CEO at EICOM, Robert Etches has been in the translation business since the mid-1980s, working with everything from translation, revision and copywriting through developing online proofing tools and terminology portals to connecting know-how. Among much else Robert also took the initiative to form the Nordic CAT Group in 2010 and served on the planning committee for the March 2011 GALA conference in Lisbon. One of his areas of responsibility in TextMinded is to monitor new trends and ensure that our clients are geared to meet tomorrow’s world. View from the Edge is a collection of some of Robert’s speeches and writings.
Back to the future
The basic idea behind On the edge is to provide information on trends in the communications’ industry, especially in the fields of translation, localisation and terminology.
This inaugural article has terminology as its main theme – and before you click away in response to the yawn you can feel is on its way, hang on a second: this will save you money.
Good terminology management really is a money-spinner, even for small-medium-sized businesses (SMBs)1, and perhaps the way to your purchasing manager’s heart is via hard facts on returns on investment rather than the usual suspects: quality and consistency. God forbid that soft benefits such as quality and consistency should get in the way of ROI targets!
Terminology is a curious player in the translation stakes. Everyone says how important it is, but hardly anyone works long-term at improving or even building up company terms. And the reason for this enigma is simple enough: it’s difficult, time-consuming, and once you’ve built up the terms no-one respects them anyway.
Sellers of CAT (computer-assisted translation) software have, therefore, always focused on the joys of recycling sentences rather than terms, failing to mention that if the terms used in these sentences are wrong, then they will go on being wrong ad infinitum. Term bases are usually sold as supplementary (read superfluous) plug-ins; something for the nerds to play with while the rest of us whiz through yet another translation with the help of their workbenches and the concordance button.
Quality work, be it copywriting or translation, cannot ignore terminology. Hence my title: we need to take a step back to the linguistic pride of former times and shackle these values to the modern world in which we live and work. We have to go back to go forward, bridging the gap between Dr. Johnson and Bill Gates.
So, finally, a trend tip for you: I predict that within 3-4 years we will be generating translation memories at the click of a button, i.e. taking previously translated texts in two languages and using them as the basis for new translation memories. As such, the ability of companies to build up and maintain translation memories will become far less important.
But terminology won’t go away. In a world where Big is Beautiful and the big players will continue buying up smaller players, the need to ensure consistency of usage and message across all subsidiaries, departments, divisions, media and territories within a concern will become of paramount importance. It already is, but simply not recognized as such because: “How the devil do we get started?”
Companies that can dust off terminology’s boring image and provide their stakeholders with the means of enabling it as the exciting, key resource it truly is will continue to grow and prosper in tomorrow’s world.
