QUALITY ASSURANCE

In 2008, the Language Industry Association, AILIA launched the latest standards certification program. The certification is based on CAN/CGSB-131.10-2008, Translation Services, a national standard developed by the Canadian General Standards Board and approved by the Standards Council of Canada. It involved the participation of representatives from AILIA, professional associations, government, education, clients, and other stakeholders. The Canadian Standard for Translation Services CAN CGSB 131.10 – 2008 establishes and defines the requirements for the provision of translation services by translation service providers.

This National Standard of Canada is a modified adoption of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) standard EN 15038 Translation Services. This document was prepared with the intent to harmonize where possible with the provisions of EN 15038 Translation Services. Variances in wording and content with EN 15038 reflect the Canadian perspective. Conformity assessment and certification based on this standard are already in place. With the recent development of national and regional standards for translation services, many translation service providers, nationally and internationally, are now in the process of either considering or seeking certification of the services they provide in meeting the demands of the marketplace.

The standard specifies the requirements for the provision of translation services by the translation service provider (TSP).

The standard does not apply to interpreting or terminology services. The American translation-services standard is the ASTM F2575-06 Standard Guide for Quality Assurance in Translation.[2] It provides a framework for customers and translation-service providers desirous of agreeing on the specific requirements of a translation project. It does not provide specific criteria for translation or project quality, as these requirements may be highly individual, but states parameters that should be considered before beginning a translation project. As the document’s name suggests, it is a guideline, informing stakeholders about what basic quality requirements are in need of compliance, rather than a prescriptive set of detail instructions for the translator.