Abstract
For decades, the translation market and research community has witnessed the growing deployment of technologies, especially machine translation and artificial intelligence (AI), which enlarge the realm of translation modes and services. As a part of The IATIS Yearbook series, the book under review, The Human Translator in the 2020s edited and introduced by Gary Massey, Elsa Huertas-Barros, and David Katan, is clearly intended to describe new roles of translators that distinguish them from machines, the possibilities to transform the concepts of translation and the translator in the 2020s and the consequent implications on translator education.
The volume contains eight chapters, plus an Introduction by the editors, and covers various aspects of human translators in the 2020s against the background of technologies flooding into the translation field. In the Introduction, this volume aims to rethink the concept of—perhaps redefine—translation and the translator by discussing the additional tasks, reflected by increasing job titles and responsibilities due to changes in market demand, but not incorporated in the traditional sense of translation, and to discover the tech-related skills or competences required by digitalization, and consequently, the new requirements posed on translator education and training. It is these very value-added, unique features and irreplaceable skills of human translators that help them rise up against the challenges in the coming decade, or even beyond.
In Chapter 1, Félix do Carmo and Joss Moorkens elaborate on the changes AI has brought to translators’ toolbox, working modes, and professional roles, the translation industry and translation studies, but note that the core of translation activities and translator’s role remain unchanged. Therefore, this chapter proposes a new definition, which regards translation as a secondary act and during the process, the translator is required to be efficient, or in other words, proficient in harnessing the best technologies or external resources, and adaptable, or versatile in different environments to meet demands. Even though this chapter mainly describes translation activities, it can also be intriguing for interpreting scholars as COVID-19 has accelerated the trend of new technological requirements for interpreters, thus bringing new roles in home-based remote interpreting or computer-assisted interpreting.
In the light of the evident lacuna between the translator training content offered by higher education institutions and the market requirement for technology-based skills, Chapter 2 by Roser Sánchez-Castany analyzes the current situations of technology-related teaching and the integration of technology content in practical translation modules, finding out limited numbers of practical translation modules with technology content deeply incorporated. The results also apply to interpreting education because even though technology is “the elephant in the room” (Cheung, 2022, p. 10) as it has been widely mentioned in interpreting training, interpreting technology uptake in classrooms still remains low (Kerremans et al., 2019; Tian et al., 2023). Some scholars have made attempts to construct technological competence (Wang & Li, 2022) in interpreting education for the “upcoming technological turn” (Fantinuoli, 2018).
Chapter 3, authored by Isabelle Robert, Jim Ureel, and Iris Schrijver, introduces existing Translation Competence (TC), Translation Revision Competence (TRC), and Post-editing Competence models (PEC) and concludes differences and similarities. The authors support the view that post-editing, during which the translator has the final say, is not a form of revision. This article can shed light on interpreting research and practice as the results can potentially be helpful in establishing interpreting competence because interpreting process also involves revision (or repair), and machine translation has also been introduced to professional interpreting practice (Downie, 2020; Randhawa et al., 2013).
In Chapter 4, Erik Angelone reviews the broad trend of cross-service and within-service diversification triggered by various automation technologies and changes in translation environments, the constellations of stakeholders, and content in the translation industry. While acknowledging the significance of routinized expertise, this research defines adaptive expertise as the translator’s ability to flexibly transfer acquired knowledge and skills in challenging situations that deviate from the specialised domain the translator is accustomed to. Adaptive expertise is essentially relevant to interpreting practice and pedagogy, and a noticeable feature of professional interpreters, thereby representing an important interpreting aptitude (Sunnari & Hild, 2010).
Based on the mindful use of the Metamodel (questions to discover underlying cultural perceptions), Chapter 5 by David Katan investigates tourism translations accomplished by the author as examples to showcase narrativity re-creation following Baker’s (2006, 2014) narrative framework. Narrativity is also an indispensable field, where translation and interpreting studies meet sociology, cultural studies, and communication science. A narrative perspective is often adopted to discuss interpreters’ role, identity, and behaviours in community, humanitarian, and crisis interpreting (Moreno-Bello 2021; Thajeel 2020), and serves to reconceptualize the role of human translators and interpreters as creators and narrators.
Chapter 6 by Juliet Vine and Elsa Huertas Barros views translation as an inherently creative activity and incorporates “translation-like” activities into the translation process. A perception shift is reported in a survey on attitudes towards to creativity and translation, with most respondents acknowledging the importance of creativity in translation. Backed by the survey results, this article puts forwards some pedagogical suggestions for transcreation, which is interesting for interpreting educators as well.
Chapter 7 shares the opinions expressed in Chapters 5 and 6 but moves a step forward by introducing a detailed training project. This chapter, authored by Marián Morón, elaborates on a transcreation and creativity training project named TeCreaTe Project for undergraduate students. This introductory project’s teaching and learning outcomes include skill transferability, the combination of theories and practice, and most importantly, a focus on creativity, the very factor that provides value-added service and reflects human nature in translation. In interpreting studies, interpreters’ creativity is an underexplored topic because traditionally interpreters are supposed to express the original meaning of the speaker, and there is not much space for them to be creative. Current studies talk about creativity in interpreting mainly through cognitive and psychological approaches (Horváth, 2010; Kim & Lim, 2019) but rarely touch upon interpreting-like activities and education-related issues. In this sense, creativity might hold promise in interpreting practice and research in the coming decades.
Chapter 8, written by Elena Ruiz-Cortés, introduces a new role that translators can adopt: plain text designer. When the translator acts as a plain text designer, he or she should ensure not only the effectiveness of the target text, but also that of the source text. Plain text design is regarded as a form of intralingual translation, broadening the scope of translation studies and the translator’s skill sets. Therefore, this kind of service is unique to human translators, on which machine translation fails to compete. This skill to polish source text is also applicable to interpreters especially when encountering impromptu speeches with broken sentences or poor logics.
The present volume meets the objective of presenting “the profiles and position of human translators in the current decade” (p. 6) and effectively addresses the concerns on how human translators live with emerging technologies without being threatened by them. This book makes several contributions to translation and interpreting studies. First, it is highly relevant to the latest translation reality, answering the most urgent questions on human translators’ co-existence with technology and addressing human translators’ anxiety by pointing out its silver linings. From the perspectives of different stakeholders including educators, scholars, service providers, and users, the present volume provides a comprehensive picture of translators’ new roles in the coming decade. Second, even though this volume mainly discusses translation activity, it also sheds light on interpreting practice, research, and education, sparking deliberations on the necessity to similarly redefine interpreting. Traditionally, what set translation and interpreting apart is whether the languages involved are written or oral. However, the advent of digital technologies has blurred the boundaries and new, less-typical forms of translation and interpreting, such as speech-to-text interpreting (Pöchhacker, 2023) and audio description, have sprung up. Therefore, we might think about, for instance, the necessity of revision competence or post-editing competence in a simultaneous interpreter when he or she needs to revise a machine-translated speech orally, to cope with latency and errors caused by automatic speech recognition.
The contribution this volume makes would be even stronger, however, if, first, the introductory reviews in some chapters could perhaps be briefer, and more details given to the methodology and analysis. Second, other important topics and methods, such as ethics in translators and interpreters’ usage of technology, or even broader societal impacts of translation technology, have not been addressed. Third, as most of the chapters focus on qualitative and descriptive analysis, large-scale empirical studies and quantitative measurement would be meaningful for further research.
In conclusion, regardless of minor criticisms, this edited collection is an intriguing book for translation and interpreting scholars, practitioners, and educators.
