Translators Associations North America: CTIC

A union of regional translators associations

Translators Associations North America: CTICThe Canadian Translators,Terminologists and Interpreters Council (CTTIC) was founded in 1970. It replaced the Society of Translators and Intepreters of Canada (STIC) which had been created in 1956. Nowadays it is a federation of eight provincial and territorial translators associations. The founding members are ATIO (the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario) and the OTTIAQ (Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec).

Since 1972, these organisations were joined by the Corporation of Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters of New Brunswick (CTINB), the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta (ATIA), the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Manitoba (ATIM), the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Saskatchewan (ATIS), the Society of Translators and Interpreters of British Columbia (STIBC), the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Nova Scotia (ATINS) and the Nunayut Interpreters and Translators Association.

A very important part of CTTIC’s activities concern the representation of the profession internationally, particularly as a member of the International Federation of Translators (FIT), “a window to the world” for translation societies. CTTIC always sends an official delegation to the organisation’s congress, and it has been represented on FIT’s council for many years. It even has the honour of hosting the 8th World Congress in Montréal, in 1977 and the 16th World Congress in Vancouver, in 2002.

CTTIC also looks for cooperation with other translation associations from North America, such as the Literary Translators Association of Canada (LTAC), the American Translators Association (ATA) and the Asociación de Traductores Profesionales (ATP) and the Organización Mexicana de Traductores (OMT) of Mexico through the FIT Regional Network for North America (RNNA), of which it is a founding member.

In 2002, a cooperation agreement was signed between CCTIC and ACTI, the Cuban interpreters and translators association. Within Canadian borders, CTTIC has also established relations and exchanges with other groups, like the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), the Canadian Association for Translation Studies (CATS) and the Association of Visual Language Interpreters of Canada (AVLIC).

The Canadian organisation is responsible for holding periodic conferences that provide language professionals from across Canada with a chance to meet and discuss subjects that concern the nation. Member bodies also organise conferences (“alone or in cooperation with other organisations or groups interested in languages or communications, on topics of interest to their members”).

In addition, CTTIC promotes training opportunities for qualified language professionals, particularly through its member bodies, “which cooperate with provincial and territorial educational institutions” offering programmes in translation, terminology, interpreting and related areas.

Most of all, the CTTIC represents the interests of its members at national level. Matters such as “copyright for translations and relations between the federal Translation Bureau and other government departments” are amongst its tasks.

The mission that was defined by the Canadian council is to set, maintain and promote national standards in translation, interpretation and terminology, in order to ensure quality communication across linguistic and cultural communities.

A word of caution on Machine Translation (MT)

The Canadian council says it has been “closely following progress made in the field of assisted translation tools, including automatic (i.e. “machine” translation)”. It considers the latest results concerning this type of translation are “promising”, the conclusion taken by the council of translators associations is that “a translation generated using a machine translation tool does not produce a level of quality sufficient to correctly convey a full message in another language and must be reviewed by a qualified professional translator”.

CTTIC considers that its member organisations “have a duty to ensure the protection of the public”. For that reason, CTTIC and its members advise users of MT to “exercise the highest degree of caution”, as well as to trust a certified translator with all their translation requirements.

Certification Examinations

One of CTTIC’s main activities concerns implementing standard certification procedures. This comes as a consequence of the pursuit for its objective to provide uniform standards for the profession as well as to ensure the competence of its members. So far, this evaluation has taken the form of examinations under the aegis of CTTIC. A Board of Certification that reports to the council sets the standards for certification procedures and exercises “overall control”. The examinations have included those for translators, conference interpreters, court interpreters and terminologists.

All forms of certification rely on a very strict Ethics component. One isn’t able to apply for certification with CTTIC. Applications are supposed to be sent to the member body (i.e. a translators association) serving the applicant’s part of the country.

In case of success, the member becomes officially certified.

Keep in mind that Canada has two main languages: English (58.8 % of the population) and French (23.2 %), which is mainly used in Quebec, where it is the official language. The remaining population speaks other languages. Around the world, there are around 328 million native English speakers (the actual figures are estimated to be much higher), whereas French native speakers are about 125 millions.

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