This incredible profession deserves its own day. We’re celebrating all the hard-working, talented linguists who make such a positive contribution to our daily lives, often without praise and recognition.
Today is an opportunity to spread awareness of the value of translation and the dedicated translation professionals who work long hours to fulfil tight deadlines in an increasingly time-poor world.
Translators are an invisible force behind the very things that keep us alive and the world turning – this may sound dramatic, but below are some examples of how translation benefits us:
- translation of vital medicinal product information
- language services in diplomatic talks and negotiations
- interpreters in life-and-death situations in war zones
- linguists in business negotiations
- translation in research and development applications
There are many others and without them, the world would be a very different place.
Translation also has a part to play in our leisure and entertainment – social media, literary translations, subtitling, games localisation and e-commerce websites, to give a few examples.
Translators are highly skilled people. They have an encyclopaedic breadth of knowledge which needs to keep pace with changes in language, subject matter and product knowledge.
Can you imagine a world without translation?
‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world’ Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous words should be food for thought today.
Why translation should be valued
Translators are often unsung heroes. With rapidly progressing globalisation, translation and language services will be more in demand than ever.
It is often a misunderstood profession and many people see translation as an overhead and buy translations on price alone.
With a well-documented reduction in linguists coming out of our universities and languages being dropped in many schools in the UK, this will have a huge impact on the translation industry, as demand for essential translation services increases.
Maybe as supply decreases and demand increases, translators will begin to get the recognition they deserve and will become valued in the same way as many other highly skilled professionals.
In the meantime, we will continue to provide our services and promote the value of translation – it’s so much more than changing words from one language into another.