The Web Platform for the Language Industry

THE WEB PLATFORM FOR THE LANGUAGE INDUSTRY
The web platform for the language industry is an interactive online tool for collecting and exchanging data on the European Union language profession and industry. It was launched by the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission (DGT) on 18 November 2010. The database is managed by the DGT, but input will be provided in cooperation with companies, associations and individuals active in the language industry, and national statistic and academic bodies.
The idea of creating the web platform grew out of a Study on the size of the EU language industry published by DGT in November 2009. Besides its main finding - that the language industry has shown resilience in face of the economic crisis and that it is set to continue growing steadily - the study revealed that, at present, there is no EU-wide standard practice for recording statistical data in this field. This means that the information available varies from Member State to Member State and is not always easy to find and consult. Hence the need to develop a tool to gather and make available relevant material and contributions.
It is with a view to improving the situation that the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation decided to make all the information it has available in a single, easily accessible location and to invite industry stakeholders to get involved in expanding and enhancing this resource.
The objective of the platform is:
• Bring language professionals together
• Improve the exchange of know-how
• Raise awareness of the business
• Collect more comparable data from EU countries
• Inform language professionals about research on and by the language industry.
The web platform offers document search, addition of information and data submission via online questionnaire. It covers the following subsectors of the language industry:
• Translation
• Interpreting
• Subtitling and dubbing
• Software localisation and website globalisation
• Language technology tools development
• Multilingual conference organisation
• Language teaching
• Linguistic consultancy.

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