Book review. Translation and Localization Management: The Art of the Possible (American Translation Association, Scholarly Monograph Series XVI). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. x + 424 pp. ISBN 978-90-272-3192-5 €95, US$143
Table of contents
The technological revolution and the ensuing globalization have not only reshaped the practice and theorizations of translation (Munday 2012) but also the way translations are processed, managed and commoditized. The massive increase in the volume of multilingual content around the world has increased the complexity of managing translation projects (Gouadec 2007). This has brought to the fore the role of translation project managers in the global language industry. Translation and Localization Management: The Art of the Possible, edited by Keiran Dunne and Elena Dunne, is a comprehensive and long overdue collection of essays that cover the complex set of different skills required to succeed as a translation and localization project manager. Like many previous volumes in the American Translators Association Monograph Series, this book attempts to create bridges between the professional world and translation scholarship, though the reader of this volume will quickly identify an industry perspective and a constant lament for the lack of attention translation academia has paid to this activity. In this volume, we are told that the management of translation as a business is precisely at the core of translation—much like others have said about texts, cultures, cognition, functions, purposes or equivalence. It is at the core as appropriate management of translation projects results in successful completion of projects, efficiency, quality, cost reduction and profits margins… and, as one would expect, the profits are definitely not going to the translators themselves.