Monday 9 April 2012

Is individual chartered status working for our profession?

Is it time to relax the word count criterion for Individual Chartered Linguist status in the UK?

(c) Lucy Brooks, FCIL, MD of eCPDWebinars

When the Institute of Linguists was granted Chartered status in 2004 and became the Chartered Institute of Linguists, many of us applauded. In the UK the word ‘chartered’ denotes a person’s accredited and verified professionalism. At last our profession would gain recognition; translators and interpreters would apply to become chartered linguists in droves, and together, we would drive forward the standing of our profession in the minds of business, commerce and the general public.

Sadly, this has not happened. At a time when professional translators and interpreters are under intense pressure: rates of payment, unfair conditions created by exploitative agencies, ever-shorter deadlines and a general lack of understanding by end users of what we do, there has been no rush to apply for Chartered Linguist status. When I was last able to check (the register has been off-line for a couple of weeks now) there were only 18 chartered linguists. Only a handful of these were translators. But when the register comes back on line, my name will be missing.

When I was granted CL status in 2008 I was very proud - proud to be a pioneer of the scheme, proud to have recognition of my professionalism - and I have applied for renewal each year, since I continue to meet the strict criteria by providing a highly professional translation service, doing a great deal of CPD (continuing professional development) and making a huge contribution to the profession.

So why am I no longer a chartered linguist? Have I committed a crime? Has a complaint been made about me? Have I made mistakes that caused the proverbial bridge to collapse? No. I have not been granted chartered status this year merely because I have translated fewer words this year and the rules - which appear to be rigid, despite assurances to the contrary at meetings I have attended on this subject - say that a CL (Translator) must translate 300,000 words in a year.

There are two reasons why I have cut down a little on translating work recently. First, I have been running eCPD Webinars for my fellow translators for two years now and, as you can imagine, it takes up quite a lot of my time. The second is that I wish to pick and choose the translating work I do and have “retired” from the kind of stressful job I often used to handle: weekend working, tight deadlines and excel files.

I think that the rules are very unfair. If Chartered Accountants or Chartered Marketers (to take a couple of examples) decide to work part-time, they are not made to relinquish their chartered title. Provided they do their 35 hours of CPD a year, they keep their status. Yet Chartered Linguists who decide to work part-time or retire from their professional activity of translating, teaching or interpreting are not allowed to continue to use their designation.

For many years I certainly handled 300,000 words and more, so it wasn’t really an issue for me at first, but it was for many of my colleagues who, for various reasons, work part-time and therefore did not meet CL criteria. Many translators have young families to look after, or have second professions, such as interpreting, or teaching. The volume of work can never be predicted or guaranteed.

When the Institute was first granted Chartered status it was suggested that every member should automatically become chartered. This was rejected, for some perfectly valid reasons. But the scheme which emerged is too restrictive and there simply are not enough chartered linguists to encourage others to join them. Many people believe that meeting the criteria and requirements for qualified membership of a professional association is quite sufficient.

Is it time to reconsider granting all members of the CIoL and ITI chartered status, and setting up a CPD verification system for all members?

I believe that our profession needs a boost in the eyes of the outside world. But perhaps the complicated and rigid Chartered Linguist scheme is not the right way to go about it?

What do you think?


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Lucinda Brooks :: www.lucybrooks... :: RSS :: Atom

20 comments:

  1. As someone who only works part-time due to the commitments of looking after a young family, I wholeheartedly agree with you Lucy. There is so much more to professionalism than simply churning out the requisite number of words each year. If ITI and CIoL were to impose and enforce CPD requirements, surely that is a more valuable way of gauging a translator's (or other linguist's) commitment to professionalism? And more importantly, one that those of us who don't have 8+ hours a day available to work might actually have a chance of meeting. Wendy

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    1. Hear Hear. I am in the same boat with a young family.

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  2. I'm slightly saddened to hear this, Lucy, if this is the way things are going. Clearly, linguists need to be practising enough to keep their skills honed and to be active in the marketplace, but this requirement needs to be implemented in a balanced way to ensure that those who have chosen to diversify their business or start tapering down to retirement are not unnecessarily unexcluded.

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    1. Rather than be despondent about the situation I think we should be trying to get the system changed to suit real peoples' lives. Of course you are right Oliver. We need to be active in the marketplace, but not necessarily full time.

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    2. Well, of course, I was not advocating despondency as a practical response to the situation. If the powers that be are open to amend the arrangements, then so much the better.
      When it was originally introduced, chartered status seemed (to me, at least) inspiring and worth aiming for, but if after several years there are still only a handful of chartered translators, this suggests (unfortunately) that CL status is not understood, not valued and not working. Let's hope that things can move forward.

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  3. Funny that the new CIoL Chair of Council comments in the latest edition of The Linguist that he has the goal of protecting the titles "translator" and "interpreter" (April/May p.4.) Maybe this would be a good place for him to start because what is the point of having a professional status that few professionals can actually attain? That destroys the profession rather than building it up. As a new translator it is completely deflating - if someone of your calibre, Lucy,(and I truly mean that as a compliment) has difficulty maintaining the CL status, what hope for the likes of me?

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    1. Paul. I have made my views known to the new Chair of Council and to the Admissions Committee. I believe that there are moves afoot to get the rules changed to be more inclusive. Thanks for your very kind words. But the point is that the majority of translators who are currently working and who are verified members of CIoL or ITI (or equivalent in their countries) are just as professional, so surely, should meet the criteria. So that includes you.

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  4. Dear Lucy,

    It's great to see you blogging, and writing on such an important topic! I've been planning to make my way forward to a CL and I was really looking forward to it. Is there a point? I could make a use of it in terms of marketing, but well... that's it?

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  5. Excellent post Lucy. Thank you for it. I also add to my colleagues' words - I look forward to reading your blog.

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  6. Hi Lucy, I agree with your points. The rigidity of the minimum word count rule to attain CL status should be revised. A lot of professional translators, even those working full time, have a diversified workload, which often includes proofreading, language teaching, cultural mediators, interpreters etc. and these activities cannot be quantified as just as easily.
    There are also translators who don't regularly use TM tools, for whatever reasons, and it doesn't mean they're less professional or deserving of the CL status. What about literary translators, for example? Their work should be judged more on quality than on quantity of word output, and they can't really count on TM tools to speed up their work.
    I knew too few linguists had applied for and attained Chartered status so far, but I was dismayed by the latest statistics, and I agree such a poor turnout will not encourage new linguists to apply nor the outside world to take notice and take our profession seriously.
    Paola

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    1. Paola
      I have always been told that for literary translators and transcreators the word count would be less rigid. WHy not for people like us. A lot of my work is very specialised and takes a lot of time and effort to do. It's definitely not a question of churning out the words for me.

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. Anonymous summed it up perfectly above:

    "There is so much more to professionalism than simply churning out the requisite number of words each year. If ITI and CIoL were to impose and enforce CPD requirements, surely that is a more valuable way of gauging a translator's (or other linguist's) commitment to professionalism?"

    Chartered linguist status has always seemed to me to be aimed at a very narrow band of translators, working in a very small number of fields for a very specific kind of client - and is therefore not at all representative of the realities of the profession as experienced by me or the vast majority of my colleagues. Shame, really.

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  9. Securing statutory protection for our profession is, in my humble opinion, the way forward. Such protection is urgently needed for translators and interpreters and, above all, for the public and institutions we serve. Door Supervisors, Arts Therapists, Dental Hygienists, Chiropodists and others listed on www.ukncp.org.uk are ALL regulated professions enjoying statutory protection – where on that list are translators and interpreters? Our profession seems to be fragmented and disjointed and therein lies our weakness; and strands of opinion become tangled. No ministry of justice would be inclined to negotiate with: two institutes, several associations / societies and unions! Looking at CIOL Mission Statement, I would hope they lead a consortium to achieve statutory protection for our profession.
    Maria Paszkiewicz MCIL MITI RPSI (translator first, public servant foremost)

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  10. You have raised a lot of very valid issues here, Lucy. Thank you for putting them in the public arena.

    You've mentioned chartered professionals in other industries. The one that comes to my mind is a mechanical engineer. Do I expect a chartered engineer to know how to work a lathe, or a milling machine? Absolutely. Do I expect him (or her) to be stood at a lathe X days a year, producing umpteen thousand perfectly milled parts each year? No. To be honest, I expect her to be running the factory. And if that's the case for a chartered engineer, then we need to map that through to our own profession if chartered status is to be meaningful. It should be about something far broader and more indicative than "how many thousand words did you translate last year".

    I know that, at the moment, the CIOL is keen to seek ITI's involvement in jointly reviewing how chartered status works. So this is an ideal opportunity for us to look back at how well things have worked over this past handful of years, to reevaluate the initial experience, and to explore better ways of building a mouse trap. I am confident that both professional bodies will engage constructively in that process.

    These comments are my own personal thoughts, and do not necessarily represent the views of any organisation that I am associated with.

    Nick Rosenthal
    FCIL, MITI

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    1. It warms my heart and fills me with hope to see CIOL and ITI undertaking a joint enterprise for the common good.

      With all best wishes,

      Maria Paszkiewicz
      MCIL MITI RPSI

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  11. I understand that the system is about to go into review. I don't know whether my article had any effect there; I believe that there were already moves afoot to review it. But perhaps this debate has speeded up the process slightly. SInce there is now a review process going on, I shall refrain from further comment until any changes are announced.

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  12. I never felt tempted by CL status: it looked very bureaucratic, time-consuming and expensive. Its main concrete value to me would be as a way to enhance my status in the eyes of clients (i.e. marketing, as Marta wrote) but thankfully I have plenty of work at present and don't feel the need for this. Actually, I suspect many of the people who would be eligible for CL - established, top-rank interpreters/translators - are in a similar position. Was I not tempted to get it to demonstrate my commitment to professionalism in our industry, etc. etc.? No, I think people will judge things like that by my everyday actions rather than postnominals. To be blunt, the whole scheme seemed rather pointless to me from the start. Conversely, introducing some kind of regulation for public service interpreters (akin to 'sworn interpreters') made sense, and might have helped prevent the problems we're now seeing with Applied Language Solutions.

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  13. http://www.iol.org.uk/news/news_article.asp?r=PEY2KE59809

    Good luck to all members of CIOL.

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  14. I agree with many of your comments. I have been translating part-time for some time, but am nowhere near qualifying for chartered status. I have now passed the CIoL's DipTrans exam (hurray!) and qualify for membership. I would suggest that the criteria for becoming a member of the CIoL (as opposed to a student member or associate) are stringent enough to consider anyone who is "MCIL" or "FCIL" to be granted chartered status as well.

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