Translating Europe Forum 2017
Last week, I attended the Translating Europe Forum, organised by the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission in Brussels. The topic of this year’s forum was “New Skills, New Markets, New Profiles”. This was the fourth edition of the forum, organised by the DGT in order to bring together representatives from the industry, from academia, and from the institutions to promote synergies between the different stakeholders in the translation world.
The forum took place in the Charlemagne building of the Commission, which is just across the road from the Council’s Lex building, where I work. As a former student from a EMT (European Master’s in Translation) university, more specifically, the University of Leeds, former freelance translator and interpreter, former trainee at the Council, and current contract agent at the Council, TEF was an opportunity for me to reflect on the training I had received, on my perception of the industry, and on the future of my profession.
The presentations were extremely interactive, thanks to the use of Slido, an online tool for Q&As and polls, which facilitate the participation of the audience, and made the presentations more dynamic. The speakers came from a variety of backgrounds: academics and university lecturers, MA students and recent graduates, representatives of professional associations for translators and their counterparts from the industry and LSPs. Therefore, I feel we got an exhaustive view of the current state of the industry and of the expectations of different stakeholders.
The event was kicked off by Commissioner Oettinger for Budget and Human Resources, who pointed out that interpreters and translators represent a decisive factor in ensuring that the EU is accepted by citizens. At times, we might tend to forget to put things in perspective, but reminding ourselves that the translators and interpreters who work for the EU play an essential role in the implementation of multilingualism within the institutions is extremely important to understand the value of our work. Likewise, the role of freelance linguists is of utmost importance from a cultural perspective, for bridging the gap between people from different countries, and this is something that should be celebrated and acknowledged.
The event focused on the changes in the translation industry, so the need for training and for developing new skills was highlighted by several speakers, who underscored the importance of targeted CPD in this current skills-driven market. Some pointed out that, at times, there is a misalignment between the expectations of recent graduates and what is actually required of them in terms of skills and knowledge of the industry. Therefore, one of the points that were addressed was the need to ensure that universities prepare students for the reality of the market. This can only be achieved if academics collaborate with agencies and the industry, if MA programmes include internships as part of their curriculum, and if universities also teach students essential soft skills.
Another aspect that was mentioned was the idea of new profiles in the industry. Some representatives from translation agencies and LSPs mentioned that a new emerging profile was that of the MT Post-editing evaluator/MT Linguistic consultant. At times, these new profiles that were being described did not seem clear or tangible. In fact, what are MT evaluators? What are the tasks required of them? According to some speakers, they are meant to analyse MT quality, while also acting as linguists, setting up quality evaluation experiments, inter alia. It did not come as a surprise that the topic of MT mainly seemed to be addressed by representatives of LSPs, and buzzwords like “efficiency” and “productivity” came up several times during the discussions.
The keynote speech by Jaap van der Meer of TAUS (Translation Automation User Society) thinktank was my personal highlight of the forum. As I have recently become interested in technological developments and Neural Machine Translation, I have been reading up on the TAUS reports and publications, and the presentation at the TEF gave an overview of the automation of the profession, both as far as MT is concerned, but also in terms of processes such as job allocation and content management. In his vision, in the future, there will be a differentiation of content based on the degree of quality/revision that is required, whereas some types of texts will not be translated by human translators and will become fully automatic.
As far as new emerging profiles and areas where there is less pressure in terms of pricing, some sectors and industries that were mentioned included: high-risk areas such as insurance, health and safety regulations, crisis response, the legal field, as well as transcreation, SEO, marketing, audiovisual translation, and life sciences, among others. So, after all, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel!
Overall, the Translating Europe Forum was a great opportunity to meet fellow translators, share best practices and brainstorm ideas, get an overview of the industry, and ponder on the significance of our job in a multicultural society. If you did not manage to attend this year, you can watch the recording of the event here.
