Translation in a New Era

By Ji Jing

Eight translators were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation， the top honor conferred by the Translators Association of China （TAC）， for their contributions to promoting translation and cultural exchanges between China and the world at the Eighth TAC Congress in Beijing on April 1. They included Pan Yaohua， 95， who has translated over 200 English film and television series subtitles into Chinese； and Zhao Zhenjiang， 82， who has translated the Chinese literary classic A Dream of Red Mansions into Spanish. Another 117 people received the title of Veteran Translator.

Seven foreign experts who work as translators and editors in China were awarded for their outstanding contributions to introducing China to the world and promoting international exchanges. The prize was awarded for the first time and aims to encourage more foreign experts to help China better present itself to the world.

David Ferguson， Honorary Chief English Editor of the Foreign Languages Press of China International Communications Group （CICG）， who has been editing China’s political works and contributing to China’s international communication for more than 10 years， is one of the foreign experts to have received the award.

Nearly 450 TAC members took part in the conference both online and offline. During the gathering， Du Zhanyuan， President of CICG， was elected as president of the eighth council of TAC； Gao Anming， Vice President of CICG， was elected as executive vice president and secretary general of the eighth council.

TAC was founded in 1982. As the only national association in the field of translation in China， it functions as an academic as well as professional association. TAC joined the International Federation of Translators（FIT） in 1987， and a number of its representatives have been elected council members of the FIT.

Du said in the past four decades， TAC has made remarkable achievements in promoting the development of China’s translation industry and international exchanges. At present， as China is taking center stage in the world， it has become an urgent and strategic task to develop a national translation competence compatible with China’s rising international status.

Two reports—The Report on the Development of the Translation and Language Services Industry and the Translation Talent Development Report—were released at the conference.

The Report on the Development of the Translation and Language Services Industry shows China’s translation and language services industry is constantly expanding， and the industry has seen wider application of artificial intelligence （AI） technologies. Translation education is developing rapidly and industry standardization has been steadily promoted.

According to the report， there were 423，547 enterprises providing language services in 2021. Of these， 9，656 have language services as their main business， and the total output of these enterprises amounted to 55.45 billion yuan （$8.7 billion）， increasing by 11.1 percent against 2019. Beijing has the largest number of language service enterprises.

Translation services provided to Belt and Road countries have significantly increased， with Arabic， Russian， German， English and Belarusian being the languages in urgent market demand.

With the development of AI technology， machine translation （MT） has been increasingly widely applied in the translation industry， with 252 enterprises providing MT services. The model of MT plus post-editing has been recognized by the market and over 90 enterprises surveyed said the model can improve translation efficiency， lift quality and reduce costs.

Translation education has thrived. The number of universities offering master’s degrees in translation and interpretation has reached 316 and such programs have recruited a cumulative number of over 97，000 students. There are 301 universities offering bachelor’s degrees in translation and interpretation.

The report shows standardization of the industry has been pushed forward， in turn promoting the high-quality development of enterprises. TAC has led the compilation of five national standards and 18 industry standards regarding translators’ capabilities， translation technology， and pricing of services. Nearly 90 percent of surveyed enterprises said the industry standards have helped regulate operations and contributed to high-quality development.

According to the Translation Talent Development Report， the number of translators had increased by nearly 40 percent， or 1.44 million， from a decade before， to reach 5.38 million by December 31 last year.

Translators are becoming increasingly younger and better educated， with most of them being young and middle-aged people with a bachelor’s degree or higher； 43.58 percent of translators are based in Beijing and Shanghai.

They play a supportive role in a wide variety of areas， with education and training， information and telecommunications and intellectual property accounting for 41.1， 40.8 and 38.3 percent of translation service use， respectively.

The report further shows that demand for Chinese to foreign language translation services is roughly on par with that for foreign languages to Chinese ones. Demand for translators proficient in multiple foreign languages and capable of translating from one foreign language into another is on the rise. In 2021， Chinese to foreign language translation accounted for 37.1 percent， foreign language to Chinese accounted for 37.7 percent and foreign language to foreign language accounted for 25.3 percent of total language service business volume.

Talented people who not only master a foreign language but have also been trained in a specific discipline too， are in high demand.

The report further pointed out that talent development still faces many problems， for instance， the importance of translators is underestimated， there is a lack of top-notch translators and translators of lesser-known languages， education is unable to meet the market’s skill requirements and the pay is low.

Talking about the development of TAC and the translation industry at large， Gao said the industry should better serve the country’s development. “In the past， what the translation community did was mostly introducing the world to China. Now， we have entered a period when presenting China to the world is equally important. TAC will play an important part in this regard，” he said.

Gao said TAC will further strengthen the industry by forming a pool of high-caliber translators and cultivating translators in languages needed for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Gao said technologies， especially AI， should also be promoted to play more important roles in the translation industry.

He also noted that although it is widely recognized MT plus AI represents the future trend， the technologies are currently not in sufficient use due to translation inaccuracies. TAC still has a lot to do in promoting state-of-the-art knowhow to empower the translation industry. BR