The profession has moved from being considered a cottage industry, an art, or an activity impossible to measure, to what it really is, a business. Government, companies, and the ATA each have developed measures of proficiency and service. However, unified national standards would serve consumers, translators, and translation services firms, participants agreed, by offering a baseline from which to negotiate. The discussions have attracted significant attention from major American businesses and multinationals. But even defining what makes a good translation will be a puzzle, for the needs of clients may vary from having highly precise rendering to giving the consumer a quick gist of a document.
Operational requirements are different.
Part of the challenge, the group agreed was to educate translation users about the translation process. In the U.S. in general, people have no idea of what a good translation is. People s entire livelihood may depend on a translation. We have to come up with some way to say yes, this is a good translation. But establishing standards is a difficult process, warns Karen Decker of the International Center for Language Studies, who presided over a similar effort for proprietary language schools to develop ASTM standards for teaching languages.