Translating in Turbulent Times: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis on the Language Service Industry in Colombia and Spain – Perspectives to Become Sustainable

Introduction

The impact of COVID-19 worldwide was, at the very least, twofold: it caused a lot of grief for the loss of some millions of human lives, and it brought about an economic calamity for many. Dozens of industries were stricken by the pandemic-related measures implemented by governments to curb the spread of the disease.

The language service industry was no exception. It was vastly affected in terms of demand and, sometimes, revenue and profit. Some fields of work, such as on-site interpreting or non-essential in-person translation, were dramatically impacted and came close to obliteration. Many language service providers (LSPs), whether companies or freelancers, had to adapt themselves to the new unanticipated situation if they wanted to continue doing business. Some took the crisis as an opportunity for growth and took advantage of it accordingly.

This study scrutinizes what the COVID-19 turbulent times meant for the LSPs based in two Spanish-speaking countries, Colombia and Spain, and how they were tackled from those two different markets. Colombia, a developing country located in South America boasted, at the time of the pandemic, a language service industry almost exclusively made up of independent freelance translators and interpreters, most of whom faced the crisis both distressingly and smartly. Spain, a developed country situated in Europe had by then a stronger language service industry if compared to the Colombian one–but only average if contrasted with other countries, as observed by Clavijo Olmos & Duro Moreno (2020)–, and coped with the COVID-19-induced economic calamity in a quite analogous fashion. In both cases, uncertainty led LSPs to take decisions (sometimes painful ones) to be able to outlive the crisis, clarify their visions, and make a clear commitment to becoming sustainable (or more sustainable) in the global market.

The methods followed to analyze both cases were twofold too: a quantitative approach was used for Colombia, and a qualitative one was employed for Spain. The objectives were, once again, twofold: (i) describing the state of the language service industry in Colombia and Spain, separately, throughout the pandemic-driven crisis; and (ii) comparing how the LSPs from both countries tackled their own specific work-lives and professional situations all along the time it lasted.

Section 2 reviews the most significant facts and figures associated with COVID-19 concerning the language service industry and appraises the literature (most of it published online only) dealing with it. Section 3 explores, separately and comparatively, the cases of Colombia and Spain. Section 4 proposes some research directions for the future. Section 5, finally, wraps up all the above and offers a few takeaways. Section 6, lastly, includes some key terms and definitions.