, to customers, quality is a prerequisite, a

condition of existence, and is hence totally irrelevant from a sales

perspective, especially the way it is postulated and talked about in the

translation industry, because it is based on the premise that customers can

assess and appreciate it. For quality to be make sense it must be backed up

by proof. No quality exists until it cannot be defined and measured.

The quality axiom goes together with the corollary that fewer translators

produce more consistent output, as if a reader could distinguish some ten

thousand words in a million.

This is used to justify the asset axiom, where assets are glossaries and

translation memories. Assets are supposed to carry some value, but


ASTTI - IALB 45

glossaries and translation memories not necessarily carry and intrinsic

value, since in this case value comes from their exploitation, and this

depends on the translator’s ability.

Hence, not only are highly skilled individuals no longer enough, technology

too is no longer enough. A close combination of the two with a new

process model could be an answer.

Nevertheless, the main concerns of LSP’s are for the ongoing

commoditization and the demand for more free translation. In the ATA

Chronicle issue of June 2009, ATA President Jiri Stejskal reported the

globalization threats identified by the ATA Board in global outsourcing,

crowdsourcing, the economic downturn, certification by other entities,

machine translation, the increased competition for revenue streams, the

international expansion, and licensure.

Vendor management is the largest cost budget item, and could be huge for

companies with hundreds or thousands vendors. Vendor management

requires dedicated technology and staff, and involves delicate tasks like

quality assessment. To keep healthy relationships with vendors, several

vendor managers could be necessary to rotate.

Few concepts in business have been as popular and appealing in recent

years as the emerging discipline of “open innovation.” It is variously

described as crowdsourcing, the wisdom of crowds, collective intelligence

and peer production.

Low cost electronic communication enabled by the Internet now makes it

feasible for crowds to do many more things than ever before. Peer

production models leverage the connected-but-distributed nature of the

internet to bring broad human resources to bear on specific tasks or

problems. Wikipedia stands as the flagship example of this.

Collective intelligence can be defined very broadly as groups of individuals

doing things collectively that seem intelligent. By this definition, collective

intelligence has existed for a very long time, even in the translation

industry.

However, recent cases and research of the Center for Collective

Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest that

open-innovation models succeed only when carefully designed for a

particular task, and when incentives are tailored to attract the most

effective collaborators.


ASTTI - IALB 46

The reasons for crowdsourcing are reaching totally new markets, better

serving markets that are currently under-served, and increasing the value

of global brands by further engaging users as a competitive strategy, as for

the Facebook translation model.

This compelling engagement strategy requires the entire user experience

to be in the user’s language. This is the reason for translation

crowdsourcing, and the reason for Facebook, for example, to be available

in almost 100 languages. Yet, its help is available in less than 10: according

to Facebook itself, if chunks to be translated by the crowd are bigger than

two lines there are no takers.

The typical practice in translation has been the same for centuries. The

appearance of commercial translation approximately a hundred years ago

gave birth to the industry as we now know it.

The translation industry has always been almost entirely based on

outsourcing and freelancing, and vendors are the necessary link between

customers and translators.

Similarly, fragmentation has always been a typical trait, with vendors

duplicating the same tasks at each stage before reaching the last link in the

production chain, in a top-down serial process, going backwards when the

translation is ready.

Consequently, the TEP (Translation, Editing, and Proofreading) model has

been central to the translation workflow: a translator does the job,

somebody else (possibly another translator) reviews the job, and then a

final check must be performed to have quality.

In a post of 16 October 2007 for Common Sense Advisory’s blog Global

Watchtower, Renato Beninatto and Don DePalma envisaged “The End of

Localization Taylorism”.

TEP is connected to the standard, axiomatic, view of quality.

The translation industry developed the concept with the idea that every

translation is worked on and looked at by three different sets of eyes, even

though smaller translation teams might not have or afford such a plenty of

resources.

As a matter of fact, the traditional translation process does not work well

for every type of project, and yet, even in the translation industry, fordism

has prevailed: any effort is committed to make everybody do the same, not


ASTTI - IALB 47

necessarily the best job. The best job is meeting the client’s expectations —

which include timely delivery and fair price — while making a profit.

The TEP philosophy is based on the idea that quality comes from catching

errors. The reviewer’s job is to catch errors that the translator (supposedly)

made, and the proofreader’s job is to catch errors that the editor didn’t

see. The problem with this process is consecutiveness; it is a chain/serial

process, while in a parallel process quality can be improved by adding

actions.

Excellent translators know how to prevent errors using a style guide and a

glossary rather than just catch them once asked to review a translation.

Excellent translators need no reviewers, they need knowledgeable support.

Translation crowdsourcing is simply a different way of selecting, collecting,

and connecting the people to perform the roles in the various stages of the

workflow.

Crowdsourcing is “the new black” these days, but, despite the trend,

companies should be very careful before embracing the model. Few of

them are translation worthy, and there is always the risk of translator

backlash or burnout. It is an unexplored territory, and as more companies

pursue this model, more and more efforts will backfire.

Translation crowdsourcing is not about saving money. In a collaborative

translation project following a typical crowdsourcing approach only the

best translators in the project subject field are engaged, to work on their

most productive side. Translation crowdsourcing is simply faster. Whoever

has worked with contracting services for a specific business knows how

long and painful the process can be. Translation crowdsourcing can bring

results in a fraction of the standard time. Yet, a translation crowdsourcing

platform costs money to put in place. In most cases, the initial investment

is likely to be higher than the cost of one-off professional translation

services, and the ROI needs to be there for the long-term to justify it.

There is possibly a problem with translators when a profitable company

goes for building a community and paying engineers to set up a complex

software infrastructure rather than hiring a translation company for a

cheaper one-off translation project. Maybe translators’ skills are simply not

worth spending, or, once it is up and running, the translation platform can

be expanded to help developers localize their applications, leased, or

opened up to “partner” sites, etc.


ASTTI - IALB 48

Twitter, for example, has only a thousand or so text strings requiring

translation. In the time the company devoted to building its translation

platform, it could probably have had the site localized in fifty or more

languages. Over time there probably will be cost savings, but they should

not be and probably were not the motivator for Twitter.

The top-down localization model is giving way to the bottom-up model,

and this is a profound change, even if it is limited to a handful of

companies, maybe with a few hundred million users.

The collaborative model makes reviewers no longer necessary. We learned

from translation studies that there could be several “correct” translations.

Why should experienced and skilled translators, possibly assisted by

qualified subject matter experts not be capable of delivering high-quality

translations without the necessity of further improvements by a reviewer?

The typical collaborative translation team is made up of a pool of subject

matter experts and translators led by a project manager to manage the

flow of information among team members.

One of the more time-consuming and unnecessary problems in

communicating with clients is for disagreements on supposedly wrong —

maybe better imperfect — translations. Typically these disagreements

come once the project is finished and often require a lot of effort on both

sides to fix. They do not concern errors, but simply stylistics or other

preferences.

In the collaborative model the whole cast concurrently work on a project.

The model is inspired to the scrum iterative incremental framework, a

holistic approach to increase speed and flexibility in software development.

Scrum enables the creation of self-organizing teams by encouraging co-

location of all team members, and communication across all team

members and disciplines that are involved in the project.

In the collaborative translation model, projects revolve around

communities that come together for each project. It is a distributed model

based on the concept of “participation” as the defining feature.

In a collaborative translation project, the project manager is actually a

“facilitator” whose job is to create a “community” with the translators, a

subject matter expert to answer questions about the topic, all the tools to

run the project, and to assure support to translators where they need help.

A few consultants will also be hired to handle the shared translation


ASTTI - IALB 49

memories, the term base, develop the style guides, and tune the machine

translation engine.

In a collaborative translation project there is no need for reviewers and

editors that could be disruptive for harmony and confidence in the project

team, while the project “facilitator” and the consultant will do their best to

have translators strictly follow the style guide and glossary.

The collaborative model challenges the traditional, aged TEP approach to

translation and translation quality.

On its website, the U.S. company Mojofiti offers a comparison of

crowdsourcing and machine translation through their pros and cons.

Crowdsourcing is free, with abundance of knowledgeable human

translators, 100% accuracy, and demonstrates openness to the public,

while security measures must be in place, content accuracy reviews are

needed (especially from a cultural perspective), and no full-time recruits

can be staffed. Machine Translation allows for fast time to market, servers

can be used for a variety of applications, and content can be changed ad

lib. On the other hand, it is generally very costly (based on the number of

language pairs and sometimes overall use), and often leaves out cultural

references; in addition, no machine translation service has been able to

promise 100% accurate translations, yet.

Nothing precludes inherently quality, at least as it is conceived in the

translation industry, in a translation crowdsourcing platform, as long as

crowdsourcees are professional translators. The wisdom of the crowd

comes from the cross check of each other’s work.

In fact, crowdsourcing initiatives can be dangerous when cost is volume

based, and since money matters compensation is a critical issue. Bad

money would drive out good. If translators are paid low hiring qualified

professionals will be harder and harder.

Anyway, not only does a collaborative translation platform require

resources, even the management of the platform and the management of

the team members require resources. Any savings should be used to pay

the team members, not only to make profits, and retain professional,

knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced translators.

In general, LSP’s share the same pool of resources, and testing freelancers

is expensive and not reliable. Then, the solution to reduce overhead is

shortening the production chain.


ASTTI - IALB 50

The next step in translation technology will be collaborative

(crowdsourcing) platforms combining workflow and computer-aided

translation capabilities into one application. Humans can translate text of

any kind, rank the translation for accuracy and provide final edits, all via a

browser from anywhere in the world. Machine translation will capture

translated text and then suggest the translated text when the words or

phrases appear again, reducing the overall time and effort required for

translation. No overhead for administrative activities, no duplication of

work.

Therefore, a new scenario could dawn soon: translators organized in large

pools with a certain amount of work and income guaranteed every month

provided that they check in on a regular basis.

Technology is running fast, even translation technology, although no

winning translation technology has come from the translation industry so

far: all disruptive innovations in translation have come from the outside.

Social networking sites were not the first to resort to crowdsourcing, the

software industry has been crowdsourcing for years.

When translation tools first hit the market, the majority of translators

received them as a threat, crying hysterically at the very poor quality these

tools would surely produce. Almost twenty years later, the scene has not

changed.

As a matter of fact, the hostility of translators led translation tools to meet

the requirements of paying corporate customers, not those of translators.

Should they have embraced the technology from the very beginning, the

landscape would be different now.

In a May 2009 survey, Common Sense Advisory estimates over 20,000

translation service providers, and more than 300,000 individuals earning all

or part of their living in translation business. The survey also showed that

many translation professionals employ less automation than they could

and should. Translators are conservative, so they will be slow to accept

cloud-based computing and the collaborative approach.

Crowdsourcing will greatly depend on the nature of the business. Pro bono

work is usually done for a cause. The “free” translation crowdsourcing

caused an uprising against LinkedIn with most insurgent convincingly

arguing that they would not donate their time and expertise to a business

which will generate revenue out of their free contribution, and that the

LinkedIn call was not fair.


ASTTI - IALB 51

This does not mean, however, that crowdsourcing is an unethical practice.

The negative international media coverage made LinkedIn cancel the

project altogether more than ATA’s official stance against LinkedIn’s

translation crowdsourcing project — “misguided, troubling, and clearly

incompatible with the operation of a for-profit enterprise.”

Freeconomics is the new frontier in translation industry, at least for having

introduced freemium (a portmanteau of “free” and “premium”) a long time

ago. In fact, test translations are a kind of freemium, like shareware.

Translation is gradually shifting to online economy, and the costs

associated with online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible

rate. The translation industry, and translators first, should rapidly adapt to

freemium, offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for

advanced or special features.

Translation crowdsourcing is here to stay. It will combine rather than

compete with machine translation and professional human translation and

will find its niche.

The collaborative translation model will eventually change also the

language service industry, and the problem is in transition: crowdsourcing

will prevail; is it convenient to hamper the power of the crowds?

In 2006, in suggesting the Edge annual question for the Edge Foundation,

paraphrasing Oscar Wilde7, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker wrote: «the

history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially,

morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time».

What is your dangerous idea?

7 An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.


ASTTI - IALB 52

About the author

Luigi Muzii has been working in the language industry for 27 years as a translator, localizer, technical writer and consultant. He spent 12 years in several departments of a major Italian telecommunications company, and two in a broadcasting service company, then started a consulting firm on his own to act as an information design and delivery consultant. He is visiting professor of terminology and localization at Libera Università degli Studi "S. Pio V" in Rome, the author of a book on technical writing, and of many papers and articles. He has been one of the founders of the Italian association for terminology and of Gruppo L10N.

Contact

[email protected]

References

Beninatto R. & DePalma D., Collaborative Translation, Common Sense Advisory, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933555-48-5 (Pending)

Anderson C., Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Hyperion, 2009, ISBN 978-1401322908

Brockman J., What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable, Harper Perennial, 2007, ISBN 978-0061214950

DePalma D. A. & Sargent B. B., The State of Freelance Translation, Common Sense Advisory, 2009, ISBN 978-1-933555-66-9

Howe J., Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, Crown Business, 2008, ISBN 0307396207


ASTTI - IALB 53

Normung für Übersetzungsdienstleister: Qualität ist

schon längst messbar

Manfred Schmitz

Intertext Fremdsprachendienst e.G.

Abstract

Der Autor stellt mehrere Normen für Übersetzungsdienstleister vor und

geht auf die derzeitigen Normungsvorhaben auf internationaler Ebene ein,

die einen deutlichen Trend zur konkreten Messbarkeit der Qualität von

Übersetzungen erkennen lassen. Ferner werden einige Überlegungen zum

Stand der Arbeit mit der europäischen Norm EN 15038, auch unter dem

Aspekt der Überwindung der (vermeintlichen) Auswirkungen der

gegenwärtigen wirtschaftlichen Krise auf die Übersetzungsbranche,

angestellt.

Vorgestern hörte ich auf Klassik-Radio ein Sibelius-Zitat, über das ich sehr

schmunzeln musste: „Über Musik kann man gut mit Bankdirektoren

sprechen, während Künstler nur über Geld reden.“ Wenn ich an

Stammtischen mit Übersetzern konversiere, dann geht es tatsächlich meist

über Honorare, das Unverständnis der Kunden und über die schlechten

Übersetzungen von Konkurrenten. Und wenn wir dann auf

Qualitätskriterien zu sprechen kommen, winken die meisten ab mit der

Bemerkung, Qualität sei weitgehend subjektiv. In der Tat habe ich mich als

Revisor/Kontrolleur von Übersetzungen oft gefragt, ob meine Änderung

objektiv begründbar ist oder ob ich dem Übersetzer nur mein persönliches

Sprachempfinden aufdrücken will.

Ja, die Qualität von übersetzten Texten basiert sowohl auf objektiven als

auch auf subjektiven Kriterien. Objektiv messbar ist etwa, ob Syntax,

Grammatik, Interpunktion und Orthografie korrekt sind. Auch die

branchenadäquate oder firmenspezifische fachliche Richtigkeit und die

Wahl der Terminologie fallen darunter. Diese objektiven Kriterien müssen

von einem Übersetzungsdienstleister garantiert werden und sind auch

wissenschaftlich belegbar.


ASTTI - IALB 54

Anders bei der subjektiven Komponente, die gemeinhin als Stil bezeichnet

wird. Jeder Text wird in dieser Hinsicht von den einzelnen Lesern anders

beurteilt. In der Übersetzungspraxis bedeutet dies, dass dem Übersetzer

ein relativ großer Handlungsspielraum offen steht, auf der anderen Seite

aber für den Auftraggeber eine genauso große Spanne bei der qualitativen

Beurteilung eines übertragenen Textes.

Uns soll es hier um Normen für Übersetzungsdienstleister gehen, und zur

qualitativ hochwertigen Übersetzungsdienstleistung noch andere objektive

Kriterien als die oben Genannten. Hier – und bei unserer neuesten Norm –

geht es auch und vor allem um Servicequalität, um messbare

Servicequalität. Ob eine Arbeit termingerecht ausgeführt wurde, kann

zweifelsfrei festgestellt werden; ob die Daten so beim Kunden eintreffen,

wie es vereinbart worden war, ebenso. Wird technologische Unterstützung

(z. B. Translation Memory Systeme) angeboten, so ist dies ebenso ein

Qualitätsfaktor wie einfache, klar strukturierte, nachvollziehbare Abläufe,

ein effizientes Projektmanagement, ein Feedback und eine (messbare)

Kundenzufriedenheit.

Wenn im Titel meines Vortrags von Normen für Übersetzungsdienstleister

die Rede ist, dann will ich zunächst mehrere Normen, die ebenfalls unsere

Berufsausübung betreffen, ausschließen:

Terminologie und Terminologiearbeit (zu den jüngsten zählen ISO

1951 „Darstellung/Repräsentation von Einträgen in Wörterbüchern“

Austauschformate. Dazu gehört beispielsweise das OASIS XML

Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF)

Umschrift und Transliteration (ISO 15924 Information und

Dokumentation – Codes für Schriftennamen)

Uns soll es hier vielmehr um Übersetzungsqualität und Messverfahren für

die Übersetzungsqualität gehen. Einschlägig sind hier:

Aus dem Jahr 2004 der ATA Framework for standard error marking

Aus dem Jahr 2005 das LISA Quality Assurance Model

Aus demselben Jahr die amerikanische Norm SAE J2450 Translation

Quality Metric

Aus dem Jahr 2007 der ASTM-Standard F2575-06 Standard Guide

for Quality Assurance in Translation


ASTTI - IALB 55

Und natürlich aus dem Jahr 2006 unsere eigene, europäische Norm

DIN EN 15038 Übersetzungsdienstleistungen –

Dienstleistungsanforderungen

Drei dieser Normen bieten eine Metrik (die Zeiten, da Übersetzer

behaupteten, Übersetzungsqualität sei nicht messbar, dürften sich dem

Ende zuneigen):

Der ATA Framework wird zur Beurteilung der Qualität von Übersetzungen

im Rahmen des Akkreditierungsverfahrens der ATA sowie vor allem auch

an Übersetzer ausbildenden Universitäten der USA zur Bewertung

studentischer Übersetzungen angewendet; zu den aufgeführten

Fehlerkategorien gehören: Auslassungen, Unverständlichkeit, falsches

Verstehen des Ausgangstextes, Terminologie, Register, zu frei – zu wörtlich,

Grammatik, Syntax, Rechtschreibung und Interpunktion, Idiomatik, Stil und

andere.

Das LISA QA Model misst die Qualität von Lokalisierungsprojekten; aus dem

Screenshot geht hervor, welche Fehlerkategorien aufgenommen wurden

und welche Wichtung die festgestellten Fehler besitzen:


ASTTI - IALB 56

Die von einer Taskforce, bestehend aus Vertretern von General Motors,

Ford, Chrysler und Zulieferern, entwickelte amerikanische Norm SAE J2450

schränkt den Anwendungsbereich ein, nämlich auf Übersetzungen von

Service-Informationen auf dem Gebiet der Automobilindustrie: Translation

Quality Metric for Language Translation of Service Information.

Sie geht von 8 Haupt-Fehlerkategorien aus, die definiert und gewichtet

werden, und nach der Feststellung eines Fehlers wird dieser entweder als

serious oder als minor bewertet (im Zweifelsfall als serious) und mit einem

Punktwert versehen. Die addierte Punktzahl wird durch die Anzahl der

Wörter des Ausgangstextes geteilt, und bei einem Wert von 99 % und

höher gilt die Übersetzung als angenommen.

Hier eine Zusammenfassung der Qualitätsmetrik:

SAE J2450 TRANSLATION QUALITY METRIC SUMMARY

BACKGROUND Originally designed for the automotive/aerospace industry, SAE J2450 is a metric for measuring translation quality. It provides a system for classifying and weighing translation errors and thus calculates a score for translation quality.


ASTTI - IALB 57

PRIMARY ERROR CATEGORIES The metric provides the following eight primary error categories:

Wrong Term (WT) weight: 5/2.5

A term is defined as any single word or multi-word phrase used as a single lexical unit, incl. abbreviations, acronyms, numbers, numerals, and proper names.

A term is wrong when it:

a) violates a glossary

b) violates standard language or industry usage

c) is inconsistent with other translations of the same source term

d) denotes a concept different from the concept denoted by the source term

Syntactic Error (SE) weight: 3/1.5

Cases of syntactic errors:

a) mis-assigned part of speech

b) incorrect phrase structure

c) incorrect word order

Omission (OM) Addition (AD) weight: 3/1.5

An Omission occurs when text or a graphic in the source has no counterpart in the translation, or vice-versa (Addition).

Word Structure & Agreement Error (SA) weight: 3/1.5

A Word Structure Error occurs when an otherwise correct target word or term is expressed in an incorrect morphological form (case, gender, number, tense, prefix, suffix, infix, etc.). An Agreement Error occurs when two or more target words disagree in any form of inflection.

Misspelling (SP)

weight: 1.5/.75

Punctuation Error (PE)

weight: 1.5/.75

Miscellaneous Error (ME) weight: 1.5/.75

ME’s are linguistic error related to the target language which are not clearly attributable to one of the above seven categories.


ASTTI - IALB 58

SECONDARY CATEGORIES Once an error has been placed in one of the primary categories, it is assigned a secondary category: Serious or Minor. An error must be classified as serious if it can directly or indirectly result in any of the following:

harm to the user, operator, patient, or consumer

damage to the product or to the equipment used in

conjunction with the product

serious misrepresentation of the author’s intentions

or the client’s products or services

damage to the client’s reputation

NOTE: If in doubt, always choose ‘Serious’ over

‘Minor’.

NUMERIC WEIGHT Once primary and secondary categories are assigned, a numeric weight is assigned to the error according to the values indicated above (serious/minor).

SCORING Quality score is obtained by adding up all numeric weights and dividing by the number of source words. A score of 99% or higher is considered passing.

Den ASTM-Standard F2575-06 hat Terry Oliver bereits erwähnt. Er ist keine

Norm im eigentlichen Sinne, sondern eher so etwas wie eine

Rahmenrichtlinie, die Übersetzern und Agenturen als Referenzdokument

beim Abschluss von Vereinbarungen mit Kunden sowie zwischen

Agenturen und Übersetzern über ein Übersetzungsprojekt dienen soll. Sie

beschreibt die notwendigen Verfahren zur Erreichung der gewünschten

Qualität. Nur zur Illustrierung, hier eine überblickshafte Grafik, die dem

Standard entnommen ist und die seinen Umfang und Inhalt beschreibt:


ASTTI - IALB 59

Der Standard enthält auch eine Liste von Parametern, die zu beachten sind,

bevor mit der Übersetzung begonnen wird.

Er enthält im Unterschied zu den vorgenannten Normen keine Metrik.

Dem ASTM Standard Guide und die Norm EN 15038 ergänzen einander in

gewisser Weise. Während EN 15038 das Qualitätssicherungssystem

beschreibt und einen Rahmen für das Übersetzungsmanagement vorgibt

und ein Referenzwerk für Übersetzungsdienstleister und Kunden

gleichermaßen darstellt, bietet der ASTM Standard Guide eher praktische

Ratschläge und anwendungsorientierte Anleitungen für Übersetzer,

insbesondere auch für Berufseinsteiger.

Die Norm EN 15038 ist seit 2006 in Kraft. Sie setzt sich allmählich durch,

trotz hier und da anzutreffender Anfeindungen vor allem seitens derer, die

eine Kontrolle durch einen zweiten Übersetzer – eine wesentliche

Forderung der Norm – für überflüssig halten und ablehnen und trotz

andauernder Verwirrung über den Status der Norm. Die Zertifizierung nach

der Norm schreitet voran, nicht nur in Europa, sondern auch in Übersee, in

den beiden Amerikas und in Asien. Es setzt sich allmählich durch, was

François Massion, Geschäftsführer von D.O.G., kürzlich so beschrieb:


ASTTI - IALB 60

„Etwa 100 % der Übersetzungsdienstleister unterscheiden sich von

den anderen 100 % der Dienstleister dadurch, dass sie Qualität

versprechen, weil jeder weiß, wie wichtig dies ist. Entscheidend ist

jedoch, dass man ein Qualitätssicherungssystem nachweisen kann

und die entsprechenden Mittel und Verfahren hat, um Qualität auch

zu garantieren. Nach dem Motto ‚Vertrauen ist gut, Zertifizierung ist

besser’, wollten wir die bereits seit Jahren gelebte Praxis jetzt auch

zertifizieren lassen.“

Des Status von EN 15038 als Service Standard, als Dienstleistungsnorm, ist

man sich oft noch nicht bewusst. Die eigentliche Übersetzung bildet nur

einen Teil der gesamten Dienstleistung, zu der vor allem auch

administrative Vorgänge gehören, wie Bearbeitung der Kundenanfrage,

Abgabe des Angebots, Vereinbarungen und Koordination mit dem Kunden,

Projektmanagement, Vorbereitung und Nachbereitung des

Übersetzungsprojekts, Feedback und Feststellung der Kundenzufriedenheit

gehören. Die dabei von der Norm geforderten Verfahren müssen

dokumentiert und für den Kunden transparent und nachvollziehbar sein, so

dass dieser Vertrauen in eine solide Dienstleistung gewinnen und eine

informierte Entscheidung über die Wahl des Dienstleisters treffen kann.

Bewusst sind sich einige Agenturen auch nicht über den Status von Normen

überhaupt. So wird dem unbedarften Kunden oft die Anwendung von

Normen lediglich suggeriert.

Ich finde auf Webseiten von Agenturen solche Aussagen:

Marconex ag Zürich

Wir bieten Ihnen höchste Qualität nach den gängigen DIN und ISO Übersetzungsnormen. Wichtig ist uns, dass Stil und Tonalität vom Ursprungstext orginalgetreu (!) übernommen werden.

Oder

Rois translations Unsere Partner haben die notwendige Ausbildung und Erfahrung. Alle sind Muttersprachler in der Zielsprache und halten die strengsten Übersetzungsnormen dieser Branche ein.


ASTTI - IALB 61

Oder

eurolingua Wir sind als vereidigte und ermächtigte Übersetzer anerkannt und zugelassen. Und wir halten die gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen Übersetzungsnormen ein.

(Nicht wissend, dass die Anwendung von Normen eine freiwillige

Angelegenheit und nicht gesetzlich vorgeschrieben ist.)

Oder man liest einfach nur:

„Wir arbeiten im Einklang mit …“ „Wir orientieren uns an der Norm…“

„Wir übersetzen Ihre Texte aus den Gebieten: Wirtschaft, Kultur, Politik, Medien, günstig und den Übersetzungsnormen entsprechend in die folgeden (!) Sprachen

Einige Verwirrung hat auch die Möglichkeit der so genannten Registrierung

nach EN 15038 bei DIN CERTCO gestiftet. Dass sich der BDÜ nach all der

vorangegangenen, sehr lobenswerten Debatte um Inhalt und Wert der

Norm um eine kostengünstige Lösung für seine Mitglieder bemüht hat, ist

verständlich und völlig in Ordnung. Beabsichtigt war von den Erarbeitern

der Norm eine solche Lösung jedoch nicht. Sie hatten eine Zertifizierung im

Sinn, und zwar eine durchaus kostengünstige. DIN CERTCO muss nach wie

vor der Vorwurf gemacht werden, aus Gründen der Erzielung eines

schnellen Gewinns diesen Service angeboten zu haben. Und so schreibt

Gérard de Angeli im Translation Journal vom Januar 2009 etwas ironisch:

“If you think your services comply with EN 15038 requirements, you

may consider registering with DIN-CERCO. It will cost you €57,

which is a cheap price to pay to have a nice flag on the home page

of your website! Of course, this does not attest to your compliance

with EN 15038 requirements. At most, it attests to your ... €57

payment to DIN-CERTCO and ... to the great marketing skills of

Germans! To the best of my knowledge, none of the other large

standardization bodies in Europe (BSI and AFNOR) offer this

service.”

(Bei der Gebühr irrt de Angeli. DIN CERTCO berechnet die Leistungen nach Gebühreneinheiten (GE);

eine Einheit kostet zurzeit 43 Euro. Für die Nutzung des Verbandszeichens werden 10 GE, für die

Ausstellung des Registrierbescheids 2 GE und als jährliche Nutzungsgebühr 5 GE berechnet.)


ASTTI - IALB 62

So kann die bei DIN CERTCO registrierte Agentur technotrans auf seiner

Website auch den Wert von Normen und einer Zertifizierung

herunterspielen, indem es dort heißt:

Übersetzungsnormen und Zertifizierungen können bei Beachtung einiger Besonderheiten zur (!) einer Steigerung der Qualität des Produkts Übersetzungen beitragen. Hier sind insbesondere die DIN 2345 als produktorientierte und die DIN EN 15038 als mehr prozessorientierte Norm zu erwähnen. Bezüglich der Normenreihe ISO 9000 hat sich in der Branche mittlerweile die Erkenntnis durchgesetzt, dass eine entsprechende Zertifizierung nicht unbedingt ein Garant für gute Übersetzungsqualität ist. In der Tat haben wir schon Übersetzungen nach ISO 9000 gesehen, bei denen von Qualität nicht unbedingt die Rede sein konnte. Es gilt halt nach wie vor die Erkenntnis von Qualitätssicherungsexperten, derzufolge (!) es nicht möglich ist, Qualität in ein Produkt hineinzuprüfen, die vorher nicht hineingearbeitet worden ist.

Als bei DIN Certco registrierter Dienstleister (Reg.-Nr. 7U070) können wir unseren Kunden normkonforme Übersetzungs-dienstleistungen gemäß DIN-EN 15038 anbieten. Auf Wunsch arbeiten wir ebenfalls noch auf der Grundlage der alten DIN 2345.

Gérard de Angeli hat die Zahl von Hits für EN 15038 im Internet festgestellt

und ist bei Google France auf 161 Seiten, bei Google UK auf 100 Seiten und

bei Google Deutschland auf 10 800 Seiten gestoßen. Die hohe Zahl der

deutschen Hits führt er vor allem auf die DIN-CERTCO-Registrierung zurück.

Sie verdeutlicht aber auch das übergroße Interesse, das die Norm auf dem

deutschen Markt findet. So sollte man auch einen hohen Bekanntheitsgrad

der Norm unterstellen, weshalb es wenig verständlich ist, dass viele

„registrierte“ Übersetzungsdienstleister auf ihren Webseiten annoncieren,

sie seien zertifiziert. Das muss man schlicht als Etikettenschwindel

bezeichnen, und es wurden auch bereits in mehreren Fällen Abmahnungen

erteilt. Hier hat der BDÜ sehr positiv reagiert.

Alle diese Fälle sollen jedoch nicht die Fortschritte, die mit der EN 15038

erzielt worden sind, schmälern. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass die Norm

einen positiven Einfluss auf die Beziehungen zwischen

Übersetzungsdienstleistern und Kunden sowie zwischen

Übersetzungsdienstleistern und Übersetzern haben wird. In

Ausschreibungen der EU wird bereits die Anwendung der Norm

vorausgesetzt, und die Übersetzungsdienstleister werden durch die Norm

verpflichtet, bei Untervergabe von Projekten von Zulieferern die


ASTTI - IALB 63

Anwendung gleichgearteter Qualitätssicherungssysteme zu verlangen. So

stärkt die Anwendung der Norm die Marktposition von

Übersetzungsdienstleistern, und sie stärkt die Effizienz der internen

Organisation. Jährliche Wiederholungsprüfungen bei zertifizierten

Dienstleistern sorgen für kontinuierliche Verbesserungen ihrer Prozesse,

und die vorgeschriebene regelmäßige Auswertung von Feedbacks

veranlasst zu korrigierenden und vorbeugenden Maßnahmen, was mittel-

und langfristig eine Effizienz- und Qualitätserhöhung bedeutet.

Zurück zur Messung von Qualität und zur Normung auf ISO-Ebene. Ich

hatte Gelegenheit, an den vergangenen 4 Sitzungen der Arbeitsgruppe 6 im

Unterausschuss 2 des TK 37 der ISO (Übersetzen und Dolmetschen)

teilzunehmen. Wir Europäer hatten vor 4 Jahren in Beijing gehofft, die EN

15038 als Grundlage für eine entsprechende ISO-Norm einbringen zu

können. Diese Hoffnung wurde zunächst enttäuscht, da auch andere

Normen existierten, die einen ähnlichen Anspruch erhoben, sodass man

sich zunächst auf eine vergleichende Darstellung bestehender Normen

einigte, und auf der Grundlage eines solchen Vergleichs sollte über eine

eventuelle völlig neue ISO-Norm beraten werden. Die Anfertigung der

vergleichenden Darstellung zog sich hin, und es ist den österreichischen

und spanischen Vertretern zu danken, dass sie im August dieses Jahres in

Bogotá die entstandene Stagnation mit einem neuen Vorschlag

überwinden konnten. Die Diskussion in Bogotá war sehr konstruktiv. Zu

den wichtigsten Ergebnissen gehören die Annahme des Projekts ISO/TS

11669 Translation Projects – General Guidance, basierend auf dem seit

mehreren Jahren vorliegenden amerikanischen Vorschlag, ein Dokument

über Parameter, die vor der Anfertigung einer Übersetzung zu beachten

sind, weiterzuentwickeln. Das Projekt dürfte ein so genannter Guidance

Standard werden, der Übersetzungsprojekte beschreibt und die Nutzer zu

einem besseren Verständnis solcher Projekte und entsprechender

Spezifikationen und Normen verhelfen soll. Interessant soll ein solches

erläuterndes Dokument sein für Kunden, Übersetzungsdienstleister,

Endnutzer, Entwickler von Übersetzungstechnologie und Ausbilder von

Übersetzern. Es ist geplant, das Projekt im Oktober 2011 zu

veröffentlichen.

Der neue Vorschlag der österreichischen und spanischen Vertreter betrifft

ein Projekt für eine ISO-Norm zur Bewertung der Qualität von

Übersetzungen (Assessment of Translations). Während bisher eine

metrische Norm nur für ausgewählte Bereiche und Texte entwickelt wurde,

soll dieses Projekt für alle Arten von Übersetzungen gelten. Die Arbeit mit


ASTTI - IALB 64

dem LISA QA Model und der SAE-Norm sowie auch die Erfahrungen der

ATA mit dem Standardized Error Marking System haben gezeigt, dass eine

solche metrische Auswertung machbar und auch sinnvoll ist, und das hat

den Einreichern, neben einer in Bogotá geführten sehr konstruktiven

Debatte ganz gewiss Auftrieb verliehen und Sicherheit gegeben.

Der Entwurf sieht unter anderen folgende Bewertungskriterien

(Fehlerkategorien) vor, das heißt, Fehler, die einen messbaren

(wesentlichen oder weniger gravierenden) Einfluss auf das Endprodukt

haben können und die zum Gesamtumfang des Textes in Beziehung gesetzt

werden:

Lack of accuracy Omissions Additions Misunderstandings of the source text Mistranslation Titles, references and numbering Terminology errors Glossary adherence Context errors Terminology consistency Language errors Grammar errors Syntax errors Punctuation errors Spelling and typographic orthography Style errors General style errors Register errors Text coherence and consistency Locale Formatting errors Deadlines Completeness Inadequate adherence to specifications Overall evaluation and rating

Die Ergebnisse sollen in einem Assessment Sheet, das der Revisor ausfüllt,

zusammengefasst werden. Ein solches Assessment Sheet ist durchaus

nichts Neues. Die Europäischen Institutionen verwenden seit langem

ähnliche Formulare, nach denen Übersetzungen bewertet werden und


ASTTI - IALB 65

externe Übersetzer (allmählich haben uns daran gewöhnt) in eine flexible

Rangfolge eingeordnet werden.

In Arbeit ist ferner ein Projekt zum Community Interpreting, das ganz am

Anfang steht und zu dem ein erster Arbeitsentwurf Ende dieses Jahres

vorliegen soll.

Ganz zum Schluss: Wie weiter mit EN 15038. Nach den CEN-Bestimmungen

sind alle geltenden Normen nach 5 Jahren zu überprüfen. Das wird im Fall

von EN 15038 im Jahr 2011 geschehen. Bei dieser Überprüfung wird

festzustellen sein, ob sich die Norm bewährt hat (und ich bin sicher, das

wird positiv beantwortet werden), und es werden gegebenenfalls

Änderungen an ihr vorgenommen.

Alles in allem, viel Stoff für ausgiebige Diskussionen in der Branche und in den Verbänden.

Biografie

Geboren 1943; Diplom-Dolmetscher und –Übersetzer, seit 1990

Vorstandsmitglied Intertext Fremdsprachendienst e.G., Berlin;

Geschäftsführer der Internationalen Vereinigung Sprache und Wirtschaft;

Mitglied des Beirats des Langenscheidt Fachverlags; Lehraufträge an der

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Sprachdatenverarbeitung für Übersetzer);

bis 2006 Mitglied des Spiegelkomitees des Deutschen Instituts für

Normung (DIN) zur Begleitung der Erarbeitung der Qualitätsnorm EN

15038; Mitglied der Delegation des österreichischen Normungsinstituts in

ISO/TC37/SC2WG6 (Übersetzen und Dolmetschen); Artikel in

Fachzeitschriften sowie literarische Übersetzungen englisch- und

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David J. Kosh

Translator/Terminologist, ASTTI

Abstract

After 40 years as a language services provider, the speaker reflects on the

difficulties faced by a new generation of translators hoping to establish

themselves as part-time or full-time freelance translators in a modern

business environment that is currently dominated by the global economic

crisis. Drawing specifically on his own experience and that of the small

team of language service providers within which he operates, the speaker

addresses everyday issues such as professional attitudes towards

customers and their demands, practical responses to price and deadline

pressures, and pragmatic use of time between assignments. Having initially

worked in industry as an in-house translator, interpreter and terminologist,

the speaker then spent several years as an engineer and manager selling

capital goods throughout Asia and Latin America before finally returning

full-time to the language services business he established some years ago

with his wife and selected partners. Against that backdrop, he feels able to

appreciate the difficulties facing today's translators and their customers.

1


David J. Kosh Translator/Terminologist


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Slide 1: Navigating the Economic Downturn

Many smaller language services providers – particularly recent entrants to the

freelance market – continue to find life in our sector challenging. Those

challenges are having an impact on the practical, financial and indeed

psychological aspects of their professional and private lives.

Obviously, there are no clear-cut answers. But, under the current market

conditions there are some basic concepts that all language services providers

might want to consider, irrespective of whether they are just entering the

market, or already struggling to keep their businesses alive today, or indeed,

reflecting on how to survive in the longer term.

Reviewing those fundamentals is the purpose of this presentation, which is

aimed specifically at newcomers and smaller operators.

November 2009 Surviving the Economic Downturn 2Slide 1

Consequences for language services providers?

Fewer assignments

Price pressures

Tight deadlines

Slow payments

Unreasonable terms

Slide 2: Consequences for language services providers

For many language professionals, the consequences of the recession and the

rapidly changing business landscape have become all too evident:

Fewer assignments Price pressures Tight deadlines Slow payments Unreasonable terms


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So, let’s examine those aspects individually:


Fewer assignments

Less work – maybe!

Profile of work has changed

Distribution of work has changed

Customer loyalty has diminished

Growing strength of agencies

Slide 3: Lack of assignments

Less work – maybe! Even though the global recession has massively reduced the total value of

goods and services being purchased by trade and industry, the effective

volume of material that will need language processing is expected to grow for

several years to come – this has to be encouraging news for freelancers!

Profile of work has changed This is an inevitable process of evolution. As new technologies develop and

new consumer demands are generated, it is only natural that the profile of

language related assignments will also change. As language services providers

we must adapt in parallel: in the equipment we use, the subjects we

understand, the customers we serve and how we serve them. More on this

issue of “how we serve them” later.

Distribution of work has changed The Internet has created almost total mobility and transparency. As a result,

competition is even more intense than many people actually realise. Today’s

freelancer not only faces competition from within his/her own skills level, but

is also confronted with “upstream” competitors such as local or even

international agencies, and “downstream” price cutters from around the

world. In the Swiss context, French target language work can migrate to

France, Belgium, Canada or even parts of Africa. Germany and Austria can pick


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up work that traditionally would be handled by domestic own German

language specialists. Our colleagues in the Ticino are under pressure from the

immorally low rates paid in Italy. English language assignments are transferred

to the UK and USA, or even to Hong Kong and India - while Australia can

complete urgent jobs overnight while Switzerland is still asleep because of

time shifts!

Customer loyalty has diminished (virtually to the point of non-existence) There are admirable exceptions. But, just as you and I change the brand of our

computers, mobile phones, cars or shop where we perceive we are getting the

best deal, our customers feel free to do the same. Consequently, for service

providers, the key aspects to survival are a) building strong customer

relationships and b) achieving some level of leverage with customers. We will

review these vital issues shortly.

Strength of agencies has grown Agencies can pool greater acquisition resources than most freelancers.

Administratively, they are better equipped and organised to negotiate with

larger corporations. Only agencies can afford the cost of insurance against

consequential damages that some corporations demand nowadays.

The Achilles heel of agencies is that they absolutely need qualified personnel

to process the assignments they are able to acquire. Consequently, linking up

with an agency can be a solution for potential freelancers who feel the need

to gain more practical experience, want a degree of job security, or avoid the

sometimes disagreeable business of acquisition. I remain convinced that

freelancers and agencies can co-exist.

In the face of this sometimes contradictory constellation, it is obvious that any

dedicated freelancer will need to generate a sustainable strategy for surviving

the economic realities of the 21st century.


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To survive, you must...

Establish your brand: sell yourself, your skills profile, customer‘s first choice must always be you

Unique selling proposition USP: quality, promptness, reliability

Create leverage: strive to meet customers‘ specific needs

Slide 4: To survive, you must…

Consider these numbers: if you hope to invoice an average of 100’000 Swiss

francs a year over a career lasting 40 years, it means that you will have to

generate a total turnover of 4 million francs over that period. Extracting that

volume of money from the reluctant pockets of customers clearly means that

you need to adopt an absolutely professional approach towards your business

and your customers.

In marketing terms, there are three things that must be achieved for a

business model to be viable:

1) First, you have to: Establish your brand – which is essentially selling yourself and your skills

profile. Customers must instinctively think of you first when handing out assignments.

2) Next, you have to generate your own: Unique selling proposition. Your USP is made up of the quality, reliability,

promptness and ultimately, the price of your work. 3) Finally, you need to: Create leverage with customers, i.e. to minimise their incentives to switch

to an alternative, i.e. cheaper, language services provider. That leverage depends largely on convincing customers that you are striving to meet their specific needs.


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Now, how on earth are you expected to achieve all these good things when

you are a small operation with limited financial resources?


Getting your share...

Depends on attitude

Depends on response

Depends on flexibility

Depends on adaptability

Depends on acquisition

Depends on business style

Slide 5: Getting your share…

If you are not getting a reasonable share of your local language services

market, today may well be the moment to begin reassessing a number of

closely related aspects that cannot be ignored in any business – big or small.

Apart from that elusive element called luck, getting, retaining and growing

your market share invariably:

Depends on attitude Depends on response Depends on flexibility Depends on adaptability Depends on acquisition Depends on business style

Let’s take a look at those aspects one by one.


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AttitudeTime for a review?

You are a services provider

You are available 24/7 x 365

Cultivate your customers

Follow your contacts

Willing to adapt business style

Slide 6: Attitude: Time for a review?

Always remember:

You are a professional language services provider – that is your brand! To support your brand, your customers must be aware that:

You are available 24/7 x 365 days a year That is a key element of your unique selling proposition, your USP).

This recommendation is not really as ridiculous as its sounds – a few

practical tips:

The costs of a Blackberry or smartphone that alerts to you incoming emails from customers when you are hiking or skiing in the mountains are tax deductible.

Ensure that customers have all your coordinates. I honestly know freelancers who resist giving customers or colleagues their mobile phone numbers. I honestly know others who do not switch on their mobile phones for days on end. If you feel that a mobile phone is strictly for your convenience and not for the convenience of your customers – then it probably is time for a review.

Whenever you travel, carry a WirelessLAN enabled laptop to receive, process and return assignments (exploit dead time at airports, on trains, in hotels).

If your laptop is your 2nd computer, be sure your glossaries are on its hard disk.


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Always carry a USB stick with your glossaries/reference texts as a backup.

Inform customers of your travel/vacation plans, but confirm your 24/7 availability.

Maintain a backup Internet account in case your main provider is down.

Be sure to carry chargers/adapters for all your electronic devices.

Cultivate your customers All too often, I hear my colleagues speaking of customers as if they were the

enemy. Establishing relationships with contacts within companies (remember:

generating leverage?) is the most effective way for freelancers to influence

customers and win your their fair share of their assignments. A few well-

established suggestions in this regard:

Visit your best customer contacts at least once a year

Try to remember their personal details (children, hobbies, sports)

Enquire about the potentials of their business and future plans

Start emails with small personal comments (…glad to hear from you, I just came back from trip to Germany…)

Remember: if contacts are pressuring you on prices and deadlines it is because they are under exactly the same pressures from their own customers and bosses.

Emphasise benefits of win-win business relationships (priority, consistency etc.)

When you submit completed translation jobs, say “thank you” for the assignment

Follow your customer contacts – when they change jobs, offer them your services in their new positions, offer to learn their new technologies and terminologies!


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Response...Acting on enquiries

Respond to enquiries promptly

Ballpark price better than full quote without follow-up

Mention terms and conditions

Keep a copy for reference

Slide 7: Response: Acting on enquiries

Always respond to enquiries immediately.

A promptly emailed ballpark price is cheaper and has more chance of success than a late, detailed quotation which is not followed up vigorously.

No matter how simple the email quotation is, always state your terms and conditions.

Always keep a copy for later reference.


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Flexibility...Exploit your skills profile

Translation

Editing

Proofreading

Teaching

Coaching students

Consecutive interpreting

Slide 8: Flexibility: Exploit your skills profile

When offering your services to potential customers, don’t forget to mention

your other language related skills such as:

Editing (increasingly companies are using English as corporate language)

Proofreading (ditto) In-company teaching (e.g. business English for executives, technical

English for sales and service engineers) “Technical” writing

When work is scarce, don’t forget that you are probably also qualified to:

Teach (e.g. stand-in for language school teachers on vacation) Coach school or college students Consecutive interpreting Editing MBA or other post-graduate dissertations Act as a tourist guide


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Adaptability...Go with the flow

Construction machinery to Milpol

Metallurgy to packaging machinery

Fineblanking to cold forging

Corporate communications

Financial reporting

Websites and newsletter

Slide 9: Adaptability: Go with the flow

This slide shows the sectors where we used to generate our turnover and

where we earn our living today.

Service providers are subject to the law of supply and demand. Your

customers will invariably adopt new technologies, develop alternative

applications and enter new markets. To retain those customers you must

adapt with them. Ask them what new technologies they are employing and

get them to explain the benefits. For example, most modern machine tools

use CNC controls made by Siemens or Fanuc. Search the websites of those

makers – they are often multilingual and contain a lot of essential terminology

– free of charge!


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Acquisition...Have you really contacted?

All existing/former customers

Every company in your area

Competitors of your customers

Local social services/churches

Local language schools

Investigated „start-ups“

Slide 10: Acquisition: Have you really contacted?

All existing/former customers Every company in your area Competitors of your customers Local social services/churches Local language schools Investigated „start-ups“

Before chasing new business in new sectors, first review all your old invoices,

business cards and copies of earlier translations – they are a potential

goldmine! Former customers are the easiest to talk to canvass because you

already have a valid reason for contacting them. Those short follow-up phone

calls will also give you a feel for what is happening in any given sector. Don’t

assume anything! Recently, I contacted a former customer thinking: mmm…

management consultants - “not much hope here”. Quite on the contrary –

those consultants have become specialised in a growing technology and that

sector is surprisingly strong! Investments in that new specialty offer

companies real and quick cost saving potentials. Even better, that technology

is in a sector where European companies are really competitive.

Scan local newspapers for articles on “start-up” companies in your area. They

are often involved in hi-tech and are usually export oriented. Try to visit them

personally on a non-committal basis. Offer them reasonable introductory


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rates - they have to control their costs carefully - and suggest generating a

simple glossary of terms in their sector. Establish a personal relationship and

grow with them (remember: leverage).

A word of warning: Before you accept assignments from the social services,

agree to invoice them and NOT their clients – otherwise you will never see

your money.


Business style...Learn from the Asians

Always carry business cards

Seamless transition from work to leisure

Don‘t volunteer information

Be careful who you trust

Confirm agreements in writing

Slide 11: Business style: Learn from the Asians

In Asia, if you don’t have a business card, you are a nobody! So be somebody:

Always carry your business cards and give them to people you meet Seamless transition from work to leisure Be happy if a customer phones you when you are in the bath, having

dinner, or on holiday (remember the 24/7 x 365 thing?). Or, having a pizza

with a customer really is often a great opportunity to discuss business

(remember leverage!)

Don’t volunteer information: By all means discuss your business activities in general terms, but do

not divulge key information such as customers, contacts, turnover, pricing

agreements or payment terms.

Be careful whom you trust Knowledge is power and you need to retain that power for yourself.


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Confirm agreements in writing If you agree prices or terms over a pizza, confirm them later by email.


Networking...The most wasted asset

Can bring in assignments

Can reduce deadline pressures

Can keep your finger on the pulse

Can extend your skills profile

Can compete against agencies

Can strengthen ASTTI

Slide 12: Networking: The most wasted asset

In the past, the “ivory tower syndrome” was a real problem for freelancers.

But, professional isolation has been eliminated forever by the Internet.

Yes, the Internet has created pricing problems for freelancers, but using the

Internet to network is hugely cost-effective. Linking up through the Internet

can help you to:

Bring in more assignments Reduce deadline pressures Keep your finger on the pulse of the market Extend your skills profile Compete against agencies Strengthen your own professional association (ASTTI)

Networking is as invaluable as word of mouth advertising and as cheap as the

click of a key or a short phone call.


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Meeting customers

Be prepared for meetings

Short PowerPoint presentation

Know your MSP

Never criticise competitors

Get the order and GET OUT!

Slide 13: Meeting customers

Be prepared for meetings Never go to a meeting unprepared - mentally visualise the meeting

beforehand!

Think about how you are going to greet the customer (thank you for your

time…), how you are going to respond to difficult questions (your age,

experience, prices, deadlines…) etc.

If the customer offers you a cup of coffee, respond by offering small

chocolates, this helps create what Asians call “atmosphere language”.

Schedule the meeting for a time that is best for you. If you are night owl,

try to set the meeting for the afternoon. If you are an early bird, arrange for

morning appointments.

Short PowerPoint presentation If you have tools such as a simple PowerPoint presentation on your laptop,

try to sit next to the customer, or among them if there are two or three

present. This helps to make the appointment into a meeting and less of a

negotiation. Don’t let your laptop create a barrier between you and the

customer. At the end of the meeting, move back to your original position –

this is a signal to the customer that a decision is called for.


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Know your MSP Your MSP is your Maximum Settlement Point and your Minimum

Settlement Point. The maximum is the price you are reasonably hoping to

obtain, the minimum is where the negotiation ends, i.e. the lowest price

at which you are willing to accept the assignment and/or the deadline.

Get the order and get out This may sound strange, but if you do succeed in getting the order – GET

OUT! Staying on unnecessarily once a meeting is over is simply creating

time for the customer to ask for more concessions, or obtain too much

information from you.

Finally, remember: no meeting is ever wasted – even if you fail in your

objective of getting the order, learn from that meeting: analyse your own

mistakes and the customer’s behaviour and tactics.

If you are unable to accept an assignment or deadline for any reason, suggest

an ASTTI colleague who can – remember the need for networking!


Price pressures...It‘s the Internet stupid!

Email 1st July 2009

Dear Mr. Kosh,… looking for a translator for our book on Twentieth Century Art to translate one section from German to English. The rate we usually pay is $0.07 per word, and the word count of this project is 33.567 words, bringing the total payment to $2349, approximately. We would need the translation completed in about a month.Please let me know if you are available and interested… and I will send you a sample to translate.

Arielle DatzParkstone International

Slide 14: Price pressures: It’s the Internet stupid!

This slide shows a real life enquiry. It would have been a fascinating and

challenging assignment – but not for the equivalent of around 0.73 Swiss

francs per line!


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The harsh reality is that freelance language service providers cannot make a

viable living in Switzerland by dropping their prices to the ridiculous levels

that are being offered on the Internet, or by these newcomers.

The equally harsh question is therefore: what can freelancers do to compete?

In today’s price driven consumer market, the hard truth is that the

freelancers’ options in price negotiations are limited, but worth reviewing

nonetheless.


Dealing with price pressures

Try to negotiate face-to-face

Never volunteer lower prices

Downgrade assignment rather than giving a percentage discount

Drop charge for urgent jobs

Accept assignment or lose it

Slide 15: Dealing with price pressures

Try to negotiate face-to-face Even the most price conscious customers are likely to feel more confident

with placing orders after personally meeting their potential language services

provider, rather than trusting the promises made by a mail order flyer.

Never volunteer lower prices Obvious, but worth repeating: don’t offer a lower price until the customer

specifically requests a reduction. Even today, many Swiss feel uneasy at asking

for a discount!

Downgrade assignment rather than offer discount If you must lower your price, tell the customer you are downgrading the

assignment to a lower difficulty level, rather than agreeing to a permanent

discount. The short-term result is the same, but your higher price level for


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difficult work remains intact! Offer an end-of-year discount if customer will

guarantee a specified volume of work.

Drop surcharge for urgent jobs Offer your express service at the same prices as standard assignments

This is also the opportunity to highlight the benefits of your overall package:

geographic proximity, readiness to visit customer at any time to understand

the product, 24/7 x 365 availability, ASTTI quality and ethical standards,

security of customer know-how, willingness to generate a dedicated glossary

of terms, hence, the consistency of future assignments. (Remember: your

unique selling proposition USP)

Accept assignment or lose it This is the point where your MSP is important. It is only human to make

concessions under pressure – and regret them later. If your MINIMUM

settlement point is firmly established in your mind, you are less likely to make

unreasonable concessions. If you don’t feel comfortable with the terms being

offered, don’t accept them. If possible, let the customer make the negative

decision rather than you saying NO! If the decision goes against you, thank the

customer and ask to be considered for the next assignment. Propose offering

the job to an ASTTI colleague (remember: networking).


Working under deadline pressures

Accept deadline to secure order

Try to negotiate extensions

Request draft manuscript to research terminology

Share assignments

Ask for 24/7 contact


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Slide 16: Deadline pressures

Accept deadline to secure order For most translators nowadays, accepting tight deadlines to secure an order is

standard procedure. Don’t feel victimised – you are in good company with

other service providers such as graphic artists, printers, IT specialists,

forwarding agents, express delivery services etc.

Negotiate extensions Always try to obtain an emergency extension (say to the customer: I will do

my utmost to meet your deadline, but if there is any unexpected emergency,

what is the very latest deadline you can accept?).

Request draft manuscript to research terminology If the final manuscript has not been released, try to obtain a draft version. Use

it to research terminology and work on difficult text passages.

Share assignments Your objective as a freelancer is obviously to do as much of the work yourself

and to invoice it yourself. However, if you are under extreme deadline

pressure, share the assignment with a trusted colleague – preferably an ASTTI

member (networking!).

Ask for 24/7 contact

Ask the customer for a 24/7 contact who can help if you encounter difficulties.

There is no disgrace in asking for help – knowing where to ask is a real

advantage!


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Minimising deadline pressures

Clear your desk & your mind

Know your personal rythm formula 60% + 20% + 20%

Sign up with online IT service

Learn from the experience

Slide 17: Working under deadline pressures

Clear your desk – clear your mind The first thing I do when I am under deadline pressure is to clear my desk.

Somehow, it also helps to clear my head and focus on the challenge ahead.

Know your personal rhythm Over the years, I have found that a simple formula of 60% + 20% + 20% is the

most productive procedure for me. This means working:

60% at top speed and concentration to generate a draft 20% revision and double-checking terminology 20% final editing, polishing, last-minute customer changes

Sign up with online IT service Save time, nerves and money by signing up with a local online computer

repair service. Signing on itself should be free of charge and you will receive a

desktop icon from the provider. Click on that icon when things go wrong –

invariably at the worst moment – to obtain prompt assistance. Remember:

the costs of work related IT services are tax deductible, so get receipts from

the provider and keep them for your tax declaration.

Learn from the experience Are you really able to work under pressure, or does the quality of your work

suffer?


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Who are the ASTTI colleagues you can rely on in a time pressure situation?

Draw your own honest conclusions! (Remember: Networking!).


Work ethics

Even if you accept a low price, you must still do your best

Honour deadlines even if tight

You are responsible for shared assignments

When you submit translation, say thank you for assignment

Slide 18: (deleted)


Invoicing

Submit invoices promptly

Always mention IBAN number

Only show necessary information

Mention who issued assignment

State your payment terms

Keep a copy of all invoices


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Slide 19: Invoicing

Submit invoices promptly You, as a language services provider, are frequently subjected to short

deadlines. Many of your customers, however, have surreptitiously increased

their payment terms from 30 to 60 days or more, e.g. from date of receipt of

invoice, or 60 days from the end of the month in which the invoice was

submitted or received. Therefore, prompt invoicing is essential to keep your

cash flow moving.

Always mention IBAN number Nowadays, it is essential to mention the IBAN number of your bank account

on invoices. For some customers, a missing IBAN number is an excuse for not

paying promptly.

Only show essential information Too much information on an invoice can encourage customers to query

certain details.

There is no joy in arguing with a customer whether you translated 99.8 or 100

lines.

Mention who issued the assignment Also mention the date of the assignment, e.g. email dated 12.10.2009.

Don’t give accountants the satisfaction or opportunity to withhold payment.

State your payment terms The customer will pay at his own terms anyway, but in the event of a dispute,

you can always refer to your own payment terms.

Keep a copy Obvious procedure for tax return reasons, but also as useful reference as a

simple customer database when you are short of work and chasing

assignments.


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Slow payments

Know customer‘s payment habits

Accept reasonable payment terms

Follow up overdue payments

Chase customer‘s accountant first

Then chase your customer

Slide 20: Slow payments

Assess reasons behind customer‘s slow payments If customers start to extend their payment terms, try to establish why. Is this

general policy, or is there a danger that your invoice will not be paid?

Accept reasonable payment terms Unfortunately, any payment terms between 30 and 60 days are „reasonable”.

Follow up overdue payments You have provided the service – probably under time pressure – you are fully

entitled to full and prompt payment. You must follow up overdue payments!

Chase customer‘s accountant first This is important! Have your copy of the invoice in front of you to confirm the

date of invoice, the sum involved and the person who issued the assignment.

If the accountant does not have your invoice, it is time to:

Chase your customer Slow payers usually claim they have signed off the invoice and passed it to the

accounts department. This is the moment to state that you have already been

in touch with accounts and to request prompt settlement – it usually works.


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Positive use of spare time

Update customer database

Expand glossaries/termbases

Consider further education

Balance your accounts

Research Internet for terms

Slide 21: (deleted)


Business plan

Analyse your costs

Budget for a profit

Assess customer potential

Know your MSP

Commercial register

Website Yes/No?

Slide 22: Business plan

Budget for a profit If your figures show that you are regularly losing money, then it is obviously

time to reassess your situation as a freelance services provider. Whenever you

are investing in your business be sure that there is a profit at the end of the


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day. A recent study in Zurich showed that people – women in particular - who

work part-time out of the home ultimately lose money because of the added

cost of transport, food, childcare and higher taxes. So let’s borrow a phrase

from a popular CNN financial programme - “Whatever you do, let it be

profitable!”.

Assess customer potential If you have customers who are agreeable to work with, who pay their invoices

regularly and are helpful with translation questions, cultivate them carefully

and take time to increase your knowledge of their specialties and expand your

terminology accordingly. At the same time consider whether there is medium

to long-term potential in their field, i.e. whether they are likely to provide you

with greater volumes of work in the future. If they have obvious competitors,

consider approaching them with language services.

Commercial register Even if you are operating as a one-man show, it is worthwhile having your

name and/or company entered in the local Commercial Register where you

live or work. Registration not only gives your business a certain “legitimacy”,

but it also supports your case when making deductions from earnings in your

tax declaration. Costs are modest and should be tax deductable.

Website Yes/No? Frankly, we have had plenty of compliments on our website, but have

received very little identifiable business from it. However, it is certainly a

useful reference when we are approached by new potential customers.


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ASTTI membership

Absolutely!

Recommended tariffs

Contacts

Networking

International recognition

Code of conduct/ethics

Slide 23: ASTTI membership

Absolutely! Unlike our own homepage, we definitely do receive regular enquiries via the

ASTTI website. That in itself is a valid reason for gaining admission to this

rather exclusive club. But, there are others:

Recommended tariffs Tariffs that are published by a professional association tend to carry more

authority and justification than those quoted arbitrarily by freelance

operators.

Contacts Customers looking for a competent language services provider will often surf

the Internet to look for a translators’ association and, in Switzerland, will

invariably hit the ASTTI site. Although the ASTTI homepage still needs

refinement from a graphics point of view, it is evidently quite user-friendly.

Networking Our personal experience is that ASTTI members do not network nearly

enough. Nevertheless, the members’ database is readily available as a starting

point. I really hope that the younger and more Internet savvy generation will

make greater use of its networking potential.

International recognition


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Becoming a member of ASTTI is not simply a question of “joining a club” but

rather one of gaining admission to a professional association that appreciates

your credentials and will help defend them through arbitration if necessary.

Code of conduct/ethics In this Internet era with its instant reporting, many companies are justifiably

worried about confidential data being leaked, stolen or otherwise abused.

Therefore, being a member of an association with a published code of

conduct and ethics is a useful argument when negotiating with potential

customers and convincing them to entrust their translation assignments to

locally based professionals.


Conclusions

Regularly review business attitude

Present yourself as 24/7 package

Tolerate price/deadline pressures

Network to counter those pressures!!!

Tightly control invoicing and costs

Make optimal use of spare time

Good luck and successful networking!

Slide 24: Conclusions

To survive as a freelance language services professional in today’s competitive

and challenging business environment you must be willing and able to:

Regularly review your business attitudes Present yourself as a 24/7 x 365 package Tolerate price and deadline pressures Network with colleagues to counter those pressures Tightly control your invoicing and costs Make optimal use of spare time

Good luck and successful networking!


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About the author

HNC Mechanical Engineering, Coventry Polytechnic, England. Cambridge CTEFLA Certificate in Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Adults. Certificate of Advanced Studies in Terminology Science, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur.

Seven years as Head of Language Services with leading Swiss industrial group. First-hand sales and marketing experience as Export Sales Manager with international trading house and specialist machine tool manufacturer. Teaching experience at Kaufmännische Berufsschule Aarau, Dolmetscherschule Zurich, and company in-house courses.

Contact

Kramenweg 12

CH-8645 Jona

[email protected]


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La traduction de textes économiques et financiers : les

métaphores et la dernière crise mondiale

Áurea Fernández Rodríguez

Iolanda Galanes Santos

Universidade de Vigo

Résumé

Les recherches concernant les expressions imagées dans le langage

économique et financier constituent un domaine relativement récent. Par

ailleurs, dans la plupart des cas, l’analyse de la métaphore est abordée par

des équipes d’étude et de recherche sur l’anglais de spécialité : les autres

langues dont la traduction français-espagnol et portugais ou encore

portugais espagnol français sont beaucoup moins étudiées.

C’est dans les années 70 que le phénomène des expressions imagées a

commencé à susciter la curiosité des théoriciens hors du domaine

linguistique et littéraire. Les années 80-90 ont vu le jour d’autres

recherches: Klamer, McCloskey et Slow (1988) ; Dudley-Evans et

Henderson (1990), etc.

En période d’embellie ou de crise, les exemples de métaphores sont encore

plus nombreux dans les textes de la presse économique et financière.

Charteris-Black (2001), par exemple, relèvent les métaphores dans des

rapports financiers anglais et espagnol publiés pendant la crise des

marchés de valeurs de l’année 1997 pour comparer le genre de métaphore

utilisé et le domaine auquel est associé l’expression. White (1997 : 2004)

centre ses recherches sur le recours systématique et généralisé des médias

à la métaphore pour traiter une crise monétaire. Dans le domaine

hispanophone, le linguiste et critique littéraire Victor Gustavo Zonana a

fait une analyse linguistique des tribunes médiatiques argentines lors de la

crise de 2001 pour s’attarder sur la créativité et sur les liens entre la

métaphore et l’argumentation.

Dans la mondialisation actuelle où l’économie des États-Unis est encore la

référence mondiale, le discours sur la crise des subprime a également pris

une ampleur universelle. Les métaphores abondent : hipotecas basura,

activos tóxicos, - banco bueno (banco bom, banco bo), banco malo (banco

malo, banco mau/ruim), burbuja del ladrillo, los brotes verdes;

l’éclatement de la bulle de l’immobilier, les actifs pourris, etc. Quelle est

la capacité de création de chaque langue ? Les langues se limitent-elles à

calquer l’anglais des États-Unis ou bien chaque culture créée en fonction

de son expérience ou de sa conception du monde. Voilà quelques questions

auxquelles nous essaierons de répondre dans ce travail dont le point de


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départ est un corpus composé par des textes tirés de la presse économique

espagnole, française, italienne et portugaise depuis le mois d’août 2007

jusqu’à 2010.

Pendant longtemps, les métaphores ont fait l'objet de recherches qui les

considéraient un phénomène exclusif du domaine littéraire. Ce n'est qu'à

partir des années 1980-1990 que la métaphore commence a suscité la

curiosité de certains théoriciens qui les abordent en tant que phénomène

intralinguistique suivant des approches différentes dans la langue courante

ou la langue des spécialités dont l'économique et la financière. Selon Lakoff

et Johnson (1980, 1985) la langue générale fait appel aux métaphores

conceptuelles. Henderson (1982) et McCloskey (1983) considèrent que les

métaphores sont des moyens pour construire un monde. Dès la fin des

années 1980 voient le jour d’autres études sous la plume de Klamer, de

McCloskey et de Slow (1988) ; Dudley-Evans et Henderson (1990) ; Samuels

(1990), Henderson, Dudley-Evans et Backhouse (1993) ; Davis, Wade Hands

et Mäki (1998).

La linguistique appliquée a manifesté son intérêt pour l’usage de la

métaphore non seulement dans la langue générale, dans l'énonciation

scientifique et technique mais aussi dans les textes économiques. Suivant

une approche lexicographique, Knowles (1996) analyse les expressions

métaphoriques associées à la santé dans les textes financiers. White (1997,

2004) travaille sur le recours systématique et généralisé des médias à la

métaphore pour traiter une crise monétaire. Dans ses recherches il met en

relief l’apport de l’image à la cohésion et à la cohérence du texte et par

conséquent à la dimension communicative. Plus tard nous trouvons encore

des analyses de corpus bilingues qui cherchent à comparer le texte source

et le texte cible pour évaluer le résultat (Serón, 2005). En fait, ces groupes

d’étude et de recherche, au-delà de la métaphore, ont tous un autre point

commun : leur intérêt sur l’anglais de spécialité.

Du point de vue interlinguistique, la métaphore n’a pas fait l’objet de très

nombreux débats. Néanmoins, les théoriciens de la traduction se

réclamant de différents courants ― Nida et Taber (1969), Dagut (1976),

Vazquez Ayora (1977), Van de Broeck (1981), Toury (1981), Newmark

(1981 ; 1988), Larson (1989), Dobrynska (1995) et Kurth (1999) —

consacrent des analyses sur l'usage, la fonction et la traduction de la

métaphore. Van de Broeck (1981), Van Besien et Pelsmaekers (1988), Snell

Hornby (1988), Rabadán (1991), Newmark (1981 et 1988) suivent la

méthode communicative. Selon Reiss (1971) et Mason (1982) une théorie


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de la traduction de la métaphore ne serait même pas nécessaire car elle ne

pose pas plus de problème que n’importe quel autre terme à traduire.

Cependant, d’autres théoriciens comme Van de Broeck ou Peter Newmark

pensent que la métaphore est un obstacle, souvent bien difficile à

surmonter. En réponse aux théories de Dagut, Van de Broeck écrit un

article sur le phénomène où il propose une classification des métaphores.

Peter Newmark signale qu’il y a des métaphores universelles, culturelles et

originales. Puis il offre différents paramètres à tenir compte lors de la

traduction de ces éléments : leur longévité (il établit cinq groupes), leur

composition (« simplex, one-word metaphors » et « complex, two or more

words », 1998 : 85), le type de texte où elles sont employées (informatif,

vocatif, etc.), la méthode de traduction adoptée (soit la traduction

sémantique soit la traduction communicative) et la métaphore elle-même,

c’est-à-dire l’objet auquel elle fait référence (l’image et le sens). Les

éléments culturels, universels et personnels ont également une influence

sur le processus de traduction.

Notre expérience personnelle dans l'enseignement universitaire et dans la

préparation de futurs traducteurs et traductrices nous montre que la

métaphore est l'un des plus difficiles problèmes à expliquer aux étudiants

et à résoudre avec succès. En effet, malgré la quantité de ressources

terminographiques et documentaires disponibles sur Internet, nos

étudiants se voient débordés et déconcertés parce qu’ils investissent trop

de temps dans leurs recherches et ne trouvent pas toujours une solution

satisfaisante à leurs problèmes de traduction. Les difficultés augmentent

encore lorsqu’il s’agit de traduire des unités terminologiques nouvelles ou

des variantes qui ne sont pas encore relevées dans les glossaires ou dans

les lexiques. En effet, nous n'avons repéré aucun résultat pour “mauvaise

banque” ni dans le Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique du Québec (GDT) ni

dans la base de données terminologique de l’Union européenne, l’IATE

(Inter Active Terminoly for Europe). Le terme “banque poubelle” est

incorporé dans l’IATE mais absent, à ce jour, dans le GDT où l’on peut, par

contre, trouver “structure de défaisance” et “structure de

cantonnement”. Il en va de même pour “actif à risque”. En ce qui concerne

green shoot (EN.), l’unité terminologique en espagnol, français, italien ou

portugais n’apparaît que sous la forme “brote” (ES), “pousse” (FR)

pampino (IT), lançamento (PT) dans l'univers de l’agriculture. Or, les

images métaphoriques incorporées au domaine des finances que

proposent les médias ne se trouvent pas encore sur la base de données de

l'IATE. Par contre, la presse en espagnol, français, italien ou portugais offre

différentes images et variantes : une image prise au domaine de


ASTTI - IALB 98

l'agriculture « brotes verdes » (ES), « pousses vertes » (FR), « rebentos

verdes »/ « brotos verdes » (PT) ; l'image de la reprise économique dans

« signes de la reprise économique » (FR) ; « germogli della ripresa » et

celle de `l´espoir´ dans « germogli di speranza » (IT). Dans notre recherche,

la liste des expressions imagées tirées des textes publiés entre 2007 et

2010 sur la crise que traverse le système économique et financier

international nous offre souvent des compositions complexes avec

différentes variantes ce qui complique davantage le choix lors du processus

de traduction pour chaque type de lexie à traduire.

Par ailleurs, certains termes prennent des nuances de sens différentes à

leur forme initiale ou changent de champ sémantique. Tel est le cas de

bonus, stock-options ou swaps. Le terme1 anglo-saxon Swap, où to swap

signifie « échanger », est un contrat d’échange de flux financiers qui existe

depuis le XIXe siècle mais est revenu sur le devant de la scène économique

dans le cadre de cette première dépression du XXIe siècle. Les swaps,

notamment les CDS (Credit Default Swaps)2, censés protéger les détenteurs

de créances contre le risque de non paiement sont devenus des produits

risqués ou produits toxiques3. En effet, ces assurances, une fois

transformées en produits dérivés non régulés, augmentent le risque de

multiplier les pertes en cas de non paiement.

Notre but dans ce travail est double : il s'agit, d’une part, de repérer, de

décrire et de maîtriser toutes les variantes des métaphores dans le cadre

de la dernière crise économique et financière et leur comportement dans

les langues et cultures romanes cible dont l’espagnol (ES), le français (FR),

l'italien(IT) et le portugais (PT). D’autre part, notre réflexion, comme nous

avons déjà indiqué, vise la formation de futurs traducteurs et traductrices

et aspire, de ce fait, à les préparer à faire le bon choix lors du processus de

traduction. Pour ce faire, nous avons eu recours à des textes spécialisés,

1 Un swap de taux d’intérêt est un contrat entre deux parties, généralement des

banques ou entités financières, qui conviennent de s’échanger des flux d’intérêt sur une période et un montant donnés ; une partie payant un taux fixe, l’autre un taux variable. Au début c’était un contrat de couverture contre certains risques, un instrument financier d’assurance mais il est devenu un produit hautement spéculatif à frais implicites abusifs. 2 À ne pas confondre avec le swap de change.

3 Les quatre contrats les plus connus sont : le CDS (Crédit Default Swaps), le swap

de devises (Cross Currency Swap ou Currency Interest Rate Swap,CIRS), le swap de taux d’intérêt (en anglais : Plain Vanilla Interest Rate Swap) et le swap sur matière première. D’autres termes comme les swaptions sont rapidement apparus à côté d’autres nouveaux produits financiers dont la valeur reposait sur des crédits immobiliers risqués et qui ont contribué à diffuser la crise bancaire mondiale.


ASTTI - IALB 99

rédigés en espagnol, en français, en italien et en portugais (non traduits)

pour repérer — dans le cadre de la crise économique et financière qui a

frappé la planète depuis 2007 — les images et les variantes de chaque

métaphore. Le repérage des termes est accompagné d'une analyse des

nombreuses variantes terminologiques auxquelles les langues romanes ont

fait appel pour rendre transparentes les unités terminologiques de la

langue cible.

Pendant l’histoire du capitalisme, le monde a assisté à plusieurs crises

internationales de la dette. On peut en signaler trois au XIXe siècle et deux

au XXe siècle, dont la plus importante est sans doute celle de 1929 aux

États-Unis, nommée la Grande Dépression4. Chaque crise a fait appel à des

concepts de différents domaines pour expliquer le phénomène, les effets

ou les produits qui en sont à l’origine. Chaque crise a entraîné la naissance

ou la renaissance de métaphores associées à différents domaines comme

l'agriculture, la mécanique, la guerre, la météo, le corps, etc. Tel est le cas

de termes comme corralito, banque zombie5 (banque « pont »), krach,

injecter, bulle immobilière, séisme, tsunami financier6, turbulence,

tempête (La tempête des « subprime » (crédits immobiliers à forts taux et

à haut rendement), etc. Toutefois, nous n'avons retenu que les

métaphores nouvelles introduites dans les langues romanes d’arrivée,

héritées d’un état ancien ou d’un emprunt d’une autre langue.

Or, les néologismes de forme et les néologismes de sens repérés dans les

nombreux textes sur la crise mondiale qui a éclaté en 2007 comme

conséquence de la crise ninja et crise des subprime sont presque tous

issus de l’anglais. Comme l’affirme Sylvie Vandaele:

La néologie scientifique actuelle fait appel aux métaphores et non plus à la

création morphologique à partir de racines grecques ou latines (Raad,

1989). De plus, elle se fait en premier lieu en anglais. Souvent, dans les

autres langues, le terme anglais est conservé tel quel, même par les

spécialistes. Il est relativement aisé de comprendre pourquoi : les

publications sont en majorité rédigées en anglais ; les préoccupations des

chercheurs se situent ailleurs qu'au plan linguistique et, de plus, les

mécanismes de transfert linguistique, qui pourraient les aider à élaborer

4 La dépression toucha d'abord les États-Unis, puis gagna le reste de l'Amérique,

l'Europe et le monde. 5 L'origine du terme se trouve au Japon, dans la décennie perdue des années 90,

après la bulle immobilière des années 80. 6 Le mot tsunami, d’origine japonaise, est composé des racines « tsu » (port) et «

nami » (vagues).


ASTTI - IALB 100

une terminologie pertinente dans leur propre langue, leur sont

généralement inconnus. (Vandaele, 2002: 229)

Dans le cas de la néologie sur la crise qui nous concerne, il y a encore

d'autres facteurs non moins importants qu'il ne faut pas négliger : cette

première récession du XXIe siècle, liée à une crise bancaire et immobilière,

désormais la plus longue, a été déclenchée aux États-Unis. L'économie des

États-Unis est encore l'économie de référence mondiale et pour l'instant la

plus puissante. La faillite de Lehman Brothers, — la banque américaine,

acteur majeur du marché des emprunts d’État américains, avait traversé la

crise de 1929 mais n'a pas résisté à celle des «subprime»— a marqué

l'économie mondiale car elle avait différents bureaux à travers le monde.

C’est aux États-Unis que les premières mesures contre la crise ont été

prises. C'est également aux États-Unis que fut annoncée la floraison des

premières « pousses vertes », pour indiquer le commencement de la

normalisation de l’économie. En somme sous l’impulsion de tous ces

phénomènes, l'économie, la culture et la langue anglaises règnent

volontiers sur tous les autres cultures.

Pour une bonne traduction de tous ces termes il faut les repérer, les

décrire et maîtriser toutes les variantes pour être en mesure de faire le bon

choix lors du processus de traduction. Des différentes unités

terminologiques repérées dans le discours de la crise de 2007 à 2010 nous

avons retenu les exemples suivants :

Bad Bank Good Bank; Green Shoots; Stock-Options (Bonus); Subprime loan, subprime mortgage; Subprime mortgage crisis; Toxic assets, Troubled assets, Impaired assets Good assets.

Pour la constitution de notre corpus nous avons dépouillé trois quotidiens

à grand tirage français (FR), espagnols (ES), italiens (IT) et portugais (PT)

dont l’un appartient au domaine spécialisé et les deux autres sont

généralistes. Dans l’encadré suivant nous présentons les sources utilisées

pour chacune des langues :

Espagnol (ES) Français (FR) Italien (IT) Portugais (PT)

Presse générale EM: El Mundo EP: El País

LF: Le Figaro LM: Le Monde

ICS: Il Corriere della sera LR: La República

DN: Diário de Noticias P: Público


ASTTI - IALB 101

Presse spécialisée

Ex: Expansión LE: Les Échos IS024O: Il Sole 24 ore

JN: Jornal de Negócios


ASTTI - IALB 102

Notre classification suit les critères de recherche suivants :

la période de temps : entre le 1/01/2007 et le 1/02/2010

le terme exact, toujours que possible

Or, les médias des langues romanes analysées ― l’espagnol (ES), le français

(FR), l'italien (IT) et le portugais (PT), ainsi que les variantes du portugais du

Brésil et du français du Québec ou de la Suisse — présentent de

nombreuses variantes, parfois fort complexes, pour le même concept.

Dans le schéma suivant nous illustrons le terme bad bank et ses variantes

dans les langues romanes analysées :

Variantes terminologiques de bad bank dans les langues romanes

analysées


ASTTI - IALB 103

La variation, fortement conditionnée par des facteurs linguistiques,

sociolinguistiques et idéologiques, a fait l’objet d’études des disciplines

correspondantes. Cependant, pour notre propos nous nous attarderons sur

les approches traductologique et terminologique. L'analyse des concepts

économiques et financiers vus sous l'angle de la métaphore conceptuelle

et du modèle de la Socioterminologie7 —notamment de la théorie sur la

variation d’Enilde Faulstich (2002) — nous semble un modèle fonctionnel

pour notre propos. Nous en résumons les idées principales dans le schéma

suivant :

VARIATION

↓

variable

↓

_______________________

↓

variante

__________________

___

↓

________________

↓

concurrente

↓

co-occurrente

↓

compétitive

↓

variante formelle

_________________________

↓ ↓

synonyme emprunt

__________________

↓ ↓

v. term. lingüístiques v. term. de registre

↓ ↓

v.term. phonologique v. term.

géographique

v. term.morphologique v. term. du

discours

v. term.syntaxique v. term.

temporelle

v.term. lexicale

v.term.(typo)graphique

étrangérisme emprunt adapté

Variation de la dénomination (Faulstich, 2002)

7 C’est-à-dire la discipline qui s'intéresse au mouvement du terme dans les

langages de spécialité (Faulstich, 1998/1999).


ASTTI - IALB 104

Ce modèle théorique nous permet de classifier les variantes à partir de

trois critères d'intérêt pour le traducteur qui doit bien savoir quelle est la

raison de la variation et l'usage avant de faire son choix et se prononcer

pour la variante pertinente dans la langue d’arrivée. Faulstich distingue

trois types de variantes :

- des variantes formelles dont la variation peut être d’ordre

linguistique (variantes terminologiques linguistiques) ou

extralinguistique mais reliée au texte, c´est-à dire, à la terminologie

en contexte, comme c’est le cas des variantes de registre, variantes

géographiques, variantes du discours ou variantes chronologiques.

- des variantes synonymiques ou variantes co-occurrentes

- des variantes compétitives, c´est-à-dire, concurrentes dans le

système linguistique comme il est le cas des emprunts linguistiques.

Dans le processus de décision terminologique le traducteur sait qu'il peut

admettre les variantes terminologiques synonymiques si le texte cible le lui

permet, notamment pour la vulgarisation. Par contre, le traducteur a le

choix parmi d’autres variantes formelles linguistiques présentes, non pas

forcément dans le même texte, mais dans les différentes sources de

documentation. Par exemple, dans les premières nouvelles de la crise

économique on trouvait dans la presse européenne des graphies

différentes pour le même terme anglais : l'anglicisme entre guillemets,

« subprime » ou en italique, subprime. Ce sont des variantes graphiques

qui mettent en relief l'unité terminologique8. À ce moment là, le traducteur

est confronté à prendre une décision et faire le bon choix avant d'adopter

l'une ou l'autre graphie.

Le processus de décision s'élargie de façon considérable si le même

traducteur décide que la forme étrangère n'est pas suffisamment

transparente et doit chercher une solution autochtone pour le même

référent dans la langue cible. Dans ce cas, il doit choisir entre, par exemple,

crédits subprime, crédits à risque, crédits à haut risque, crédits

hypothécaires à haut risque ou encore prêts hypothécaires à risque ou

prêts risqués. À ce moment là, le traducteur se trouve face à différentes

variantes compétitives. Il est obligé de choisir celle qui est capable de

fonctionner comme référence dans le texte. Nous avons remarqué que les

8 Même les calques ou les formes nationales de nouvelle création adoptent différentes

graphies ‘bancos malos’, bancos malos (ES) ; « banques poubelles », ‘banques poubelles’ (FR), etc.


ASTTI - IALB 105

textes dépouillés de 2007 à 2010 montrent plusieurs scénarios

dénominatifs du nouveau concept :

- maintien de l'emprunt : subprime ou « subprime loans » et/ou de la

formation néologique nationale : crédits immobiliers à risque,

prêts hypothécaires à risque (FR).

- création de composés ou de dérivés hybrides : crédits subprime

(FR), crisi dei mutui subprime (IT),

- création d'unités terminologiques complexes hybrides dans les

langues cible : crédits hypothécaires à risque américains (subprime)

(FR), créditos hipotecarios subprime (ES).

- création d'un calque par simple transfert de la métaphore

originale : pousses vertes ou mauvaise banque (FR), bancos malos,

bancos buenos (ES) et

- maintien du terme étranger : stock-options.

Par ailleurs, le choix du traducteur sur les variantes compétitives doit

veiller à respecter également le génie de la langue, ainsi que la fréquence

d'usage de chaque variante et le type de discours à traduire. Sachant qu'il

est impossible de mener à bout dans cette analyse le fonctionnement de

toutes les unités terminologiques recensées et de leurs variantes dans les

langues romanes indiquées, nous nous limitons à l’étude détaillée de 3

unités terminologiques : bad bank, good bank et subprime

bad bank/ good bank (EN)

Les bads banks sont des banques ou sociétés constituées pour débarrasser

les établissements financiers et les bilans d’actifs illiquides — dits aussi

actifs toxiques, actifs ou crédits pourris et actifs suspects — dont on a déjà

parlé pendant les années 90. En français, l'expression la plus utilisée dans

la presse pour désigner ce concept est le néologisme national : structure

de défaisance9, construit, sans doute, à partir de defeasance (EN),

désendettement en français. En deuxième position (selon la fréquence

d'emploi) se trouve structure de cantonnement10. Ce dernier est un

élargissement sémantique du terme déjà existant auparavant.

Le qualificatif ‘mauvais’ qui figure dans le terme d´origine anglaise, bad

bank, est conservé dans toutes les langues soit avec l’emploi de

l´anglicisme lui-même soit avec des calques comme mauvaises banques

9 Le terme n'est documenté que très récemment dans le Grand Dictionnaire

Terminologique (GDT) et introduit seulement en 2009 dans l'IATE. 10

Qui figure dans le glossaire multilingue IATE depuis 2003 ou comme synonyme de structure de défaisance dans le GDT.


ASTTI - IALB 106

(FR), bancos malos (ES), banca cattiva (IT), banco mau, mau banco, banco

ruim (PT). Néanmoins, en français, les variantes avec l'euphémisme

structure sont beaucoup plus employées que les variantes descriptives avec

le terme banque. En espagnol, par contre, le calque est le terme le plus

fréquent et la presse a réussi à imposer son usage face à l´anglicisme. Par

ailleurs, en espagnol, l'idée négative que traduit l'adjectif « mauvaise » est

plus marquée avec le calque (bancos malos, ES) qu'en français. Néanmoins,

en espagnol économique (par exemple dans le journal spécialisé Expansion,

désigné par EX), l'image de toxicité (bancos tóxicos), calquée des “activos

tóxicos (toxic assets)”, est la plus répandue. Cette image de toxicité est

inconnue dans la culture française pour qualifier la banque de sauvetage

qui a aussi recours à la forme banque poubelle, mais de façon

minoritaire11. Il faut conclure que le français a mobilisé les mécanismes de

la néologie de façon différente à la langue espagnole : il a réussi à créer un

terme ex novo purement descriptif là où l'espagnol a pris l'image de

toxicité. Nous constatons que la présence des images n'est pas uniforme

dans toutes les langues ni dans tous les termes. Par ailleurs, il existe une

forte concurrence, entre l´emprunt anglais et les termes descriptifs ; il y a

même des images qui ont réussi à bannir le terme étranger : hipotecas

basura, où l’image de la saleté s’impose en espagnol dès le début de la

crise.

À côté des variantes lexicales bancos malos ou bancos tóxicos associées à

l’image de la ‘toxicité’ou de la ‘mauvaise qualité’, il y a des termes qui

désignent les établissements qui devraient permettre l’assainissement des

autres banques. De là les images qui font référence à la ‘bonté’ ou à la

‘santé’ dans bonne banque, banque assainie, banque en bonne santé ou

banque dépouillée des actifs toxiques (FR) ; bancos buenos (good bank),

bancos sanos ou bancos saneados (ES). En effet, dans cette profusion de

termes il faut faire la différence entre les images positives et les images

négatives. Il va s’en dire que, dû au caractère négatif du phénomène de la

crise, la plus grande créativité lexicale se penche sur le côté des

expressions négatives.

Subprime

Bien qu'il n'existe pas de définition normalisée, nous pouvons affirmer que

les subprime, prêts subprime ou crédits à haut risque aux États-Unis est

un instrument financier visant des personnes à faibles revenus et une

11

Cependant, le français a retenu les expressions actifs toxiques, emprunts toxiques ou produits toxiques.


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solvabilité douteuse. Grâce à des taux plus élevés et à des clausules plus

exigeantes de nombreuses personnes ont pu obtenir un emprunt ou un

crédit dans ces conditions. L’expression prêts subprime englobe une variété

de types de crédit, y compris les hypothécaires, les prêts-auto, et les cartes

de crédit.

L’expression prêts subprime, a été popularisée par les médias au cours de

la « crise financière » de 2007. Cependant l’anglicisme n’est retenu ni dans

le Grand dictionnaire terminologique d’Office québécois de la langue ni

dans France Terme. Le terme n’est pas admis par la norme de la langue

française. Par contre, le Grand dictionnaire terminologique d’Office

québécois de la langue offre la forme anglo-saxonne employée en anglais

dans le domaine du commerce (subprime borrower (EN) / « emprunteur à

haut risque » (FR) n. m.) et dans les finances: subprime lender (prêteur à

haut risque (FR), n. m.); subprime loan (prêt à haut risque (FR) n. m.) avec

la définition suivante: "A loan that has a higher risk of default than a loan

to a prime borrower." En fait il s’agit d’une expression du marché

hypothécaire aux États-Unis qui au moment de son introduction, en 2007,

n’avait pas de forme équivalente officielle ni en français ni dans les autres

langues en question. Au sujet de l’emploi de subprime dans les médias

francophones, écrivent Élisabeth Lavault-Olléon et Véronique Sauron :

On voit la difficulté de rendre compte de cette réalité en français en

essayant de « faire court », subprime étant un raccourci de subprime loan

(prêt à haut risque) ou subprime mortgage (prêt hypothécaire à haut

risque) ou subprime product (produit à risques)

http://ilcea.revues.org/index210.html

Dans le tableau suivant nous présentons, par ordre de fréquence, les

différentes variantes terminologiques repérées dans les médias des

langues romanes du terme subprime :

ANGLAIS (EN) FRANÇAIS (FR) ESPAGNOL (ES) ITALIEN (IT) PORTUGAIS(PT)

LE, LF, LM

Subprime

Crédits à risque/risqués

Prêts à risque/risqués

Crédits immobiliers à risque

Crédits subprime

Hipoteca basura

Hipoteca subprime

Crédito subprime

Hipoteca de alto

Mutui subprime

Titoli spazzatura

Prestito subprime

Crédito a rischio

Crédito

hipotecário de

alto risco

Crédito de alto(-

)risco

Hipotecas de alto


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Crédits hypothécaires à

risque

Prêts subprime


risque aux États-Unis


risque américain

Prêts immobilier à risque

« Subprime loans »

Crédits hypothécaires à haut

risque

Prêts à haut risque

Prêts hypothécaire à haut

risque

Crédits à haut risque

Suprime mortgage

Crédits à risque (subprime)

Prêts hypothécaires à risque

aux États-Unis

Prêts ninja

riesgo

Hipoteca de mala

calidad

Créditos subprime

préstamos subprime

Préstamos de alto

riesgo

Créditos de alto

riesgo

Créditos

hipotecarios de alto

riesgo

Préstamos

hipotecarios de alto

riesgo

Créditos

hipotecarios

(subprime)

hipotecas de mala

calidad

Préstamos

hipotecarios

(subprime)

Mutuo ad alto rischio

Creditio dubbi

Mutuo a rischio

Mutuo spazzatura

Prestito a rischio

Credito non

performing

Prestito ad alto rischio

Credito ad alto rischio

Credito cattivi

Strumento finanziario

ad alto riscio

Credito subprime

Mutuo ipotecario de

qualità non primaria

Prestito di qualitá non

primaria

Mutui rischiosi

Mutuo di qualitá non

primaria

risco

Crédito subprime

Hipoteca

subprime

Empréstimo de

má qualidade

Crédito

inmobiliário de

má cualidade

Crédito ninja

Hipoteca(-)lixo

Subprime loan,

subprime

mortgage)

Crise du subprime/crise

subprime ou crise des

subprime

Crise immobilière

Crise hypothécaire à haut

risque (subprime)

Crise de liquidité/de

liquidités/ des liquidités

Crise immobilière américaine

Crise crédits hypothécaires à

Crisis del subprime Crisis hipotecaria Crisis ninja

Crisi dei mutui Crisi dei mutui subprime Crisi dei subprime Crisi subprime Crisi dei mutui a rischio Crisi dei mutui ad alto rischio Crisi dei subprime americani

Crise do subprime Crise do crédito de alto risco Crise hipotecária Crise subprime Crise do crédito subprime Crise das hipotecas de alto risco


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haut risque subprime

Crise des prêts hypothécaires

à risque

Crise crédits à risque

Crise crédits à risque

subprime

Crise crédits hypothécaires à

haut risque

Nous constatons que les termes employés présentent de nombreuses

variantes, des variantes linguistiques (typographiques, morphologiques,

lexicales) et des variantes compétitives : subprime, « subprimes » (FR);

subPrime (IT) ; la crise du « subprime » ; la crise de la subprime (FR);

hipotecas basura, hipoteca de alto riesgo, créditos hipotecarios de alto

riesgo (ES); empréstimo de má qualidade, hipotecas de alto risco (PT);

mutui rischiosi, prestito ad alto rischio (IT); subprime ou crédits à haut

risque ; crédits immobiliers à risque, « subprimes » (FR); etc. Dans ces

deux derniers cas, l’anglicisme est accompagné de la formation nationale.

Cette solution permet le maintien de l’effet émotif et culturel du terme

originaire renforcé par l’explication pour un lecteur-destinataire qui

méconnaît le concept ou n’est pas familiarisé avec le sens et l’instrument

financier. Dans les textes plus récents apparaissent encore d’autres

variantes où, suivant le principe d'économie, les unités terminologiques

sont de moins en moins complexes : crédit à risque ou crédit risqué (FR),

crisi dei mutui (IT).

Les variantes partent en général de l’unité terminologique anglaise,

introduite dans toutes les langues dans un premier temps, mais la

recherche d’un langage ordinaire, susceptible de se substituer au langage

technique, sans doute plus précis mais moins transparent pour le non

spécialiste, appelle en quelque sorte la mise sur pied de paires de termes

synonymiques, c'est-à-dire des termes qui servent à désigner la même

entité. Le fondement de la relation synonymique ainsi conçue c’est, en fait,

la coexistence des termes.

Toutefois, les langues romanes ne réagissent pas de la même manière face

au néologisme : alors que le français et l’espagnol accordent une


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préférence pour l'explication autochtone qui devient la plus utilisée,

l’italien présente la plupart de ses variantes majoritaires sous la forme

d’emprunts ou de termes hybrides. Par ailleurs, les images à plus grand

succès dans les langues romanes pendant cette crise mondiale (2007-2010)

sont des images en rapport avec le ‘haut risque’ et la ‘toxicité’. Néanmoins,

la distribution des images diffère d’une langue à l’autre et elle ne se

manifeste pas dans toutes les unités terminologiques de la même façon.

Par exemple : le succès de límage de la ‘saleté’ pour les crédits à risque en

espagnol (hipotecas basura) marque sa différence par rapport à l’italien,

au portugais ou au français qui n'a pas créé un terme du type *crédit

poubelle, en parallèle à banque poubelle, par exemple. De même, c'est

uniquement la langue espagnole qui a retenu límage de ‘toxicité’ à la fois

pour les actifs et pour les banques (activos tóxicos, bancos tóxicos). En

somme, nous avons remarqué que les langues romanes font preuve d’une

grande vitalité face à l’introduction de nouvelles images, mais pour faire le

bon choix lors du processus de traduction il faut savoir que lássociation

dúne image à une unité, et non pas à une autre, dépend des variables

sémantiques, communicatives et situationnelles.

Biographie

Áurea Fernández Rodríguez est maître de Conférences à la Faculté de Philologie et de Traduction de l'Université de Vigo (Espagne) où elle enseigne la traduction de textes économiques et financiers.

Elle a fait partie de deux équipes de recherches sur la traduction en Espagne, financées par le ministère espagnol des Science et des Technologie et le FEDER, en partenariat avec l'Université de Vigo et de l'Université de Barcelone. Elle a également contribué à plusieurs colloques internationaux et publications sur la traduction en Europe (Suisse, Roumanie, Allemagne, France et Espagne) et en Amérique (Québec, Brésil et Cuba).

Son ouvrage intitulé La Bolsa y su entorno en España y Francia / Le monde de la Bourse en Espagne et en France (sous presse) paraîtra aux PUM (Presses Universitaires du Mirail) à Toulouse, France.


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Contact

Áurea Fernández Rodríguez & Iolanda Galanes Santos

Departamento de Tradución e Lingüística

Facultade de Tradución e Lingüística

Universidade de Vigo

Campus Lagoas Marcosende

36310 Vigo- Espagne

[email protected]

[email protected]

Références biblographiques

CABRÉ CASTELLVÍ, M. T., (2006), «La clasificación de neologismos: una tarea compleja», Alfa, 50 (2), Saõ Paulo, pp. 229-250.

CABRÉ CASTELLVÍ, M. T., (1999), La terminología. Representación y comunicación. Elementos para una teoría de base comunicativa y otros artículos. (Sèrie Monografies 3). Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra / Institut Universitari de Lingüística Aplicada.

FAULSTICH, Enilde, (1998-1999), « Principes formels et fonctionnels de la variation en terminologie », dans Terminology, Vol. 5 (1), pp. 93-106.

FAULSTICHT, E., (2002), « Variação em terminologia. Aspectos de Socioterminologia”. En GUERRERO RAMOS, G. E PÉREZ LAGOS, M.F.(COORDS.). Panorama actual de la terminología. Granada: Comares, pp. 65-91.

LAKOFF, George & JOHNSON, Mark, (1985), Les Métaphores dans la vie quotidienne, Paris : Éditions de Minuit.

NEWMARK, Peter, (1982), Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

SAMANIEGO FERNÁNDEZ, E., (2002), «Prescripción y descripción: la metáfora en los estudios de traducción». En Trans, n.º 6, p. 47-61.

SANTIBANEZ, Cristián. (2009), “Metáforas y argumentación: Lugar y función de las metáforas conceptuales en la actividad argumentativa”. Rev. signos [En ligne]. vol. 42, n. 70, pp. 245-269, http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-09342009000200005&script=sci_arttext [Consulté le 28 octobre 2009].

STAMBUK, A., (1998), « Metaphor in Scientific Communication ». Meta, vol. 43, n° 3, pp. 373-379.


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SERÓN ORDÓÑEZ, Inmaculada, (2005), “La traducción de la metáfora en los textos financieros: estudio de caso”, en María Gracia Torres (coord.), Traducción y cultura: el referente cultural en la comunicación especializada, Encasa Ediciones y Publicaciones, 205-250

STAMBUK, A. (1998), «Metaphor in Scientific Communication », Meta, vol. 43, nº 3, pp. 373-379

VANDAELE, Sylvie, (2002), Métaphores conceptuelles en traduction biomédicale et cohérence, TTR : traduction, terminologie, rédaction, Volume 15, numéro 1, 1er semestre, p. 223-239, [En ligne], http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/006807ar


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Le langage de la crise à l´étude

Marie-Evelyne Le Poder

Université de Grenade

Résumé

Selon Joaquín Almunia, commissaire européen chargé des affaires

économiques et monétaires, la crise financière et économique sést

amorcée au premier semestre de 2007, et la presse européenne a

commencé à en faire écho au cours de l´été de la même année. Notre

communication porte sur une analyse du vocabulaire de la crise en langue

espagnole, et sáppuie sur la construction dún corpus de textes provenant

du quotidien national espagnol El País à caractère divulgatif. Certes, nous

aurions pu porter notre choix sur des quotidiens ou des mensuels plus

spécialisés tels que Expansión, Cinco Días, la Gaceta de los Negocios ou

Actualidad Económica ; cependant, nous avons délibéremment opté pour

El País, en pensant quíl ságissait dúne option qui nést pas dépourvue

díntérêt. En effet, lón y trouve des contributions d´économistes réputés

qui, tout en conservant la rigueur nécessaire à leurs analyses et faisant

usage dúne terminologie spécifique, probablement séxpriment dans un

langage plus intelligible pour les non experts en économie.

Les origines de la crise

À lórée de 2007, après plus de cinq années de croissance, le monde a été

brusquement frappé par la crise des subprimes, dont on subit aujourd´hui

encore les effets, première étape dúne crise financière et économique

sans précédent depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.

Les subprimes, également connus comme crédits subprimes ou prêts

hypothécaires à risque, furent octroyés à des foyers américains à faible

revenu. Ces crédits, gagés sur le logement de lémprunteur, furent

concédés à des ménages américains ayant des revenus modestes,

permettant ainsi à de nombreux américains dáccéder à la propriété. Ils se

caractérisaient par des taux díntérêt variables et de niveau élevé avec, en

contrepartie, des critères dáttribution moins stricts que pour des crédits

classiques.

Au cours des deux premières années, les organismes bancaires

proposèrent des taux bas aux emprunteurs afin de rendre le crédit

alléchant, mais rapidement, le taux sávéra être plus élevé pour


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lémprunteur et plus attractif pour le prêteur afin de faire face au risque de

non remboursement. En 2007, près de trois millions de foyers américains

se trouvaient en situation de défaut de paiement. De plus, les taux

díntérêt de ces crédits étaient indexés sur le taux directeur de la banque

centrale américaine qui, entre 2004 et 2007, passa de 1% à plus de 5%.

Parallèlement, la demande et la valeur des biens immobiliers chutèrent.

Lorsque les ménages furent incapables de rembourser les prêts, la crise se

propagea aux établissements de crédit et au secteur financier, générant

ainsi un manque de liquidité.

En Espagne, comme dans dáutres pays, les banques qui avaient investi en

actifs financiers liés au marché hypothécaire nord-américain, sentirent les

premiers effets de la crise. Afin dápaiser la tension vécue par les marchés,

la Banque centrale européenne, la Réserve fédérale américaine et la

Banque japonaise se virent dans lóbligation dínjecter de lárgent dans le

système financier. Le manque dárgent pallié, en partie, par les banques

centrales, durcit les conditions dóctroi de crédits et entrepreneurs et

consommateurs, déjà très endettés, se retrouvèrent dans une difficile

situation. La méfiance des banques à se prêter entre elles accéléra

léscalade de lÉuribor.

Au sein dúne économie chaque fois plus globalisée, un problème en

apparence local comme léxplosion de la bulle immobilière aux États-Unis a

étendu ses effets de par le monde, ayant des répercussions sur la

croissance économique actuelle.

La crise a également une retombée sur la communication financière et

économique, qui se traduit, entre autres, par lápparition dún nouveau

vocabulaire qui accompagne et complète le vocabulaire « traditionnel » de

l´économie.

Le cadre théorique

Le cadre théorique de notre recherche sárticule autour de lápproche

terminographique descriptive (Pavel, S. et Nolet, D 2002) (Riggs, F., Mälkiä,

M. et Budin, G 1997 : 184-196), qui part du principe que la connaissance

réelle est biaisée culturellement et que les diverses situations

communicatives brisent le schéma communicatif classique de « spécialiste

à spécialiste » et inclut, entre autres, le discours divulgatif. Ainsi, la notion

de niveau dábstraction, degré de spécialisation ou densité terminologique

joue un rôle prépondérant et le terme est étudié in vivo, dans des

documents ou des actes communicatifs concrets, et non pas in vitro.


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Le vocabulaire se mouvant dans les textes, nous avons commencé notre

travail par une analyse des typologies textuelles qui a été réalisée à partir

de la typologie multiniveau de conception cogniviste, développée par

Ciaspucio et Kuguel (2002) et Ciaspucio (2003). Le niveau divulgatif est le

centre de notre attention. Ont également été considérés le paramètre de

la connaissance transmise par ces textes, ainsi que leur possible

classification dans les niveaux horizontal (en fonction de la thématique), et

vertical (en fonction du degré de spécialisation) (Cabré 2002).

Objectifs

Il ságit dánalyser et de décrire le vocabulaire de la crise qui est présent

dans les textes de la presse générale à caractère divulgatif, en tenant

compte du fait que la communication financière et économique nést plus

limitée au cercle restreint des spécialistes de ce champ de connaissance, et

que sa divulgation dans la presse contribue à ce quélle soit accessible à de

très nombreux récepteurs.

Concrètement, les procédés dánalyse et de description portent sur la

nature du vocabulaire. Le type dánalyse pragmatique du lexique a trait aux

processus de création néologique : emprunts ; suffixation ; préfixation ;

composition ; sigles ; acronymes ; phénomènes haplologiques ;

métaphores ; banalisation ; synonymie et variation dénominative.

Au-delà de cette communication, à court terme, notre objectif est

dágrandir notre corpus afin quíl soit le plus représentatif possible de la

langue de la crise financière et économique, et dý inclure une collection

beaucoup plus ample de textes : spécialisés, académiques, didactiques et

professionnels.

Méthodologie

La méthodologie utilisée est celle de la linguistique de corpus et les

résultats de lánalyse sont conduits, guidés par les données ; perspective

data driven (Tognini-Bonelli 2001).

De nos jours, il serait impensable dóbserver le comportement dún

élément linguistique quelconque sans se baser sur un corpus textuel et

compter sur un outil dánalyse qui puisse avaler les résultats obtenus. Le

programme utilisé est WordSmith Tools. Chacun des outils spécifiques du

programme (Concord ; Keywords, et Wordlist), est composé dúne série

dínstruments dánalyse et de fonctions qui permettent, notamment


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dóbserver des mots ou groupements de mots spécialisés en contexte et

d´élaborer des listes dúnités lexicales. Le corpus, construit à partir du

supplément économique du dimanche du quotidien El País, sur la période

comprise entre août 2007 et juillet 2009, comprend 533 textes, parmi

lesquels sont représentés les genres journalistiques de la nouvelle ; la

chronique et lárticle dópinion.

Résultats - Discussion

La première constatation est que les procédés de création de néologismes

dans le langage de la crise sont, dans leur immense majorité similaires à

ceux qui ont été utilisés dans l´élaboration des vocabulaires du champ des

sciences humaines et sociales.

Les emprunts

La présence de nombreux emprunts à la langue anglaise, sous la forme

dánglicismes ou de calques, est lúne des principales caractéristiques du

lexique. Sans aucun doute, des raisons dórdre historique et à la fois

économique permettent déxpliquer ce phénomène. En effet, nóublions

pas, comme le souligne Gómez de Enterría (2009 : 22) que l´œuvre de

Adam Smith « The Wealth of Nations » (1776), a marqué la naissance de

l´économie en tant que science.

Parmi les anglicismes qui apparaissent et qui ont été adaptés, accionista

mayoritario/a (“*…+ a la que acudió la familia Del Pino, accionista

mayoritaria de Ferrovial”), qui provient de majority shareholder; arbitraje

(“En caso de conflicto, se establecerán sistemas de arbitraje y un régimen

de sanciones”), qui trouve son origine dans arbitrage; autorregulación del

sistema financiero (“El ex presidente de la Reserva Federal ha reconocido

esta semana haber confiado excesivamente en la capacidad de

autorregulación del sistema financiero”), de financial system self-

regulation; banco de inversión (“Voluntariamente o por obligación, los

bancos de inversión se han convertido en bancos comerciales”), de

investment bank; fondo de inversión (“En Alemania, los activos de un

fondo de inversión del Deutsche Bank han caído un 30% desde el 31 de

julio”), de hedge fund; hipoteca de alto riesgo (“La crisis de las hipotecas de

alto riesgo ha desencadenado una crisis de liquidez que se ha extendido a

gran velocidad por todo el mundo”), de subprime; burbuja inmobiliaria

(“Cada vez son más las voces que vinculan directamente esta crisis con la

explosión de la burbuja inmobiliaria en EEUU *…+”), de property bubble;

deflación (“En última instancia, ese círculo vicioso puede complicarse

sobremanera si finalmente llega la deflación *…+”), de deflation…


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En de rares occasions, lón y trouve des anglicismos dórigine latine comme

bonus (“El consejo acordó también otorgarle bonus y opciones sobre

acciones por más de 10 millones de dólares”).

Dans dáutres cas, les emprunts sont directs et síncorporent à la langue

espagnole sans aucun changement, comme cést le cas de stock (“No hay

cifras oficiales sobre el stock de viviendas sin vender”); subprime (“La gran

mayoría de los expertos coincide en señalar que la banca está a salvo de la

crisis de las subprime”); dumping (“*…+ añade que no hay riesgo de ser

acusados de dumping”).

La suffixation

Certains suffixes se répètent avec une grande fréquence dans notre corpus,

et pour cette raison, font lóbjet des exemples suivants. Il ságit des suffixes

–ción, -idad y –dor.

Le suffixe –ción participe à la formation de termes comme globalización

(“En el fondo, el papel del Estado y la llegada de esas nuevas reglas del

juego suponen reabrir un debate de ideas soterrado antes de la crisis por el

triunfo sin paliativos de la liberalización financiera y la globalización”), ou

dáutres comme nacionalización (“Y muchos de esos gigantes *…+ están al

borde de la nacionalización”); ou cotización (“La Administración de Obama

se resiste a hacerlo a las claras: usa acciones sin derecho a voto y obliga a

buscar accionistas privados para que la cotización bursátil no se diluya”).

Ce sont des termes qui jouissent dúne certaine tradition dans le secteur de

l´économie. Ils sont construits sur la base verbale en –izar.

Quand au suffixe –idad, il contribue à la formation de nominalisations à

bases adjectivales terminées en –ble : rentable donne rentabilidad

(“Además, la rentabilidad de los bonos baja y arrastra los tipos de interés

reales del resto de la economía”). Dans dáutres cas, le suffixe –idad se

combine avec des bases terminées en –l : colegial donne colegialidad (“Una

objeción a la expansión del grupo es que perderá intimidad, colegialidad");

volátil, volatilidad (“*…+ algunos analistas consideran que todavía se van a

producir algunas turbulencias importantes y un buen ejemplo es la

volatilidad de los mercados de bonos”).

Enfin, le suffixe –dor, joue un rôle non négligeable dans le corpus. Par

exemple, de suministrar, suministrador (“Por su parte, *…+, el mayor

suministrador de hipotecas del país, pretende que se le conceda una

financiación de hasta 10.000 millones de libras”), ou de prestar, prestador


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(“Alemania, uno de nuestros principales compradores, es un país

netamente prestador de dinero *…+").

La préfixation

Le préfixe –des, qui permet de définir une action contraire à celle du mot

de base, est fréquemment associé à des verbes terminés en –ar comme par

exemple, desacelerar et desaceleración (“La intensidad en la

desaceleración del mercado inmobiliario será una de las claves en la

evolución de 2008”); descapitalizar, descapitalización (El temor a la

descapitalización e incluso a la quiebra está fundado, como ya han

demostrado los casos de Fortis (Bélgica) *…+”).

Le préfixe –des intervient aussi avec des bases nominales:

desabastecimiento (“El temor al desabastecimiento que se vivió estos días

hace mella en el maltrecho ánimo del consumidor”); desaclopamiento

(“*…+ en la actualidad parece que podría haber al menos un

desacoplamiento parcial"); desempleo (“El desempleo, que afecta ya a 3,4

millones de personas en España, *…+”); desajuste (“Cuanto mayor es el

desajuste, más se tarda en resolver el desaguisado").

Le préfixe –inter, qui fait référence à des relations entre divers objets ou

entités, s´emploie souvent avec des adjectifs, comme interanual (“Fuentes

de la Asociación Española de Banca (AEB) argumentan que el sector ha

elevado el crédito cerca de un 10% interanual”); interbancario (“A pesar de

que la contracción del crédito interbancario se ha empezado a mitigar tras

el rescate de los sistemas financieros en los países avanzados *…+”).

Le préfixe –super, exprime une grande importance, une nette supériorité,

ou une valeur intense : superagencia (“Para ello, no habrá superagencia

estatal al estilo de la que se creó tras la Gran Depresión”) ; superejecutivo

(“Casi todos los analistas consideran que no es pronto para atribuir la

catástrofe a una excesiva permisividad en los mercados aderezado por el

exceso de liquidez y la avaricia de unos cuantos superejecutivos de

entidades financieras”); superpotencia (“La UE es una superpotencia

económica pero no actúa como tal").

Le préfixe –sobre, marque un certain excès, un degré extrême :

sobrecapacidad (“*…+ pero los problemas de Frigo no van ligados a la

demanda, sino a la sobrecapacidad de su planta catalana”);

sobreproducción (“Los importadores cifran en un 30% la sobreproducción

de automóviles”); sobrerregulación (“¿Estamos ante el fin de la innovación

financiera? ¿Existe riesgo de sobrerregulación?”).


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Enfin, le préfixe –re, exprime la répétition, le recommencement, et sert à

former les substantifs, les verbes...:Par exemple: reinversión (“*…+ su

organización se basa en el capital colectivo, la toma de decisiones

colegiada y la reinversión de beneficios”); reequilibrio ("Hay un reequilibrio

del patrón del crecimiento”); reajustar (“*…+ recuperar las economías de

escala y reajustar las plantillas”).

La composition

La plupart des procédés de composition utilisés trouvent leur origine dans

la composition syntagmatique. Les composés sont, généralement,

endocentriques.

La structure la plus fréquente des composés endocentriques est substantif

+ adjectif : crisis financiera (“El miedo a que la crisis financiera salpique al

conjunto de la economía en Estados Unidos”); banco hipotecario (“La crisis

afecta al quinto banco hipotecario británico y vuelve a sacudir las Bolsas”) ;

crédito corporativo (“La entidad cuenta con "un perfil de riesgo medio-bajo

y predecible", y señaló que el 62% de su balance corresponde a créditos a

clientes, mientras que, de este total, un 83% es en financiación a

particulares y pymes (banca comercial) y un 17% a crédito corporativo”);

mercado inmobiliario (“"Las entidades de tamaño pequeño y mediano

tienen una gran concentración de negocio en el mercado inmobiliario y en

las constructoras”); mayor crecimiento (“La institución financiera

holandesa -presente también en España como banco por Internet- es una

de las de mayor crecimiento en Estados Unidos”).

La majeure partie des composés syntagmatiques sont nominaux et

présentent des structures syntactiques caractéristiques, comme, par

exemple, la structure substantif + de + substantif : suspensión de pagos

(“Los precios de los seguros contra la suspensión de pagos de la deuda *…+

se han disparado para aquellos países europeos que sufren una fuerte

desaceleración económica”); depreciación de activos ("Los bancos deben

revelar rápida y completamente su exposición al riesgo, la depreciación de

activos y sus estimaciones de pérdidas"); mercado de deuda (“Y por si no

fuera suficiente con los problemas financieros vinculados al mercado de

deuda”).

D´autres structures sont importantes comme substantif + de + substantif +

adjectif: crisis de liquidez internacional (“España es muy vulnerable a la

crisis de liquidez internacional *…+”); mercado de combustibles

tradicionales (“Ha supuesto también un fuerte frenazo a las inversiones en

energías renovables que, con el petróleo en el entorno de los 150 dólares,


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parecían la única alternativa posible al mercado de combustibles

tradicionales”); plan de estímulo fiscal (“Pese a que ha sido mucho más

tibio con los bancos que con el plan de estímulo fiscal *…+”); fondos de

inversión especulativos (“*…+ si la lógica financiera sigue ignorando las

señales que envía el resto de la economía, será el debate sobre el

funcionamiento de los mercados de futuros y de los fondos de inversión

especulativos lo que cotizará al alza”).

Substantif + adjectif + adjectif: sistema financiero internacional (“el

Eurogrupo ha solicitado un informe al Comité Económico y Financiero para

mejorar la transparencia del sistema financiero internacional”); mercado

laboral estadounidense (“El mercado laboral estadounidense fue el

epicentro del nuevo temblor que se propagó ayer por todas las plazas

occidentales”).

Substantif + adjectif + de + substantif: plan francés de ayuda (“Bruselas da

el visto bueno al plan francés de ayuda al automóvil”).

Il est également courant de trouver des composés qui s´emploient avec des

prépositions différentes. Substantif + en + substantif : empleo en empresas

(“*…+ los expedientes de regulación de empleo en empresas importantes ya

están dejando a trabajadores del ramo en paro”); inversión en vivienda (“El

BBVA prevé un estancamiento de la inversión en vivienda en 2008”).

Substantif + por + substantif: pagos por el petróleo (“*…+ el fortalecimiento

del dólar encarece los pagos por el petróleo”); hipoteca por la vivienda

(“Además, la subida del Euríbor no sólo afecta a la hipoteca por la vivienda

*…+”).

Les sigles

Procédé très utilisé en économie, le sigle donne lieu à diverses formations

parmi lesquelles certaines sont déjà traditionnelles comme, FED : Sistema

de Reserva Federal (Reserve System Federal Reserve System, en anglais);

BCE : Banco Central Europeo (ECB: European Central Bank, en anglais) ; FMI

: Fondo Monetario Internacional (IMF : International Monetary Fund).

D´autres plus récents, comme RSE: Responsabilidad Social de la Empresa

(“*…+, el eje troncal es la responsabilidad social de la empresa (RSE), que se

manifiesta a través de una nueva empresa responsable y sostenible”); ECF:

Establecimientos Financieros de Crédito (“*…+ y eso que no recoge la

morosidad de los establecimientos financieros de crédito (ECF), con tasa de

impagos muy elevada”).; ICO: Instituto de Crédito Oficial (“Y ese desarrollo

implica que el Estado, a través del Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO),

adelantará este dinero a las entidades que, voluntariamente, colaboren


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con la medida”); BAI: Beneficio Antes de Impuestos (“El beneficio antes de

impuestos (BAI) del último semestre, *…+, ha sido positivo para siete de

cada diez empresas encuestadas”); AFI: Analistas Financieros

Internacionales (“"La caída del segundo trimestre será menor", corrobora

Carlos Maravall, de Analistas Financieros Internacionales (AFI)”); FDIC:

Corporación Federal de Aseguradora de Depósitos, Federal Deposit

Insurance Corporation, en anglais (“Últimamente, la Corporación Federal

de Seguros de Depósitos (FDIC) ha estado incautándose de bancos que

considera insolventes a razón de aproximadamente uno por semana”).

Par ailleurs, on trouve dans le lexique des sigles alphanumériques “Otros

sugieren que haya grupos distintos para cada cuestión; por ejemplo, (“un

C-15 para el cambio climático, un D-23 para el desarrollo, un E-19 para la

seguridad energética y así sucesivamente, hasta llegar al Z-99 para la

diversidad zoológica”).

Les acronymes

Quand aux acronymes, lÉuribor en est un bon exemple. Il ságit de

lácronyme de European Interbank Offered Bank, cést-à-dire taux

interbancaire offert entre banques (“El Euribor a un mes subió ayer hasta

el 4,82%, y a tres meses hasta el 4,81% *…+”).

Les phénomènes haplologiques

Il ságit dún phénomène qui consiste en lámuïssement dún ou de

plusieurs phonèmes répétés ou proches comme dans léxemple suivant :

“Vivimos una estanflación *inflación y estancamiento al mismo tiempo+ en

miniatura y necesitamos una política monetaria neutra”).

Les métaphores

Le lexique abonde en métonymies, définies comme le changement lexical

produit par la fusion de formes contiguës. Dans de nombreux syntagmes

terminologiques, lón observe la présence de la métonymie : banca privada

(“Dubai y Singapur, *…+, se están transformando en centros de banca

privada regionales que ofrecen una gran competencia a refugios

tradicionales como Suiza”); economía real (“La crisis actual encierra un

grave peligro, porque puede extenderse de los mercados financieros a la

economía real”). Pour leur part, les métaphores prennent également la

forme de syntagmes terminologiques: burbuja financiera (“La caída supera

a la de 1883, cuando se salía de otra burbuja financiera”) ; burbuja

inmobiliaria (“Cada vez son más las voces que vinculan directamente esta

crisis con la explosión de la burbuja inmobiliaria en EEUU *…+”); hipoteca

basura (“La economía está a punto de incorporar una nueva palabra a su


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vocabulario: subprime, una endiablada modalidad hipotecaria

estadounidense traducida como hipoteca basura, tóxica o incluso loca”).

Sont également fréquentes les métaphores qui proviennent dúnités

monolexicales : metástasis (“La metástasis de las subprime *…+ se ha ido

extendiendo sin dramatismos, sin viernes negros bursátiles, pero en un

crescendo doloroso”); paro (Así que de la mano del paro galopante y de la

lejana convergencia con el continente *…+”); turbulencia (“Los mandatarios

han reconocido que la turbulencia en los mercados financieros mundiales

es un desafío y algo más prolongado que lo que habían anticipado”);

distorsión (“*…+ es improbable que exista una severa distorsión en los

precios del sector inmobiliario").

La banalisation des termes

Le lexique analysé permet de constater un phénomène de banalisation des

termes, de généralisation, un processus selon lequel des termes

spécifiques provenant de champs spécialisés se retrouvent dans le lexique

commun de la langue. Par exemple ; apalancamiento, activos hipotecarios,

activos inmobiliarios, desplome, tipos de los depósitos, tipos nominales…Il

existe certes des degrés de banalisation en fonction du type de relation

qui, à un moment donné, s´établit entre le champ spécialisé de départ et la

vie quotidienne. La banalisation dún terme est sujette à la divulgation que

le concept désigné est susceptible dácquérir au sein de la société.

La fluctuation des mots. La variation.

Le lexique se caractérise également par la présence de synonymes pour

faire référence à une même notion : expansión del crédito / expansión

crediticia (“*…+ los bancos centrales promovieron una gran expansión del

crédito con la brusca bajada de los tipos de interés”) / (“Gracias a los bajos

tipos de interés, a la liquidez mundial y a la liberalización hemos tenido una

burbuja de expansión crediticia que se ha ido reforzando a sí misma a lo

largo de 25 años,”); desempleo / paro (“El 8,1% de tasa de desempleo

previsto para 2007 subirá al 8,5% en 2008 camino del 9,1% de 2009”) / (“El

repunte del paro aviva el miedo a una recesión en Estados Unidos”);

iliquidez / falta de liquidez (“Estas situaciones de iliquidez de múltiples

suelos llevarán a muchos procesos de suspensión de pagos entre las

empresas *…+”) / (“*…+, la falta de liquidez y endurecimiento de las

condiciones de los préstamos avalan las posiciones de quienes defienden

bajar el precio del dinero para no estrangular el crecimiento económico

*…+”).


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Conclusion

Notre recherche, basée sur lápproche terminographique descriptive, nous

a permis de mener à bien une analyse et une description du vocabulaire de

la crise qui se meut dans les textes divulgatifs de la presse générale en

langue espagnole. La méthodologie de la linguistique de corpus et les

résultats de lánalyse, guidés par la perspective data driven, ont contribué

à vérifier que les procédés de création de néologismes dans le langage de

la crise sont, généralement, les mêmes que ceux qui sont utilisés dans

l´élaboration des vocabulaires du champ des sciences humaines et sociales.

Force est de constater la présence de nombreux emprunts à la langue

anglaise ; límportance de procédés de formation comme la suffixation, la

composition et la préfixation. Les phénomènes d´haplologie, de

banalisation de termes, de variation discursive sont également notables,

sans oublier lúne des principales caractéristiques des textes économiques

de divulgation journalistique : le recours à la métaphore.

L’auteure

Docteur en Lettres et Sciences Humaines par lÚniversité de Provence (France). Professeur du département de Traduction et dÍnterprétation de lÚniversité de Vigo (Espagne) de 1995 à 1998.

Professeur du département de Traduction et dÍnterprétation de lÚniversité de Grenade (Espagne) depuis 1999.

Entre autres, enseigne la matière de traduction économique dans la combinaison linguistique espagnol/français.

Contact

[email protected]


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Bibliographie

Articles

Cabré, M.T. “Textos especializados y unidades de conocimiento:

metodologización y tipologización”. En GARCÍA PALACIOS, J.; FUENTES

MORÁN, M. T. (eds.) (2002): Texto, terminología y traducción. Salamanca:

Ediciones Almar.

Ciaspuscio, G.E,; Kuguel, I. : “Hacia una tipología del discurso especializado:

aspectos teóricos y aplicados”. En GARCÍA PALACIOS, J.; FUENTES MORÁN,

M. T. (eds.) (2002): Texto, terminología y traducción. Salamanca: Ediciones

Almar, págs.37-74.

Gómez de Enterría, J. “El vocabulario de la economía actual (1998-2008)”.

En GALLARDO SAN SALVADOR, N.; GÓMEZ DE ENTERRÍA. J. (eds.) (2009):

Estudios de léxico especializado. Granada: Atrio.

Pavel, S. y Nolet, D. Manual de Terminología. Québec: Bureau de la

traduction. (2002)

Riggs, F., Mälkiä, M.; y Budin, G. “Descriptive Terminology Work”. En

WRIGHT, S.E.:, BUDIN, G., (eds.) (1997): Handbook of Terminology

Management. Ámsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 184-196.

Livres

Ciapuscio, G.E. (2003) Textos especializados y Terminología. Barcelona:

Universidad Pompeu Fabra.

Smith, A. (1776) The Wealth of Nations. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.

Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001) Corpus Linguistics at work.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Quotidien

El País: www.elpais.com


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Crise économique, crise linguistique:

la petite histoire belge…

Viviane Grisez

Université de Mons – Faculté Polytechnique

Résumé

Dans le monde interconnecté actuel, il n'est pas sage de parler de crise

économique et financière dans un contexte national. Toutefois, dans un

pays aussi complexe que la Belgique, répertorié comme 'bilingue et

multiculturel', le jeu en vaut la chandelle.

La crise nous lance de nouveaux défis, et en Belgique, plus que jamais.

En effet, l'histoire d'un petit pays situé au carrefour des cultures romanes

et germaniques a démontré, à maintes reprises, à quel point les crises

économiques récurrentes ont eu un impact direct et immédiat sur les

politiques linguistiques de l'État. Ces dernières, à leur tour, modifient,

réforment et redéfinissent les plans éducatifs du système scolaire.

Curieusement, les réformes varient en fonction des régions flamande,

wallonne et de Bruxelles-capitale, car l'enseignement est matière régionale

et qui dit 'politique linguistique', touche inévitablement au monstre du

'communautaire'.

Que ce soit en terme de bilinguisme précoce, d'expériences en immersion,

d'échanges scolaires culturels et linguistiques ou de formations tout au

long de la vie, l'école et l'université restent les moteurs du rapprochement

des langues et de leurs cultures respectives dans une société multiculturelle

politiquement instable.

Interaction entre l'économique et le communautaire

Si des statistiques existaient sur la fréquence de l'emploi du terme 'crise', la

Belgique, petit pays réputé pour ses problèmes communautaires, viendrait

sans doute en tête du peloton.

Car, chers collègues allemands, suisses et venus d'ailleurs, tous, vous avez

eu écho des conflits politiques entre les communautés flamandes et

francophones. Le 13 décembre 2006, la Radio et Télévision francophone

belge lançait un canular en diffusant une émission qui annonçait


ASTTI - IALB 126

l'indépendance de la Flandre, en mettant au service de la fiction les

apparences (certes grossières) de la réalité En 2007, lorsque la Belgique a

connu une période d'instabilité politique grave, en restant des mois sans

gouvernement, un certain nombre de partenaires commerciaux américains

croyaient que la Belgique était à feu et à sang et qu'elle était condamnée à

disparaître dans les mois qui suivraient.

Lorsque l'année suivante, la crise économique et financière a surgi

brutalement avec les graves difficultés de deux des plus grandes banques

de Belgique -Fortis et Dexia, toutes les armes communautaires ont été

rangées, le cessez-le-feu a été immédiat, et le gouvernement fédéral s'est

empressé de contrôler la situation pour éviter une catastrophe sans

précédent.

Nous avons tous assisté à un scénario typiquement belge: l'économique et

le communautaire en jeu; l'un et l'autre dominant, tour à tour, les agendas

politiques. Et tout cela dans un pays fédéralisé, avec trois régions,

auxquelles se superposent trois communautés, avec une capitale qui est

région à la fois, six gouvernements au total, 60 cabinets ministériels, et

cela pour 10 millions et demi d'habitants sur 30 000 km2. … Quelle

situation kafkaïenne !

Force est de constater qu'une récession économique fait oublier les

querelles communautaires, qui se réveillent dès que le pouvoir d'achat se

rétablit. Et entretemps, les gouvernements se suivent et ne se ressemblent

pas, les ministres de l'éducation des trois communautés suivent chacun

leur voie, en mettant des accents différents, sans trop se soucier de leur

voisin.

L'histoire des conflits communautaires

Remontons dans l'histoire afin de mieux situer l'origine des tensions

culturelles et linguistiques. La Belgique est née en 1830, de l’action

convergente de forces internes (économiques, sociales et religieuses) et

externes (les grandes puissances européennes). Dès la création de l'État, Le

sentiment national n’y est pas aussi fort que dans d’autres pays européens.

Dans leur version initiale, les conflits communautaires étaient des conflits

sur l'usage des langues. L'histoire de Belgique au XIXème siècle est

marquée par une volonté centralisatrice d'imposer le français dans tout le

pays alors que dès 1830, l'écrasante majorité de la population ne parle pas

cette langue. Au sortir de l'occupation française en 1814, les corporations


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bruxelloises protestent (en français parce que c’est la langue des

dominants) contre le maintien des règles linguistiques françaises :

« La proscription de la langue nationale flamande doit cesser. L'idiome, les

lois et les institutions des peuples de la Belgique doivent renaître avec le

bonheur de ce pays».1

À la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Bruxelles ne compte que 15 % de francophones.

Mais en 1830, la ville n'est encore peuplée que par 100.000 habitants. La

croissance de la population de la capitale et sa francisation vont de pair,

même si cette dernière s'est accélérée à la fin du XXème siècle. Apprendre

le français est souvent un moyen de promotion sociale. Il s’agit de franchir

la « sociale taalgrens », la frontière linguistique sociale qui segmente la

société. Inversement, avec le temps, la frontière linguistique se transforme

de plus en plus en une frontière culturelle et communautaire qui sépare

deux espaces publics. Tout comme la langue flamande, la langue wallonne

subira de plein fouet la domination politique et sociale du français. Mais

cela ne génèrera pas de mouvement de défense de même ampleur, peut-

être du fait de la proximité du wallon avec le français.

Mais progressivement émerge un nationalisme flamand, notamment en

réaction aux réticences des autorités belges à reconnaître la langue

flamande.

C’est en 1962 que fut définitivement fixée la frontière linguistique. La loi

consacra alors l’unilinguisme en matière administrative en Flandre et en

Wallonie et le bilinguisme dans la Région bruxelloise. Mais

malheureusement, tout n'est pas aussi simple.

Dans un certain nombre de communes de ces Régions unilingues, existe un

régime dit de facilités qui permet de disposer de services administratifs

dans la langue de la minorité. L’intangibilité de la frontière linguistique,

comme une frontière d’État, était une revendication flamande dictée par la

crainte de voir le nombre de communes à statut bilingue augmenter (c’est

la crainte de la « tâche d’huile » dans la périphérie bruxelloise). Le nombre

de communes bruxelloises bilingues est ainsi passé en 1954 de 16 à 19

suite au recensement linguistique de 1947. Les partis flamands ont

toujours craint que ce mouvement ne se poursuive et ont obtenu l’arrêt

des recensements et la fixation de la frontière linguistique. Au contraire,

les partis francophones menacent de demander l’élargissement de la

Région bruxelloise aux six communes à facilité dans lesquelles les

1 http://www.etopia.be/spip.php?article716


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francophones sont d’ores et déjà majoritaires. La revendication flamande

de scission de l’arrondissement de Bruxelles-Halle-Vilvorde (BHV) vise

également à garantir l’homogénéité linguistique de la Flandre.

Fig. zones linguistiques en Belgique2

Langue et culture: matières régionales

Depuis la fédéralisation de la Belgique qui s'est opérée en cinq réformes

entre 1970 et 1993, les trois communautés sont représentées par des

collectivités politiques fédérées ayant des compétences dans quatre grands

domaines: l'enseignement, la culture, les matières dites personnalisables

ainsi que l'emploi des langues dans l'enseignement, dans l'administration et

dans les relations sociales entre les employeurs et leur personnel (sauf pour

la communauté germanophone à l'égard de laquelle l'emploi des langues

en matières administrative et dans les relations sociales demeure une

compétence fédérale). Ces institutions ont leur propre parlement et leur

propre gouvernement.3

La transformation de cet État unitaire en un État fédéral trouve son origine

dans la rencontre des revendications d’autonomie culturelle par les

Flamands et des revendications d'autonomie économique wallonnes. À

2 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronti%C3%A8re_linguistique_en_Belgique

3 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_%C3%A9ducatif_belge


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nouveau, nous constatons une confrontation des intérêts linguistiques et

économiques.

Comme tous les processus historiques, les relations entre Régions et

Communautés belges, l'évolution de l'État et des nationalismes, forment

une succession de phases de flux et de reflux, de tensions plus ou moins

grandes, de crises graves et d'apaisements, très souvent en fonction du

baromètre économique.

Au niveau législatif, ce sont les Communautés qui organisent

l'enseignement en Belgique dans le respect du Pacte Scolaire. Les

Communautés subventionnent les établissements scolaires

indépendamment du réseau et fixent un certain nombre de mesures

(socles de compétences, inscriptions, ...).

Emploi: matière fédérale et …communautaire

Si l'emploi reste une matière fédérale, il est vrai qu'elle dépend fortement

de la politique européenne. Dans le contexte de la crise qui nous touche, le

sommet européen de Prague en mai dernier a permis de définir dix actions

visant à lutter contre le chômage et à créer de nouveaux emplois.

1. aider autant de personnes que possible à conserver leur emploi par le biais d’un ajustement temporaire des horaires de travail combiné à des formations de reconversion, les pouvoirs publics (y compris le Fonds social européen) participant au financement des actions menées;

2. encourager l’esprit d’entreprise et la création d’emploi, par exemple par une diminution des coûts salariaux indirects et par la flexisécurité;

3. améliorer l’efficacité des administrations nationales du travail par un renforcement de leur offre de services de conseil, de formation et de recherche d’emploi lors des premières semaines de la période de chômage, en particulier pour les jeunes chômeurs;

4. accroître de manière significative le nombre d’apprentissages et de formations de haute qualité d’ici à la fin de 2009;

5. promouvoir des marchés du travail favorisant davantage l’inclusion en garantissant des incitations au travail, des politiques actives et efficaces du marché de l’emploi et une modernisation des systèmes de protection sociale, démarche qui se traduira également par une meilleure intégration des catégories défavorisées, y compris les handicapés, les personnes peu qualifiées ou les migrants;

6. améliorer les compétences à tous les niveaux par l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie, en veillant en particulier à ce que tous les jeunes sortis du système scolaire possèdent les compétences nécessaires pour trouver un emploi;

7. avoir recours à la mobilité de la main-d’œuvre pour garantir du mieux possible l’adéquation entre l’offre et la demande de main-d’œuvre;

8. identifier les perspectives d’emploi et les compétences requises, et anticiper les compétences qui deviendront nécessaires afin d’ajuster les offres de formation;

9. aider les chômeurs et les jeunes à créer leur entreprise, en leur proposant des formations de soutien et un capital de départ, ou en réduisant ou supprimant les impôts pour les start-ups;


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10. anticiper et gérer les restructurations par l’intermédiaire d’activités d’apprentissage mutuel et d’échanges de bonnes pratiques.

Le point 6 et 7 retiennent tout particulièrement notre attention, car ils

concernent les compétences nécessaires pour trouver un emploi, et

indispensables au maintien de ce dernier par un apprentissage tout au long

de la vie. La promotion de la mobilité est également importante.

Mobilité

Qui dit mobilité, dit connaissance d'autres cultures et langues.

En Belgique, diverses initiatives ont été lancées pour stimuler la mobilité

des étudiants et des travailleurs, slogan important dans ce qui a été baptisé

le Plan Marshall du côté wallon.

Un article paru dans Trends au mois de juillet 20084 - alors qu'au niveau fédéral, la démission du premier ministre, M. Yves Leterme faisait les choux gras des médias, les trois Régions avançaient de leur côté et notamment sur le problème de l'emploi. "Et c'est tant mieux (…)', citait le magazine. Situation plus qu'inhabituelle, mais appréciée par tous pour une fois. Voici le ton optimiste de l'article.

« Vous vous souvenez sans doute qu'en octobre 2007, le ministre-Président de la Région flamande, Kris Peeters, avait déclaré qu'il avait 50.000 emplois à proposer et que malheureusement, il ne trouvait pas preneur. L'équation est donc simple: d'un côté, la Flandre souffre d'une pénurie de main d'œuvre et ne peut pas la trouver dans sa Région car c'est quasi le plein emploi, et de l'autre, on constate un taux de chômage de 17% à Bruxelles et de 10% en Wallonie. Pourquoi ne pas faciliter la mobilité des travailleurs du Sud vers le Nord et rendre ainsi tout le monde heureux? Certes, sur le papier, cette solution est simple, mais la réalité est bien plus compliquée. D'abord en raison de la méconnaissance du néerlandais des francophones, ensuite parce que l'offre de transports publics entre Régions est encore déficiente. Ce sont les obstacles qui sont les plus souvent cités pour expliquer l'absence de volonté pour aller travailler en Flandre. Alors, concrètement, qu'est-ce qui a été décidé entre les trois Régions? Primo, sur le plan du transport. Les Tec et De Lijn exploitent déjà 65 lignes interrégionales. Mais ce n'est pas assez, et c'est pourquoi les ministres wallons et flamands de la Mobilité prévoient des lignes supplémentaires de bus sur dix points sensibles proches de la frontière linguistique. Quant aux Bruxellois, des taxis collectifs vont leur permettre de se rendre à Zaventem à des heures très tardives ou très matinales, le surcoût étant assumé

4 http://trends.rnews.be/fr/chronique-economique/12-1285-45903/comment-booster-la-mobilite-

des-travailleurs-entre-wallonie-et-flandre.html


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par la Région de Bruxelles. Secundo, sur le plan de l'emploi. Une réserve mobile de 9000 demandeurs d'emplois francophones va être mise en place. Ceux-ci vont bénéficier d'un suivi très poussé ainsi que de cours intensifs en néerlandais. »

Une ministre wallonne a même voulu accorder des primes de mobilité aux

travailleurs wallons qui trouveraient du travail en Flandre. Inutile de dire

que sa proposition a été rejetée sans pardon, car le problème est

complexe: que faudrait-il accorder comme prime aux 140 000 navetteurs

néerlandophones qui se rendent à Bruxelles tous les jours? Inutile de vous

dire que le problème ne se pose plus, vu l'accroissement de la crise. Ici

encore, nous avons raté une belle occasion de promouvoir l'enseignement

du néerlandais en Wallonie par une motivation professionnelle.

Apprentissage tout au long de la vie

/ "Si tu veux une année de prospérité, cultive du riz.

Si tu veux dix années de prospérité, cultive des arbres.

Si tu veux cent ans de prospérité, éduque des hommes."/5

Une étude a été menée par la Direction générale Statistique et Information afin d'examiner la participation de la population adulte âgée de 25 à 64 ans à divers types d'activités d'éducation et de formation au cours du premier semestre 2008.

Il ressort entre autres de cette enquête que plus de quatre habitants sur dix prennent part à des activités de formation formelle ou non formelle et que les formations sur l'utilisation des logiciels, les cours de langues étrangères et de management sont les formations les plus populaires.

Nous pouvons proposer deux conclusions importantes:

1. Les formations linguistiques sont utiles tout au long de la vie.

2. Il est crucial de proposer l'apprentissage d'autres langues et

cultures le plus tôt possible, que ce soit en maternelle ou pré-

maternelle ou au niveau secondaire pour augmenter ses chances de

trouver un emploi.

Dans le domaine des langues étrangères, la CE soutient un grand nombre

de projets LLP- Life Long Programmes- et incite les écoles et les universités

à investir dans le développement de méthodes d'apprentissage des langues

en ligne (e-learning).

5 http://www.belgium.be/fr/actualites/2009/news_formation_long_vie.jsp


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C'est le cas d'une recherche menée de front par cinq universités

européennes, dont la Faculté Polytechnique de Mons, qui aboutira sous

peu à la production de modules d'apprentissage en ligne, pour une série de

combinaisons linguistiques, à savoir le turc, le slovaque, le roumain, le

français et le néerlandais, regroupés sous le nom commercial de

[email protected]

Ce projet est coordonné par l'Université de Hasselt (Flandre) et a pris en

compte les besoins linguistiques des populations immigrées en Belgique.

En effet, la Belgique compte trois langues officielles, mais également une

dizaine d'autres, parlées tout particulièrement en Campine (Nord de la

Flandre), dans la région d'Anvers, et surtout à Bruxelles, où la

multiculturalité est de mise. Si l'intégration linguistique de la population

immigrée des pays du Maghreb et d'Afrique centrale ne pose pas de

problème à Bruxelles- la langue française étant la seconde langue-, il n'en

est pas de même pour les migrants turcs ou arabes qui s'installent en

Flandre. Comme ces derniers habitent souvent dans des HLM au statut

d'habitation sociale, l'intégration est fortement freinée à cause des ghettos

formés. L'intégration sociale, linguistique et culturelle s'avère très difficile.

Certaines agences immobilières imposent même la connaissance du

néerlandais comme critère de sélection dans les demandes de logement.

Inutile de dire que cette mesure a été la proie du monde politique

francophone.

Malgré toutes les prises de bec entre les flamands et les wallons, des

initiatives originales et louables ont été prises pour encourager le

bilinguisme minimal. Ainsi, soulignons les expériences en immersion dans

l'enseignement transversal (du fondamental à l'enseignement supérieur)

en Wallonie. Mais il faudra sans doute attendre encore deux générations

avant d'en cueillir les fruits. Car l'appropriation d'une langue et de sa

culture demande beaucoup de temps et d'énergie et commence par le

respect mutuel des personnes et de leur histoire.

L’auteure

Viviane Grisez est diplômée de l'Ecole de traducteurs et d'interprètes internationaux de Mons (Belgique), langue anglaise, allemande et néerlandaise. Passionnée par la pédagogie des langues, elle a suivi de nombreux stages de spécialisation en méthodologie du français, de

6 http://www.commart.eu


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l'anglais et du néerlandais. Durant ses études à la Faculté de Sciences Psycho-pédagogiques de l'Université de Mons-Hainaut, elle s'est spécialisée dans la didactique des langues (Master en Didactique des langues). Elle est responsable du Service de Langues à la Faculté Polytechnique depuis 1986 où elle coordonne les programmes d'enseignement des langues dans le cadre des études d'ingénieur civil (Master of Science in Engineering). Elle s'investit également dans de nombreux programmes européens et contribue ainsi au développement de modules d'enseignement utilisant les technologies vocales les plus avancées (TTS- web 2.0).

Contact

Université de Mons- Faculté Polytechnique 56 rue de l'Epargne B-7000 Mons

[email protected]


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How language professionals can cope with the new

situation : From the Standpoint of a Freelancer

Sofia Moreno de Cayeux

Freelance translator

Abstract

This communication focuses on the fourth topic mentioned by the

organisation : how language professionals can cope with the new

situation, in a context of economic turmoil and crisis. The approach is from

the standpoint of a freelancer, stressing on the importance of extreme

financial stringency (savings) and imaginative portfolio building (clients),

through networking. This requires an unusual combination of both very

strict method and wild imagination. There have been other crisis before,

and the author recalls how she dealt with the financial crisis in 1992, and

which useful lessons she learnt then. The same lessons that are being put to

use today, with good results. Efficiency is then examined as the final

bottom line for success.

Finally, the author gives a few hints about a subtopic also mentioned by

the organisation : economy in turmoil = linguistic turmoil ? More than

ever, there is an acute need for clarity and definition in our daily work,

especially so in uncertain circumstances. The author reminds us that we

should not loose sight of perspective, and that tradition is not to be

overlooked. Every new step in our profession needs the security of past

achievements to really build a solid future.

I still remember the financial crisis of 1992. For months on end, I did not

have a single order from any client at all. When I watched television at that

time, I heard a renowned Spanish actress explain : "The toughest part in

my job is waiting for the phone to ring."

Well, that's exactly what our plight is when we are freelancers, such as I

am. I have no idea what the future will bring me and my small one-woman

business. But as of today, this new crisis has meant not less work, but

actually more.


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Why ?

Both crises are undoutedbly different, because the crisis in 1992 was more

financial and less pervasive, whether today's situation (at least in Spain) is

more severe and widespread, reaching almost all fields of overall global

economic activity. If I may venture numbers, I could estimate that crisis-

related difficulties in Spain reach between 67% and 78 percent of all

sectors and companies. Very few can boast about keeping their production

levelled, and fewer still about any growth at all.

Why, then, am I working more than before the crisis ?

It turns out that the relative inactivity that was forced upon me during the

year of 1994 was actually quite fruitful. It is true that I did not make much

money, rather very little, and that my self-esteem was badly shaken at

times. After all, I tend to think that if no one calls, then it means I am no

good. But that is not exactly true, since other factors may explain the silent

phone in my office.

I had moved to a new home in a new town, quite a small town, with very

scarce services. For more than 6 months, I had no phone. It took the phone

company this extremely long time to install our line. No wonder the phone

did not ring !

In the fall of 1994, mobile phones were a rare and expensive commodity in

my country. After 5 months with no phone, a very nice chap - one of my in-

laws - lent me a primitive version of the portable phone. It was very heavy

and cumbersome, and extremely expensive. Thanks to the device, I did not

have to cycle all the way to the village square to slide a coin into the phone

booth, sometimes under the snow, at minus 3 degree conditions in winter.

It was too late. I had lost touch with my clients and my whole portfolio was

gone for ever.

But that did not mean I had quit translating altogether. Rather, I had

changed my perspective. I was translating at anyone's request, from a few

pages of the Hola Magazine to a tourism brochure. The common trait in

these orders ? They were not paid at all, and I accepted to do them despite

knowing this perfectly well. Those were requests coming basically from

family members, and all of them came with the usual refrain : "Don't

worry, if you don't have time to do it, it does not matter. Do it only if you

want, and if you don't do it, it's still alright."


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That is not at all a professional approach !

So I translated these informal requests and then, before I knew it, I was

receiving more formal requests, and deadlines to be kept, and money was

coming in again. The lesson I learnt from the way things happened, was

this : NETWORKING.

1. NETWORKING

And this is the first reason why I am doing better in this crisis than back in

1994. I take extremely good care of my relations, whether they are friends,

family members, professional contacts, or mere acquaintances. It is not

always easy because I am quite shy, but after I explain what I do, I listen.

Most people want to be heard, and that's exactly what I do. A few

questions here and there, and you can find interesting leads that might

take you to a possible new client.

Networking is key in staying alive through tumultuous times. It means

canvassing and spending time refreshing old phone books. I call and I say :

"Hi, remember me ? How are you ? What are you doing now ? Remember

last time we met/talked/worked together ? I hope I'm not disturbing, I'm

just updating my phone directory to cross out and delete outdated phone

numbers. And how is your child/husband/partner/mother/pet doing ?"

We are all people, after all, whether there is an economic crisis or a

fantastic activity boom. Most of us like to talk and explain what we are up

to nowadays. If you learn to listen well, this canvassing effort will bear its

fruit. And if this activity gets you less translation orders than you expected,

then it is time to start inviting some old friends for a nice dinner at your

home. You might get an interesting tip or two about which companies are

searching for translators, and besides, you will have the nice feeling of

sharing tough times with good company, and there is no better way to go

through any hardship in life.

Sometimes, people called me and explained they needed a translation but

had no money to pay for it. I remember one instance in particular. I knew

this person. She was serious and very committed. She was definitely not a

swindler. I did the translation for free. I told her : "You'll pay whenever you

can". And she did pay, indeed. It was a few months later, but oh yes, she

did. Some time later, she called to order another translation, and this time

she was paying upfront, even before the job was done, at her own will. This

is very rare in my line of business as a freelancer. Most of my workload is

made up of short translations of under 80 pages. She decided to pay in that


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way, in advance. Over the last ten years, I have done quite a bit of work for

her, and I must say I am quite happy I accepted to work for her for free, at

first.

Of course, working for free CANNOT be a strategy in a successful business.

But it can be a tactic, to be used only with due caution and exclusively with

trusted contacts.

As for a strategy, then, I would advise to invest a lot of time and a little

money in canvassing, networking and renewing old business

acquaintances, professional contacts, friendships and family ties. Why not

old schoolmates, old chums from university days ? There are associations

to be tapped and exploited, such as neighbourhood meetings, school PTAs

(parent-teacher associations), local churches or business associations,

charities and non-profit organisations, and the like. The list is long. Do not

hesitate to mingle and talk. After all, communication is our business, and

the computer is not the only tool we should use to build a solid client

portfolio. Voice communication is warmer than the printed word.

Canvassing in Spain is the way people get a job, the way they learn about

opportunities to grab, and the way to get in. But of course, once you do

have a chance to prove yourself to others - in my case, to a client - then

you have to be good, or rather more than good, you have to make

absolutely sure they get exactly what they expected, or rather, I should say,

more than they expected. You have to deliver. And that means EFFICIENCY.

2. EFFICIENCY

Again, I ask myself : Why am I working more today than before the crisis

broke out in late 2008 ?

The answer lies in financial stringency and improved efficiency. When I

compare myself with some of my colleagues, I find that :

1. only the best survive (survival of the fittest, Darwin's Law) and 2. only those who know how to save actually do survive.

About efficiency :

Image has been very important in the nineties, and some companies have

spent enormous resources in communication strategies and building the

proper image for the clients to choose their brand. This effort might be

worth it in other sectors, but in ours, image is only as good as true quality


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and reliable and trusted efficiency. It does not matter if you have the best

webpage in the world, because if you cannot keep your business

commitments to your clients - that is basically two : deadline and price -

then, you will not succeed.

Image is only as good as what it purports to advertise. Today's crisis is

acting as if a veil was being lifted, and behind the nice beautifully painted

veil of corporate image, the crisis is unveiling not so beautiful business

realities. And here is where financial streamlining and solid saving

foundations come in. By saving I mean being able to do your job with the

least possible production expenses. Do more with less.

It is not a bad idea to streamline your business and keep only what you are

truly good at. This is the right time to stick to basics and find out what you

do really well. This is no time for adventures and "how about trying this

slightly different thing here...", unless it is what you always wanted to do,

but were too afraid to try. Experiments should not be made in times of

need, at least if you want to keep your business going. It is the right time to

assess your professional abilities with a cold and dispassionate stance.

I believe that sticking to what we are good at is the best way to face this

crisis. We have to excel at it and learn the latest developments. Many

courses are offered for free at community centres. In keeping with my line

of work, I train at what I am worst at, until I master it. The idea is to make a

clear diagnosis of your weak points and work on getting better results, until

you feel more comfortable with your own performance. Training is key.

Learning to use the latest tools in the trade has proved vital for the survival

and success of my one-woman translation micro-business.

In my case, it meant learning to take better advantage of my computer,

learning to use that tool with a better result. Hence, learning to be more

efficient. All my learning efforts brought about more confidence in my own

ability, and this had a direct impact on the quality of my work. Building

your own confidence is the best and cheapest way to generate trust in the

way your clients see you as a service provider.

About savings :

Streamlining is again an appropriate word here. Discard unneeded costs.

Stick to basics. It is true that the internet is a great source for terminology

research and many dictionaries are available online, of course. But do not

squander all the experience you have accumulated in the past. My career

started back in the twentieth century, at a time and place when computers


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were only used in universities and in the military. Later, some powerful

companies, mostly transnational companies, came into the digital picture.

It took almost thirty years of development to arrive at what we have today

: many home computers, students using computers to write their school

assignments, computers in shops and supermarkets, computers

everywhere. I am not denying the extreme usefulness of that modern tool.

But I feel that my generation should not forget all that we learnt before

computers took over the typewriter. This is all about enriching our

resources, not about restricting them. And this means using all the tools we

can afford to achieve the quality our clients expect from us. This

encompasses the internet, of course, but also the old paper supported

dictionaries and grammar books, catalogues and encyclopaedias, even our

old university notes, if we have not lost them after so many years,

removals and relocations.

To conclude, just a few reflections about a Subtopic mentioned in the

programme:

Economy in turmoil = linguistic turmoil ?

In Spain, many respected academics announced years ago the coming of a

new language, namely "Spanglish". Well, that is exactly what we hear

nowadays, in the spoken language. Language is reflecting new social

divisions and barriers among classes, and reflecting culture. As many of you

already know, a lot of people in Spain tend to call the language they use

"Castilian" rather than "Spanish". This is a clumsy way to say : "Now look

here, we do not speak the same language as the people of South America,

is that clear ?" On the other hand, the reason some Spaniards prefer the

term "Castilian" over the term "Spanish" is also to be found in political and

nationalistic preferences. General Francisco Franco dictatorship (1939-

1975) disapproved of local languages, inasmuch as it meant less control for

his regime over the population. Therefore many Catalan, Basque and

Galician speakers, to name only the main non-Spanish languages existing in

today's Spain, do not like to say they are speaking Spanish, because it still

evokes times of cultural and ideological domination, and even repression.

For those two reasons (inside Spain and in our rapport with South-

America), too many people, in my opinion, say they speak Castilian

Spanish, rather than just plain Spanish.

I am convinced this is a tremendous mistake in our industry. Business

cannot thrive in a closed environment, and in that respect, the language

industry is not different from any other economic sector. From a global


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perspective, Castilian Spanish is merely a nice little variety of a much larger

language spoken by over 500 hundred million people : Spanish. This being

clearly stated, it is true that many Spanish speakers have embraced a lot of

English into their speech. But curiously enough, I am not speaking about

words alone coming from the English language into the Spanish language.

Actually, it is the grammar and language structural basis that is changing

and being influenced by the more flexible English modern usage. The

internet, but also music and audiovisual culture are certainly at the root of

this development.

About the author

Sofía Moreno holds a Political Science Degree (Licenciatura) from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid (Spain). She was a Spanish Translator and Précis-writer for four years at the United Nations (New York). She now practices translation as a freelancer since 1993. Most of her clients are small companies and private individuals.

Contact

Sofía Moreno de Cayeux Member of ATIJC Calle Pintor Miguel Ángel 34, p. 3 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada (Madrid) Spain [email protected]


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Challenges and Opportunities for Minority Languages

Teaching in a Time of Recession

Siôn Aled Owen & Eleri Llewelyn Morris

University of Wales

Abstract

This presentation will consider firstly what challenges a period of

economic recession presents for minority language teaching, using the

example of the teaching of the Welsh language in two contrasting areas of

North Wales. It will then consider what opportunities might arise from that

period of recession.

The presentation will consist of:

A brief overview of the present situation of the Welsh language

and Welsh language teaching and learning.

Challenges

Limitation of personal, corporate and government funding for

language courses.

Lower prioritisation of minority language activities.

Increased emphasis on the acquisition of technical/vocational

skills at the expense of minority language skills.

Opportunities

Perception of acquisition of minority language skills as

enhancing employability.

Greater time availability for language learning.

Increased significance of the Welsh language as a marker of

local/national identity.

Greater emphasis on economic potential of cultural tourism.

Opportunities for retraining as Welsh for Adults tutors.

All of the above will be explored in relation to the two contrasting

areas of North Wales where the presenters live and work.

Biographies

Dr Siôn Aled Owen was born and brought up in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales and has taught Welsh for Adults and Welsh cultural history in Melbourne, Australia and in North Wales. He holds an University of Wales BA in Welsh Language and Literature and an University of London BD. He was awarded a PhD by the University of Birmingham for a study of orality during the Religious Revival in Wales in 1905-06. Since 2004 he has been a freelance


ASTTI - IALB 142

translator, presenter and tutor based in Wrexham, North East Wales. His particular interests in the field of language teaching are learner autonomy and informal learning. He is an accomplished poet in the Welsh Language and has won the National Eisteddfod Crown for poetry. Eleri Llewelyn Morris was brought up on the Llyn Peninsula in North West Wales where the majority of the population speak Welsh as their first language. She graduated with Honours in Psychology at the University of Wales, Cardiff and has worked as a journalist and writer. She has had several books published, including two collections of short stories, children's books and educational books. Since 1998 she has been a freelance interpreter and Welsh for Adults tutor, working both at the Welsh Language and Heritage Centre Nant Gwrtheyrn and in the community. She feels passionately about cultural tourism and has founded a group on the Llyn Peninsula to introduce the Welsh language and culture to tourists.

Challenges and Opportunities for Minority Language Teaching in a Time of

Recession

A Perspective from Wales


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Yr Iaith GymraegThe Welsh Language

• Insular Celtic Language most closely related to Breton and Cornish

• Emerged as a distinct language C6

• Rich literary tradition in Middle Ages

• Suppressed in ‘official’ circles under Henry VIII


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The Act of Unionof England and Wales 1536

“… that from henceforth no person orpersons that use the Welsh speech orlanguage shall have or enjoy any manneroffice or fees within this realm ofEngland, Wales or other the King’sDominion upon pain of forfeiting thesame offices or fees, unless he or theyuse and exercise the English speech ortongue.”

Augusta Hall, Lady Llanover(1802-1896)


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Percentage speaking

Welsh, 1961

1971


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1981

1991


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2001

Some significant statistics

• Percentage speaking Welsh aged 3+: 18.7 (1991), atleast 20.5 (2001)

• Percentage speaking Welsh aged 3-15: 24.3 (1991), atleast 37.7 (2001)

• Two areas, Gwynedd and Meirionnydd, both in thetraditional heartlands, showed small declines, 1991 –2001

• Very few local authority wards now have figuresbelow 10% or above 80%

• Welsh-speaking is becoming an increasingly urbanphenomenon


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What did we expect and what actually seems to be

happening?


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CymruWales

Challenges

• Limitation of personal, corporate and government funding for language courses.


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CymruWales

+14.7%

+86.8%

Challenges


• Lower prioritisation of minority language activities.


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Challenges


• Lower prioritisation of minority language activities.

• Increased emphasis on the acquisition of technical/vocational skills at the expense of minority language skills.

Opportunities

• Perception of acquisition of minority language skills as enhancing employability.


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Techniquest Glyndwr (TQG) is the hands-on Science Discovery Centre

located on the Glyndwr University Campus Wrexham, North Wales. Its

mission is to engage people with Science, Technology, Engineering and

Maths (STEM) and to motivate them in to life long learning.

TQG is seeking presenters who are willing to work on a flexible basis to

deliver presentations, workshops and other activities in Wrexham and at

venues throughout North-East Wales and North West England. This is paid

work, and full training will be provided.

These opportunities would be ideal for someone who is able to respond at

short notice and would like to be part of a rewarding and friendly organisation

without having to commit to regular or long hours. Teachers with an

enthusiasm for science who have recently left the profession or who work

part-time may be interested in applying. The ability to speak Welsh would

be an advantage.


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Opportunities


• Greater time availability for language learning.

• Increased significance of the Welsh language as a marker of local/national identity.


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Opportunities




• Greater emphasis on economic potential of cultural tourism.


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Opportunities




• Greater emphasis on economic potential of cultural tourism.

• Opportunities for retraining as Welsh for Adults tutors.

Diolch yn fawr!

Siôn Aled Owen

[email protected]


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Internationale Netzwerke –

gemeinsam den Herausforderungen begegnen

Wie Sprachdienstleister aktiv Nutzen aus der Globalisierung

ziehen können

Ralf Lemster

Lemster Financial Translations

Seit Jahren spüren Sprachdienstleister die Auswirkungen der

Globalisierung. Zahlreiche unter ihnen haben diesen Trend dazu genutzt,

erfolgreiche grenzüberschreitende Geschäftsmodelle aufzubauen.

Zahlreiche freiberufliche Übersetzer empfinden die Globalisierung jedoch

vorwiegend als Bedrohung, die sie gnadenloser Konkurrenz aussetzt –

insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund der viel diskutierten Finanz- und

Wirtschaftskrise.

Ziel der Präsentation ist es, Möglichkeiten aufzuzeigen, wie

Sprachdienstleister aktiv die Chancen der globalen Zusammenarbeit

nutzen können. Dabei liegt das Augenmerk nicht primär auf der

Krisenbewältigung, sondern auf einer Geschäftsstrategie, die auch in

einem herausfordernden Umfeld nachhaltig erfolgreich bleiben kann.

Ausgehend von einer kurzen Analyse der Beweggründe für die

Zusammenarbeit in einem grenzüberschreitenden Netzwerk betrachtet der

Vortrag die Chancen, ein nationales und internationales

Sprachdienstleister-Netzwerk aufzubauen. Dabei beziehen wir auch die

Alternativen zur Strukturierung einer solchen Plattform mit ein und

diskutieren die wichtigsten Einflussfaktoren für den Aufbau und die Pflege

von Teams, wie zum Beispiel Organisation und Infrastruktur, Sicherheit

und operative Prozessabläufe.

Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt der Präsentation liegt auf der Steuerung der

beim „Networking― auftretenden Risiken sowie auf allgemeinen Risiken

virtueller Geschäftsprozesse.

Der Vortrag basiert in wesentlichen Teilen auf meiner persönlichen

Erfahrung – ich freue mich besonders auf die aktive Beteiligung der

Zuhörer!


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Biografie

Ralf Lemster : Aus Interdisziplinarität wird Profession

Zehn Jahre berufliche Erfahrung im Investment Banking einer deutschen Großbank haben den soliden Grundstein meiner Erfahrung in den Finanzmärkten gelegt. Die Schwerpunkte lagen im Handel und Vertrieb einer breiten Palette von Zins-, Devisen- und Aktienprodukten und -derivaten.

Aus vier Jahren Arbeitsaufenthalt in London ergab sich die Gelegenheit für eine interessante und höchst spannende berufliche Neuorientierung: 1994 begann ich, Fachübersetzungen für Texte mit Finanzmarkt-Bezug anzufertigen. Das Kundeninteresse daran wuchs beständig, und mit wachsender Kundenbasis fiel die Entscheidung zunehmend leicht: Die Tätigkeit als Übersetzer sollte Profession werden.

Als staatlich geprüfter und ermächtigter (vereidigter) Übersetzer für die englische Sprache arbeite ich seit 1997 vollumfänglich selbstständig. Die Ralf Lemster Financial Translations GmbH nutzt die Chancen von Globalisierung und moderner Kommunikationstechnologie – wir arbeiten in einem weltweiten Netzwerk erfahrener Fachübersetzer, von denen viele selbst in den Finanzmärkten aktiv waren.


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Freelance Translators and Interpreters : An Integral Part

of the IMF’s Language Services Team

Anne van Wylick

International Monetary Fund

Abstract

The IMF's Language Services has been affected by significant staffing cuts

in the recent past.

As a result, our business model has had to shift to include a much larger

outsourcing component, not only for translation but also for proofreading,

editing and typesetting. For such a model to be viable in the long-run, we

are aware that fundamental changes need to be introduced in the way we

collaborate with freelancers. We also realize that, if we are to expect more

of our external translators and interpreters, we must provide them with

enhanced support.

This presentation will explore the various aspects of the "strategy" that the

IMF's Language Services has put in place to achieve these objectives.

About the author

Licenciée-Interprète (ISTI, Brussels), Economics (The George Washington University, Washington). Former freelance interpreter/translator, Staff Interpreter/Translator, then French translation manager, then Advisor for Language Services. Since 2001 Head of Language Services, International Monetary Fund, Washington.


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Language Services

1

Freelance Translators and Interpreters: An Integral Part of the

IMF’s Language Services Team

Anne van Wylick

IALB/ASTTI

XXXIV ANNUAL CONFERENCE


13-14 November 2009

Geneva, Switzerland

Language Services

2

Background/context

New business model: focus on centralization,

consolidation and efficiency

Redefining the relationship with freelancers

Presentation Overview


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Language Services

3

Background/context





Language Services

4

Within the IMF, the Technology & General Services Department (TGS) provides a range of services, including translation and interpretation

IMF

Organization

Security

IT Services

Administrative Services

Language Services


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Language Services

Arabic

Chinese

French

RussianSpanish

Other LOE

English

Target Languages

5

Key facts about the IMF’s Language Services operation

Highly technical materials

Fully-customized request and processing systems

Rapid responsiveness and turnaround

Interpretation• 7,000-9,000 days (incl. HQ

and in the field)

• 450-550 requests

• About 90% outsourced

Translation• 20-23 million words (incl. 3-5 million

words of print and web publication)

• 7,500-8,500 requests

• About 50% outsourced

(and growing)

7%

13%

19%

14%11%

5%

31%

Translation Staffing

1234

150+

Management &

Administrative

In-house

Translation staff

Freelance base

Language Services

6

Memoranda, letters,

country reports,

policy papers, and

flagship print and

web publications

Material for translation includes a wide range of document types


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Language Services

7

Implementation(May - …)

Our transformation began with an internal audit in 2006 and is nearing completion today…

Internal Audit(May 2006-March 2007)

Implementation(Jul-Dec)

Modeling(Jan-Apr)

Modeling(Apr-Jun)

May

2007

May

2006

May

2008

May

2009

May

2010

Today

Focus on Efficiency

Increased Outsourcing

New Directive

Language Services

8

Quality Dimensions Current ModelFocus on Efficiency

Focus on Efficiency &

Demand Reduction


FullOutsourcing

Accuracy

Reliability

Style(reads like an original)

Turn-around times

Confidentiality

Consistency

Concurrent handling of interpretation requests

The key challenge for the group has been to mitigate the expected impact of downsizing on various service quality dimensions

Current service

level preserved

Complete service

level loss


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Language Services

9


We are getting close to a steady state following changes that began in 2006



May

2007

May

2006

May

2008

May

2009

May

2010

Today

Focus on Efficiency


New Directive

Modeling(Apr-Jun)

Modeling(Jan-Apr)

Language Services

10




May

2007

May

2006

May

2008

May

2009

May

2010

TodayNew Directive

88 Staff 70

Staff

-1846

Staff-24

Declining in-house staffing levels

-18

Focus on Efficiency


The number of in-house staff is now close to half of what it was in 2006

Modeling(Apr-Jun)

Modeling(Jan-Apr)


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Language Services

11

Background/context





Language Services

12

Background/context






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Language Services

Our new business model was based on a series of assumptions in key categories

13

Workload management

Demand reduction and demand management

Restructuring initiatives

Efficiency improvements

Language Services

14

The new business model involved restructuring and consolidation on three levels

Reference &

Terminology

Documents

Control

Office

Arabic & Russian

Division

Arabic

Section

Chinese, English, &

Portuguese Division

Chinese

Section

Portuguese

Section

French Division Spanish Division

Clients

<------------------------------TRANSLATION STAFF----------------------------->

and editorial staff

Freelance contract

administration

Head of LS

Freelance translators

Interpretation

Services


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Language Services

15

Translation

Processing

Center

(TPC)

Reference &

Terminology

Documents

Control

Office

Arabic & Russian

Division

Arabic

Section

Chinese, English, &

Portuguese Division

Chinese

Section

Portuguese

Section


Clients


and editorial staff

Freelance contract

administration

Head of LS



Interpretation

Services

Language Services

16


Arabic & Russian

Division

Arabic

Section

Chinese, English, &

Portuguese Division

Chinese

Section

Portuguese

Section


Clients


and editorial staff

Head of LS

Translation

Processing

Center

(TPC)#1. Establishment

of the TPC


Interpretation

Services


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Language Services

17


TRANSLATION DIVISION

Chinese

Section

Arabic

Section

Clients

<------------------------TRANSLATION STAFF----------------------------->

and editorial staff

English

Section

French

Section

Russian

Section

Spanish &

Portug.

Section

Translation

Processing

Center

(TPC)


Head of LS

#2. Consolidation of

the translation units

#3. Expansion of the

freelance roster

Interpretation

Services

#1. Establishment

of the TPC


Language Services

18

Beyond restructuring, other initiatives were also key to the new business model

Expected effect:Streamline the process

and align services to

actual requirements

Measuring resource

consumption by

individual requests,

coupled with new

reporting tools

Introduction of service

descriptions and

request policies

Corresponding

introduction of tiered,

notional pricing

structure

Expected effects:Eliminate inefficiencies

Improve service productivity

Re-engineer

processes


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Language Services

19

Background/context





Language Services

20

Background/context






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Language Services

21

The new Freelance Initiative aims to make our staff and external translators a virtual team comprise of three connected groups

The ―Core‖ group—staff

translators, revisers, editors, and

typesetters

―Tier 1‖ freelancer

group—freelancers on

high-volume retainers

―Tier 2‖ freelancer

group—freelancers

on umbrella or

assignment-specific

contractsMovement as needed

Tier 1

Staff

Tier 2

Language Services

Training and certification

programs

New contract terms and

strengthened associations

Leveraging technology

to create virtual presence

We considered the reasons why better translation services had traditionally been available from staff—and what might bridge the gaps

22

KNOWLEDGE OF THE

SUBJECT MATTER

CONTINUITY

PROXIMITY

STAFF FREELANCERS

BETTER SUPPORT AT ALL LEVELS


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Language Services

23

Covering an agreed volume

of assignments

during a one-year period

Covering a single

assignment

Covering any number

of assignments

during a one-year period

(no specific volume

guaranteed) (word count quota;

remuneration paid

in monthly installments)

Open RetainerJob-specific

Translation work handled by freelance translators has been covered by three main types of contracts

Language Services

24

• Ongoing assignments, mentoring, coaching and feedback

• Background and reference material, terminology

• Short-term in-house contracts

• Formal training and IMF ―certification‖

• Economics for Linguists course

• Onsite seminars/classes on Fund-specific topics

The IMF wants to help freelance translators achieve the same expertise in the subject matter as staff translators


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Language Services

25

The final challenge was to create a virtual environment where freelancers’ access to tools and information emulated that of staff

FALCON

Fire

Wa

ll

MultiTrans(CAT)

PeopleSoft Financials

PeopleSoft HR


PeopleSoft HR


PeopleSoft HR

Fire

Wa

ll

Extranet SharePoint

MultiTrans(CAT)

Intranet ExtranetLanguage Services Staff

Language Services Staff Freelancers

Document Management

System

Textbases shared

Assignment data

Project data

PhoenixClient & Web

PhoenixClient & Web

Project Data

Documents exchanged

Extranet Self-Registration

Module

Registered Freelancers

Internet

Freelancers

Falcon authentication will

leverage self-registration

model for interested, potential

candidates

Only registered Fund staff

and Freelancers will have

access to Falcon

SharePoint work

environment and Multitrans

application Freelancers

Payment by FIN

Language Services

Return to presentation

Translator availability search

FALCON Home Page


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Language Services

1

Log into the Extranet

Language Services

28

Falcon Home Page


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Language Services

29

My Workspace

• My Assignments

• My Availability

Language Services

30

My Assignments


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Language Services

31

My Availability

Language Services

32

Unavailability


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Language Services

33

Assignment Details

Language Services

34

Assignment Accepted


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Language Services

35

Assignment Accepted (Assignment date spans across calendar)

Language Services

36

Assignment Completed (Freelancer uploads final translation)


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Language Services

37

Assignment Completed

Language Services

38

All translators working for the IMF, whether resident

employees or external freelancers, should be part of a

single, fully integrated team


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Language Services

Where are we today?

CompletedDownsizing

CompletedRestructuring

New policies and pricing in place;

possible factor in demand reduction

Relationships

with clients

In progress

Freelance

roster

expansion

New contract terms in place; training program in

development; FALCON in pilot phase

New framework

for freelancers

Workflow streamlined considerably;

other opportunities have been identified

Internal

efficiencies

[email protected]

Language Services

Thank you

41


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La terminologie comme une piste de réflexion

linguistique pour répondre à la crise ?

Anne Aboh-Dauvergne

Cour pénale internationale

Résumé

Par essence la terminologie est une discipline économe en cela qu'elle

mise sur la rigueur, la précision et les économies d'échelle. Appliquée à la

traduction et à l'interprétation elle permet de rationaliser les méthodes de

travail. Utilisée comme un instrument en amont de la traduction et de

l'interprétation, elle rend les services plus efficaces, plus rapides tout en

augmentant la qualité.

Partant de ce constat, il est possible d'organiser un service linguistique en

se servant de la terminologie comme d'un pivot qui va se transformer en

valeur ajoutée pour les services de traduction et d'interprétation. Anne

Aboh-Dauvergne, chef de l'Unité de la terminologie et des références de la

Section de traduction et d'interprétation de la Cour pénale internationale,

se propose d'illustrer son propos à l'aide de l'exemple des méthodes

appliquées dans son service et de la chaîne de production englobant la

terminologie comme maillon indispensable.

Il appartient aux terminologues travaillant dans les services linguistiques

d'organisations internationales et de sociétés privées de montrer, par leur

travail quotidien et grâce à l'application de méthodes rigoureuses, que le

service linguistique tout entier a beaucoup à gagner en acceptant leur

aide. Les terminologues travaillent aussi à améliorer la communication au

sein de l'entreprise et à redorer l'image de l'entreprise en augmentant la

cohérence et le degré d'harmonisation du discours.

L’auteure

Diplômée de l'Université de Genève (Ecole de traduction et d'interprétation de Genève pour la traduction et la terminologie et Institut européen pour un DEA en études européennes), Anne Aboh-Dauvergne a travaillé pendant plus de dix ans en Suisse en qualité de traductrice et de terminologue avant de partir aux Pays-Bas. Depuis 2003, elle est terminologue à la Cour pénale internationale, où elle est responsable de l'Unité de la terminologie et des références depuis 2004. S'intéressant tout particulièrement à la terminologie appliquée aux langues rares, elle a développé au fil des années une méthodologie pour répondre au besoin de création terminologique dans lesdites langues.


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Gefragt in der Krise: Der ÖNB-Sprachendienst

Herausforderungen und Kooperationen

Dagmar Dichtl

Österreichische Nationalbank

Abstract

Als interner Dienstleiter der Österreichischen Nationalbank (ÖNB) gehört

der ÖNB-Sprachendienst zu jenen, die sich seit rund zwei Jahren intensiv

in ihrer täglichen Arbeit mit der Krise und ihren Auswirkungen

auseinandersetzen. Während andere Branchen vielerorts unter

nachlassender Nachfrage leiden, sind angesichts des globalen Ausmaßes

der Krise und der Rolle der ÖNB als österreichische Notenbank und

integraler Bestandteil des Europäischen Systems der Zentralbanken bei

den internen Kunden Sprachdienstleistungen gefragter denn je. Mit dieser

wachsenden Nachfrage einher geht ein Anstieg der Zahl der

Übersetzungen, die vom ÖNB Sprachendienst ausgelagert werden.

In meinem Beitrag stelle ich zunächst kurz den Sprachendienst der ÖNB -

Struktur, Aufgabenverteilung, Prozesse - vor. Anschließend gehe ich auf

jene Aspekte näher ein, die sich mit dem Ausbruch und der Eskalation der

Krise in unserer Arbeit verändert haben; hier reicht die Palette von

Auftragsvolumina bis zu Textsorten, Adressatenkreisen oder Fragen der

Vertraulichkeit oder des Wording.

Der zweite Teil der Präsentation ist der Kooperation mit freiberuflichen

Kolleginnen und Kollegen gewidmet, die angesichts des steigenden

Arbeitsvolumens immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnt. Nach einer

Beschreibung der Abläufe bei der externen Vergabe von

Übersetzungaufträgen soll dargestellt werden, was aus der Erfahrung des

ÖNB-Sprachendiensts die Grundlage für eine erfolgreiche langfristige

Zusammenarbeit zwischen internen und externen Dienstleistern ist.

Biografie

Dagmar Dichtl arbeitet als Übersetzerin und Lektorin bei der Österreichischen Nationalbank (ÖNB) in Wien. Nach Abschluß ihres Übersetzerstudiums (Deutsch/English/Russisch) an der Universität Wien war sie zunächts selbständig tätig und anschließend bei der Austria Presse Agentur beschäftigt. Im Jahr 2000 wechselte sie in den Sprachendienst der ÖNB.


ASTTI - IALB 205

www.oenb.at [email protected] 2 -

Der OeNB-Sprachendienst – ein interner Dienstleister

• Team & Organisation

• Leistungen– Übersetzung DE<->EN, Lektorat, Redaktion, Terminologiearbeit …

• Tools:– SDL Multi Term, Translator‘s Workbench– Auftragsverwaltungssystem auf MS Access-Basis

• Der europäische Kontext– Abstimmung und Zusammenarbeit mit Deutscher Bundesbank und EZB


Die Krise und ihre Auswirkungen auf…

• Auftragsvolumen

• Aktualität

• Vertraulichkeit

• Textsorten

• Zielpublikum


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• Auftragsvolumen

• Aktualität

• Vertraulichkeit

• Textsorten

• Zielpublikum


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The downturn in trade is largely explained by a sudden stop in orders and

dropping global industrial production, exacerbated by increased difficulties

to obtain trade credit.

a renewed deterioration of financial market conditions

US consumers - stretched by high debt, declining wealth and tighter lending

conditions - will have to repair their balance sheets.

Global economic activity contracted in the fourth quarter of 2008

the economic situation remains dire

credit conditions for short-term trade financing deteriorated. The financial

turmoil impaired access to trade finance, via cutting trade credit (letters of

credit in particular) and led to a sharp increase in the cost of trade

financing

a downturn which is unprecedented for the speed of the deterioration

external financing constraints (wenn wirtschaften sich schwer tun ihren

finanzierungsbedarf abzudecken)



• Auftragsvolumen

• Aktualität

• Vertraulichkeit

• Textsorten

• Zielpublikum


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Die Krise und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Sprache

• „Die Sprache der Krise ist Englisch.―

• Von der Experten- zur Allgemeinsprache?– Deleveraging, Tier-1 Ratio, Stresstests – alles klar?

• Denglisch– Von Stimulusprogrammen und toxischen Vermögenswerten

• Wahl der Termini– Von Turbulenzen über Verwerfungen zur Krise– Hilfe oder Rettung?


Zusammenarbeit mit externen Partnern

Warum?

Was?

An wen?

Wenn interne Kapazitäten nicht ausreichen

Übersetzung „isolierter“ Texte,

Qualitätssicherung interner Übersetzungen

Kleinen Kreis bewährter Freelancer


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Schlüsselfaktoren einer erfolgreichen Zusammenarbeit mit

externen Partnern

• Kompetenz

• Verlässlichkeit

• Genauigkeit

• Information

• Kommunikation


Danke für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit!

[email protected]


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How International Organisations and Universities

cooperate in training ventures – an example: Universities

Contact Group of the IAMLADP Working Group on

Training

Helen J. L. Campbell

DG Interpretation, European Commission

Abstract

"The Universities Contact Group" is part of the International Annual

Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications

(IAMLADP) under its Working Group on Training (WGT). IAMLADP was

originally set up by the UN some 30 years ago and represents all major

international organisations (IOs). Its secretariat is in the United Nations

Headquarters in New York. It is the forum in which Heads of all Language

and Conference Services meet once a year to discuss common issues, such

as the status of the language professions, quality management, new

technologies, shortages of skills, training initiatives and many other

subjects of concern and interest.

Between Annual Meetings, three Working Groups and their Task Forces

undertake specific activities according to their mandates. In 2001,

IAMLADP invited the DG for Interpretation of the European Commission

to set up and chair a Working Group on Training (WGT). In 2003 the WGT

decided to involve universities and in 2006 set up the Universities Contact

Group, a unique combination of representatives of IO employers and

training providers.

The timing was no accident. IOs had begun to realise with alarm that

many senior staff (who had acquired both more languages and skills over

the years) were approaching retirement age, and replacing them was

proving a major problem, indeed, well nigh impossible. At the same time,

training for existing staff was becoming a more pressing need. The

shortage of linguists - especially with English as mother tongue - and of

skills has become acute and is likely to become more so in the next decade,

hence the need for closer and more systematic ties with universities.

Recently the UCG - which currently counts 16 members from 14

Universities plus 21 members from 19 international organisations in

Europe, America, China and Africa – spearheaded a new format of joint

training: thematic seminars for language staff offered free of charge by a

university, in return for master classes for students given by the

participating professionals. The format has proved a big success. The aim

is now to pool IO in-house expertise and to promote and organise training


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initiatives at the lowest possible cost, both among IOs – as "Joint Training

Ventures" and in cooperation with universities, in the UCG.

The other new initiative taken under the banner of IAMLADP by its WGT,

involves harnessing in-house expertise in one IO for the benefit of staff in

others, through ―Joint Training Ventures‖ (JTV), coordinated by the JTV

Task Force, established in 2004 and chaired by Tony Pitt of ITU. Training

seminars on a range of subjects – such as, among others, managing

translation quality, revision, selection of interpreters, editing and

technology tools - are given by IO staff who have particular expertise,

often hosted by another IO, and attended by staff from many more, thus

multiplying the value as well as fostering productive exchanges between

professional linguists – at minimal cost.

This presentation will give an overview of the main achievements of such

cooperation in the last five years and will discuss future plans.

About the author

Helen J. L. Campbell is a staff member of the Directorate-General for Interpretation of the European Commission in Brussels. She studied German and French at Southampton University, trained as a conference interpreter with the European Commission and, as a staff member, interpreted full-time from 1973 until 1996. She was seconded to Geneva to represent her DG from 1991-1993 and to London from 1999 to 2001. As a qualified interpreter trainer she trains and acts as test panel member at university courses, as well as organising study visits for student interpreters to the European Institutions and speaking at careers and other events such as the London Language Show. Since 2001 she has been active in IAMLADP, the International Annual Meeting for Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications, the UN-run forum of Heads of Language and Conference Services. Under its Working Group on Training she set up the Universities Contact Group which she co-chairs with Svetlana Carsten of Leeds University. She is an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Irish Translators' and Interpreters' Association and an external consultant for Metropolitan University London.

With Jesus Baigorri of the University of Salamanca, she recently co-edited a publication "Reflections on Legal Translation" published by Interlingua, Granada.


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Le traducteur économique et la crise : situation et

perspectives

Anne Rosnoblet

Traductrice libérale

Résumé

1. Comment le traducteur économique francophone est touché par la

crise?

- Ses clients sont les banques en difficulté

Les analystes écrivent moins (peur du licenciement, situation incertaine

des entreprises suivies)

Les banques font traduire les textes indispensables (communication de

crise) à moindre coût par des agences ou en interne

Elles sortent moins de nouveaux produits (pas de fonds disponibles, ou

elles sont dans l'attente d'un renflouement/ d'une fusion éventuels), donc

moins de prospectus/documentation financière à traduire

- Plus généralement, pour la communication d'entreprises, l'analyse

macroéconomique, etc., mêmes raisons, mêmes incertitudes

-> En conséquence, moins de travail

2. Quelles perspectives à court-moyen terme ?

En cas de crise durable (après janvier 2010), va-ton voir la part du

français baisser dans la communication financière internationale ?

Ou bien assistera-t-on à une sorte de " normalisation de crise " ?

- Conséquences : moins bonne information de la clientèle

francophone et dérogation à la loi (Toubon en France, loi fédérale

sur les langues en Suisse)

En cas de crise résorbée avant la fin de l'année (ce qui fera tout de

même deux ans et demi), le traducteur a intérêt à mettre en avant

son excellence pour reconquérir les parts de marché perdues.

La baisse des tarifs est-elle une solution ?

- Ce n'est pas une tactique valable (stratégie opportuniste et

décrédibilisation)

- Le traducteur peut compenser par une diversification sectorielle

(spécialités moins chères) à partir des compétences qu'il possède

déjà.

3. Conclusions

Points positifs : la protection de la loi, l'impossibilité de sous-

traiter un travail de traduction correct dans les pays en

développement (contrairement aux pays anglophones, notamment

avec l'Inde)

Les défis du traducteur : qualité, sérieux et fiabilité sont plus

importants encore que d'habitude

La diversification comme stratégie d'adaptation


ASTTI - IALB 213

L’auteure

Traductrice indépendante, travaillant à partir de l'anglais et de l'allemand, spécialisée dans le domaine financier, économique et boursier. Installée depuis juin 2002, après deux années comme traductrice salariée chez UBS à Paris. Organisation de formations à la traduction des états financiers à partir de l'anglais, conférences aux élèves de l'ESIT sur la constitution en SARL.

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