Grab your Translation Orders, Manage the Deadlines: An Indonesian translators’ perspective

Abstract

—This research seeks to investigate an Indonesian translators’ perspective in grabbing translation orders and managing the translation deadlines agreed by both translators and clients. Seven competent and experienced translators were purposively selected to participate in this descriptive qualitative research. Data were obtained from a survey questionnaire administered to identify and describe the translators’ orders grabbed from various translation clients and to elaborate on how they managed their deadlines. Interviews were also done to confirm the information provided by the translators and to search for some additional information not explicitly explored in the survey questionnaire. The results indicated that the translation orders were grabbed from book publishers, translation agencies, offices, multinational companies, translators’ colleagues, and individuals. The translators showed some initiatives to collaborate with other competent and experienced translators to manage their translation deadlines. In addition, in some cases, the translators need to hire consultants and experts in the relevant topics to share their expertise to the translators to improve the quality of their translation. Then, the translators considered the importance of employing editors to review the overall translation, and proofreaders were also required by the translators to proofread the final draft of the manuscripts before they were sent back to their clients.