Abstract
The evolution of the language industry over the last two decades has led to drastic changes in the translation process, the translator professional profile and overall organizational dynamics within the industry. Globalization trends such as the advent of Internet-related technologies, outsourcing and the emergence of new organizational structures have modified the modus operandi across the language industry. These trends have affected translator work behavior, particularly individual levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the workplace, and arguably redefined the profession itself. Despite the significant impact of these trends, translator satisfaction has been overlooked in translation studies. This article presents an attempt to understand satisfaction in the language industry and develop an instrument for specifically measuring task and job satisfaction among translators. Translator satisfaction is assessed through an online survey questionnaire that is designed to gather quantitative and qualitative data. The process of instrument development, piloting, data collection and preliminary empirical validation are also presented in this paper in order to comprehend sources of satisfaction or dissatisfaction among active translation professionals.
Highlights
The relatively nascent language industry (LI) has undergone a rapid transformation since the 1990s
This study focuses on the following main sources of satisfaction with respect to the project manager (PM)’s role: the individual level of satisfaction with communication workflow (Skansi, 2000), in intercultural, virtual teams (Stoeller, 2011, p. 289-293), with the PM’s efforts for matching individual translation skills with project requirements, with performance appreciation and initiative for labour force empowerment, with supervision, and translators’ perceived feeling of support from the PM
This paper presents a detailed instrument that can be used to gauge translator satisfaction
Summary
The relatively nascent language industry (LI) has undergone a rapid transformation since the 1990s. This transformation can be observed from the expansion of the industry with annual revenue projections of approximately USD 37.19 billion in 2014 (DePalma, Hegde & Pielmeier, 2014), and the growth from 2010 to 2015 ranging from 10 to 13.15% The rapid growth has reshaped the translation profession but has significantly modified the traditional translation process and organizational dynamics to the point of becoming extensively digital, characterised by the predominance of project-based organizations and the widespread adoption of the subcontracting model Approximately 90% of Translation & Interpreting Vol 7 No 2 (2015)
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