03 | Translation, Technology and Activity Tracking

The Sam Cooke Lectures

In this episode, Peter is joined by Dr Valentina Ragni, Research Associate at the University of Bristol, who teaches him about translation, technology and activity tracking. The podcast serves as beginner's guide to the issues around the work of translators, how modern tools can track their work and also how this applies to wider society. Valentina is co-author of the forthcoming industry report Activity tracking in Translation - Productivity tools and translators’ perceptions, for the Institute for Translators and Interpreters (ITI).

(Note: This podcast was recorded remotely in 2020).

SCL category: Modern Languages

Valentina's further reading recommendations:

Joss Moorkens – “A tiny cog in a large machine”
"If you are interested in how Taylorist practices of workplace labour control are currently applied to the translation industry, this is an excellent place to start."

Valentina Ragni and Lucas Nunes Vieira. Activity tracking in Translation. Productivity tools and translators’ perceptions. Institute for Translators and Interpreters (ITI), UK. Forthcoming 2021. [industry report]
"Summary of a study with a group of professional translators who used tracking tools to record their work and measure their productivity over a period of four months. The findings reveal potentially problematic applications of tracking technology."

Valentina Ragni and Lucas Nunes Vieira. What changed with neural machine translation? A systematic review of human factors. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice. Forthcoming 2021. [research article]
"About neural machine translation (NMT), i.e. automatic translation systems that now use principles of artificial intelligence and tend to produce higher-quality translations than their predecessors."

Virginia Eubanks – Automating Inequality
"A book about the broader (non translation-specific) risks of indiscriminate tracking. Check out her blog too: https://virginia-eubanks.com/"

Shoshana Zuboff – The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
"Arguably the most thorough work to date about tracking in the contemporary globalised world."

Aruna Ranganathan and Alan Benson – A Numbers Game
"Looks at one of the most common applications of tracking technology to the world of work, namely to control labour and quantify factory worker productivity."

VPRO documentary on Surveillance capitalism Available on YouTube and Vimeo.

Joy Buolamwini’s project Gender Shades and Algorithmic Justice League

The fabulous podcast artwork of Sam Cooke is by Sarah Bilton: @bilton_art on Instagram for commissions. This podcast was produced by Old Rope. Visit www.oldrope.co.ukfor more information, the blog and other podcasts.

About the Sam Cooke Lectures Come along to the Sam Cooke lectures and join Peter as he attempts to learn something he doesn't know much about. Each episode has a guest lecturer patiently teaching him about a specialist topic. You never know, you might learn something too.