Machine translation and the translation industry

Machine translation and the translation industry

Since the advent of machine translation a persistent issue has been whether it shall be the death knell for the translation industry as a whole. This most certainly has not been the case, but it has dramatically altered the playing field through its effects on the supply and demand scenario. If the translator has not already done so, he or she will have no choice but to embrace it at some point and use it to his or her advantage.

Take a look at the following trends:

1. With globalization and the growth of the internet, the number of suppliers in the translation industry has grown remarkably over the years. The fact that it is an industry that lends itself perfectly to distribution via the internet means that competition from low cost environments has also increased. All this has entailed downward pressure on the fees which can be charged for translation services, and unit prices that can be charged have dropped over the last 15 years.
2. Machine translation in its early days produced many humorous anomalies, but with time the technology has improved to the extent that it can now be used as an important productivity aid. It can not replace a professional translation service, but it can be used to assist it, especially where style and literary quality are not of paramount importance.
3. Many translation agencies now ask their suppliers to use CAT software to prepare translation memories and deliver these with the translations. They even ask their suppliers to append terminology lists, although compliance with this requirement is understandably poor when there is no remuneration attached to this. The net effect, however, is that supplier translations can now be used more widely, even by other suppliers when preparing their translations. Strictly speaking this would represent a copyright breach, but many agencies now incorporate waivers in their supplier agreements, and the suppliers working for such agencies are normally just too glad to get the work.       

The net effect of all of this, even though most translators would be loath to admit it, is that many have had to resort to machine translation to offset fall in line prices and increase their own productivity.  Indeed many suppliers of CAT software (including SDL Trados), which is specifically targeted towards translation professionals, are now incorporating machine translation (typically Google translate) into their translation workflow. This is patent recognition of the fact that machine translation is now well and truly part of the human translator’s toolkit.

Proz.com, perhaps the largest network of translators on the web, has published a number of polls revealing the attitudes of its members towards MT.  

Below is a summary of several of these.  

What is clear from these polls is that most translators still scorn MT. However, a sizable proportion have embraced it and do use it. As we know from other historical innovations, with everything from the  car to the mobile phone, the proportion of those embracing this new technology is likely to increase.

Translators are clearly proud of their profession, and don't like the idea that machines will someday replace them. I am certainly with them on that, and am proud of my work too, but to stay competitive one has to know when to use this technology as a productivity aid, and when not to do so.