Following up on the performance of active translators, organising

Vendor managers do not work in a vacuum, on the contrary, they are very much involved in the company’s projects. When the company hires a new translator, the vendor manager must take an active role in influencing project managers’

hiring decisions so that new translators are given a chance to prove themselves.

The majority of project managers prefer sticking with tried and tested methods, and therefore – understandably – view new translators as risk factors. Expanding the company’s database of translators, discovering and developing new talent are, however, long-term goals for both vendor and project managers because the company could get into trouble if it can only rely on one or two people to handle a certain type of translation job.

Ideally, if a translator, a translation company and a client collaborate on a regular basis, the translator will have a good idea of the company’s requirements as well as the client’s demands and the types of documents they work with. Translators will then be able to work on the project in a way that also helps the other participants, or at least does not disrupt their workflow. For instance, translators will know how to properly copy tags from the original text into the target text, or can comment on mistakes found in the original text when they submit their translated version.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to learn in such projects is how far translators are expected to progress on their own, and at what point they are expected to notify the project’s other participants of any problems they may have encountered. Another aspect which may cause difficulty is knowing what and how to ask the client about parts of the text that cause translation dilemmas. Developing the right cooperation methods is particularly important in today’s collaborative projects that involve multiple translators, revisers and a target language coordinator all working on the translation company’s server.

A translation company’s feedback system is the part of its internal operations that is most visible to freelance translators. Providing translators with professional criticism in a way that is constructive is not always easy, but if the feedback system is well implemented, it can turn out to be one of the strongest points of the collaboration.

Many translation companies go through a process of trying various evaluation methods before settling on one. Companies may try expressing translation quality in numerical form based on an industry standard; they may just give a narrative evaluation or they may combine the two forms. Experience has shown that a good evaluation is consistent and customized to fit a single given translation. This type of evaluation, however, implies a coaching relationship between the reviser and the translator, a method which requires a lot of time and energy.

We often make the mistake of putting together an evaluation that is too negative and fail to give positive feedback. If, however, there is a mistake in the final product, which also made its way to the client, it must absolutely be included in the feedback, since even the smallest numerical error can overshadow the rest of the translation regardless of how good it may have been. Communication is difficult from both sides in situations like this. I prefer to advise the translator in such a situation to look at the finished product through the eyes of the client and offer constructive advice on how to solve the problem. If the company manages to work through the problem with its reputation intact, the experience will certainly strengthen the relationship between the company and the translator. Another interesting aspect in the relationship is the question of the company imposing penalties for sub-par translations, and not just because it can be proven that the translator bears responsibility for them. The consequences of submitting translations that are below standard go beyond potential reputation damage for the company, as sub-par performance may also result in losses in profits, which cannot even be recovered by withholding payment from the translator.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to stress that although it may seem simple from the outside, conflicting interests and demands among participants mean that the translation process is a ’game’ in which freelance translators must have a thorough understanding of these interests and their own role in the process in order to

excel. Although translation may often seem like a lonely activity, vendor managers tend to look for team players who are also capable of working on their own and selling themselves, and whose long-term performance consistently delivers on the promise they showed when they were first hired to the team.

References

DePalma, D. A. & Beninatto, R. S. 2008. Localization Vendor Management. Lowell, Massachusetts: Common Sense Advisory. http://www.commonsenseadvisory.

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Dunne, K. J. & Dunne, E. S. 2011. Mapping terra incognita. Project management in the discipline of Translation Studies. In: Dunne, K. J. & Dunne, E. S. (eds) Translation and Localization Project Management: The Art of the Possible.

Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. 1–5.

Risku, H., Rossmanith, N., Reichelt, A. & Zenk, L. 2013. Translation in the netwoork economy. In: Way, C., Vandepitte, S., Meylaerts, R. & Bartłomiejczyk, M. Tracks and Treks in Translation Studies. Selected papers from the EST Congress, Leuven 2010. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. 29–48.

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Dunne, E. S. (eds) Translation and Localization Project Management: The Art of the Possible. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. 349–378.

after Translation

Katalin Varga

E-mail: katalinv@ecinnovations.com

1. Introduction

For modern-day translators the translation process does not start with the typing of the first translated sentence. Materials to be translated can arrive in many different formats, moreover, the client can also give the translator instructions or have specific expectations regarding the format of the submitted document. Therefore, the technical preparation and pre-delivery tasks of the prepared translation are indispensable parts of the translation process that require a thorough approach.

This phase is an important element in project planning, which means time and resources must be allocated for it (Kenneth et al. 2008).

When the document to be translated is simple and well-edited without inserted images or graphs this phase remains unnoticed, and the client receives a technically impeccable file without any special preparatory or pre-delivery tasks.

However, there are more complicated, yet still editable or absolutely non-editable source files the client can send for translation. In such cases all the different aspects must be taken into consideration that are required for a professional translation in line with the client’s instructions (whether there are non-translatable parts, how to deal with graphics, how to translate captions for images, what to do when the text does not fit in the text box, is OCR necessary for non-editable files, is there a reference, the format of the document to be submitted, etc.).

Nowadays there is no modern translation without the application of computer assisted translation tools (hereinafter referred to as CAT tools). They not only make the task of translating specialised texts easier and more unified, but also offer a wide range of new possibilities (such as the management of references, terminology management, quality assurance). It is almost impossible to imagine the adequate technical preparation of a material without a computer assisted translation environment. In the translation industry the technical preparation

of textual documents, importing them to a CAT environment and technical post editing fall under the tasks carried out by the DTP (desktop publishing) specialist.

There is a difference in what we mean by DTP in graphic design and the publishing industry compared to the translation industry. For graphic designers it clearly means desktop publishing, that is, designing the publication as the client requests, typesetting it and preparing a ready to print version of the document with the help of a desktop publishing software (Kovácsné Kiss 2003–2004, Mohai 2006). DTP specialists in the translation industry fulfil many similar tasks, which explains why the same name is used for the position. In contrast to graphic designers the objective of DTP in translation is the reproduction of the already designed and arranged source language document in the target language, its preparation for translation and then typesetting it again.

In addition, it is an important task of DTP in translation – taking into consideration the unique features of the applied CAT environment – to transform the non-editable source files (e.g. PDF documents) into an editable format almost fully identical with the original; or prepare the files for translation that are editable, but contain complex technical elements or functions that can be hardly or ill-managed by the CAT tools; and following the translation to execute the pre-delivery tasks as well.

Prominent translation agencies employ not only DTP technicians, but also language engineers. Language engineers primarily participate in multi-lingual localisation projects (software, web localisation), and they prepare the source files for translation, execute the necessary file conversions and perform the post-translation tasks and tests as well. In practice there can be a number of overlapping tasks regarding what DTP technicians and language engineers do.

There are technical aspects related to the linguistic preparation of a document for translation. It can be the case that the received references and terminology must be processed so that they could be utilised in a CAT tool during translation and at the end of a project the use of references could be checked. There might be instructions which must be consistently adhered to and it is recommended to have certain custom settings adjusted prior to starting the translation (e.g. regional settings, date format, non-translatable parts, measurement units, etc.). In the case of translation agencies a terminologist or a language lead can also be included in the process, depending on how the translation work is organised.

In the following this paper seeks to define tasks and aspects related to the preparation and post translation of the document from the perspective of individual translators. For translation agencies these tasks can belong to a number of different roles within the company.