One of the persistent sources of confusion in the translation and interpreting profession—and in Translation and Interpreting Studies—is the way we use the term language service provider (LSP).

For years, the term has been used to describe commercial agencies and multinational companies that sit between clients and translators or interpreters. Yet this terminology deserves reconsideration.

The International Labour Organization’s 2026 Convention concerning Decent Work in the Platform Economy offers an opportunity to rethink our language. Although the Convention is not specific to translation and interpreting, it adopts a concept that I believe is far more appropriate for describing many of the commercial actors operating within our profession: the intermediary.

Following numerous discussions with colleagues, I would suggest that we also adopt the term intermediaries to refer to commercial organisations that stand between end clients and translators or interpreters.

The translators and interpreters themselves are the ones who actually provide the language service. The commercial organisation facilitates, organises, manages, markets, or contracts that service. It does not perform the translation or interpreting itself. This distinction is more than semantic. It changes how we think about rights and responsibilities.

Words shape our thinking and the allocation of responsibilities. If agencies are described as the providers of language services, translators and interpreters become almost invisible within the supply chain. The consequence is not merely semantic. Responsibility becomes displaced. The intermediary is presented as the provider of the service, while many of the risks associated with delivering that service are transferred to translators and interpreters including unpredictable workflows, unpaid administrative work, and cancelled bookings. By contrast, the concept of an intermediary makes responsibilities much clearer. Intermediaries organise work. They negotiate contracts. They manage relationships with clients. Increasingly, they also manage work through digital systems.

The language service itself is provided by the translator or interpreter. Using more precise terminology also encourages a more accurate discussion about accountability. If intermediaries exercise control over work, they also bear responsibilities towards those whose work they organise. It could also help remind decision makers translators and interpreters, the real language service providers, have labour rights and the human right to be able to earn a sustainable livelihood and to be valued for the highly skilled knowledge work they perform.

The ILO Convention addresses essential issues that apply to the translation and interpreting industry, including accountability, governance, algorithmic decision-making, human review of important automated decisions, transparency, labour rights, and responsibility within increasingly digitally mediated systems of work.

The ILO Convention signals that major international institutions are beginning to view AI-mediated work through the lens of governance rather than technology alone.

So, from now on, I will be using the term intermediaries to refer to commercial organisations that organise, facilitate, subcontract, and manage language work—not LSPs or agencies.

Recognising this distinction may help us have clearer conversations about professional identity, institutional responsibility, and the future governance of translation and interpreting in the age of increasingly displaced responsibilities and obscured labour rights.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a researcher and broadcast interpreter specialising in labour rights and the political economy of the translation and interpreting industry. Alongside her academic research, she continues to work with intermediaries and production companies that value interpreters and translators and provide fair working conditions. She also runs a small translation company and does not generalise critiques of unfair intermediaries to all commercial actors.

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