How Should Translators Be Protected in the Workplace? Developing a Translator Rights Model Inventory

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing interest in studying translators in the workplace. However, the rights of translators are an uncharted area. The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it studies translators’ perceptions of translator rights in the workplace. Second, it develops a translator rights model inventory that compiles practitioners’ viewpoints for studying and measuring translator rights. This paper presents findings from a questionnaire survey that collected both quantitative and qualitative data from 155 translation practitioners in Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). The findings suggest that the translators attach the greatest importance to rights related to working conditions, followed by rights related to economic and social position, and finally those related to copyright issues. It was found that the translators are quite dissatisfied with the rights they have in the workplace, because what they wish to enjoy is much less than what they expect. In addition, a translator’s social variables, such as age, level of education, major field of study, and years of translation experience, are not related to the number of rights the person enjoys in the workplace. What was found to be related is the sex of the translator and region in which the translator lives.

Keywords

• translator rights
• translator professionalism
• quantitative method
• qualitative method
• greater china