The Creative summary by Ana Clara Caribé
What was the Gabriele Sauberer doing in India?
The immediate answer would be: She was travelling around the country with friends to see its beautiful countryside, monuments, and people. Yes, this is the most obvious answer. And it is true. However, it’s only a part of this story. Let’s start at the beginning: Who is Gabriele Sauberer. Those in the translation industry may have heard about her and her work. Gabriele Sauberer is well-known as a terminology guru. Indeed, according to the TermNet site, she is a pioneer in the professional management of EU funded projects, in European diversity management and quality management for the language industry. She indeed visited India, travelled country with friends and established a partnership with Indian Translators Association and Modlingua Group.
Quality and terminology are terms that are always together since terminology is a key component of quality assurance (QA). Gabriele Sauberer is a campaigner to raise awareness of the crucial importance of quality standards. Terminology is essential to establish quality in India as well as in other countries. Terminology and terminology management is not an issue restricted to one specific subject field, technical, literature or law. In India, for example, terminology in the pharmaceutical industry translation is considered a primary concern since this field is very susceptible to any errors.
As a quality auditor, Gabriele Sauberer explains that those who are known as “one-person enterprise” have been following standards for years now. These professional translators are very much aware of the importance to provide high-quality product in this competitive industry. It’s a matter of survival. Nowadays these professionals have the standards of China, Canada, Europe and the USA to take in consideration. These standards along with ISO 9001 provide to the industry a guideline to measure quality. It’s important to point out that following those rules is not a requirement only for big companies. They must also be followed by that solitaire translator in a remote countryside of Brazil or Sri Lanka.
A Language certification system does exist to boost the market to good quality translation, but it is not a quick process, on the contrary, it takes quite a long time, many meetings, discussions, and training on a regular base. This process is very dynamic and continuous education is a necessity.
