The new communications infrastructure based on the latest generation Internet platforms of so?called Web 2.0 could potentially have a formidable impact on translation. Like many other professions such as journalism and photography, translation faces challenges from the prevailing technological trends for ‘openness’, ‘sharing’ and ‘col-laboration’, which are prompting user participation in otherwise well established pro-fessional activities.
The user?generated content resulting from such participation is spreading and blurring the boundary between professionals and non?professionals, who are particularly savvy Internet users. While user participation in translation can run counter to maintaining professional standards and norms, it may serve to open new channels of communication. Minority languages are already benefitting from committed user contributions to translation, be it on Wikipedia or Facebook. With social networking increasing on Web 2.0 platforms, translation too is now a social activity undertaken by unspecified Internet users collaborating with a “virtual community” spirit (Rheingold, 2000). More recently termed “crowdsourcing” (Howe, 2008) such translation by people who are not trained as translators or at least are not remunerated for their translation work, has come to be known as social or community translation (DePalma & Kelly, 2008).
Open?source software has a large contingency of often technically-minded volunteers happily involved in translation of associated documentation free of charge, while fans of media products such as anime take subtitling into their own hands so that what they consider to be good products can be shared more widely. Such practices stand on shaky ground legally where the intellectual property of the original product is infringed upon even though copyright holders may have turned a blind eye (Leonard, 2005). Besides, political activists are also using the platform, acting as translators to spread their messages across different languages. Some of these volunteer/fan translators seem to enjoy their status as contributors to the public good while improving their translation skills and gaining experience albeit in unofficial learning environments and despite some legal implications. In the meantime, the professional translator community is showing some signs of unease (Kelly, 2009) ab out the rise of what it considers to be “the cult of the amateur” (Keen, 2007).
In a different context, another, quite distinct form of translation, that of ‘community interpreting’ also originated among non?professional practitioners (often family or friends). However, it became professionalised relatively quickly, and now (usually) forms part of legitimate practice within the field of interpreting. Can we draw a parallel between this and the new ‘community translation’, which has just entered the scene? Unlike community interpreting, the concept of community translation has evolved around technological platforms affording social networking, linking volunteer translators which are typically unspecified fans, activists, etc.
to work together for a common cause. At this point, it is still an emerging paradigm and we can only speculate about its nature and the full extent of its impact. This tenth edition of Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series - Themes in Translation Studies seeks to address how far-reaching the consequences of the new trends afforded by new technological platforms may be, possibly affecting many different dimensions of translation. We are therefore inviting proposals that deal with one or several of the following
issues:
1.  What is the quality of user?generated translation such as crowdsourced
translation? Is it developing norms of its own?
2.  How reliable is quality assessment by users in cases such as
translations on Facebook, where users vote on the quality of translation? Is this new type of quality assessment spreading to other areas and might it
have an influence on translation quality control elsewhere? Is there
interaction with translation quality control as exercised by companies?
3.  Is there a difference in the nature of collaboration among professional
translators and non?professional translators? How about collaboration cutting across the two groups?
4.  How should we deal with ethical issues of businesses leveraging free
user?generated translation?
5.  Would professional ethics be relevant to non?professionally produced
translation?
6.  What are the implications for translators of open?source translation
technology tools increasingly used by non?professionals as opposed to their proprietary counterpart tools?
7.  Does (or do different forms of) community translation have an impact on
translation as a profession?
8.  Is community translation expanding and will it expand beyond the
technological platforms where it evolved?
9.  Do human rights groups like Amnesty International and NGOs make use of
community translation and/or is it effective in promoting their objectives?
10.  What are the effects of community translation on translator training,
given its affinity with social constructivist approaches in providing ‘authentic’ training grounds, high learner motivations and co?construction
of knowledge among the members of the group forming community of practice
of a new kind?
11.  Can one draw any parallels between community translation and community
interpreting which is rapidly being professionalised and may be feeling the impact of social networking technologies?