What attributes should translator profession have in order to be considered as a profession? And what can a translator do to be called a professional?
Vlad Belousov, member of the Union of translators of Russia, author of text-books and training courses for oil and gas translators and interpreters.
In my short articles I will tell you about the problems, which in my opinion exist in the translation industry, and also specifically in the area of oil and gas translation, suggest possible ways of their solution. I would like to point out in advance – I do not insist that my judgments and recommendations are correct; they just comprise my personal opinion. You can accept or reject them. Another thing is important – that you as translators are not indifferent to such problems of the translation industry.
The subject of our small discussion today is profession of translators, and to be more specific – why that profession still has not become a profession in full meaning of this word. First of all let us define, what is profession in general sense? In academic glossaries I found the following definitions.
“Profession is a form of activities based on specific knowledge, skills and experience, focused on achievement of specific goals. It implies high qualification and requires theoretical knowledge and practical skills gained in the process of special training or education”.
“Specialty is a complex of knowledge that is needed for specific profession. Specialty came into existence due to differentiation of labor. It can be stated that specialty is subdivision of profession. For example, lawyer is a profession, but legal advisor and notary are its specialties, teacher is a profession, but chemistry teacher is a specialty”.
In 2021 the RF Ministry of Labor and Social Protection approved professional standard Translation and Interpreting Specialist. Then many translators said: “At long last! Now our profession has come into existence!” From legal point of view, yes. However, in my opinion, it is not enough.
The more time passes after the standard adoption, the more critical is the question: And why was that standard adopted at all? Just in order to be? From my point of view, nowadays it is very important what the very translators think about their, now legitimate profession, what position they take in professional activities.
If there is no specialty, then there is no profession. There is only something amorphous, defining general area of activities. In other words, when you come to a medical clinic, you do not say that you need a doctor. No, you specifically need a therapist, surgeon, cardiologist and so on. But in our profession they normally look for a translator, and then ask him: “And what topics can you translate?” Maybe, with rare exception, they can say that a medical, legal or technical translator is needed, specifying specialties which have been already distinguished, however still are not validated by law. What if the same could be in a medical cliniс? You come to the medical office and say: “My knee went out. And what can you treat? Oh… I see… This is not my case…” Well, it is really funny.
An important factor for definition of translator’s profession is attitude of translators to their professional activities. I remember one occasion. My relatives asked me to help their friends – find a job for their daughter who had just graduated from a blue-chip Moscow institute. I talked to her mother and heard the following: “We would like to find a translation job for out girl, but only as an intermediate stage, as a step, because so far we cannot find any decent job for her”. Here we go. She was ashamed that her daughter would work as a translator, and addressed me just because of despair. It is an example of rather frequent attitude to translators in our society.
And another example, from different culture. Once in Moscow I was invited for interpretation in one major international oil and gas company. When I came to the department of that company where I knew all employees, they were in the process of moving furniture and documents to a different floor. Certainly, I offered my assistance, however head of the department, a Canadian, did not let me do that and said: “They will understand me when I invite a specialist for work in my department and pay him. But when that specialist starts moving furniture, nobody will understand me”. That means he considers translators as specialists.
Why does that happen? I think it is the fault of… the very translators. In order to understand that, we need to sort ourselves out, and for that purpose return to the very beginning of the discussion. Thus, unfortunately, so far we do not have a detailed classification of translators by specialty. As a result, most translators have to work in different areas, and naturally they cannot demonstrate advanced knowledge in any of them. Nevertheless, they keep on accepting requests from areas unknown to them, relying only on so-called “prereads” as the last resort.
To be honest, were you in such a situation? Was it scary? With no doubt. And what does a frightened person do, particularly the person who is suspected or blamed not to have sufficient competence? Is he ready to accept it, refuse from the job and remuneration for it? In most cases, unfortunately, not. The translator starts wandering from proper conduct. In attempt to save the job and money, he strives to compensate lack of professionalism by other methods, please the customer – adulate and lick the dust, turning himself into a servant. Well, if it is so, should we be surprised that translators are often treated as servants, but not as specialists? Such rather sustainable disrespect of translators, also expressed in the level of payment, once again confirms, how many translators were in the situation described above.
Can a translator respect his profession if he does not succeed in it? Of course, he cannot. I’ll tell you what: regardless of all legal and legislative actions, in reality the translator profession will come into existence only when the very translators start to treat it with respect. And the first demonstration of such respect will be development of competence in the area of translation. There are good reasons why the words “profession” and “professional” have the same root. Only professionals, but not incompetent and disconfident persons can have a profession.
Of course, it is not a legal aspect of the issue, however only translators can create their profession, but not statutory documents, also because they are often adopted by people who are too far from our profession. And the way to achieve that can be the following: specialization of translators – development of competences in specific area – development of self-confidence based on gained knowledge – development of self-esteem and respect to the profession – and as a result, development of respect to translators as specialists, and the very translator profession on the side of customers.
Once again, I would like to emphasize, that I only express personal opinion as an idea to consider.
