This is the term we use for services that involve written and oral communication between different languages. It includes reviewing and editing texts, presentations, and lectures in foreign languages for style and language. In addition to linguistic formatting, it is crucial for the target audience to receive culturally appropriate and understandable texts within the intended context. Achieving this requires solely relying on human knowledge and experience.
Traditional Language Services
Traditional language services include:
Translation: This process involves accurately conveying meaning from one language to another.
Proofreading: This process entails checking the translated text against the original for linguistic, stylistic and technical accuracy.
Editing or Target Language Checking: This involves reviewing texts created through translation or redacted directly in the target language for linguistic, stylistic and technical language accuracy.
Interpreting: This requires the precise oral conversion of spoken content from one language to another. It encompasses various types based on location (e.g., conference interpreting), purposes (e.g., escort interpreting), and whether the interpretation takes place simultaneously with the spoken content (simultaneous interpreting) or follows it in segments (consecutive interpreting).
Terminology harmonization: This ensures that in documents prepared for a particular client, the internal terminology used by the client or the terminology accepted and used in translations is consistently applied in all subsequent documents.
Terminology extraction: This involves identifying the correct and internationally or professionally accepted terms used in various languages within professional materials, and making these available for the client, translators, and interpreters.
However, there are also language services that complement the use of modern technology or improve the quality of texts created in an automated manner. So-called machine translation (MT) or texts created by AI require review because they may not be of adequate quality in certain languages or on certain topics.
Complementary Language Services
Complementary language services include:
Desktop Publishing: This service involves formatting translated or foreign language texts into a professional layout using desktop publishing software.
Reviewing: This entails checking texts produced by machine translation or AI in the target language for linguistic, stylistic and technical accuracy.
Proofreading: This is essentially a proofreading process without comparing the generated translation to the original text, aimed at correcting linguistic and stylistic errors to ensure clarity and comprehensibility.
Localization: This differs from linguistic localization as it primarily involves adapting the language and lexicon used in computer programs and platforms to the target language, often requiring abbreviation for on-screen display.
If we consider language services in a broader sense, they extend into the realms of marketing, education and training, as well as business consulting, since almost all individual and corporate goals are linked to successful foreign language communication, which translates into revenue growth.
Such broadly defined language services include:
Language Learning Methodology Consulting and Level Assessment: This involves developing the most effective language learning method tailored to the individual, considering the skills to be developed, other language knowledge, and language learning experiences.
Language Coaching: This prepares individuals for specific events or communication within a community, assisting with verbal expressions, delivering foreign language presentations, or creating video recordings.
Cross-Cultural Training: This prepares individuals for business trips or negotiation etiquette.
Editing Foreign Language Publications and Books: In addition to traditional language services, this includes applying appropriate typesetting and editing rules for the given language.
Creating Foreign Language Videos and Video Summaries: Primarily serving marketing purposes, this service also involves checking verbal communication and cultural mediation (e.g., choosing gestures, background, and colours, to name a few).