Insights into Professional Language Services: Four Key Trends in the Translation and Language Services Industry
The COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent virus control measures have brought about whipping changes to our life and work, and a number of business sectors have been striving to find ways to adapt to the new norms. The language services industry has no exception, especially in the face of the changes in ways we communicate (multilingually) because of among others, stricter border control and social distancing measures that are likely to last until effective vaccines are available (and could cause lasting changes to how we communicate and interact with others with the assistance of technology).
It is against this background that we discuss four noteworthy trends in language services to help stakeholders formulate their strategies in response to the changing faces of the industry.
Trend 1: Medical Translation
Professional medical translation helps ensure a timely and accurate dissemination of the latest medical research findings, from transmission and risk factors to diagnosis to treatment methods, and public health information in multiple languages for effective control of the pandemic across regions or countries.
The pandemic has also resulted in an increasing demand for medical treatment and consultation and thus the need for medical interpreting to bridge communication barriers between patients and medical professionals speaking different languages.
It is expected that even after the pandemic there will continue to be a large number of follow-up research projects on COVID-19 requiring extensive translation work in the process of research (e.g., multilingual data collection, interviews and questionnaires) and publication of research findings.
It would be desirable for students to get prepared for medical translation by familiarizing themselves with medical terminology and issues in public health and medical communication. A deeper understanding of epidemiology, biostatistics and medical research protocols would facilitate the translation of research-related documents.
Trend 2: Translation for Virtual Events
Virtual events, such as online conferences and webinars, have been made possible with a significant progress in hardware, software and infrastructure supporting web-based communication in recent years.
The outbreak of the virus has accelerated the growth of cloud-based events as quarantine measures, including immigration restrictions and caps on the number of participants for public gatherings, have had an impact on face-to-face meetings and events, in particular those involving a large or international audience.
Some of the activities have subsequently been suspended, while the others have gone online or adopted a hybrid mode, which featured face-to-face interaction at a physical venue for a limited number of participants while offering live broadcast on the Internet for often a larger number of attendees.
In recognition of the potential that the online or hybrid mode could save money (in terms of, for example, travel and accommodation expenses) and transcend an event to a truly global one with flexible interactions between the organizer and participants and could thus attract more people or make the events more visible with proper promotional efforts, we expect that the recent growing popularity of virtual events, from product launch to virtual exhibitions, tech weeks and even guided tours, will continue.
It is more important than ever to get prepared to provide professional translation and language services for virtual events, including the offering of cloud-based interpreting services and the design and development of multilingual event websites for promotion, registration, live broadcast and post-event marketing. It would be beneficial to develop a better understanding of remote interpreting (including relevant interpreting skills and tools) and virtual event technology.
Trend 3: Translation for e-Commerce
Brick-and-mortar stores are moving online with an attempt to reduce the impact of lockdowns and social distancing measures on their businesses. This could give new momentum to language services for e-commerce, including the translation of product/service information, localization of company web pages and online stores, and production of cross-lingual blog posts, testimonials and other promotional materials that are readily discoverable by search engines and accessible by potential consumers from around the world and thus help enhance the company’s visibility. Language professionals with a sound knowledge in effective communication in e-commerce and digital marketing will have a distinct advantage.
A noteworthy development in e-commerce is the rise of social media shopping (e.g., IG stores) featuring direct purchase of products or services via social media platforms (with smartphones in many cases). It would be useful for translators to get familiar with the features of social media stores and ways to set up and manage multilingual stores and localize a broad range of multimedia content (e.g., regular posts with cross-lingual product descriptions and hashtags to KOL videos, direct messages, stories, and even chatbots offering automated customer service experience), without losing sight of the application of appropriate direct-to-customer marketing and communication strategies to optimize customers’ mobile shopping experience.
Trend 4: Translation for Digital Entertainment
We spend more time at home as the result of social distancing or quarantine measures seek digital entertainment, and this could take the translation of various forms of digital content, from video streaming to computer games, to the next level.
While supporting translation of multimedia content created by major studios and production houses (e.g., computer-aided transcription and translation of subtitles), translation technology could play a more active role in facilitating the rendition of user-generated content and the instant translation of live streaming and real-time interaction between the host/content creator and the audience (and also between viewers or game players in the form of, among others, instant text messages), all of which are becoming increasingly important when we tend to put more emphasis on social interaction in digital entertainment.
It would also be helpful to explore the possibilities of integrating translation technology with other emerging technologies, including art technology, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), with a view to providing users with immersive, multilingual digital entertainment experience. Locally there are social media pages creating multilingual digital content with art technology, such as colorization of old monochrome photos and the display of AI-created paintings, both with cross-lingual descriptions to increase their international visibility.
The teaching and learning and development of translation technology should therefore pay attention to not only document translation, but also multimodal translation, casual-content translation, and interaction with other technologies.
The Way Forward
As we are in times of uncertainties, in addition to the areas discussed, it is important for students, academics and professionals to be open-minded and forward-thinking. Let’s stay ahead of the curve, and get prepared for new challenges and opportunities.
