Industry & Company Definitions

INTRODUCTION

Below is a list of industry terms and their definitions. Familiarity with these terms ensures clear and effective communication between all parties involved in the translation workflow. MLC defines some terms in a certain way that adhere to our own purposes. We also use a number of terms that are not yet widely used in the industry. We have added the note (MLC term) to indicate if any of these two cases apply to a term.

Align(ment): this process is performed by a a CAT tool. A source and target document is uploaded into the CAT tool and the tool determines which units or pairs go together; the resulting aligned document shows the aligned segments side by side. 

Back-translation: a translation of the target text back into the source language. Back-translations are usually performed or requested to verify the accuracy of the content in the target text.

Bilingual doc: this is a bilingual Word document exported by a CAT tool. It looks like a table with the source language in one column and another column for the target language. We use this for vendors unable to work online in MemoQ or for a client review.  This Word document can be uploaded back in MemoQ to save the translations or any update to them.

CAT Analysis: This is a report generated by a CAT tool that shows the total number of words in a file as well as how many repetitions and TM matches there are.  We use this to calculate pricing for clients as we offer most clients a discounted rate for repetitions and matches.  We also use it to calculate the payment for the vendor. This analysis can be found in the Work Files section of XTRF.

Client: in the context of the language industry, a person or organization that commissions a translation service by a formal agreement.

Client preference: within MLC's language quality framework, this is a category that describes a translation that is accurate but is not the wording prefered by the client. This category is used for delivering feedback to linguists without having an impact on the audit score. Client preferences should be considered for future tasks

Competence: different from qualifications, the various skills that a translator must exhibit to produce quality translations. These include the ability to translate content in accordance with guidelines and purpose of the translation; linguistic and textual competence in the source and target languages; the ability to undertake research, acquire and process information necessary to understand the source content and produce the target content; as well as cultural, technical and domain expertise. (MLC term).

Compliance: within MLC's language quality framework, a category that describes when the translator fails to follow the requirements, style guide rules, or instructions specified; or, in the absence of requirements or instructions, goes against translation common sense. This category is heavily source-text dependent. In other words, you almost certainly will have to compare source and target texts to determine these errors. (MLC term).

Computer Assisted Translation (CAT): also known as "Computer Aided Translation." According to GALA, "this is a broad term to describe software that human translators use during the translation process to improve their productivity." Most CAT tools improve efficiency, output, minimize errors and omissions, and provide the ability to create and customize translation memories and term bases.

Concordance search: a CAT tool feature that allows a translator to search for a term or phrase and the CAT tool displays matching paired results retrieved from the translation memory.

Context: information external to the source text that allows the translator to comprehend the source more fully and render an accurate translation. 

Covert translation: MLC defines "covertness" as a translation method where the translation generally seeks to be loyal to the target culture, and where, additionally, the translation attempts to "hide" the fact that it is a translation. Find out more information here. (MLC term).

Desktop Publishing (DTP): in regards to print or digital media like brochures, posters, etc., desktop publishing refers to the formatting and graphic design work done, usually post-translation, via design software like InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and so on. Some linguists offer DTP services in addition to translation.

Do Not Translate (DNT): list of terms that should not be translated; this can include trademarked phrases or brand names.

Dialect: the language variant spoken by a group of people, characterized by unique pronunciation, semantics, and grammar.

Directionality: the direction in which languages are written. This can be left-to-right, right-to-left, or both (bidirectionality).

Domain: subject field, sphere of knowledge or activity having its own specialized culture, social context, and linguistic characteristics. (MLC term).

Editing: bilingual examination of target language content against source language content and against agreed-upon instructions, guidelines, terminology, etc. (MLC term).

Editor: individual who performs the task of editing. (MLC term).

Exact match: also known as 100% match. A match between the current source segment and a stored target segment in the translation memory. A 101% match means that even the previous or following segment matches as well.

Expansion: also known as text or language expansion, describes the fact that when translating into certain languages, the target text expands (in comparison to the source text), exceeding the number of characters in the source text. Expansion can pose issues with visually-sensitive materials such as marketing materials or subtitles.

False friend: also known in English as by the French phrase, "faux ami," a word or phrase that sounds like a word or phrase in a different language, but that means something entirely different. 

Feedback: the conveyance of information regarding the quality of a translation from editor to translator, via the project manager, who acts as the intermediary. To ensure that feedback is constructive and not personal, the translator remains anonymous the editor, and vice versa. (MLC term).

Full post-editing: To edit the machine translation such that it is not only accurate and comprehensible, but also stylistically adequate. The post-edited text (what you submit) may still not be as creative and nuanced as what could have been achieved by a human translator.

Fuzzy match: This refers to segments that have partial translations or somewhat similar translations in the translation memory.  They include 99% matches and below.  These are called “fuzzy” because they are similar but not exactly the same and they will require editing/translation.

Gisting: also known as "gist translation," is the use of machine translation to produce a rough translation of a source text, which is typically used to merely get a general sense of what the source is saying.

Glossary: a list of words, typically bilingual or multilingual, which may include examples and/or comments. It is different from a term base in that it is not "hosted" by a CAT tool. (MLC term).

Grammar: within MLC's language quality framework, it is a category that describes errors in tense, conjugation, word order, gender, singular/plural, or any other violation of the rules of the target language. This category is heavily source-text independent.  

Granularity: within MLC's language quality framework, this refers to specific examples of error categories. (MLC term).

Guide: a set of rules and norms that linguists may be required to follow and in relation to which quality is assessed. MLC has produced several guides for different clients and translation types; if one applies to your project, it will be provided to you by the project manager. (MLC term).

In-country review: when a translation is evaluated by a person who resides in the country where the target text will be distributed.

Instructions: the conveyance of client rules and preferences, which may be linguistic, technical, or formatting in nature, to the linguist, normally via XTRF.

Kudos: within MLC's language quality framework, a category that describes specific instances of translation "excellence." Kudos carry a small positive effect in the language quality assessment score, and can thus mitigate the impact of errors. A reviewer can give a maximum of two kudos per review. (MLC term).

Language code(s): language abbreviation employed by a CAT tool to distinguish between languages and dialects. For example, in MemoQ the language code for US English is eng-US. Language codes may differ between CAT tools. For MemoQ's language codes, visit this page.

Language Service Provider (LSP): also known as Translation Service Provider (TSP), entity that provides professional language services.

Literal translation: when a translation follows the source text closely in terms of sentence construction. Literal translation is discouraged unless explicitly requested by the client.

Localization: the process of adapting a product or content to a specific locale or market.

Machine Translation (MT): automated translation of text from one language to another via a computer system.

Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE): reviewing and correcting machine translation output; also known as simply "post-editing".

MemoQ: a CAT tool. MLC linguists should always work in MemoQ unless otherwise specified or permitted by the project manager. Read our MemoQ guide for more info.

Naturalness of language: within MLC's language quality framework, a category that describes when the translation is not fluent, well-written in the eyes of a native speaker, but is not necessarily due to wrong meaning, incorrect grammar, punctuation or spelling. When the translation is awkward and does not read well. This category is heavily source-text independent. In other words, you can determine most of these errors by just looking at the target text. (MLC term).

Neutral (language): also know as "universal," as in "universal Spanish" or "neutral French", etc., a language that is mutually intelligible by speakers of all regions where that language is in reality spoken with regional variances. Translating into a neutral or universal register allows the content to be understood by a wide population. Typically no standards exist by which to define a neutral language, so these are usually established by the client, the LSP, the translator, or a combination of all parties.

Overt translation: MLC defines "overtness" as a translation method where the translation generally seeks to stay loyal to the source content, and where the translation, additionally, does not "mind" revealing itself as a translation. Find out more information here. (MLC term).

PFIGS: acronym for Portuguese, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Personal record: an institution- or government-issued document with personal identifiable information or information attesting to a particular event or professional certification in a person's life. MLC has its own specific guidelines for translating this type of document. (MLC term).

Pipe, the: the pipe "|" is a MemoQ feature that increases the accuracy of new term additions and decreases the possibility of false positives in the QA step. Find out more information under "Custom" here.

PM: abbreviation for project manager, which is the individual who coordinates translation projects.

Post-editing: reviewing and correcting machine translation output. Also known by its longer term, "machine translation post-editing" or MTPE.

Post-production: the activities performed after translation formally concludes, including delivery of feedback and payment to linguist, client satisfaction inquiries, and future preventative actions (if needed). (MLC term).

Pre-editing: the process of editing the text prior to the actual translation process. The goal of pre-editing is to clarify ambiguous terminology, reduce wordiness, and other problematic elements; it can be performed prior to human or machine translation.

Pre-production: the activities performed before formal translation begins, mostly between client and LSP, including inquiry, quoting, agreements, and other administrative tasks. (MLC term).

Price per word (PPW): as its name suggests, the structure by which a translation is charged.

Production: the activities performed during formal translation by all stakeholders, including client, project manager, translator, and editor, which include translation, editing, delivery to LSP from linguist and delivery to client from LSP, as well as any corrective actions before or after client delivery (if needed). (MLC term).

Project management: coordinating, managing, and monitoring a project throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production cycles.

Proofreading: examining the edited target language content and applying corrections. This activity is not as thorough as editing and does not involve the source text; it limits itself to checking for formal errors in punctuation and spelling. (MLC term).

Punctuation/spelling: within MLC's language quality framework, it is a category that describes errors in use of commas, colons, dashes, etc., and incorrect capitalization; typos, use of outdated or uncommon spelling (or character). This category is heavily source-text independent. (MLC term).

Qualifications: formal educational or professional accomplishments, granted by credible industry or related institutions, that prepare a linguist for the translation industry. These can include undergraduate or graduate degrees, as well as professional certifications. 

Quality Assurance (QA): for MLC linguists, QA refers to the final step before completing a project in MemoQ. With the option of doing it instantly or manually, QA is a built-in feature that detects errors in translation by comparing source and target segments, checking the term base, spelling, content of the tags, etc. Find out more information here. (MLC term).

Quality Framework (QF): is the structure by which MLC grades the quality of translations. It is comprised of five penalizing categories (Naturalness of language, compliance, grammar, punctuation/spelling, terminology), one neutral category (Client preference), and one mitigating category (Kudos). (MLC term).

Register: the degree of formality or informality in written language. Although there are many debates about how many registers there are or should be, MLC keeps things rather simple and recognizes four registers: neutral, formal, informal, and casual. Read more about registers here. (MLC term).

Repetition: CAT tools can detect when the same phrase/sentence/segment is repeated in a document.  This means it is exactly the same as another phrase/sentence/segment in the document.  Once the first instance is translated, the CAT tool will automatically enter that translation for following instances so the content only has to be translated once.

Reviewing: performing all the steps in the editing process and, additionally, generating a quality assessment of the translation. (MLC term).

Reviewer: individual who performs the review process. (MLC term).

Segment: sentence or phrase that is isolated by a CAT tool to facilitate translation. 

Severity: within MLC's language quality framework, it is the level or degree by which an error is measured. Every error is assigned one of three severity levels: critical, major, or minor. For more on how to gauge severity, see this guide. (MLC term).

Source Language: content to be translated.

Source text analysis: analysis of the source text prior to translation that provides data and gauges the potential difficulty of the translation.

Target Language: language into which source language content is translated.

TEP: acronym for Translation, Editing, and Proofreading.

Terminology: also known as "Term Base," a list of keywords, usually bilingual or multilingual, which includes both approved and forbidden terms. It is different from a glossary in that it is "hosted" by a CAT tool. (MLC term).

Term Base: see Terminology. Also written as a single word, "termbase."

Term extraction: with the aid of technology, such as a CAT tool, extracting from a document a list of candidate terms for later analysis; if these terms are translated, they can be added to a term base.

Tone: the "attitude" or "emotion" conveyed by a text. What it "sounds like." MLC recognizes four types of tone: flat, serious, conversational, and friendly. (MLC term).

Transcreation: according to TAUS, "a translation that is enhanced by creativity and focus on style, register, and emotive impact, and modified to suit a new audience which can be a group of users, a country, a region, etc."

Translation: to render source language content into target language content in written form.

Translator: the individual who performs a translation.

Translation Service Provider (TSP): also known as Language Service Provider (LSP), entity that provides professional translation services.

Translation Memory (TM): the storage and reuse of past translations to improve translation productivity. This is typically a feature provided by CAT tools.

Translation Memory eXchange (TMX): standard by which to convert translation memories from and into various other formats.

Transliteration: the process of representing a given language in the characters of a different (usually more familiar) language to facilitate pronunciation for the reader. 

Typo: Synonym for "misspelling."

Visibility: one of the three factors by which to determine severity in a language quality assessment; visibility is the combination of the medium through which the reader will encounter a translation, and where, within that medium, the translation placed, such that it has low, medium, or high visibility.

Voice for audience: for languages (like French, Spanish, etc.) that have different levels of formality, this term refers to the voice that the target language should be written in, which will determine the way verbs are conjugated. For these target languages, your instructions should always indicate the voice for audience; if not, please contact the project manager. (MLC term)

Word count: the total number of words to be translated or edited.

Workflow: the entirety of the pre-production, production, and post-production cycles. (MLC term).

Word processor: in the translation industry, a computer program that allows linguists to input, edit, and format text.

XTRF: a translation management system that guides managers and linguists through the translation workflow. Linguists receive and finalize translation projects through their online linguist portal.

100% match: see Exact match