Department of Linguistics
T&I Labour Market in Taiwan
By Kang -Tzu Sung
The purpose of this research is to understand the demand and supply of the translation market in Taiwan. Previous research demonstrates that there are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in Taiwan's translation market. In terms of strengths in Taiwan's translation market, the first is talented people in the fields of language, science and technology who strengthen Taiwan's translation market. The second is quality assurance. On average, the quality of translations of Taiwanese's translators is good.
People in Taiwan do not respect translators enough, so that the professional status of translators is still low. As a result, compared to other countries, there are no similar professional regulations in Taiwan's translation market.
The second is lack of a managerial system. Due to the fact that in Taiwan most translators are part-time and the entrance barriers are not strict, these may lead to the competition of a price reduction among translators and translation companies and may also influence the quality of translations.
The third is lack of a universal form of accreditation systems. Lack of accreditation systems may cause the quality of translations that are unable to evaluate and the competition of prices. Thus, due to lack of accreditation systems, the quality of translations may be hard to assure.
The final weakness is lack of distinctive language translators. Most language talents in Taiwan only specialize in English.
When it comes to opportunities in Taiwan's translation market, the high quality of translations of Taiwan can avoid the competition of prices with Mainland China. The translation market in Taiwan emphasizes the quality as guidance. Thus, in the short term, Taiwanese's translators are still the major service providers. The other opportunity is the professional ability of translation service. The level of Taiwan's technology is high and technical manpower is considerably plentiful. Moreover, people in Taiwan respect intellectual property rights gradually and businessmen have sound methods to run their business in the translation market. As a result, Taiwan has an absolutely competitive advantage in running translation business and has abilities to provide comprehensive translation services.
In terms of threats of the translation market in Taiwan, competition of prices among the trade of translators from Taiwan itself and translators from Mainland China is a major threat to Taiwan's translation market. Competition of prices among professional translators from Taiwan itself has seriously affected the overall translation market. In Taiwan's translation market, prices usually replace the quality of translations and clients always regard price as guidance. Therefore, competition leads to the reduction of translation rates in the translation market in Taiwan. Some translation companies want to earn a higher profit; they even employ untrained and inexperienced translators. Once malignant competition spreads in the translation market, the quality of translations will be smothered.
The other threat is the legal standard which is a disadvantage to international competition. Currently, translation companies are restricted by the current laws and they are not able to employ essential foreign personals freely. It is inconvenient for translation companies to recruit translators whose mother tongues are foreign languages and it is therefore a disadvantage to international competition in the future.
When it comes to the prospects in the future, cultivation of translators is one of the urgent issues. A problem that translators might encounter is the difficulty of understanding translation tasks that require higher professional competency. In order to solve shortages of translators in the professional fields, it is suggested that students from non- foreign language departments are strongly encouraged to take translation programs as elective courses and students from foreign language departments are also suggested to take other professional courses as elective. As a result, these students have different knowledge in other fields. Moreover, services in translation business should not be limited to Taiwan only. As it was mentioned earlier in this research study, over ninety percent of translation businesses are from local clients. In order to cope with the trends of globalisation, translation businesses tend to become multilingual translation services gradually.
Demand for languages
This research explored the translation market in Taiwan. The report's findings revealed that over eighty percent of the translation market in Taiwan is translation rather than interpreting. There are two major language directions in Taiwan's translation market. The first of them is English and the second of the two major language directions is Japanese. The proportion of these two languages is over eighty percent. Moreover, the translation market in Taiwan composes of freelance translators and high proportion of these workers is self-employed and works part-time.
Educational backgrounds and Training Institutions
The educational backgrounds of translators vary. Most translators' majors are language and literature and other majors are finance, economy, law and information. Students in Taiwan who want to study in translation and interpreting programs have many educational options. Many foreign language training programs in institute of higher education have incorporated T&I courses into their curriculums. Universities and institutions with translation and interpreting courses are Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Taiwan Normal Universities, Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation Studies, Fu Jen University, National Changhua University of Education, Chang Jung Christian University, Leader University, Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages and National Pingtung Institute of Commerce. Compared to other countries especially countries in Europe, they have accreditation systems that are most regulated by the government or other professional institutions.
Ways to obtain accreditation may include examinations, training courses and examinations of practical experience. Although there are two translation associations in Taiwan, one is Taiwan Association of Translation and Interpretation (TATI) that was found in 1994 by the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation Studies, Fu Jen University and the other is Translation and Attestation Association of Taipei (TAAT) that was found in 1989 in Taipei, these two associations do not provide any accreditations. Therefore, currently, there is no universal form of accreditation or certification systems in Taiwan's translation market. As long as these people are skilled in Chinese and other foreign languages, they can devote themselves to be translators.
As a result, there are no obvious entrance barriers in Taiwan's translation market.
Recruitment
The quality of translation work is very difficult to evaluate beforehand; therefore, when the translation companies recruit translators, the trial translation is the key method to examine the quality of translators. Also, this research revealed that over ninety percent of clients of translation companies are local. Therefore, it is shown that the service demand of translation companies in Taiwan still mainly comes from local clients and has not entered the international market yet. According to the previous research, it shows that it is very hard for young translators to find jobs because the quality of translation work is difficult to judge in advance.
Employment oppurtinuties
Usually, ways that young translators find a job are through newspapers, job position websites and translation company websites.
After establishing some regular clients, most translators often obtain jobs by word of mouth. Another characteristic of the translation market in Taiwan is business process outsourcing (BRO) that the proportion is high due to the reason of unsteady translation businesses. When translation companies have a large amount of translation businesses, they will entrust translations to freelance translators. The translation companies prefer part-time translators and freelancers due to the unsteady business of translation work.
Translators in Taiwan are employed in a number of fields. Besides working in translation companies, translators work in public and private educational institutions such as schools, colleges and universities. Also, they work in software localization companies, publishing companies, magazine companies. Other employment opportunities for translators include broadcasting and television companies, electronic news media and in some places in the government.
Earnings
There is no established rate for translation service in Taiwan's translation market. Earnings depend on language, working experience, subject matter, skill and certification. The website of each translation company does not provide any information about rates or prices. If clients want to quote rates or prices for translating documents, translation companies will ask clients to send their documents first electronically and then translation companies will reply. It can be obviously seen that the rates for translation service are very confidential among translation companies in Taiwan's translation market. Therefore, no rates for translation services were available on the Internet.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper presented some characteristics of the translation labour market in Taiwan. The majority of translators are freelancers and the highest proportion of translators is part-time. Moreover, there are no obvious barriers for translators to enter the market. In addition, considerable competition in prices exists in the translation market and the proportion of business process outsourcing is high. It can be seen that even though Taiwan's translation market currently lacks any forms of accreditation systems, it still leads a high rate of flow of translators. Therefore, it is safe to say that the standard of quality brings about the competition over price reduction among translation companies. According to the characteristics stated in previous sections of this research, it can be clearly seen that establishment of accreditation or certification systems may confront many challenges from many different communities prior to any initiation of a project and different goals should be taken into consideration in order to build a flexible system in the future.
References
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