Translation and Project Management

INTRODUCTION:

The translation profession is remodelling and transforming from service to an industry. The translation industry is pointing to a new skills translators have a deploy if they to act in a context of large translation volumes, faster delivery times, stricter customization demands, and global production teams.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: THE BASICS

The translation project is a life-cycle and we need coordination, teamwork, planning, and control techniques to do it. For control this, we need a project management.

The translation market is facing a dramatic increase and it is certainly true that project management has lately gained a name in the translation profession due, mainly, to market growth and virtual teams.

One definition of project is “… a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product service. Temporary means that every project has a definite end. Unique means that the product or service is different from all similar products or services”.

TRANSLATION WORKFLOW AND OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The first step in a translation project is the commissioning. It consist to define client’s need, evaluate internal and external constraints that may affect the project’s life cycle, and evaluate alternatives and options.

The next stage is planning. It consists to distribute the resources, think about the time we need for do the project and do this thinking about the adequately coordination between our resources.

The translation phase is the core part of the project and we do this after planning completed satisfactorily.

Finally, the wind-up stage is important because we can’t send a project without a correct revision and detection of any fragments missing and testing of the applications.

IS QUALITY IMPORTANT?

Quality involves all aspects of project management and if we do this correctly, the stakeholders satisfactions is possible.

CONCLUSION

Globalization is the reason why translation has converged towards the area of project management. Translation industry needs to recognize project management aspects because if they don´t, it may result in expensive costs.

SUMMARY OF UNIT 1 AND 2

UNIT 1: TRANSLATION CONCEPTS
First we translated English sentences into Spanish and spoke about the differences into English and Spanish.
Second part of unit spokes about translation techniques. We have a lot of translation techniques. For example, borrowing; it consists taking words of others languages. These terms often have a general usage. The reasons of borrowing are; the target language has no equivalent, the source language word sounds better, and the retain some feel of the source language.
Others techniques are calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, reformulation, adaptation and compensation.
The last part of unit 1 is about terminology of translation concepts. We have the dynamic equivalence, formal equivalence, source language, source text, target language, target readership, target text and text type. This last term say us the class of text is object of translation (e.g. abstract, news report, fiction, manual, scientific article on nanotechnology, tourist brochure, etc)
UNIT 2: TERMINOLOGY
In the second unit we spoke about the terminology. For example, we told about the important role of the terminology in many different fields such as standardization, translation, technical documentation, and software localization. It is often the case that new terminology does not exist in the target language or culture and translators must create it. Sometimes one term has a lot of concepts (term-oriented) or we can explain one concept with many terms (concept-oriented). This is important if we are preparing a terminology database.
Then we spoke about term structure. We spoke about simple terms, abbreviated terms, complex terms and compound terms.
Finally we did some exercises about the theoretical part.

Pantallas eletrónicas tan finas como el papel próximamente

Durante años, las pantallas de los portátiles, televisores, móbiles y demás se han hecho más nítidas, anchas y delgadas. Estan a punto de consegir ser más finas, pero con un nuevo giro. Usando componentes flexibles, estas pantallas pueden ser más curvadas. Algunas pueden enrollarse y deslizarse en tu bolsillo como un trozo de papel electrónico. Estas hojas de plástico podrán mostrar palabras e imágenes; un libro, quizas, o un periódico o una revista. Y ahora parece que se podría producir en masa de la misma forma que se produce el papel tintado al que trata de emular.
En el Flexible Display Centre (Centro de Visualización Flexible) de la Universidad Estatal de Arizon se descubrió recientemente un avance tecnológico crucial. Utilizando un novedoso proceso litográfico inventado por los laboratorios de HP, el área de investigación de Hewlett-Packard y una tinta electrónica producida por E Ink, una compañia ligada al Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts, los investigadores del centro lograron imprimir en unos largos rollos de plástico fino especial fabricado por DuPont. Para fabricar pantallas individuales, el film pintado se corta en secciones más o menos como se cortan los folios para las revistas o los periodicos
El pantallas "electroforeticas" resultantes es su ligereza y que solo consumen una fracción del consumo eléctrico de las típicas pantallas de cristal líquido (LCD). Su principal uso prentende ser en el ejercito americano, consiguiendo fondos para el proyecto. Se espera que los soldados utilicen las pantallas como mapas electrónicos y para recebir información. La idea es que las pantallas flexibles reemplacen algunos de los dispositivos voluminosos que los soldados deben arrastrar por ahi . Si esto funciona, el mercado minurista reaccionará. Las primeras pruebas de las versiones para el consumo podrían empezar en pocos años.