Translator’s Price and Training: Quality Indicators ?

Translator’s Price and Training: Quality Indicators ? Giselle Sanchez

Translation: an unregulated profession Anyone can become a translator • Graduates, any level • Inexperienced bilinguals • From 20-year olds to retired workers

Choosing a free lance translator • Obvious selection criteria: • Formal training in translation • Extensive experience • An indirect criterion: • Price • Thus, we expect a correlation between: • Qualification / quality • Qualification / price • Quality / price

Translation Test Sample • Unsolicited applications received by Media Langues in 2007-2008 • 178 translators solicited • 23 refused test (13%) • 82 did not return test (46%) • 73 returned test (41%)

Translator Background Education • Translation: 27 • Humanities and business: 29 (law, literature...) • Sciences: 6 (medicine, engineering, sciences) All freelancers

Translation Quality Assesment A research field with no consensus yet Dominated by complex, multi-criteria measures • SAE J2450 (wrong usage of glossary, syntactic error, omission, word structure, misspelling… 7 criteria) • ATA’s certification exam (legibility, misunder-standing, mistranslation, omissions/additions, terminology, style... 22 criteria) • SICAL scale/Gouadec studies: 675 error types (300 lexical, 375 syntactic)

These tests are good for academic purposes or in specific QC situations As a business, we need a practical means to screen a large number of translators Excludes qualitative evaluations or time-consuming metrics Usability in the translation industry

Terminology-based assesment Our assumption: the most discriminating translation quality criteria is terminology • Objective (unlike style) • Critical and ubiquitous (technical, legal, business) • On the difficulty scale, terminology is higher than any other objective criteria such as spelling, grammar, omissions, typography… • A bad terminology can’t be proofread • Most often good terminology comes with good grammar, style, etc. The reverse is not true.

Test details.1 ~18 terminology control points in each text Error scoring Wrong sense = -3 points Inacurate, but can be understood = -2 points Correct but unusual = -1 points

Examples

Test Details.2 5 tests of ~300 words each • Technical, medical, legal, financial, general • No time limit

Caveats • Small sample size • Sample not including fully-booked translators • Self-excluded translators: did not return or refused test • Possible differences between test levels • Uncontrolled test conditions

Prices Average: 0,088€ / source word (0,077€ / target word) Average: 0,086€ / source word (Average price of translators who declined test: 0,091€ / source word)

Score Distribution 100% of terms are -2 errors 30% of terms are -2 errors 15% of terms are -2 errors

Score vs. Price Price (€/ source word)

Score vs. Age and Experience

Scores vs. Education 66 Humanities 82 Sciences 77 Translation T-test Humanities/ Translation : P = 0,05

Price vs. Education 0,083 Humanities 0,094 Sciences 0,088 Translation T-test Humanities/ Translation : P = 0,29

Hiring Criteria

85% of translators < 0.7€

Conclusions • Translation studies do not guarantee high quality, but are a positive factor. • For companies, low rates should be a warning sign, but high rates do not guarantee high quality.

Perspectives • Compare translation diplomas • Develop standard terminology-based tests • Direct measure • Practical

Acknowledgements Aurélie Devynck, Master TSM (Traduction Spécialisée Multilingue), Université Lille 3

Translator’s Price and Training: Quality Indicators ?