Accreditation and standards - 2

RESULTS
Will anyone care if a translator is accredited? Will that really lead to greater opportunity in terms of word rates for freelance translators or salary for in-house translators? Will accredited translators get more interesting jobs, survive corporate restructuring or streamlining more readily, get better benefits or enjoy more rapid career advancement?

Of course this question is impossible to answer with certainty without implementing an accreditation exam, but I think we can make some educated guesses as to what would happen.

The development we can virtually count on will be a gray market for translators. Ultimately in the translation industry what counts is the ability to translate. Translation vendors have never expressed much interest in how or where a translator acquired translation skills, as long as the translator can provide some form of proof of competence. The most widely accepted form nowadays is experience, after that comes some form of formal education, and following that stands an accreditation exam like the ATA's.

There is no reason for a translation vendor not to use an unaccredited translator whose competence is otherwise established. In fact, if the unaccredited translator is willing to work at a slightly reduced rate, or if accredited translators are somehow in a position to demand a premium for their accreditation, then that ultimate business consideration will motivate many translation vendors to choose the unaccredited translator: cost savings. Unless and until accreditation becomes widely recognized and accepted as a sign of superior quality, as for instance ISO-9000 certification is within some industries, many vendors will likely have little preference regarding accreditation, and some may choose unaccredited translators for the cost savings.

There is the related issue of how to monitor translation vendors and their hiring practices. Just as a homeowner can choose to hire a union or non-union plumber with no consequences other than the potential risks in terms of quality of work performed, a vendor would likely not incur any risks beyond those associated with the translation ability of the translator in question, freelance or in-house. Even if laws were enacted, on a state and federal level, requiring vendors to use accredited translators when and where possible, they could never be enforced, no more than prohibition, union hiring practices, or speed limits can be consistently and thoroughly. So translation vendors can make the choices they prefer, accepting the risks associated with each as they like.

Let us also remember here that there is no effective way for translators to collectively demand higher pay, either in the form of increased salary for in-house translators or higher word rates for freelancers. Translators are barred from unionizing, and the ATA is barred from setting rates for translation, both as a result of decisions made by the Justice Department in the early 1990s. It is unlikely that this state of affairs will change, regardless of the quality accreditation guarantees.

So if there is no more or less money to be had from accreditation, perhaps a freelance translator can expect more work, and an in-house translator can expect faster promotion. In the former case, most freelance translators with a few years experience have as much work as they can handle on average, so more work would be irrelevant. And though word rates might rise for accredited translators, if the vendors are bearing some of the costs associated with accreditation, then word rates could just as easily fall. In the latter case, the differences in pay between a new translator and a senior translator, or for that matter a senior translation manager, are between $10,000 and $20,000 on average, though sometimes considerably less. Thus, if accreditation costs a translator $1,000 in terms of the fee for the exam, travel expenses to take the exam, and other direct and indirect expenses and losses associated with taking the exam, then the promotions have to come quickly enough to justify this. Quantifying this to a precise degree is not possible in this article, but the example above does suggest that accreditation could not have too much value in a corporate environment.

To sum up, there is no particular motivation for translation vendors to prefer accredited translators unilaterally. Given the choice between an accredited translator and a translator with no training, experience, or credentials, most vendors would pay the extra for the former individual. Given the choice between a seasoned translator with formal academic training but no accreditation and a translation newbie with no experience but a newly-minted accreditation, I suspect most vendors would work with the former individual. Combine this reasoning with the practical impossibility of creating and implementing an accreditation exam and the system to back it up, and I am convinced that a nationwide accreditation system run by the government is a bad idea with few if any possible benefits to translators or the translation industry.

CAN WE AVOID ACCREDITATION? AN ALTERNATIVE
So if you agree with the above argument, or if you are curious to see if I am just criticizing the system, then I am happy to report that I do have a few thoughts as to how we can avoid accreditation while still improving the translation industry for translators and translation vendors, and raising translation quality.

The translation industry at present is a meritocracy. Those who can do the work get more work; those who cannot do the work are given the chance to learn if they so choose, and once they can do the work, they get more work. All others are rapidly dismissed from the profession. In the translation industry, all translators, regardless of background, education, or accreditation, start at the bottom. You have to prove yourself and your ability to each new client or employer, though this process becomes ever shorter the longer you stay in the profession. You prove your ability by taking vendor translation tests and by doing quality translation work. Degrees, certificates, and accreditation seem mostly to help accelerate the speed with which you get your first translation job and become one of the primary translators for an organization if you are a freelancer, or the ease with which you land your first in-house position and perhaps how quickly you are promoted.

Meritocracies are good, I believe, because not only do they recognize and reward quality work while punishing inferior efforts, but also because they give fair access to all who want to enter, and as a result, force those who are in to keep their skills sharp. Just because I am an established translator with a clientele who seems to appreciate my ability doesn't mean I can slack off. I still have to maintain and improve my language skills, keep up with changes and developments in the subjects I work in, and upgrade or extend my arsenal of business tools. I am competing with both other established translators who can do what I can, and would, I presume, be perfectly willing to step in and take my place with my clients, as well as newcomers who are itching to get a chance to prove themselves, who are hungry to do work, and who will not hesitate to pick up any slack I let out. This is a powerful motivation for me to maintain and improve myself as a translator, and it is a strong motivation for newcomers insofar as they know, or should know, that they will be given a chance soon enough.

Meritocracies do have their limitations. I know some translators who complain that vendors do not treat them with respect, accuse them of low-quality work, and even try to rip them off. I know people who work at translation agencies who complain about the difficulties of sifting the wheat from the chaff among the 50 or more translation résumés or brochures they receive each week, who decry the lack of good translators who submit quality work on time, and who long for some consistency in quality and professionalism from translators.

I agree with all of the above, though I do not think accreditation would do anything to change any of it. An accredited translator may still be unprofessional, an agency may choose to ignore one's accreditation. What's more, agencies will have to verify the claims of accreditation for each and every translator they choose to work with, something that will likely take time and cost money. And translators may still feel as though they have little recourse for dealing with bad vendors.

As for the matter of unprofessional translators or bad translation vendors, I have made suggestions in previous articles as to how to handle specific situations, such as late payment or no payment, when they arise. Translators can cooperate to keep track of information about vendors among themselves so as to avoid bad vendors; agencies can keep good translators by paying them promptly and fairly. Translators can increase repeat customers by doing quality work and submitting it on time; agencies can ask for sample translations and start new translators off with small assignments as a way to sift the wheat from the chaff, as well as perhaps placing more value on education or formal training for translators.

In essence, the current system, such as it is, in the translation industry may not seem to work particularly well, but it is preferable to accreditation, and can be improved in a few simple ways. All of the complaints in the preceding paragraphs really have to do with a lack of understanding and communication regarding expectations. This stems primarily from two areas: One, a lack of understanding regarding what translation is and how it is to be performed; and two: a lack of well-defined standards for the translation industry in general, and the various kinds of translators and translation vendors in particular.

STANDARDS
The translation industry is in desperate need of some fundamental definitions. The ATA has attempted on a few occasions to issue standards, but for reasons too complex to explore here, has failed to convince translators, translation vendors, or the industry overall to accept their efforts. Other organizations have made various attempts, all without success.

This is changing, however. As mentioned in the opening of this article, the ASTM and LISA are in the process of developing standards for the translation profession. I applaud this effort and hope that the results will finally bring to this industry what it has needed for so long: some simple, clear-cut, straight-forward definitions of what a translator is, what a translator does, how a translator should translate, what constitutes a good translation, what a translation agency is and does, and how translation agencies and translators, or translation employers and translators, should interact with each other, to name a few possibilities.

Translators who want to avoid accreditation, who would prefer that our industry police itself and improve itself from within, should make every effort to become more professional in the translation work, to contribute, whether in writing or otherwise, to increasing understanding about the translation profession and the translation process, and to do quality work in a timely fashion at all times. Translation vendors similarly have responsibilities to fulfill, including making the effort to work with those translators whose abilities justify their respect, offering fair market rates for the work being done, and being willing to bear an equal share of the responsibility for quality translation work, whether through providing technology, training, or information to in-house and freelance translators, or working with organizations like the ASTM and schools like Georgetown University, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Kent State University, to develop better training programs for translation professionals.

Many translators already do the above things and then some. Many translation vendors already do the above and then some. Obviously there are enough who do not that the industry as a whole is considering accreditation as a way to resolve existing problems and avoid new ones. I hope I have shown how accreditation will create far more problems than it will solve, and how a reasonable effort from all members of the industry along with standards and definitions from a respectable, independent organization will allow the translation industry to move forward successfully into its future.

(By Roger Chriss - USA)

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