HUANG Youyi

Vice President and Secretary General

Translators Association of China

The world we are living in is one that features both economic globalization and cultural diversity. They have become two parallel trends in our times. To reach consensus in a linguistically and culturally diversified world, so as to push forward regional and global development goals for the benefit of the human race, a vehicle or bridge is indispensable. That bridge is translation.

Literary translation is an important bench mark of the development and scale of translation industry. The works of all major Western authors have been translated by Chinese translators and published in China, of course including The Tim Drum by the German literary Nobel winner Gunter Grass. Meanwhile Chinese translators have also bravely rendered representative works by Chinese authors into foreign languages like English and German, such as The Dream of the Red Mansion, one of the four major classical works, and contemporary authors Wang Meng, Feng Jicai and Tie Ning.

Translation has been embedded in every corner of our lives that it is hard to imagine what the world will be without translation. Ms. Betty Cohen, former President of the International Federation of Translators, made a very vivid comparison：“We are like the electricity in the wires and the water in the tap. They are so natural to most of us that it is only when they are unavailable that we realize how useful they are.”

As translation is the bridge for international communication, the quality of translation is vital to the result of such communication, the same is definitely true for literary translation. This presentation aims to introduce the current situation in the translation market and how to improve the situation.

The Chinese translation market: quantity vs. quality

Translation used to be done by in-house staff only before the 1980s in China. Government departments, publishers, state-owned enterprises all had full-time translation teams then. But with the rapid increase in translation demand as a result of China’s opening-up and the globalization trend, translation work has largely been outsourced to translation agencies which boomed in the 1990s and the beginning of this century. Accurate figures on the size of the translation market in China are not available, but the accepted estimation by industry analysts and players is between RMB 20 to 30 billion (roughly USD300 – 400 million) and is still growing steadily each year. Admitted or not, translation has become an industry in its own right.

The rapid growth of the translation market brings unprecedented opportunities as well as huge challenges to the industry. The translation market is far from regulated with little qualification-based entry requirements in many cases, and professional training is too limited in scale to meet the huge market demand for translators and interpreters. In addition, misconceptions about translation still prevail. As a result, poor translations can be found everywhere, on street signs, in tourist brochures and among translated books. Many end users find it hard to engage a reliable agency to handle their translation needs, though translation agencies are numerous. These facts reflect a severe problem in the translation field:  while the quantity of translation work surges, it is becoming ever harder to maintain the quality of translation. Inferior translation products and services result in losses to the end users as well as a crisis of trust in the industry, making it hard to safeguard the rights and interests of the practitioners.

How to improve translation quality?

Based on my 30years of experience with publishing in foreign languages and 20 years of experience with the Translators Association of China (TAC), I believe that translation quality can only be improved by concerted effort by relevant government departments and professional associations. Specific measures are suggested below:

1.       Promote the training of T&I professionals

The huge gap between market demand and the limited number of qualified, especially top-level translators and interpreters, is at the core of the quality problem. Therefore, training of professional translators and interpreters is of primary importance to uplifting the overall quality in translation.

University education. Translation had long been regarded as a subsidiary of language learning or linguistics in China, which contributed to the misconceptions that any bilingual person can all serve as translators. In the past four years, however, encouraging development have emerged: Bachelor’s degree on translation and interpreting was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2006, and the MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting ) program was approved by the Academic Degree Office under the State Council in 2007. These new degree programs fill in the gap of university education for high-level professional translators, and together with master and doctor degrees on translation studies approved earlier, formed a complete educational system on translation. This symbolizes that translation has finally been recognized as an academic discipline in its own right. As of now, 15 universities have been approved to start bachelor’s degree programs on translation and interpretation, and 40 universities have been allowed to start MTI programs. More universities are launching (applying-delete) or considering to launch for such programs. This shows that professional translation training is taking on the right track.

TOT training. With the rapid development of university education for translators, the shortage of professional trainers becomes evident. As the professional association at national level, TAC has played a proactive guiding role in this respect. It began in 1997 to organize summer symposiums on translation and interpretation attended mainly by university teachers, and in 2009, it formally established its TOT training course with a Certificate in the Teaching of Translation and Interpretation at the Undergraduate Level. The first round of training was attended by some 300 teachers, the largest TOT training on translation and interpretation in the world. A training program for teachers at the MTI level has also been organized lately.

Professional development. We are facing a rapidly changing society and learning becomes a life-long task for everyone of us. Translators in particular need to update their knowledge and skills to face the challenges of the ever changing modern society. TAC has the dream of setting up a professional development institute to help translators improve their knowledge and skills all the way through their professional lives. This will help translators to improve their professional fitness and ensure quality translations.

There are also many private training institutes who offer flexible translation courses, but the quality varies since there are no generally accepted standards or practice. TAC should help to standardize the training market to ensure the best quality.

2．Institutionalize entry requirements for the translation profession

A stringent market entry system will ward off unqualified practitioners and protect the legitimate rights and interests of qualified ones. There are two levels of market entry: for individual translators and for translation agencies.

For individual translators, accreditation (mostly through exams) is usually the way to enter the translation profession. China moved to that direction as early as 2003, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security established the China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI) and appointed China International Publishing Group to carry out the program CATTI will gradually replace the old Appraisal System for translation and interpretation professionals, and become the mainstream certification of professional translators and interpreters. So far, more than 90,000 people have taken the test, and more than 14,000 passed it. The certificates provide quality assurance to recipients of T&I services and help practitioners gain respect as professionals. However, the CATTI certificate has not achieved the same status as the lawyer’s license, and has not become a prerequisite for people to enter the translation profession. Therefore, anyone who knows some foreign language can claim himself or herself to be a translator. To avoid that, CATTI certificate should be given similar status as the lawyer’s license. Of course, CATTI itself also needs to be improved to reflect closely the needs of the market.

Entry requirements for translation agencies, however, are not yet established. In some cities in China, virtually anyone with RMB10,000 Yuan can register a translation company, without showing any proof of relevant professional training or experience. This has often resulted in chaos in the translation market and poor translation quality, which in turn affects adversely the image and interest of the translation industry as a whole. In view of this, Translators Association of China has brought the issue to relevant government authorities and called for entry requirements for the registration of translation companies. In the mean time, TAC has worked with China’s standardization authorities to issue the nation’s first set of national standards on translation services, specifying, among others, what makes a qualified T&I service agency. Europe is the pioneer in this regard, and I understand that a regional standard of similar nature has been published by most EU countries. The standards lay a good foundation for setting up the entry requirements for translation service agencies and will certainly help to speed up such efforts.

3. Work out a mechanism of appraisal for translation quality

There should be a mechanism to distinguish quality service and products from poor ones. To do this, firstly there should be some criteria, and secondly, there should be a body to make the judgment.

The Target text quality requirements for translation services, the second national standard for translation services initiated and drafted by TAC can be used as the criteria. The next step then is to set up a body to do the appraisal. TAC is planning to set up a committee to mediate disputes arising over translation quality. TAC also needs to communicate with the judiciary departments for support and recognition. Once in place, the committee will help raise quality awareness in the translation field and build quality brands in the translation industry.

4. Establish a National Award for Outstanding Translations

National awards have very good exemplary effect on professionals and will encourage them to strive for excellence. There are two national awards for literary translations, the National Award of Outstanding Literature Translations run by the Writers Association of China, and the Han Suyin Award for Young Translators run by TAC. But the first one is a subsidiary of the Lu Xun Literature Award, and therefore is very limited in scope. For example, it does not take into consideration Chinese literary works translated into foreign languages; the second one target mainly at university students. A systematic set of national awards for translations should be worked out to commend excellent translation works in every field.

5．Stakeholders Join Hands to Improve Translation Quality

To ensure translation quality of literary works and non-literary documents in the long run, joint efforts by the government, trade associations, users of translation service and translation service providers are essential. I would like to take this opportunity to stress once again that, relevant government authorities and professional associations for translators need to work closely to ensure an orderly market environment, and the users of translation service (such as publishers, multinational corporations) and the translation service providers should support and cooperate with each other to ensure quality translation work.