Ethics

Webster: 1. ‘Rules of behavior based on ideas about

what is morally good and bad’. 2. ‘An area of study that deals with ideas about

what is good and bad behavior: a branch of philosophy dealing with what is morally right or wrong’.

Oxford: 1. ‘Moral principles that govern a person’s

behaviour or the conducting of an activity’.

2. ‘The branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles’.

Integrity.

Transparency.

Responsibility.

Security.

Ethic Values

Rigurosity. Independence. Leadership. Loyalty. Orientation to objectives. Orientation to customer. Innovation. Co-operation. Proper use of resources.

Professional Values

Profession undermining and professional solidarity. Unloyal competition and inadequate conditions. Low translation fees and rates. Acceptance of non-realistic translation projects in terms of quality. Competence in source and target languages. Specialisation. Confidentiality and non-concurrence. Responsibility of translations and professional insurance. Property of translations and memories. Arbitration in conflicts. Relationship among other professionals.

Main issues related to translation industry ethics

Services which do not follow industry’s good practices: no revision by a professional other than the translator(s).

Non-paid internships.

Use of interns as massive labour resources: for instance, more than 10% of the total in-house staff.

Use resources that are not really professional and that only speak a certain language without a real profile.

Profession Undermining

Do not accept abusive working conditions.

When outsourcing to another TSP, appropriate contractual conditions will be guaranteed.

No unjustified change in the contractual conditions will take place in the terms of payment, rates or delivery times.

Do not criticise other TSPs to attract customers.

Profession Solidarity

Prices/rates well below the standard.

Prices offered to customers without calculating your real costs.

Benchmarking techniques by simulating fake translation requests in massive emails to translation companies…

Crowd-sourcing translation.

Unloyal Competition & Low Rates

Improvisation of translation processes.

Crazy turnaround times.

Formats not supported by TSP.

The management of NO…

Acceptance of non-realistic projects in terms of quality

Do not accept projects of specific fields unless it is revised and/or reviewed by a real specialist.

Revision: bilingual checking of translation to comply with correctness of translation, grammar, style, spelling, format, etc.

Review: monolingual checking of text by a domain specialist.

The typical way of losing a customer…

Specialisation

The TSP must refrain from revealing confidential information to third parties or otherwise using same while or after collaborating with other TSPs.

The TSP is under the obligation to keep professional secret while collaborating with other TSPs or professionals.

Any development by an employed translator remains the property of the employer, unless otherwise agreed.

An employed translator must/should not work for other TSPs, unlike freelancers that do not have those restrictions unless otherwise agreed.

Confidenfiality and Non-concurrence

The translation company TSP1 outsources a translation required by CUSTOMER1 to the freelancer TSP2.

TSP2 starts the translation and have some doubts when translating. Instead of asking TSP1, on his/her own she goes to a public forum called XYZ.COM and enters his/her query…

On the query text the name of CUSTOMER1 is included.

CUSTOMER1 has a series of engines checking at any moment if their name appears at places where it should not.

CUSTOMER1 discovers that the text in question belongs to a text delivered to TSP1 for translation.

Confidenfiality: a real case (1/2)

CUSTOMER1 sues TSP1 for revealing confidential text of a product not marketed yet.

TSP1 goes against TSP2 for that breach.

TSP2 had signed a contract with TSP1 in which it was expressly mentioned that he/she could not reveal any details of that project without customer’s prior consent.

The result…

TSP2 had to pay a fine of €30,000…

Confidenfiality: a real case (2/2)

The TSP delivering a translation service is responsible for that service, as stated in EN-15038 standard.

If there is an outsourcing chain, the responsibility keeps the same among the respective customer and provider.

A professional liability insurance covers the risks of legal claims arised from translations.

Responsibility of Translations & Professional Insurance

The legal owner of the translation is always the requester, provided that the translation service is paid.

For this reason, translation memories belong to customer as a principle, but there is a lot controversy about it in the industry.

If service is required with the use of a translation memory, the memory should belong to the requester.

If service is required without the use of a translation memory and the TSP uses one, the memory remains the property of the TSP.

BUT there are some laws on databases which could be applied…

MLVs and big customers have developed cloud-based applications so that TSPs work real-time with a memory on MLV’s premises…

Property of Translations and Memories

In the case of serious conflicts in translations, most professional industry associations offer arbitration services for the involved parties.

Arbitration in Conflicts

1. Member companies shall only deliver jobs to their customers that have been carried out by competent professionals.

2. Member companies shall revise/review their translations before delivering them to the customer. 3. Member companies shall apply the quality control systems approved by the Association. 4. Member companies shall take out a professional civil liability insurance policy for coverage as

recommended by the Association with regard to possible errors or omissions in translations. 5. Member companies shall safeguard the confidentiality of current and former customers and shall not

disclose or use confidential information to the prejudice or detriment of said customers or for the financial benefit of the member company.

6. Member companies shall not unjustifiably criticise the translations of other companies or translators to attract customers.

7. Member companies are under the general obligation to engage in fair and reasonable trading practices as regards their current or former customers, other member companies, other members of the profession and the public in general.

8. Member companies shall not include claims that are misleading or cannot be demonstrated in their advertising and promotional material.

9. Member companies shall not engage in practices or behaviour that are detrimental to the reputation or the interests of the Association.

10. In the event of a disagreement between customers and member companies, the latter must agree to act according to the decision issued by the Governing Board of the Association or the Arbitration Panel to which the matter is referred.

Sample Basic Code of Conduct of an Association Member of EUATC

GALA Code of Conduct • To ensure open and appropriate communication between GALA members; • To perform collaborative services with experienced professionals able to

provide quality work; • To ensure that translation work is performed only by qualified translators

translating only into their mother tongue; • To have and/or make available the necessary technical and logistical

infrastructure to fulfill each task as outlined in the joint project; • To adhere to the quality standards and processes defined by the GALA Project

Leader; • To meet all deadlines as defined in project schedules and agreed between the

GALA Project Leader and the GALA member; • To respect the terms and conditions agreed between the GALA members

participating in a joint project; • To guarantee that all project-related materials remain strictly confidential; • To give the customer all the assistance and service as defined by the GALA

Project Leader; • To respect and implement all decisions made by GALA that may affect this

Code of Conduct.

Project Typology: Outsourcing Models

Management

Translation & Localisation

Engineering Marketing

Endogamic Model

Big Company

Direct Decentralisation Model

End Customer

Multi-Language Vendor

Project Typology: Outsourcing Models

End Customer

Translation Company (SLV o RLV) or Freelancer

Multi-Language Vendor (MLV) with in-house revisers

Indirect Decentralisation Model (with in-house revisers)

Project Typology: Outsourcing Models

End Customer

External Reviser (outsourced by MLV)

Translation Company (SLV o RLV) or Freelancer

Multi-Language Vendor (MLV) without in-house revisers

Indirect Decentralisation Model (with external revisers)

Project Typology: Outsourcing Models

• Language belongs to the speakers: centralisation of translation process.

• Language belongs to a geographical area: descentralisation of translation process.

Project Typology: Outsourcing Models

The translator is always guilty…

Presumption of innocence... X

The reviser is not your enemy…

The reviser is

a…

…professional

Thank you for your attention!

Questions, suggestions…?

Hermenet

Juan José Arevalillo Doval juanjo.arevalillo@hermestrans.com

www.hermestrans.com @JJ_Arevalillo

@hermestrans