The Global Translation Sector: Past and Present
Sheryl Hinkkanen, FIT Secretary General

Mr. Liu Xiliang, President of TAC,
Fellow speakers and distinguished guests,
Esteemed colleagues,

It is a great honor and a pleasure to be here today. Peter Krawutschke, President of FIT, sends his most cordial best wishes and the entire FIT Council expresses sincere congratulations on this fine event. I also bring warm greetings from the new acquaintances in Finland that many of you made last summer during the FIT World Congress.

SLIDE: Topics of this talk
In my talk I will present some statistics about volumes and growth in the translation sector within the past few years, at the global and regional levels. I will then describe some of the recent development trends that have culminated in the creation of new standards for the translation sector. Finally, I will briefly introduce the new draft European standard for translation services.

It is not easy to get reliable, comparable statistics about the translation sector. There are major discrepancies in how statistics are kept from one country to the next. There are also great differences in how the translation sector is organized in different countries. For example, in some countries there are many freelancers who fall outside the scope of national statistics because as self-employed professionals they are not considered "companies" by the national statistics keepers.

Since there are no reliable global statistics, the best information sources are market analyses, studies done by public and private research institutions, and the translation industry itself. For this talk I have drawn statistics from several sources generally thought to be reliable, including the European Commission, Allied Business Intelligence, Inc. and Common Sense Advisory, Inc., both of the USA, as well as from recent conference presentations.

SLIDE: Breakdown of global translation market, million USD
(Allied Business Intelligence, Inc. USA)
The first thing to note from this slide is the size of the global market. At an estimated
11.6 billion US dollars in 1999 and 16.1 billion US dollars in 2004, the translation sector is an important player at the global level, and the sector is growing. The total increase in the value of the global translation market during this five-year period came to 40%. Since translation rates have not increased much during the period, the increase represents true growth in the global translation market.

The corresponding figures for human translation, which means work done by professional translators, were 7.6 billion US dollars in 1999 and 9.3 billion US dollars in 2004.

A very high growth rate, just under 75%, was seen for software localization, which rose from 3 billion US dollars to 5.2 billion US dollars at the global level. This growth rate reflects the increasing use of computers running software in local languages.

Website localization was not a large global market in 1999, when it amounted to 640 million US dollars. In 2004, however, website localization had risen to approximately 1.162 billion US dollars in value, an increase of about 80%. This growth rate reflects the widespread proliferation of information technology to new markets and globalization of the Internet.

The machine translation market also increased robustly, from 324 million US dollars in 1999 to 447 million US dollars in 2004, a rise of nearly 40%.

SLIDE: Breakdown of the 'human' translation market, million USD
(Allied Business Intelligence, Inc. USA)
This slide shows the geographic distribution of the global market for translation done by language professionals. This market analysis listed Russia separately because it spans two continents. During this five-year period, the value of this global translation market increased from 7.6 billion US dollars to 9.3 billion US dollars; these figures represent growth of just under 23%. The fastest growth took place in Europe and in Asia. Both of these markets rose by approximately 32%.


SLIDE: Translation: European Commission
This slide is based on research done by the European Commission, which runs the world's largest translation operation. Over a 12-year period, the volume of translation work done by and for the bodies of the European Commission rose a little less than 40%, from 914,649 pages in 1992 to 1,270,586 pages in 2004. The current estimate for translation by the European Commission in 2006 is about 875 million US dollars.

SLIDE: Economic significance of the translation sector
As to economic significance, the statistics lead to four conclusions:
1. The translation sector is an important economic player at the global level.
2. The sector is an essential resource in promoting international communication and globalization.
3. Forecasts indicate that the average annual growth rate between 2005 and 2010 will range between 5% and 7.5%.
4. The translation sector is a major employer. In Europe alone, statistics indicate that at least 125,000 people are employed in the translation sector either full-time or part-time. I know of no reliable confirmed information at the global level. Some studies suggest that the global figure should be doubled, to about 250,000 people employed in the translation sector worldwide.

I will now talk about the recent development trends that have led to the creation of new standards for the translation sector.

The structure of the translation sector has undergone fundamental changes at a very rapid pace. Even in the early 1990s, the translation sector was largely made up of national markets involving direct contacts between the links in the service-provision chain. Liberalization of markets, removal of barriers to competition, and, in Europe, harmonization of legislation, have changed the operational environment during the past decade.

Technological progress has brought more powerful computers, a wide range of computerized translation tools, faster data communications, and the spread of the Internet and email.

In consequence, the translation sector has evolved into a global market involving international competition and long, often multinational service-provision chains.

Standardization is one response to the altered operational environment. Standards provide guidelines that help the translation sector harmonize its activities. They also help clients determine service quality.

SLIDE: Overview of Relevant Standards in Europe
I will now briefly review the appearance of standards for the translator sector in Europe. The first European standard specific to the translation sector was introduced in 1995 in Italy. As indicated by its title, "Definition of services and activities of translation and interpreting enterprises" this standard consists of definitions, little more. The market aspects defined are:
The scope and field of application
Normative references
Terms and definitions
Service requirements
Minimum physical structure of the enterprise supplier, and
Indications for enterprises

SLIDE: GERMANY
The German DIN norm that came out three years later, is entitled "DIN 2345. Translation contracts", and was somewhat deeper. It concentrated on issues relating to contracts, from two perspectives:
1. Organizational aspects: such as quotes, contracts, the forms of delivery, hardware, software, subcontracting, confidential treatment of documents, etc. and
2. Content aspects: such as the type of text, the target audience, agreements on terminology, and the support to be provided by the client.

SLIDE: Austria
The Austrian standardization institute took a new approach and introduced two standards in 2000, one for requirements and service provision and the other for translation contracts. The Austrian standards introduced an auditing and certification process that requires reference projects for at least three years prior to application for certification. The application must be supplemented with documentation, and the applicant is then audited. If certification is granted, it is valid for three years. To retain certification, the translation service provider must be audited again at the end of the three-year validity period.

The problem here is the national character of quality auditing and certification. The certification has no formal validity or status outside Austria, and it is not known how widely the market recognizes Austrian certification.

SLIDE: Recent Work on Relevant Standards outside Europe
On other continents, too, new standards for the translation sector have been drafted lately. One is the American standard, entitled ASTM Guide to Quality Assurance in Translation and Localization.

Here in China, under the efforts of TAC, a series of standards on translation services and translation quality have been published in the last couple of years. I am very glad to be here today, as this forum will provide the opportunity for me to learn more about the new Chinese standards.

SLIDE: Translation Services – Service Requirements
The latest effort in Europe is the newly formulated CEN draft European standard for translation services, which is a regional attempt at harmonization of the translation sector. CEN is the European Committee for Standardization. The title of the draft standard is "Translation Services – Service Requirements, CEN standard EN 15038". According to CEN, the aims are
1) to define translation service provision quality and
2) to normalize the processes for delivering language services.

SLIDE: Why a new European standard?
Why was a new European standard developed? First of all, the standards existing in Europe don't specifically address translation service provision as a splintered process that often involves a number of actors in different locations – even on different continents – as well as a wide range of computerized tools, a software mix, and many tasks and steps linked in a chain.

Some existing European standards are too narrow in scope or validity. Certification according to a national standard is not widely recognized outside the local market. Other standards, such as the ISO standards, are too general because they encompass many fields.

Furthermore, the existing European standards weren't devised for a global operational environment.

Finally, the attitudes of European standardization bodies have changed. Alongside the needs for a new standard rising from within the translation sector itself, standardization bodies today are increasingly interested in providing standards for services.

SLIDE: What is the purpose of the standard?
What is the purpose of the draft standard? The underlying idea is that good-quality translation is the outcome of a good-quality service-provision process. Because a service-provision process is only as strong, or as weak, as the links in the chain, the purpose of the draft CEN standard EN 15038, therefore, is to reinforce each link of the service-provision chain.

The draft standard has four concrete objectives:
1. to ensure transparency in competition and tendering
2. to achieve well-defined relations between clients and translation service-providers
3. to establish clear relations between translation companies and individual translators, and
4. to promote understanding of the tasks a quality translation service involves.

The ultimate goal is quality assurance.

The next three slides show the Table of Contents of the draft.


SLIDE: Table of Contents: CEN prEN 15038 (1)
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR CEN standard EN 15038
The foreword and introduction
Chapter 1. The scope of the standard
Chapter 2. Terms and definitions
Chapter 3. Basic requirements
General basic requirements
Basic requirements: Human resources
Human resources management, which involves the
Professional competences of translators, the
Professional competences of revisers, the
Professional competences of reviewers, and
Continuing professional development
Basic requirements: Technical resources
Basic requirements: The quality management system, and finally
Basic requirements: Project management

SLIDE: Table of Contents: CEN prEN 15038 (2)
Chapter 4. The client-translation service provider relationship
General remarks about the relationship
The enquiry process and the feasibility of the project
Giving a quotation
The agreement between the client and the translation service provider
The handling of project-related client information
Conclusion of the project
Chapter 5. Procedures in translation services
General remarks on procedures
Managing translation projects
Preparation of translation projects
Administrative aspects of translation projects
Technical aspects of translation projects
Linguistic aspects of translation projects


SLIDE: Table of Contents: CEN prEN 15038 (3)
Chapter 5. Procedures in translation services (continued): and now, finally, we reach the:
Translation process
Step 1: Translation
Step 2: Checking
Step 3: Revision
Step 4: Review
Step 5: Proofreading
Step 6: Final verification
Chapter 6. Added value services
Chapter 7. Annexes – 5 annexes in total

SLIDE: When will it enter into force?
When will the CEN standard enter into force? For its part, the European Committee for Standardization formally approved EN 15038, the draft standard that defines translation service provision quality and normalizes processes for delivering language services, in late March 2006.

16 votes were cast in favor of adopting the new standard. There were 2 abstentions. It is important to note that not a single vote was against the new standard.

The standard must now be formally approved and officially published by the European standardization bodies that belong to CEN. This process is now underway and will take some months.

The probable time of entry into force is, therefore, in the second half of 2006.

Once the standard EN 15038 is officially published in all signatory countries, it will replace the local quality standards mentioned earlier: UNI10574 of Italy, DIN 2345 of Germany, and the two Önorms of Austria.


When EN 15038 is implemented by language service providers, CEN hopes that its use will help language service providers differentiate themselves on the basis of formal process and quality. This, in turn, will help buyers of their services make better purchase decisions.

SLIDE: Some things never change!
I would like to close this talk by pointing out a general truth. Some aspects of human nature never change. There has been translation as long as there have been languages to speak. For us as translation professionals, that is a comforting thought.

Thank you for your attention.

REFERENCES

Boucau, Fernand. Talk given at the international conference 'The European Translation Industry – Facing The Future,' Brussels, Belgium, November 25, 2005.

'Global Business Confidence Survey – Translation,' Common Sense Advisory, Inc., USA, 2004.

'Language Translation, Localization and Globalization: World Market Forecasts, Industry Drivers and eSolutions,' Allied Business Intelligence, Inc., USA, 2002.

'Language Translation World Market Assessment,' Allied Business Intelligence, Inc., USA, 1999.

Lönnroth, Karl-Johan, 'How to ensure total quality in a changing translation market – a European approach'. In: Leena Salmi, Kaisa Koskinen (eds.), Proceedings of the XVII World Congress, Tampere, 2005, pp. 30-34.

Núñez-Ferrer, Miguel. Talk given at the international conference 'The European Translation Industry – Facing The Future,' Brussels, Belgium, November 25, 2005.
（文章来源：中国译协网）