Translation Spaces - Current Issue

This article is an exploratory overview of research on translators’ job satisfaction (JS). We analyze the data (51 articles) for indications of (1) translators’ overall JS; (2) associations of overall JS with individual, job-intrinsic, job-extrinsic, societal, and background factors; (3) translators’ satisfaction with job-intrinsic, job-extrinsic, and societal aspects of their work. Translators’ overall JS in the data is fairly high, and it is linked to emotional intelligence, the nature of translating, autonomy, interpersonal relationships, status perceptions, working mode, gender, and experience. The translators studied are mostly happy with the job-intrinsic aspects, but their views on extrinsic and societal aspects are more divided. Gaps in research include individual factors (e.g., self-efficacy, personality traits), background factors (e.g., cultural and socio-economic differences), and the interaction of the different types of factors.

Over the last decade, translator job satisfaction has received an increasing amount of attention in Translation Studies. Translator job satisfaction is broadly investigated from different perspectives such as psychology, sociology, and ergonomics. This article examines extrinsic sources of satisfaction that translators experience in evolving work environments and revisits a comprehensive construct of job satisfaction (Rodríguez-Castro 2015) that captures perceptions aligned with (a) the job (individual-job fit) and (b) the organization (individual-organization fit). This construct includes multiple factors of job satisfaction that have not been extensively studied in the literature such as client review and feedback, team interactions, communication workflow, and factors associated with online platforms. Such a construct could be used to determine specific predictors of job satisfaction for devising career pathways to enhance retention and improve overall human resource management in the language industry.

This article discusses the conceptual and methodological aspects of the Translator WRQoL (Work-related Quality of Life) survey and provides some preliminary results and observations based on the first pilot study. The survey is being developed to measure translators’ work satisfaction and motivation in the context of job digitalisation and automation. Literature suggests that translators’ work satisfaction and their career motivation have been adversely affected. The survey being developed in this study intends to quantitatively measure the causes of the adverse effects using psychometric-strong scales. The ultimate goal is to administer the Translator WRQoL survey on a large scale, and using SEM (Structural Equation Modelling), to identify the causal relationships between the constructs measured by the scale and to determine what kind of translators (regarding worker profiles and attitudes to technology and other factors) have high/low levels of work-related quality of life and are more/less willing to stay in the profession.

This study employs Q methodology to analyze the job satisfaction of healthcare interpreters/translators who serve Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. The unique working conditions imposed by the pandemic are addressed from the various perspectives of the interpreters and translators, who are also migrants. The participants (n = 26) were clustered into different groups based on their shared viewpoints on sources of job satisfaction. The findings confirm that job satisfaction among healthcare interpreters and translators is multifaceted and personal; they derive from interactions with other members of the interpreter’s immediate professional circle, confidence in one’s own inherent values, and an emotional urge to belong to their professional community, which is dominated by the host country’s citizens. This study concludes that recognizing and bolstering the commitments of healthcare interpreters and translators is vital for establishing work-life balance and should be supported by the state, particularly during times of crisis.

Due to the advent of social media, translators have started communicating about their work- and non-work-related experiences and associated attitudes on these platforms. COVID-19 accelerated a shift toward a greater reliance upon digital media (Tsao et al. 2021; Wong et al. 2021). This paper uses social media data to examine how Chinese translators and/ or interpreters used their Facebook pages as a channel to express their job dis/satisfaction between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022. Conclusions regarding practitioner job satisfaction are based on an analysis of information gathered concerning expressed attitudes on access to expanded networking opportunities, client appreciation, and the acquisition of new knowledge. Practitioners value their role as cultural mediators. COVID-19 introduced unprecedented changes, requiring practitioners to adapt to remote work settings and an increased reliance upon digital tools. Despite income and job security concerns due to the pandemic, practitioners remain committed to delivering quality work.

This study explores how differences between generations X (people born from 1965 to 1980), Y (1980s and 1990s), and Z (mid-90s to early 2000s) have an impact on healthcare interpreters’ job satisfaction. Based on self-determination theory (SDT), the paper argues that the degree to which a work environment nurtures interpreters’ feelings of competence, connectedness, and autonomy can determine how motivated they feel, resulting in different degrees of job satisfaction. Stressing the organismic component in SDT, the paper further hypothesizes that the motivation in healthcare interpreting is mediated by interpreters’ values and that these vary across generations. An exploratory and qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews is conducted with 9 interpreters (3 from each generational group) who are working or have worked for the same hospital group. The differences in motivational factors and satisfaction are explored and implications for the ability of healthcare interpreting to retain the different generations are discussed.

In this paper, we investigate the stressors that affect interpreters working in public service interpreting (PSI) in Finland and the ethical dilemmas these stressors indicate. Our data derives from a survey carried out among public service interpreters in Finland in 2018. We identified three categories of stressors: content-related stressors, interactional stressors, and stressors related to the organisation of the work. Through these, we identified six ethical dilemmas. Our analysis indicates that, to solve ethical dilemmas in a sound manner, interpreters have to exercise agency in addition to being familiar with professional codes of conduct. Furthermore, many ethical dilemmas interpreters face are emotionally challenging and therefore also require affective labour. Unfortunately, interpreters often seem to be left to their own devices in dealing with emotionally challenging situations. This study calls for increased professional support for interpreters and further research on the link between ethical dilemmas and job satisfaction.