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By: Kumudini Menda

Key words: Entrepreneur, translation, career, commercial, language professional, economy

Speaking more than one language has been found to have many advantages such as social, psychological, better life style and some health benefits too.  Also, in the International market the demand of language professionals have increased immensely because it has been identified that the abilities they posses are of extreme significance for any enterprise working in the international arena. From the career point of view, bilinguals have wider range of career opportunities. Knowledge of one or more foreign languages can open many satisfying career options, in this digital era. The world of linguists, it has rather expanded to places and boundaries it had earlier never thought of reaching.

Starting with teaching or training the language, there are several alternate career options a language professional can have. To name them a few are, voice over, writing, web designing, content writing, citizen journalism, translation, transcreation, interpretation etc. Depending upon their ability, expertise and interest, language professionals can be absorbed in the range of organizations including universities and colleges, high tech companies, research institutions, consulting firms, government, and the military. 

Given below are some of the professions which are all language related but there are many differences between the training, skills, and talents needed for each of them. Some of them require in-depth knowledge of one or more foreign languages and for some professions not necessarily you need to speak foreign languages, but such knowledge can be useful for them. 

Translation
The job of the translator is to translate the written material from one language to another. This career demands the ability to write and express very well like native or near natives in the target language.
Interpretation
Interpreters help in interpretation spoken words at conferences, meetings, trials, hospitals and anywhere else that interpretation is needed, at times simultaneous or giving a translation after speakers have finished speaking.
Language teaching and training
Language teaching may involve teaching a foreign language to students from primary/elementary schools to universities and colleges.
Voice over
It is also known as off camera or off stage commentary. It is a production technique where a voice is not a part of narrative but is used in Radio, TV production, film making and other presentations to represent a character or to provide information to an audience or user.
Transcreation
This is the process of adapting a message from one language to another, while maintaining its intent, style, tone and context.
Linguistics
Linguists mainly do the scientific study of the nature and characteristics of human language.
Forensic linguist
Forensic linguists perform language analysis on emergency calls, suicide letters, threat communication and social media during legal proceedings for law firms, the police and/or the government to help solve crime. Other areas they may be involved in as a forensic linguist include trademark disputes, author identification and language analyses of asylum seekers. Forensic linguists working with the CIA or FBI in the US would work on matters of national security.

Above are some of the alternate career options for language professionals where they can excel according to their proficiency. In any of the above said fields, language professional have opportunity to apply one’s own knowledge, skills and competencies and consistently evolve and apply new ideas at the individual level or collectively with the team. In most of the cases, it is one person enterprise that generates employment and wealth and contributes to the economic development of the country.
 

In the present scenario where socialism is collapsing, the economies are becoming more Capitalistic. Hence rich is getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer, inequality is increasing and the power and the money is concentrated among the few. And these few are entrepreneurs!

So if you are a language professional this is the timely and a better choice to become an entrepreneur as this is the way ahead!!

Let’s discus how, a language professional can be a better entrepreneur. From discovering new problems, making better decisions, to improving the communication skills — learning a foreign language can be a great help to an individual to think differently to increase his/ her chances of success.

Latest researches indicate that translators and entrepreneurs have some strong common characteristics. Both are goal oriented, they are doers, not thinkers, they have strong communication skill and above all they are self motivated individuals and understand what they are looking from their work. Studies done by various researchers in past decade have shown that bilinguals perform better then monolinguals in a range of cognitive and social tasks, from verbal to non verbal tests to how well they can read other people. This is only because bilinguals can block out their own feelings and beliefs in order to concentrate on the other person’s with greater understanding and this helps them dealing with others in much better way than monolinguals making them more successful businessmen.

The creation of new business organization is a contributing factor for social and economical growth of the nation as it creates new employment directly and indirectly. This way an entrepreneur provides Economic prosperity to the country which is the keystone of commercial development. Further, the commercial development of any country is directly related to the social welfare and infrastructure facilities, giving better living conditions to its citizens.

​                                                 I won’t be exaggerating, if I say that entrepreneurship is seen as a saviour for our society and economy.
 

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Reference:
https://semioticon.com/semiotix/2010/03/the-translator-as-entrepreneur-an-indian-perspective

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