Points of Consideration for Quality and Accurate Translation
28.04.2020The International Federation of Translators (FIT) and Translation Sector
The International Federation of Translators (FIT) and Translation Sector
The International Federation of Translators (FIT), representing more than 80,000 translators from 55 countries and working with more than 100 professional associations; is an international organization founded by the associations of translators and terminology specialists. FIT's founding mission is the promotion of professionalism in interpreting and translation discipline. At the same time, the Federation carries out activities and studies to protect the rights and interests of translators. It also actively seeks to raise awareness about the importance of interpreting in the world by referring to its place in our daily lives via meetings, panels and conferences and developing projects.
The prominence of translation sector in Turkey is on the rise in parallel with the steady growth of the country’s volume of import and export with the rest of the world. In tandem with the rising demand on translation services, the number of translation offices in Turkey is growing as well. In our country, where approximately 5,000 translation offices operate, the translation services have become more widespread, albeit incurring decrease in price and quality. The fact that the technological advancement did not reach the quality of human-made work the fact has an effect as well. At this juncture, it has become more important for translation agencies to employ experienced and expert translators. Customer satisfaction and references are crucial for translation agencies. Otherwise, firms compromise customer satisfaction and undermine the reliability of the whole industry. Another issue that actors in the translation sector need to consider is that they are aware of the language as a living being and require an innovative approach in this direction.
Translators have to also keep in mind that language is a living organism and thus keep themselves up to date with the changes in language. In this regard, translator should not restrict themselves to merely translating texts sent by customers. Rather they must keep up with the linguistic trends. The subsequent benefits created by this dynamic approach in education, health and public sectors cannot be insignificant.
Growth of Translation Services Industry
The translation sector, which was projected to grow by 42% between 2010 and 2020 by the US Bureau of Statistics, reached $ 37 billion in the world by 2018. US holds the largest share in this pie while European and Asian countries follow respectively. Moreover, the translation sector is relatively less affected by the global economic crises. The advancement in computer technologies has also had positive effects. Today, it is also been observed that the companies benefiting from latest technology artificial intelligence technologies outpace their competitors.
It has been widely acknowledged that the translation market is not been heavily impaired by recessions. On the other hand, the sector is very fragmented, with military contractors and top companies claim the largest spot. The reason for the constant growth of the market is related to the globalization. In parallel with the expansion of the industry, machine translation technologies are rapidly growing as well. Those companies implementing cutting edge translation technology will reap the benefits from an already growing market.
According to the Common Sense Advisory (CSA), the volume of translation sector will reach to 56.18 billion $ in 2021. The significance of localization services shall be ever more important in in this globalization propelled process. As globalization requires multinational companies to appeal to local tastes and cultures, the mere translation of texts is not sufficient; rather the original content to local cultures and linguistic characteristics. According to the CSA, voice search shall be another indispensable feature of internet browsing. It is predicted that in 2020, %50 of search queries will be based on voice search. Popular applications such as Apple’s Siri, Samsung Bixby or Google’s Home Assistant facilitate this process. As a result, brands all over the world must not only take keywords types by customers but also the accent and dialects of the person speaking. The last item that shall be all the fashion is video contents. According to Cisco Study Visual Networking Index (VNI), one million minutes of video content shall be downloaded or stream every second in 2021. Advertisements in video format continues to be the most popular content type in internet. Due to the popularity of video advertising, demand for video translation services such as voiceover and subtitling will be high.
On the other hand, despite all advancement in AI technologies, the demand for human effort in translation will never end. It is due to the fact that, language is a human-specific structure by nature.
