Many successful translators in Taiwan are entirely self-taught. An increasing number, however, have graduated from departments or graduate institutes of translation and interpretation at local colleges and universities.
Fu Jen Catholic University in Taipei County is a pioneer in the research and teaching of T&I, establishing its Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation Studies in 1988. In addition to teaching English-to-Chinese T&I skills, the institute also has programs that train Japanese-to-Chinese, French-to-Chinese and German-to-Chinese translators and interpreters.
According to the GITIS, the institute "meets most of the international standards for professional interpreter and translator training, in particular those recommended by AIIC." The Association Internationale des Interpretes de Conference is a Geneva-based organization that sets professional standards in the industry.
Before beginning the second year of their studies, GITIS students are required to spend time working in the country of their acquired language: a year in the case of interpreters, two months for translators.
Alumni from the institute can be found working in government, business or the media. Several are interpreters employed by international bodies, such as the World Trade Organization. "GITIS graduates as well as teachers have won several awards for published translations," the institute claims.
A number of foreigners have taught or studied at the institute. Terry Waltz, an American who lived in Taiwan for seven years in the 1990s, returned to the country in 2002 and did a master's degree at the GITIS. "I learned a lot," she said July 5, adding that "For those wanting an M.A. in Chinese interpretation, Fu Jen is definitely the choice at present."
Waltz, who already has an M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, found Fu Jen an economical place to study. "My Taiwan M.A. was incredibly cheap," she commented. "The ROC government gave me a monthly scholarship simply for keeping a reasonable grade point average after my first year. There was also a subsidy for travel we made to Shanghai for extra training under the school's program."
Having a degree from Taiwan was not a guarantee of a lucrative career in the Chinese-to-English translation sector, Waltz admitted. "It depends on how you market yourself," she stressed.
"I've been very impressed with the caliber of the students coming out of translation programs in Taiwan. During the eight years I've coordinated the translation department at Winkler Partners and its predecessor, we've hired five GITIS graduates as in-house translators, and all have been excellent," Paul Cox, a translator from the United States, said Aug. 2. He is the head of translation at Winkler Partners, a Taipei-based law firm, and teaches a course in Chinese-to-English legal translation at the institute.
Different skill sets are needed for translating--which is the transferring between languages of ideas expressed in writing--and interpreting, which deals with spoken language. Translators can refer to dictionaries, encyclopedias and Internet resources. Interpreters, in contrast, need to have precise listening and note-taking skills.
"For interpreters, as opposed to translators, it is essential to undergo a formal course of training before beginning to work, because interpreting involves real-time solo performance in front of an audience," Cox said. "For professional translators, training is necessary, but it can be in the form of formal study or on-the-job training, or both."
For newcomers to the industry, it can be difficult to decide whether to enroll in a T&I program or join the work force. Cox emphasized the value of experience. "I think most prospective translators would be better off apprenticing in a real work situation for a couple of years before deciding whether to pursue formal study. For one thing, it's hard for an academic training course to replicate the sheer amount of useful practice that novice translators get by working on real cases," he explained, emphasizing that "the key is to find work in which one gets regular constructive critiques from more experienced translators."
Since 1988, several more universities have launched T&I courses to meet rising demand. Among them are National Taiwan Normal University, Leader University and the Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages. In 1996, Chang Jung Christian University became the first school in Taiwan to host an undergraduate Department of Applied Languages for Translation and Interpretation.
Leader University in Tainan City established its Department of Translation and Interpretation in 2002. Students are required to take courses in other areas to enrich their knowledge of different subjects, and sophomores are required to learn a second foreign language, such as Japanese, French or German.
This second requirement addresses a weakness in Taiwan's T&I sector identified by Sung Kang-tzu, a Taiwanese graduate student who researched the industry while in Australia. In "T&I Labor Market in Taiwan," his 2005 paper for the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Australia, Sung writes that there is a "lack of distinctive language translators. Most language talents in Taiwan only specialize in English."
George Ho, chair of the Department of Translation and Interpreting at WUCL in Kaohsiung City, said he was generally satisfied with the state of translator training in Taiwan. He claimed July 27 that programs in Taiwan have "trained many translators and interpreters, who find it easier to get employed by translation companies or government organizations. In many other countries, students are only taught translation theories, because the teachers have no practical T&I experience."
"Some of the translation theories addressed in academic courses are very relevant and useful," Cox said. "I've gotten many insights directly applicable to my everyday translation work in my discussions and interactions with translation academics and students in Taiwan over the years."
"One area in which Taiwan's translation agencies and in-house translation departments in businesses surpass academic translation programs is in providing translators with access to and experience with the latest technical tools such as computer-assisted translation programs and translation memory tools," he explained. "Some academic programs have recognized this deficiency and are rushing to catch up."
Several professionals offer both translation and interpretation services. Waltz is one and another is Taipei-based Tracy Wang.
"I started my career as a foreign news translator in a TV news company," Wang said July 8. After she received a master's degree in interpreting and translating from the University of Bath in England, she joined an American company in Taipei as an in-house senior interpreter. "I spend most of my time delivering 'whispering interpreting' service to the chief operating officer. He's from the United States, while meetings are mostly conducted in Mandarin. I use the time after work to do free-lance translating, and so far have had four translation works published."
While translation is a specialized skill, there are no strict requirements or an accreditation system for becoming a translator. "That's why there are so many untrained free-lancers active and making money in the T&I market," Ho claimed. "When I started my career as a professional translator 17 years ago, I hadn't received any T&I training at all."
"It is not too difficult to be a general translator. But it is difficult to become a professional one. Professional translators and interpreters are very unique and require special personalities," Ho explained. Only a few would rise to the highest levels of the industry, he said, saying that "the others can be good general translators or interpreters."
A good T&I program gives graduates a wider variety of options. "They can be excellent employees in a domestic or foreign company or in a government department," Ho said. "We have trained them with basic translation skills and showed them how to solve some T&I problems collaboratively and independently."
T&I is an industry that should be populated with many foreign professionals. Waltz explained that foreigners working as translators in Taiwan face legal obstacles. "It's very, very difficult to get a work permit as a free-lance translator or interpreter," she admitted. "You normally need to have a job like a teaching position and work on the side--which means having two full-time jobs if you're serious about translation."
"Currently, translation companies are restricted by the laws and are not able to employ essential foreign personnel freely," Sung writes. He adds that this was a significant disadvantage for translation companies trying to compete internationally.
Attracting qualified local staff is also a challenge. "It isn't easy to recruit and retain talented translators," John Lin, vice president of Elite Translation Co. Ltd., said July 4. "The main reason is that a talented translator must have qualifications that are similar to those of people in other professional fields," Lin continued. "They need to be well-educated, have strong professional backgrounds and work experience. However, their compensation is much lower than that for other professionals such as doctors or lawyers."
Elite assessed an applicant's education and work experience, and then required the person to take a translation test via the company's website, Lin explained.
"The overall quality of Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese translations across Taiwan's market has gradually improved over time as clients have become savvier in recognizing the quality of translations," Cox commented. "This in turn has encouraged service providers to improve their professional standards."
He also observed that translators were collaborating more frequently. "Translators and translation agencies are also increasingly recognizing the value of translators working in pairs or teams," Cox said. "So that the work of less experienced translators or those working into their second languages gets edited for quality before being delivered to a client. The trend toward teamwork is a positive development for all."
Copyright 2007 by Steven Crook
Write to Taiwan Journal at tj@mail.gio.gov.tw