Language industry

The scope of services in the industry includes:

• Translation
• Editing for authors: author editing
• Editing for publishers, e.g. copy editing, proofreading (including computer-assisted reviewing), developmental editing
• Language interpretation
• Language education
• Computer-assisted translation tools development
• Terminology extraction
• Language localisation
• Software localisation
• Machine translation

The persons who facilitate multilingual communication by offering individualized services—translation, interpreting, editing or language teaching—are called language professionals.

Translation (and interpretation) as actcivities, have existed since mankind started developing trade. That is to say that the origins of language industry are older than those of written language.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

The communication industry has developed rapidly following availability of the internet. Achievements of the industry include the ability to quickly translate long texts into many languages. This has created new challenges as compared with the traditional activity of translators, such as that of quality assurance. There are various quality standards such as the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 17100 (used in Europe), the CAN CGSB 131.10-2017 in Canada{{Cite web|url=https://www.scc.ca/en/standardsdb/standards/28935|title=CAN/CGSB-131.10-2017|website=www.scc.ca|access-date=2019-12-28}} and ASTM F2575-14 in the US.{{Cite web|url=https://www.astm.org/Standards/F2575.htm|title=ASTM F2575 - 14 Standard Guide for Quality Assurance in Translation|website=www.astm.org|access-date=2019-12-28}}

A study commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation estimated the language industry in European member states to be worth 8.4 billion euro in 2008.{{cite book|title=The size of the language industry in the EU|year=2009|publisher=European Commission DG Translation|isbn=978-92-79-14181-2|url=http://bookshop.europa.eu/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/EU-Bookshop-Site/en_GB/-/EUR/ViewPublication-Start?PublicationKey=HC8009985}} The largest portion, 5.7 billion euros, was ascribed to the activities of translation, interpreting, software localisation and website globalisation. Editing was not taken into consideration. The study projected an annual growth rate of 10% for the language industry. At the time the study was published, in 2009, the language industry was less affected by the economic crisis than other industry sectors.

One field of research in the industry includes the possibility of machine translation fully replacing human translation.{{cite journal|journal=Proceedings of TMI|last=Paul |first=Michael |author2=Andrew Finch |author3=Eiichiro Sumita |title=Reducing human assessment of machine translation quality to binary classifiers|year=2007|pages=154–162|url=http://www.mt-archive.info/TMI-2007-Paul.pdf|accessdate=2009-04-12}}

Rates for translation services had become a big discussion nowadays{{when?|date=January 2014}}

{{Cite web|url=http://www.proz.com/forum/money_matters/147026-why_are_rates_so_low-page3.html|title=Why are rates so low?|publisher=ProZ.com|accessdate=2011-02-14}}

as several translation outsourcers allegedly go in search of cheap labor. Professional associations like the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters have in the past try to put a stop to this development.

[http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/MegaBBS/forumthread14854.htm A new T&I association is born]

Currency fluctuation is yet another important factor.{{Cite web |url=http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2007/11/14/translation-pricing/ |title=Rates for translation services to go up? |access-date=2009-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109142812/http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2007/11/14/translation-pricing/ |archive-date=2009-01-09 |url-status=dead }}

Apart from this, other phenomena such as crowdsourcing appear in large-scale translations.{{Cite web |url=http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2008/03/27/collaborative-translation-and-crowdsourcing/ |title=Collaborative translation and crowdsourcing (in English and Portuguese) |access-date=2009-06-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100419064630/http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2008/03/27/collaborative-translation-and-crowdsourcing |archive-date=2010-04-19 |url-status=dead }}

US President Barack Obama drew criticism after a 2009 White House white paper proposed incentives for automatic translation.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-10-01/white-house-challenges-translation-industry-to-innovate White House Challenges Translation Industry to Innovate]

[https://www.atanet.org/pressroom/whitehouse_letter_oct2_2009.pdf Letter from ATA to President Obama]

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://www.mt-archive.info/LIM-TOC.htm Articles in Language Industry Monitor] (1991-1995)
• [http://www.ailia.ca/National+Standard+for+Translation+Services CAN CGSB 131.10]

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Category:Translation companies

Category:Service industries