Translation and Technology

Translation and Technology
  
Demand for translation services has increased considerably over the past 
decade or so, exacerbated by a number of factors, including the growing emphasis in business on globalisation, the advent of the World Wide Web as an international marketing tool, the rise of the software localisation Industry, and the increasing opportunities for international trade. 
In Europe, the forging of closer trading relationships between countries, and more recently, the enlargement of the European Union, have highlighted awareness of the need for translators, and again fuelled demand for their services. In view of this growing requirement for translation services, translators today are under pressure to produce high-quality translations in ever shorter time periods. 
A summary of the freelancer activities forming the basis of the present study is provided in Table I below, together with some examples of software applications that might be used by freelance translators to support these activities. 

Research Method
The questionnaire was organised into the following sections:

• Translator profile: covering demographic data; details of translator training and qualifications; ICT knowledge and skills.
• ICT familiarity and usage: covering general-purpose software,translation-specific software, other specialised software (financial management packages), web-based language resources, online tools, and communications technologies.
• ICT strategy: covering translators' opinions and thoughts about ICT use in their translation workflow, their perceptions of translation technologies, and their approaches to business planning and strategy issues.

Overview of Survey Findings
A total of 591 usable responses were received from the 1400 questionnaires mailed out. In the pre-screening exercise, 152 of those responses were eliminated on the grounds that the respondents reported that translation was not their principal job, but rather an activity that they combine with other undertakings, such as teaching, training, or interpreting.

Profile of Survey Respondents
Data gathered about computing knowledge and skills indicated that, whilst some translators had attended computing courses / workshops, or taken IT modules as part of their university degree programmes, the overwhelming majority (85%) had acquired their computing skills on a ‘teach-yourself basis’. Only a small minority had obtained any form of formal qualification in some aspect of ICT.

Adoption of Information and Communication Technologies
Respondents were asked to indicate the software applications they use in their translation work:
Document production activities: word processing software was in widespread use (99% of respondents were using it). Smaller numbers of respondents (25%) used graphical or presentation software (e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint), and 17% used desktop publishing packages. 
Information search and retrieval activities: Internet search engines were in widespread use (85% of respondents used them). A high proportion of respondents (79%) consulted online dictionaries and /or glossaries, and 59% made use of multilingual terminology databanks. 
Translation creation activities: Computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, such as translation memory (e.g. Trados, Déjà Vu, SDLX and Transit), were being used by 28% of the translators. Just under half of the respondents were not familiar with these tools at all. 
Communication activities:  Electronic mail was in widespread use (93% of the translators used it).
Marketing and work procurement activities: Respondents were asked whether they had their own web site to promote their translation services; 21% responded in the affirmative. 
Business management activities: Among the conventional software used to support business management activities, the findings revealed that many respondents (79%) used spreadsheet packages. 

Attitudes towards ICT
The overwhelming majority of translators believed ICT to be important to support each of the various groups of activity discussed earlier, particularly for communication activities and for information retrieval activities, such as terminology identification and locating relevant background reference material. There was widespread agreement among the respondents about the benefits they derived from their ICT usage.

ICT Adoption Strategies
The freelancers demonstrated a cautious and, in ICT strategy terms, a quite mature approach to ICT adoption.

Discussion and Implications
With regard to the uptake of ICT by freelance translators in the UK, the findings of the survey indicate that there has been widespread adoption of general-purpose software applications to support a number of the activities involved in the freelance translator's workflow.
With regard to ICT adoption decisions, the findings indicated that the freelance translators in the sample were typically concerned to invest in technology that would help improve their efficiency and productivity as translators.
For those responsible for training translators, the study's findings highlight the value of encouraging students to develop proficiency skills in the use of general-purpose software applications, not just word processing software, but also graphical / presentation packages (e.g. MS PowerPoint), spreadsheets and databases.

Conclusions
The results of a statistical analysis suggest that general-purpose software applications are widely used, but there is less evidence of translation-specific tools being adopted. Whilst this research presents a number of important insights into the uptake of ICT by freelancers, there is still a need for more follow-up studies.