By Kiranmayee Y
The 7 quality standards applicable globally were first exemplified in 1998 by Germans in the name of German Standard DIN 2345 in the passing by years this was taken as an initiative by other countries in preparing and setting specific quality standards to the Language translators, interpretators, service providers, companies, individual clients etc., the other quality standards which followed the German are Austrian D1201 ONORM 2000, Chinese GB/T 19365 2004, American ASTM F2575-2006, European EN 16038 2006, Canadian Standards 2008, next in the line was ISO.
These standards were set to create a proper profile for translator, service providers and also to help the client to be able to communicate with the translator to get an localized expression and understandable text in the desired target from source-which could give a clear guidelines of the know-how of the product are the matter which the client wishes to be clear and straight to the end customer.
When at one time these were not set there used to be communication gap of what the source actually meant and what was given in the target these type of miscommunication creates an havoc both to the client and translator as well. Basing on these incidents these quality standards were created to give correct information, terminology, glossary etc but after all these developments also there are still some loop holes in the quality standards which are found more while translating the source from International language to a local language.
There used to be LISA Standards once people dealing with international translations and interpretations think that these standards are no more applicable but it is not the way till to date when a IT company deploys or out sources its work in the name of segment translation, Tag translation, link translation etc ., It also sends an excel sheet along with it after the translation is submitted the reviewer which checking the quality is asked to fill in the sheet with categories of errors like critical, Major, minor so on. Depending on this the evaluating percent of the translator is determined and sometimes the comments are given in such a way by people who know less about the local language usage and who on the other hand are born and bought up outside the country with less knowledge about the language they are dealing and its terminology these are hired as in-house quality analysts who don’t have an idea of the tense changes also these review make the translators to give rework often without any pay or consideration to their extra work, dedication or time given, instead they are considered to be very poor in translation job and are incapable while these are the back ground politics being used by many without the knowledge are acceptance of what they are doing to the actual translation field.
On the other hand there would be some service providers who ask the translator to maintain the same meaning given by the client even when they are not fit enough for the scenario these in turn give in appropriate meaning to the original source when translated according to the norms of what the client thinks is correct. To make the client understand what is wrong there will even take months together so some service providers to avoid the loss of quality time they insist the translator to follow the norms given by the client even when it is found to be miscommunicated.
In some cases it is difficult for the client also to follow the translator for each and every document translated technical translation, management documents translation, legal, news, sports each and every specific subject as its own way of narration even in the local languages to know the tactics and technics a translator need to be adaptive and also master in the source language word to word translation will never give a quality sometimes it becomes meaningless.
Following maintain and knowing the 7 quality standards is a must to the translation field. At the same time there is a need for setting some standards to the clients when it comes to local languages even some service providers don’t know the difference between some local languages they just do it by the already given coding and assign the work. The standards to be set for the clients and service providers if it is a long term translation project for the company and an ongoing one they should have a basic know how of the local languages and a person who as good knowledge and who is capable of telling which form of the local language is being used and the differentiation between words used very often for a given group of words mentioned in source.
Globalization doesn’t mean that you follow only international languages in to widely known or used target language there more to it when people want to create global village it includes everything from small piece to big piece so maintain the already set quality standards and also making a path for new and upcoming changes working unitedly will be more easy for the translation world than falling apart.
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Quality Standards and their effects on Local Languages
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