Kevin Hendzel latest post on Word Prisms is entitled, oddly and lengthily (and with my preferred capitalisation): It was the best of times, it was the worst of times:How the premium market offers translators prosperity in an era of collapsing bulk-market rates.
Excellent article featuring useful clarifications of key terms, including:
Bulk vs. PremiumKevin goes on to say, however, that "the 'premium vs. bulk' dichotomy is a form of shorthand only".
We have found it useful to distinguish between what is referred to as the “bulk market,” where translation is essentially a support function – where knowing what the text or webpage or software dialog generally means is good enough – and what has come to be called the “premium market,” where getting the translation exactly, precisely, elegantly, authoritatively and compelling right is necessary because of the enormous stakes involved at that level of the market.
A few more quotes:
In the premium market, the cost of failure is dramatically higher than the cost of performance.
While bulk-market translators’ heads are buried in dictionaries, premium market translators are buried inside their clients’ heads.
We see that the premium sector of the industry is continuing to expand – and rates are rising – which is in stark contrast to the realities of downward rate pressures in the bulk market today.
