According to the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, two main areas cover linguistics in the legal field. Interpretation is how oral communication is rendered from one language to another. In comparison, translation is how written text is generated from one language into another.
Legal translations are more critical today than ever before. According to an article by Attorney at Work, global commerce has witnessed tremendous growth over the last decade, resulting in widespread cross-border litigations. As international trade recovers from the impact of COVID-19, more corporations are allowing their employees to work remotely, outsourcing human resources and services across borders, and are adopting increased operations in other countries. This has increased the potential for cross-border or cross-cultural litigations over patent infringements, copyright violations, and product liability. An increase in such cross-border and cross-cultural litigations implies a corresponding increase in the need for legal translation services.
Human translators are thorough and often have a better cultural and contextual understanding of the work to be translated. This is because of their linguistic expertise, a better knowledge of the cultural contexts, and the ability to make better decisions on how to translate content. They, therefore, guarantee better translation accuracy. However, the demand for translators is high, and the supply is short.
Machine translation is more efficient when dealing with large volumes of data. Though its accuracy could lessen compared to human translation, they work faster. Since the large volumes of data between multiple languages are processed using a single tool, they are cost-effective.
For a long time, professional human translators were the only option. While they still continue to be widely used and are the most reliable, the use of machine translators in legal proceedings has been steadily rising over the past few years. While human translators are the best when considering the accuracy of the final work, machine translators are also a great option in terms of time and costs. Furthermore, as the demand for faster translators has been steadily rising, researchers have consistently been working on improving the shortcomings of machine translators, while applying artificial intelligence has resulted in tremendous accuracy gains.
Read the full article from Attorney at Work here.