Tag: artificial-intelligence
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Educating End Clients About the Economic Conditions of the Translation Industry is Part of Change-Making: It Must Begin with Holding Professional Organisations Accountable
End clients—whether production companies, public institutions, agencies, or private service users—play a decisive role in shaping the economic conditions of translation and interpreting work. Through procurement choices, contracting models, and expectations around price and turnaround, they can influence how value and responsibility are distributed across translation supply chains. In this sense, end clients are not…
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Why Don’t Translators Just Get More Direct Clients?
One of the most common responses from professional organisations to concerns about declining rates and deteriorating working conditions is to advise translators to “get more direct clients.” But is this sound advice, and is it free from contradictory institutional incentives? As part of my ongoing work on re-politicising translation labour and developing a theory of…
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We Must Acknowledge the Ethical and Political Tensions of Advising Translators to Move into “Adjacent Careers”
As part of my ongoing work on re-politicising translation labour and developing a theory of change for the UK translation and interpreting industry, I have argued that a more robust theory of change should evaluate whether commonly promoted “solutions” are evidence-based, ethically sound, and proportionate to the structural realities of the labour market. This article…
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Who Authorised You to Speak for Translators? Access to Work, Power, and Representation in Translation and Interpreting
Translation and interpreting organisations frequently claim to represent translators and interpreters. They issue policy statements, publish position papers, respond to government consultations, and engage in “collaboration” on behalf of the profession. Yet a basic question is rarely asked: How do these organisations know that the positions they advance actually reflect what translators and interpreters want—or…
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We need to talk about the value of translation—but wait… do we mean translators’ labour or LSP services?
I often come across the phrase “the value of translation” in professional discourse and academic writing, and I wonder what it really means—and whose value we are actually talking about. There is no doubt that translation enables communication and business exchange, but is it politically problematic to treat it as a single, undifferentiated entity? I…
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10 Concrete Practice-Oriented Changes ITI Can Implement: Moving Beyond Adaptation Toward Labour-Conscious Institutional Framing
This article sets out a series of concrete, practice-oriented changes that the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) could implement in order to engage more directly with the structural labour conditions affecting translators and interpreters. It builds on my earlier article, Theory of Change for the UK Translation and Interpreting Industry, and should be understood…
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Are translators really lacking entrepreneurship skills? What is the problem represented to be?
When we read reports about the profession, whether in academic studies or professional association publications, there are often lists of entrepreneurship skills translators supposedly need to acquire: better negotiation, improved business strategy, more active marketing, or greater adaptability in a changing market. But there is a useful question we should ask whenever we encounter this…
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Academic Research Documents Poor Job Quality and Intensifying Financial Insecurities Among UK Translators (Albeit with Theoretical and Analytical Weaknesses)
A recent academic study titled “Love’s Labour’s Found? A Data-Driven Exploration of Job Quality among UK-Based Freelance Translators” by JC Penet, Callum Walker and Joseph Lambert offers one of the clearest empirical snapshots to date of the deteriorating working conditions facing freelance translators in the UK. Many of the findings strongly resonate with my own…
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Why Translators and Interpreters Are Often Poorly Paid: Corporate Power and Displaced Responsibility
One of the most striking observations from my three years of PhD research into the translation and interpreting industry is how little attention is paid to a basic question: why are translators and interpreters so often underpaid, and who is responsible? Across professional events, academic discussions, and institutional collaborations, these questions remain largely unaddressed. When…
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From Booking Apps to AI: Why Technological Change Is Intensifying Precarity in Outsourced Public Service Interpreting
In the previous parts of this series, I share insights from my PhD research at the University of Leeds on inequalities in the outsourced public service interpreting. In their responses to a national survey, interpreters described significant challenges affecting working conditions, pay, and professional stability in UK Public Service Interpreting (PSI). Survey findings highlighted widespread…
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Working conditions in outsourced public service interpreting: meaningful work under market pressures
This third article in the series presents further findings from my PhD research at the University of Leeds on inequalities in outsourced public service interpreting (PSI) in the United Kingdom (UK). PSI is a state-mandated function grounded in legal obligations and funded through public resources. However, the delivery of these services is largely outsourced to…
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