May 29 2006

Translation to Be Supervised

Published by at May 29, 2006 11:10 pm under Translation

China will set up a translation assessment panel to supervise the quality of translation work and regulate the market, which has long been plagued by disorder and unfair competition, industry management officials said in Shanghai yesterday.

The announcement followed the opening of the First China International Forum on Translation Industry at Tongji University yesterday. Nearly 200 scholars, officials and translation professionals from about 20 countries and regions attend the two-day forum.

Organized by the Translation Association of China, the assessment panel will consist of university translation professors, veteran working translators and other organizational professionals with years of translation theory studies and practice.

The panel will be responsible for assessing the quality of translation products, translation training institutes and programs, as well as evaluating translation service providers’ qualifications according to the country’s existing translation industry standards and regulations.

Assessment results will likely be passed on to government and market watchdogs. The group won’t have the power to close down companies that do unsatisfactory work, change school curriculums or force any organization to change, however.

It will have the authority to send out public warnings to businesses and consumers about translation companies that aren’t doing quality work.

China currently has more than 3,000 registered translation companies, which reported revenues of 20 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) last year, up from 11 billion yuan in 2003.

More than 60,000 translators are employed by professional organizations, while several more hundreds of thousands of translators work part time or on a freelance basis.

Read more

One response so far

One Response to “Translation to Be Supervised”

  1. Almabrokon 16 Mar 2007 at March 16, 2007 6:13 am

    Pls. advise if there is any study / survey on assessing translation quality En/chinese or vice versa.