The language industry is the sector of activity dedicated to facilitating multilingual communication, both oral and written. According to the European Commission's Directorate-General of Translation, the language industry comprises following activities: translation, interpreting,

subtitling Subtitles are texts representing the contents of the audio in a film, television show, opera or other audiovisual media. Subtitles might provide a transcription or translation of spoken dialogue. Although naming conventions can vary, caption ...

dubbing Dubbing (also known as re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and the video production process where supplementary recordings (known as doubles) are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production audio to cr ...

, software and website globalisation, language technology tools development, international conference organisation, language teaching and linguistic consultancy. According to the Canadian Language Industry Association, this sector comprises translation (as seen in interpreting, subtitling and localisation), language training and language technologies. The European Language Industry Association limits the sector to translation, localisation, internationalisation and globalisation. An older, perhaps outdated view confines the language industry to computerised

language processing In psycholinguistics, language processing refers to the way humans use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Language processing is considered to be a uniquely human ability that is ...

and places it within the information technology industry. An emerging view expands this sector to include

editing Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written language, written, Image editing, visual, Audio engineer, audible, or Film editing, cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing p ...

for authors who write in a second language, especially English, for international communication.

Services

The scope of services in the industry includes: *

Translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

Editing Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written language, written, Image editing, visual, Audio engineer, audible, or Film editing, cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing p ...

for authors:

author editing An authors' editor is a language professional who works "with authors to make draft texts fit for purpose". They edit manuscripts that have been drafted by the author (or authors) but have not yet been submitted to a publisher for publication. Thi ...

for publishers, e.g.

copy editing Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (" copy") to improve quality and readability, as well as ensuring that a text is free of errors in grammar, style, and accuracy. '' The C ...

proofreading Proofreading is a phase in the process of publishing where galley proofs are compared against the original manuscripts or graphic artworks, to identify transcription errors in the typesetting process. In the past, proofreaders would place corr ...

(including

computer-assisted reviewing Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

developmental editing Developmental editing is a form of writing support that comes into play before or during the production of a publishable manuscript, in fiction, non-fiction, and academic writing (including textbooks). As explained by Scott Norton in his book ''De ...

Language interpretation Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...

Language education Language education refers to the processes and practices of teaching a second language, second or foreign language. Its study reflects interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary approaches, usually including some applied linguistics. There are f ...

Computer-assisted translation Computer-aided translation (CAT), also referred to as computer-assisted translation or computer-aided human translation (CAHT), is the use of software, also known as a translator, to assist a human translator in the translation process. The tr ...

tools development *

Terminology extraction Terminology extraction (also known as term extraction, glossary extraction, term recognition, or terminology mining) is a subtask of information extraction. The goal of terminology extraction is to automatically extract relevant terms from a gi ...

Language localisation Language localisation (or language localization) is the process of adapting a product's translation to a specific country or region. It is the second phase of a larger process of product translation and cultural adaptation (for specific countries ...

Software localisation In computing, internationalization and localization ( American) or internationalisation and localisation (British), often abbreviated i18n and l10n respectively, are means of adapting to different languages, regional peculiarities and technical r ...

Machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

The persons who facilitate multilingual communication by offering individualized services—translation, interpreting, editing or language teaching—are called

language professional Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...

Evolution

Translation (and interpretation) as actcivities, have existed since mankind started developing

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

. That is to say that the origins of language industry are older than those of

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

. The communication industry has developed rapidly following availability of the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. Achievements of the industry include the ability to quickly translate long texts into many languages. This has created new challenges as compared with the traditional activity of translators, such as that of

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

. There are various

quality standards Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach place ...

such as the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

ISO 17100 ISO 17100:2015 Translation Services-Requirements for Translation Services was published on May 1, 2015. It was prepared by the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee ISO/TC 37 ISO/TC 37 is a technical committee w ...

(used in Europe), the CAN CGSB 131.10-2017 in Canada and ASTM F2575-14 in the US. A study commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation estimated the language industry in European member states to be worth 8.4 billion euro in 2008. The largest portion, 5.7 billion euros, was ascribed to the activities of translation, interpreting, software localisation and website globalisation. Editing was not taken into consideration. The study projected an annual growth rate of 10% for the language industry. At the time the study was published, in 2009, the language industry was less affected by the economic crisis than other industry sectors. One field of research in the industry includes the possibility of

machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

fully replacing human translation.

Controversies

Rates for translation services had become a big discussion nowadays as several translation outsourcers allegedly go in search of cheap labor. Professional associations like the

International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) is an international professional association of translators and interpreters based in Argentina. History Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, IAPTI was established on ...

have in the past try to put a stop to this development. Currency fluctuation is yet another important factor. Apart from this, other phenomena such as

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

appear in large-scale translations. US President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

drew criticism after a 2009 White House white paper proposed incentives for automatic translation.Letter from ATA to President Obama

References

External links

(1991-1995)
CAN CGSB 131.10
{{Industries Translation companies Service industries