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“Optimum-Cost-Ware” in Translator Training for the Localisation Market

2004 Winner of the LRC Best Scholar Award, Manuel Mata, tells us about his winning proposal

Originally published in December 2004 issue of Localisation Focus. To learn more about Localisation Focus, click here.

Over the past decade or so, translator-training institutions (TTIs) around the world have been making substantial efforts to successfully meet the demands of the localisation market. Initiatives aimed at including localisation as a subject matter within TTIs’ existing curricula and courses, in order not to lag behind the ever-changing needs of the localisation market, have often involved major investments by TTIs, which still face a number of obstacles concerning not only pressing infrastructure and equipment costs but also a shortage or lack of lecturing time allocated to localisation, grant schemes, trainers' training initiatives and research funding.

Within this context, "optimum-cost-ware" (OCW) may open up promising opportunities to achieve a more affordable and successful approach to translator training for this market. The notion of OCW embraces two sides of the same coin:

A pool of readily available resources whose cost may be affordable to any TTI willing to implement them —including fullyfledged commercial products under special pricing conditions, beta versions, (satel-)lite versions, demos, shareware, freeware, open-source software or self-made solutions.

A thoroughgoing review of the long-term objectives and overall methodological approach normally adopted in translator Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training including, as core aspects for its redefinition: promoting the ability for self-learning, adapting to new work environments and empowering students.

Hence, OCW refers not only to the kind and the number of tools being used in the learning process but also to new ways of using them that entail questioning some product-based, interface-driven learning strategies usually employed in this field, in addition to other aspects of learning such as the materials and assessment systems employed.

The adoption of an OCW-based approach to translator training entails a cost shift whereby the actual barrier is no longer the price of a certain commercial product, but the factored cost of long-term investment in renewed training strategies. Today the high or prohibitive price of buying, putting into place, maintaining and upgrading a certain product for academic purposes no longer seems to be a valid excuse. In fact, just a few years ago TTIs were obliged to acquire a specific licence package at market prices or with a symbolic and oftentimes token discount in the best-case scenario. Today, however, other possibilities are on hand, ranging from free packages and substantial volume-based discounts to a wide variety of inkind licensing schemes (through advertising or different sponsorship or collaboration formulas). It seems that Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tool developers are gradually becoming aware of the advantages that can be garnered from their product(s) being used in translator training centres.

With regard to the use of OCW for streamlining the learning process, once TTIs’ existing curricula are reviewed, it seems as if most of them, especially at undergraduate level, are still focusing their objectives, methodological grounds, course materials and assessment practices on an underlying training model based on just a handful of highly priced commercial applications —namely, half a dozen well-known translation memory systems or localisation suites—. Thus, the teaching/learning process is, more often than not, geared by a "(single-)application-towards-processes" approach rather than by a "processes-through-(many) applications" approach.

This model is proving to be reasonably successful. However, not only does it entail a substantial investment effort (barely affordable to many); it also reflects an approach to translator training which neglects some essential aspects of effective training such as the authentic empowerment of learners and the true development of life-long (self) learning skills. It is partly the TTIs’ responsibility to provide translators with the necessary elements and skills during their initial training to be in the best possible position to take their own personal decisions. To a great extent, the breadth of their professional horizons will largely depend on such decisions, and an OCW-based approach to learning may greatly facilitate such a complex task.

Manuel Mata Pastor received a BA degree in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Granada in 1989. He currently lectures in localisation and CAT tools at the Universidad Complutense and the Universidad Autónoma, both in Madrid, as well as in several postgraduate courses. He also works as a freelance localiser and as a strategic consultant for the Spanish globalization company Linguaserve. He can be reached at manuel.mataNOSPAM@uam.es (remove NOSPAM to email).