On the use of technologies in public service interpreting and translation settings: TISLID18: Languages for Digital Lives and Cultures

Technology has a far-reaching impact on every aspect of professional translation and interpreting. Technological advances are bringing about new possibilities for providing these services to different types of clients but are at the same time also causing new challenges or even raising some concerns (e.g. with respect to quality) in certain areas of translation and interpreting. The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of what technologies are used in the context of multilingual service provision by public service providers (PSPs) as well as public service interpreters and translators (PSITs). The focus in this study is on different types of technologies – such as computer-assisted translation (CAT) technology, machine translation (MT) systems, Instant Messaging (IM) technology, video conferencing technology (VCT), termbase management systems (TMB), – as well as (digital) specialised language resources, such as glossaries or terminological databases. An online survey has been distributed in order to collect and compare data on the use of these technologies and resources by the two target groups (cf. supra). First, we will describe the research context in which this study should be placed. Then we will go deeper into the research methodology by describing the structure of the survey. Next, we will present and discuss our preliminary results and, finally, draw a first conclusion.