As a partner of a translation company that has been acquiring both clients and suppliers from all corners of the world, from Korea to Canada, from South Africa to Finland, for the last twenty years, I have sadly witnessed Turkish becoming one of the cheapest languages in the world. There are understandable reasons why prices in the translation industry have decreased slightly for every language and service type, especially in the last ten to fifteen years, but how can we explain the dramatic decrease in the price of Turkish translation?
Translation service as skilled labor and the hell of labor!
As we all know, under free market conditions, it is the balance of supply and demand that determines the price. So, has the demand for Turkish become less and less? Or have there been too many Turkish translation providers? In either case, there will be competition, but why is it okay to compete on price instead of quality or service? Welcome to Turkey, a country that has become a hell for qualified labor as a result of reckless competition by those who have no respect for their work.
In translation services, the process approach and international quality standards evaluate supply and demand with both qualitative and quantitative criteria, right? In the service sector, especially in the skilled labor market, there are difficulties in defining products. Especially when it comes to "translation", the lack of definition of products is dizzying. Unfortunately, even the most basic product names have a thick layer of fog. For example, what is "translation", what should be the criteria for success, that is, what are the conditions of acceptance of the recipient in a translated text? The processes and concepts of this specific product are not clear anywhere in the world; even among translation companies, associations and academics, there are no completely agreed definitions. The ISO 17100 quality standard fills an important gap in this regard, but is it enough? Do translation service providers need to be aware of ISO standards? There are and always will be problems with product and process definitions in every country, but in Turkey the end of the rope has already slipped (or maybe it never was caught).
The sensitivities and expectations of Turkish-speaking people towards language and translation! What do the people on the street, i.e. ordinary citizens, expect from others in terms of language and expression skills? How do people living in Turkey react to language mistakes they encounter while reading books, newspapers, magazines or watching television. How many of them react? It is this (lack of) reaction that determines the value of language.
In Turkey, when we watch a movie with subtitles, we either ignore or laugh off mistakes in expression or spelling, whereas in the Netherlands, viewers who see mistakes in subtitles run to the box office and ask for their money back.
What is a user manual, who reads it, who understands it... it's all empty! We don't ask if the products we buy have a Turkish user manual, if they do, we don't read it, if they do, we don't understand it. Because we think "user manuals are not written to be understood, we will look at the button signs and press them, if it doesn't work, we will pick up the phone and ask the seller... What should we do, should we return the product we bought because the manual is incomprehensible, who should we complain to?" As long as the language expectations of the society are at this level, why should translation companies try to create more checkpoints, why should they work with better translators, why should they spend more effort and money! Except for a few "busybodies", no one is looking for quality in language and expression skills.
So what is the solution? Is it the duty of translators to raise the education level of people who have been exposed to one of the worst education systems in the world for decades? (*OECD education index ranks Turkey fourth from the bottom, Dilan Gözlügöl, BBC Turkish, http://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-37779042)
The unfortunate generations, who have been brought up with methods indexed only to exam success scores and whose ignorance is expected to bring political hope, can get angry when they are warned that "de is written separately, there is no space before a comma..." and say "sananeya, it is not understood in this way!". Unfortunately, a significant part of the final recipients of language services react in the opposite direction to our expectations. Teachers admit: "we don't teach Turkish, English, math, history, biology, etc., we teach how to get high scores in these subjects. Your children will learn these later if necessary. We don't have time to teach, because our success rate in the exams will determine the value of our school next year."
Is training the job of translators or translation companies? Who is responsible for education, huh?! We have an education problem that needs to be improved for generations, and unfortunately it is beyond the power of translators or translation organizations. Here is what we can do for now: Raising public expectations of language level, raising awareness, supporting those who work on this issue, and thinking about the dignity of our work, even if we don't think about our own dignity when we compete.
Mete Özel
Note: This article was published in 2020 on page 72 of Çevirilopedi, The Translator's Encyclopedia, The Translation Book, Part 2. Since we think that this article is still up to date, we thought it appropriate to republish it on our blog pages with a few minor changes.
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