What is it about?
This article provides an overview of legal translator competences, qualifications and other professional requirements set in the ISO 20771:2020 standard. References to existing frameworks, such as European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and some research, complementary ISO standards (notably ISO 17100:2015) and current industry best-practice offer relevant context and background information, and identify the gap that has been filled by this important standard.
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Why is it important?
The author demonstrates that ISO 20771:2020 is a good example of a requirements standard developed for the translation industry that is up-todate, reflects actual industry best-practice, and addresses a need for standardization of legal translator requirements for the purpose of certification. It is posited here that ISO 20771:2020 is a valuable resource for all stakeholders as it not only provides accurate information about standard market requirements for legal translation (and translation in general) but also contributes to translators’ professionalization by setting objective professional benchmarks. Additionally, ISO requirements standards are, by definition, pragmatic and operational, and therefore easier to validate through conformity assessment and certification than any other resources, and hence both the industry and academia can only benefit from increased ISO standards uptake. The overview of legal translator competences, qualifications and other professional requirements set in the ISO 20771:2020 standard reflects the ISO approach to setting translator requirements, and outlines some of the practical implications of translation industry standardization and certification in the hope that it might become the starting point for more discussions on this subject in the future.
Perspectives
This article presents an overview of ISO 20771:2020 (Legal translation requirements) standard within a very wide context that covers standards development, implementation and certification as well as the relevant regulatory framework for several reasons. The obvious ones relate to the standard itself and the translation profession but it also provides a general perspective of how standards are developed and work as well as their practical applications (business, regulatory, academic, etc.), so that standardisation can be seen as an inherently human and societal activity. So, I hope this article is thought-provoking and helps people realise that standardisation not only as an intellectual and industrial modelling exercise, but also a reflection of real-life creative human endeavour to constantly try and impose order and rules on market reality where entropy rules, with the aim of achieving the necessary balance.
Monika Popiolek
University of Warsaw
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An in-context overview of legal translator competences, qualifications and other professional requirements set in the
ISO 20771:2020 Legal translation – Requirements standard, Digital Translation, December 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/dt.00008.pop.
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