News and views
Redefining translation quality
Translation Quality in the Age of Digital Transformation, an anthology of articles edited by Jean-Marc Dalla-Zuanna and Christopher Kurz, appeared in 2020 (BDÜ Fachverlag). It contains a postface by Deborah Fry entitled “Musings on Translation Quality”. In it, she argues that new developments in translation technology are leading to a more differentiated translation market, and that a nuanced and mature approach to translation quality by all concerned is required.
Positioning language services in the digital age
Deborah Fry’s article “Strategien für Sprachendienste im Zeitalter des digitalen Wandels” is contained in Quo Vadis Sprachendienst? (BDÜ Fachverlag 2020), the second volume of contributions based on the BDÜ’s regular Tag der Sprachendienste conference for in-house translators. The article, which is based on the keynote presentation Deborah gave at the 2018 meeting, looks at how in-house language services departments must redefine themselves for digital transformation. It sets out a vision of language services departments as “spiders in the corporate web”, or competence centers, and identifies technology smarts, management expertise, and soft skills as vital additional components of language professionals’ profiles.
Camels interview – Translators better be good
A July 2024 interview with Edith Vangelhof of Camels on how translators can continue to control their own destinies in the age of NMT and AI can be found on the Camels website at https://www.camels.at/aktuelle...
The key message: to be in control of our own destinies as translators, we'd better be – and stay – good.
Future-proofing translation providers
Deborah Fry’s German-language article on future business models for translators - “Nicht mehr ohne die Maschine? Geschäftsmodelle für Übersetzer” - appeared in MDÜ 5/19 (p. 10ff.).
Translation survival skills workshop (November 2019)
A German review of Deborah’s workshop at the BDÜ’s Übersetzen und Dolmetschen 4.0 conference (“Schneller, höher, weiter? Kompetenzen und Positionierung für freiberufliche Übersetzer im Zeitalter der NMÜ”) was published in MDÜ 6/19 (p. 25).