Translation-quality standards

Like any supplier of goods or services, a translator potentially bears ethical and legal obligations toward his patron or employer. This has turned to be of enormous importance with the development of the language industry at global scale. For the protection of both parties, standards have been developed that seek to spell out their mutual duties.

There is, however, a view within the translation industry that, while not doing any actual harm, an over-reliance on such standards can give a false sense of security. Blindly following translation standards does not on its own provide real assurance regarding translation quality. The argument is that the path to quality in translation is by focusing more on providing on-going training and feedback to translators.

Standards of quality and documentation were originally developed for manufacturing businesses. Codes for all types of services are now maintained by standardization organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization. Standards of this type include those of the ISO 9000 series.

As interest in quality management has grown, specific quality standards have been developed for translation services. These have included the Italian UNI 10574, the German DIN 2345, the Austrian Önorm D 1200 and Önorm D 1201, and the Canadian CAN CGSB 131.10.

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