The Linguist

The Linguist 53,4

The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology

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Ivan Weiss, Manager of Deluxe's Production Support Services, explains what experience, skills and qualifications successful applicants need for the role of Linguistic Specialist. We always look for candidates with translation experience. The job is all about understanding the challenges of the translator's role and we require all candidates to pass our standard translation proficiency test. In addition to that, general IT skills, including MS Office and the ability to handle 500+ emails a day, are essential. We provide training on our proprietary software, but familiarity with commercially available subtitling software is a big advantage, as is knowledge of CAT tools such as Trados. We have a highly successful internship programme. Most candidates for our internships come from London universities with audiovisual translation courses, such as the University of Roehampton and City University. We also get candidates from several European universities. More that 80% of those who complete an internship go on to work with us. 20 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER www.ciol.org.uk FEATURES Quality checking for a major subtitling company in 24 languages is a challenging role, says Alexandra Hecker After graduating from City University with an MA in Translating Popular Culture, I was offered an internship as a Linguistic Specialist in the Production Support Services (PSS) department at Deluxe Media Europe. Deluxe is a leading provider of quality subtitling, closed captioning and translation services for major motion picture studios and broadcast in more than 24 languages. Coming from a theoretical background in Translation Studies, I had never heard of duties such as 'quality assurance' and 'coordinating approvals of subtitle files'. Eight months later, such terms have become part of my daily vocabulary and I couldn't imagine the subtitling industry working without them. Since most of our work involves team-based decisions and teamwork, my colleagues and I sit around an 'island' to enable us to communicate easily. We are all Linguistic Specialists, speaking multiple languages and including more than five nationalities. At the start of an average day, I am assigned work by the Account Coordinators, who review clients' work orders and let us know the schedules for new projects. The workflow is quite straightforward. The client – usually a production company – wants to have a trailer or a feature subtitled and translated into multiple languages. They either have their own translators (territory translators) or they need their project to be translated by Deluxe's freelancers. The translated files are always proofread by Deluxe and, if the proofer makes changes, the file has to go back to the translator for approval. It then comes back to Deluxe and our team takes over. The Account Coordinators pass on the English subtitle template that the translators have used, together with the accepted language file. They also provide us with information such as the approved title for the feature or trailer; whether we are allowed to delete subtitles (e.g, boxes that are left empty); and if there are any OUT boxes (i.e, remove boxes translators want to be deleted since no translation is required, for example for the interjection 'Yeah!'). With this information at hand, our work can begin. All of Deluxe's Linguistic Specialists work with the company's 24 working languages, since special software helps us to perform quality assurance even on languages we do not speak or understand. The first stage is QCT (Quality Control Territory). We have different checklists for different clients in order to meet their standards and rules. The language file has to be open next to the English template. First, we check whether the translator or proofer left any notes for us, for example asking us to merge subtitles or re-time them. If they did, we check the file against the video provided and adjust it accordingly. It is also important to check if there have been any updates to the English file since the translator worked on it. If there have and the changes are objective (e.g, the subtitle was put in italics because the speaker is not seen on screen), then we can change the subtitle in the language file accordingly. If there are textual updates, the file might have to go back to the translator for updates. We also check if the main title in the file is the same as the one provided by the client, and if there are empty or OUT boxes which need deletion. Since mistakes in numbers are easily spotted by audiences, we double check that these are the same as in the English or converted correctly (e.g, '3 miles' to '4.8 km'). We check if a translator's credit is Screening for quality GETTING STARTED

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