Status and technology in the professionalization of translators. Market disorder and the return of hierarchy

Abstract

The professional status of a translator is traditionally indicated by a set of social signals including previous experience, academic qualifications, professional accreditation and membership of associations. When those signals shifted from print and word-of-mouth to electronic media, some degree of market disorder resulted with respect to globalisation of translator-client contacts, the growth of volunteer translation, access to free online machine translation, and the corresponding motivation to steal the identities of professional translators. Three case studies of websites and forums that have been associated with market disorder (ProZ.com, a comparison of aRGENTeaM and GrupoTS, and the ..