The way terminology is handled in outsourced text services is a topic that can easily evoke a reaction from the client – and also an issue that can cause friction in collaboration with translation agencies. Read below to find out what terminological aspects are involved when translating or writing for technical businesses and how to succeed in creating texts that contain specialist terminology.
Finding information from reliable sources is a big part of translation and content production
Whether it is labelled as translation or content creation, writing texts is partly about “language skills”. However, it is not only about those, not even close! In many cases, the work of a translator/content creator is akin to that of a journalist, checking facts from reliable sources. You can’t make up terms off the top of your head – otherwise you might end up translating existing terms into strange, forced neologisms that are not actually used by the experts in the field.
Reliable sources for terminology work include high-quality online dictionaries, databases and corpora, professional literature and journals, and often validated and curated company websites in appropriate industries – among many others. Theses and dissertations in technical fields can be of great help as well. A company-specific AI that is well-trained with reliable training materials and rigorously validated could, at best, be considered a reliable source. Content creation – whether AI-assisted or not – also requires fact-checking. Without this, the truth value of the text is compromised, which may have financial, security, reputational or other disadvantages for the client or the reader of the text. This should be noted especially when there might be a temptation to publish an AI-generated text blindly, without having verified its authenticity, its conformity with the commercial objectives set for it and its linguistic and cultural appropriateness.
Using tacit knowledge from the client company in the text creation process
Content creation also often requires utilising the client’s previous data (validated and not blindly machine-translated!), some of which may be publicly available and some of which may be tacit knowledge within the company. In order to make the most of the knowledge latent within the company in the text production process, there needs to be effective interaction between the language service provider and the client. Having an agreed process for communicating information ensures that terminology work is carried out efficiently and comprehensively. In these matters, it is worth being wise from afar and trying to concentrate the information in one place so that it can be easily used in subsequent text projects – in other words, it should not be forgotten in the depths of separate email conversations along the way.
Sometimes the product or technology to which a text relates may be so specific or new that there is no established vocabulary – in which case new terms may need to be developed. This kind of verbalisation work requires not only knowledge of the technological concepts of the subject area, but also an understanding of the linguistic and cultural solutions appropriate to the target market – in other words, a collaboration between the technical expert and the linguist.
How to approach terminology challenges in translation agency cooperation
For the customer, there is only one target state for terminology: industry-specific, customer-specific and product-specific terms must be correct. If a translation agency can’t seem to get to grips with the terminology, there could be many reasons.
The first step is to look at the project management framework and how information flows within it.
- Where in the service process are terminology issues communicated and what kind of sub-process has been created?
- Which channel is used to communicate terminology and who ensures that the terminology is communicated to all parties involved and updated in the translation tools?
- How do the parties ensure that information flows coherently and consistently within a project and between projects at different times?
- If a term translated in the past using the best understanding of it is found to be wrong in the light of new information later, what happens then?
Addressing these issues during or even before the start of collaboration can be fruitful and help to create a collaborative framework, one in which everyone is committed to terminology and to communicating information in a meaningful and effective way based on common practices.
A competent collaborator will strive to create a smooth, efficient solution that is as light as possible for the client, but the commitment of the client company is also important. As already mentioned, some of the term information may be so specific that it is not available anywhere else but from the client.
Terminology work and translator ethics
It is part of the translator’s ethics to only commit to translate the kind of texts they have the necessary skills for. In addition, responsible translation – or content creation – requires readiness to ask the client for clarification of the instructions/source text if necessary and to push the project over the finish line without leaving unclear issues hanging in the air. It should also be noted that sometimes the target language may be completely foreign to the client. In this case, the work ethics of the translation agency’s linguists and the internal quality process of the agency are even more important, as the client has no way of detecting possible flaws in the text itself without a separate external check by a third party.
At TellWell Translations, a quote is only given to the client once the translator (and reviser) have seen the source text and have verified that they are competent for the task – terminology and other aspects considered. This ensures that clients are not offered risky promises, but that each quote we send is based on the expertise that is genuinely available. We are happy to say that with a team of over 60 translators and a wide range of expertise in business communications texts, and several translators specialising in specific text genres, we have rarely needed to decline a project for the sake of the subject-matter.
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