Bad business practices in the language services industry

Abstract

The language services industry has enjoyed consistent economic growth over the past 15 years, yet not all participants have reaped its benefits. Individual language professionals have faced persistently low rates of pay, a lack of social benefits, and reduced job security. This predicament has been exacerbated by disruptions brought by technologies such as machine translation and artificial intelligence, and the questionable business practices of language services providers. Existing research primarily focuses on economic and technological aspects, overlooking the experiences of linguists. This article seeks to broaden this area of study by compiling a comprehensive list of the bad business practices that individual practitioners experience. A survey of 682 freelance translators provides the foundation, yielding a catalogue of 17 detrimental practices along with their prevalence rates. The article also outlines proposals for addressing these issues and identifies potential avenues for future research in this domain.