Ensuring Quality in Translation – Modlingua Error Control Rubric and DIN 2345
by Anjali Jain

Modlingua is an  ISO 9001:2008 certified company which means it is following a quality management system which helps to continually define its objectives to meet the demands of not only its customers but also other stakeholders associated with the company. This helps Modlingua to improve continually and become more efficient and improve the satisfaction of people associated with it. By launching Modlingua Error Control Rubric it has helped to improve the efficiency of its summer interns 2018 and also provided a general 10 points parameters for anyone who wish to minimize the most common mistakes made by language learners and many a time by professionals alike.
 
The whole business of translation and content writing revolves around ensuring the quality of work delivered to the client. This is necessary for maintaining credibility in the market, acquiring new clients and increase business. As in translation we are dealing with a written commodity, which differs each time in its content and needs to be submitted within a deadline, the possibility of making silly errors increases. The translator or a writer faces the brunt of time and has to manage the quality of content and linguistic and non-linguistics aspects: whether what he has written meets the requirement of the end user? Is it easily comprehensible by the target readers? Do the text reads like original or should certain parts be left out to make it more accessible?

Such questions occupy the mind of a translator or a content writer working with languages. It is quite possible then that common errors are overlooked and therefore reflected in the final product. In similar situations, the Modlingua Error Control Checklist will be very useful as it is made to avoid the common mistakes which are often overlooked in such situations. The 10 points checklist developed by Modlingua comprises the following categories: Articles; Punctuations; Omissions; Spellings; Choice of words; Factual; Consistency; Grammatical; Sentence structure; Formatting (including tags, space, margins, fonts, font size, paragraph settings). For a proofreader, for example, using the modlingua checklist the grammatical errors like punctuations, articles, spellings and formatting errors like inconsistency in paragraphs, font size, spaces etc. can be quickly revised. This will save a lot of time and improve the work speed as the list of commonly made errors is readily available. Even AI checkers like Grammarly works on the identifying most of these structural and grammatical errors. But in a country like India where fewer people have access to the internet or are less familiar with using such automated softwares, the checklist developed by Modlingua can transform the human work into work done by AI.   

The Modlingua Error Control Rubric is based on a comprehensive analysis of the sample profiles of 85 out of 135 interns by our director Mr Ravi Kumar. A databank of 34,218 words, which after editing were reduced to 33,821, were originally analyzed for the purpose of this comprehensive report.  The most numbers of the mistakes were not seen in the articles (73) or spellings (47) or grammatical category (45) but in punctuation (196), choices of words (128) and formatting (110).

Modlingua Error Control Rubric might not be comprehensive like other quality standards for e.g. German DIN 2345 but it more likely to be used by an individual who does not have access to the costly certification process. Quality standards like German DIN 2345 establish the terms and conditions of an agreement between the client and the translation service provider. The main aim of DIN 2345 is to establish clarity between the contracting parties involved in translation. Terms are generic and abstract in nature. For example, translation is defined in clause 3.1.1 as the transfer of text from the original language into the target language in writing. Some of the questions which are answered in greater detail are: what is the purpose of translation; who are the target readers; whether the text will be published; what kind of terminology should be used; which linguistic variant e.g. Indian English American English; what language register i.e. whether the text will be read by children or specialized professionals. Thus, DIN 2345 is only applicable in one domain, Modlingua Error Control Rubric can be used by anyone who is using the language as a tool, be it a content writer or translator. It has wider application.