New freelance translators, students among them, have been exploited for as long as I can remember. Translation agencies demean us, yes, but the problem is social too: society underestimates who translators are and what they do. Whose fault is that? Ours. Here is an initiative I took a couple of years ago to do something about it.
The Initiative
I designed and facilitated a training course on translation ethics and professional realities at the university where I worked, on an Arabic–English MA programme in Morocco. Its aim was to empower future translators by engaging them with authentic, real-life scenarios so they could recognise the unjust and, frankly, pathetic behaviour they might meet from translation agencies, online or at home. The material came from online resources and from my own experiences in my early days as a translator.
Study material of this kind, combined with the trainer's personal experience, pushes students to think critically and intelligently about how they will position themselves in the online translation market. The objective is that they transform the deplorable status quo once they are in the field: negotiate a just and fair rate, and be the ones who decide what to ask for their language services, not the other way round. This is a risk-calculation strategy for future translators who may work for themselves. Like any business, translation carries a margin of risk. That is normal practice.
Why Education Is the Answer
My conviction is that the solution lies with what the new cohort of students can do to improve and, eventually, transform the market. The rot sets in when parasites enter a trade as "artisans" who never sought professional development and never considered taking a decent (I repeat: decent) university translation programme.
This does not mean current translators, freelancers and virtual translators especially, can do nothing. On the contrary: they need to hold their heads up, pursue professional development and get informed. Our profession should no longer be seen as a merely artisanal activity. It has moved far beyond that. Conferences are held on translation and translators; academic programmes, even PhDs, and research on translator behaviour and practice are mushrooming. We need to take part in this trend of institutionalisation to improve our status as social actors and earn respect. Society has its own way of perceiving things. Let us play the game as well.
The Result
Some of my former students have since formed teams of translators and run their own virtual or physical agencies, and their business approach and philosophy are different. The educational and social objectives of the course were met; there has been an impact. Students had a meaningful, lifelong learning experience. I hope to see more examples like this, because it is a viable solution to a problem our profession keeps discussing.
It all starts with education: knowing how to do things, how to be someone, and how to become that someone, the translator.
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