Internet and its Implications for Translators

 The Internet is a global phenomenon whose importance is growing virtually at the speed of light. Waves of online usage popularity sweep across the world, involving the young and the old, capable of reaching the most remote corners of this planet as efficiently as the industrial centers of our era. It is likely that the World Wide Web will relegate the traditional means of mass communication into the realms of antiquity and oblivion, just as the internal combustion engine eradicated its steam powered predecessor. This radical process has significant implications for anyone willing to be part of our modern society. There is no doubt that the Web will reshape our existence, just as electricity and television have left material traces in the way human communities function. This paper will concentrate on the various aspects of the role the net will probably play in the profession of translators and interpreters.

First, it is important to realize that the Internet is by no means a local or provincial source of information. As its name correctly suggests, the uniqueness of the World Wide Web lies in the fact that it has a more extensive global reach than any other means of communication. Van Name and Catchings (1996) call the Web "an inherently multinational medium". A paper, a journal or anything else published on the Internet is immediately available worldwide to anyone who has public or private access to the World Wide Web. This important feature accounts for the surging popularity of going online. Both business and academia quickly became aware of the Web’s potential. As a result, the private and the public sectors of virtually every territory of the earth started flooding the global audience with their information, triggering a chain reaction with no foreseeable end.

According to a study undertaken by Global Business Centre (1998), there are about 123 million Internet users worldwide at this time. This only represents 1-2 % of the world population. Nevertheless, the Internet usage is growing at rapid rates, even in relatively poor countries. For example, the study mentioned above points out that the number of Internet users in Russia (currently about 600 thousand) doubles every year. If this soaring trend continues, every Russian will have access to the Web within 10 years. This outcome would not at all be surprising in light of the dizzying technological progress that shakes the computer industry. Steady increases in computer speed and memory capacity, continuous decrease in costs and an untiring creativity of software providers constitute some of the most important factors driving the fast growth of Internet use. In addition, many countries follow the example of the USA and deregulate their national phone industry. This helps cut the Web associated costs with the even further, making it affordable to a greater number of users.

In light of the growing global presence and popularity of the Web, the language question becomes essential. Although English currently dominates the Internet, other languages are catching up. On one hand, the Global Business Centre (1998) informs that currently still about 63 % of the world population with access to the Internet are native speakers of English. A report published in PC/Computing (1996) pointed out that the vast majority of Internet hosts (4.4 million) were located in the USA. On the other hand, the same report expected the number of non-English-speaking Internet hosts to double every year. Hence, as Gantz’s report (1998) anticipates, native English speakers will constitute a minority among the 300 million people using the Internet by the year 2002.

The analysis has hinted so far that Internet use will grow by about 100 % each year. This growth is to a great extent fueled by the desire of people, whether they be from academic, artistic, business or governmental community, to gain as well as to provide access to the products of their work. Access in this case implies not only the availability of a resource, but also its intelligibility. To secure the latter attribute in front of a worldwide audience, the importance of the translators’ role in making the Web be World Wide becomes obvious. Translators have been employed to make the media (e.g. movies, legal codes, user manuals, etc.) of one country available and comprehensible in another. Similarly, translators are and will be essential to the future of the Web. As the Internet use keeps growing, so will the demand for translation services, observes a report in PC/Computing (1996).

Not only will the Internet offer new jobs to translators, it will also make their jobs easier. There are already hundreds of general and field specific dictionaries and terminologies available on-line, virtually all of them free of charge. Their powerful search engines allow the translator not only to find a specific word within seconds, but also to track its usage in different contexts. Interestingly, some of the on-line dictionaries are being constantly updated and expanded by their users. This permits to create a less biased reflection of what a language is like at a given moment, allowing to bypass the censorship of organizations such as the Académie Française. A good compilation of online dictionaries can be found at www.bucknell.edu/~rbeard/diction1.html, …diction2.html and …diction3.html.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Translation do provide additional tools to translators, although many people laugh at their current capabilities. We need to recognize, though, that they are at their early stage of development. It is therefore logical that computers cannot perform high-quality translations yet. Melby (1997), who wrote a book on machine translation entitled The Possibility of Language, argues that only As a PC/Computing report (1996) points out, Netscape might include a translation engine as a standard feature of its Navigator.

Artificial Intelligence scholars now study two major methods of machine translation. Bruno Oudet (1997) describes

Translating Web sites is a job involving involving its own perculiar difficulties. Gantz (1998) suggests that "the content and look and feel change a lot more on the Internet". The translator will have to keep adapting his or her work to such constant changes. In addition, he or she will have to keep learning the Web lingo, which keeps developing on a continuous basis. Interestingly, the web lingo does not always derive from English as the original language of the Web. For example, Kalin (1997) to Many web site developers realize the language difficulties of the Internet and try to diminish the problem by avoiding text navigational toolbars and using graphical ones instead. of and Internet loaded with American culture. Signifiers different: translations of icons: US-style mailbox does not address internet users in other countries.

Ironically, although the Web will definitely offer many work opportunities to translators, it will also erode their prestige. which is so low in some countries. When you search the Web using the keyword translation, the search engine comes up with homepages of thousands of translation companies all over the world offering their services. The names of the translators working in those companies are usually not advertized. Their individuality is much less important than the fact that they are professional and have native fluency. Translation is becoming a commodity.

Obviously, people prefer to get their information in their mother tongue because that way they get the most nuances. to as large an audience as possible. The demand for translation services

1. Catchings, Bill and Van Name, Mark L.: Habla usted – or parlez-vous – the Web? Internationalizing the internet, PC Week, November 11, 1996, P. N6.

2. Gantz, John: Coming soon: language barriers, Computerworld, February 2, 1998, P. 33.

3. I-way patrol: Parlez-vous Internet? Future of global Internet community depends on language translation, PC/Computing, February 1996, P. 298.

4. Kalin, Sari: The importance of being multiculturally correct, Computerworld, October 6, 1997, P S16.

5. Melby, Alan K.: Should I use machine translation?, www.ttt.org/theory/mt4me.html.

6. Oudet, Bruno: Multilingualism on the Internet, Scientific American, March 1997, P. 77.

7. The Global Business Centre: Global Internet Statistics, www.macalester.edu/~russ65/statistics.htm