1. ATC Annual Conference 2008 1 Media Langues Translator’s Price and Training: Quality Indicators ? Giselle Sanchez

2. ATC Annual Conference 2008 2 Media Langues Translation: an unregulated profession Anyone can become a translator  Graduates, any level  Inexperienced bilinguals  From 20-year olds to retired workers

3. ATC Annual Conference 2008 3 Media Langues 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

4. ATC Annual Conference 2008 4 Media Langues 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%) FR>ENEN>FR 37 translators36 translators (U.K., France)(France, Belgium)

5. ATC Annual Conference 2008 5 Media Langues Translator Background Education  Translation: 27  Humanities and business: 29 (law, literature...)  Sciences: 6 (medicine, engineering, sciences) All freelancers

6. ATC Annual Conference 2008 6 Media Langues 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)

7. ATC Annual Conference 2008 7 Media Langues Usability in the translation industry 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

8. ATC Annual Conference 2008 8 Media Langues 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.

9. ATC Annual Conference 2008 9 Media Langues 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

10. ATC Annual Conference 2008 10 Media Langues Examples FRENERR Produit bioBio product-3 Sèche serviette électrique Electric towel dryer-2 Écran de connexionConnection screen

11. ATC Annual Conference 2008 11 Media Langues Test Details.2 5 tests of ~300 words each  Technical, medical, legal, financial, general  No time limit

12. ATC Annual Conference 2008 12 Media Langues 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

13. ATC Annual Conference 2008 13 Media Langues Prices Average: 0,088€ / source word (0,077€ / target word) (Average price of translators who declined test: 0,091€ / source word) Average: 0,086€ / source word

14. ATC Annual Conference 2008 14 Media Langues Score Distribution 100% of terms are -2 errors 15% of terms are - 2 errors 30% of terms are - 2 errors

15. ATC Annual Conference 2008 15 Media Langues Score vs. Price Price (€/ source word)

16. ATC Annual Conference 2008 16 Media Langues Score vs. Age and Experience

17. ATC Annual Conference 2008 17 Media Langues Scores vs. Education 77 82 66 Translation Sciences Humanities T-test Humanities/ Translation : P = 0,05

18. ATC Annual Conference 2008 18 Media Langues Price vs. Education Translation Sciences Humanities 0,083 0,094 0,088 T-test Humanities/ Translation : P = 0,29

19. ATC Annual Conference 2008 19 Media Langues Hiring Criteria Criterion<0,07€0,07- 0,08€ 0,08- 0,09€ >0,09€Transla- tion studies Other studies Score >70 23%57%75%85%78%60% Score >80 15%30%63%44%41%34%

20. ATC Annual Conference 2008 20 Media Langues 85% of translators < 0.7€

21. ATC Annual Conference 2008 21 Media Langues 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.

22. ATC Annual Conference 2008 22 Media Langues Perspectives  Compare translation diplomas  Develop standard terminology-based tests  Direct measure  Practical

23. ATC Annual Conference 2008 23 Media Langues Acknowledgements Aurélie Devynck, Master TSM (Traduction Spécialisée Multilingue), Université Lille 3