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The Impact of the Technological Turn on Professional Translation Workflows in the Public Sector in Wales / SHARON STEPHENS
Swansea University Author: SHARON STEPHENS
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Copyright: The Author, Sharon E. Stephens, 2023. Distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.64842
Abstract
This study evaluates the impact of the "Technological Turn" (Qian, 2013, p. 40) on professional translation workflows in the bilingual public sector of Wales, aiming to determine if current processes are efficient and fully supported by Welsh-speaking non-translation staff. The Welsh Gover...
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Swansea, Wales, UK
2023
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Fernández-Parra, María. and Jones, Kathryn |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64842 |
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| Abstract: |
This study evaluates the impact of the "Technological Turn" (Qian, 2013, p. 40) on professional translation workflows in the bilingual public sector of Wales, aiming to determine if current processes are efficient and fully supported by Welsh-speaking non-translation staff. The Welsh Government’s Cymraeg 2050 strategy recognises the importance of incorporating translation technologies in promoting and disseminating the Welsh language. Qualitative and quantitative data from three public sector organisations: Swansea Council, Swansea University, and the Welsh Government and three respondent groups: all staff, in-house translation staff, and translation students or recently qualified translators, were collected and analysed. The findings reveal that although adequate translation technology is available, it is not utilised to its full potential, resulting in a suboptimal service with significant economic implications. The study recommends that managers invest more time in understanding the limitations and potential of technology and processes and improve existing systems. An analysis of each translation workflow’s key components identifies areas that require improvements, supported by a centralised Welsh information hub and an inter-institutional culture of sharing data and knowledge. The study recommends utilising the full extent of the Technological Turn to achieve a faster, automated workflow with effective internal communication, supported by a skilled bilingual workforce who can manage translations from their desktops and management who are invested and fully aware of the process. The study identifies challenges and proposes recommendations for translation workflows within organisations, particularly the Welsh public sector, to enhance the functionality, reliability, efficiency and usability of translation systems. It suggests creating a centralised Translation Memory (TM) bank and networking with public sector organisations to develop a bespoke Neural Machine Translation system. The study highlights the importance of the Translation Management Tool, automation, collaboration, training, and regulation in enhancing the translation workflow process. It also suggests implementing a system that receives translations at a central point with all supporting materials and instructions in advance to address delivery, processing, and quality issues. To generate instant translations more efficiently and cost-effectively, the study proposes creating a bespoke TM data bank for the public sector, organised by domain and accessible to all staff, managers, and translators. Creating a centralised TM bank containing retrieved TMs from historically outsourced translations and current TMs from all institutions in the Welsh public sector is recommended, requiring a centralised, cloud-based TM data repository, a bespoke Neural Machine Translation system, and a Welsh Language Portal. The study suggests developing a Welsh language portal to consolidate and provide the latest versions of key language resources to the public sector in one central location, supporting Welsh language dissemination. Future research could assess the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing the proposed recommendations through pilot studies in the Welsh government and expand the current investigation by examining the impact of technology on translation workflows in minority-language countries. Additionally, future research could analyse the effect of recent Welsh language legislation on translation workflows, assess the level of support from Welsh-speaking staff, and suggest ways to enhance this support to accelerate the growth of a bilingual community in the workplace and aid the Welsh Government (2017) in their goal to reach one million speakers by 2050. |
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| Item Description: |
A selection of content is redacted or is partially redacted from this thesis to protect sensitive and personal information. |
| Keywords: |
Translation, translation technology, translation workflow, public sector, Welsh language, neural machine technology, language resource management, language preservation |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |