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Join us at the AILIA 2021 Virtual Conference: Rebranding AILIA & Industry Landscape

The Industry Event You’ve Been Waiting For

AILIA Virtual Conference

Friday, April 9: 10:00am to 6:00pm

We would like to cordially invite you to the industry event of the year: the AILIA 2021 Virtual Conference.

Held virtually for the first time, the event will bring together industry leaders to discuss the state of the localization industry in Canada and abroad, with a focus on emerging trends.

How does Canada stack up to the rest of the world? High-profile speakers, panelists and exhibitors will share their insights and predictions for the years ahead. Don't miss it! See you there on Friday, April 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET!

Lucie Séguin, Chief Executive Officer of the Translation Bureau and Esther Bond, Research Director for Slator will be giving the keynote address to kick everything off. Following that, we’ll have a panel discussion about the State of Enterprise Localization in Canada, with prominent executives from leading Canadian companies, including Lina Tovbis, Senior Operations Analyst | Shopify. There will be other exciting sessions about the latest trends in technology, the Indigenous language market and sign language. AILIA sponsors will also be presenting in separate breakout sessions.

You can find the full rundown of the day’s events and all the speakers here.

Discount for Conference Attendees on New AILIA Memberships

You will receive a discount on your AILIA membership in the full amount of the conference ticket cost if you sign up to be a new AILIA member in the next 30 days.

Register Now!

AILIA recently hosted a webinar, "Standards & Certifications: Competitive Differentiators in the Canadian Language Industry." The recording is now available here for everyone to download and view.

Call for Papers JIAL

The Journal of Internationalization and Localization Special Issue: 2022, 9 (1) 

The role of ISO/TC 37 standards for translators, interpreters, terminologists and beyond 

The annual ISO TC 37 (Language and terminology) meetings in Brussels 2021 will be concluded with an online symposium on the role of ISO/TC 37 standards for translators, interpreters and terminologists, which may be extended beyond translators and interpreters. At the symposium, speakers will demonstrate the impact of TC 37 ISO standards in numerous areas of translation, interpreting and terminology, covering various topics of TC 37 Subcommittees (SC). 

The Journal of Internationalization and Localization (JIAL) takes this opportunity to extend the symposium to publishing a special issue on the impact of ISO standards in today’s fast changing professional scene of translators, interpreters and terminologists with a focus on the following areas. 

• SC 1 - Principles and methods SC 1 focuses on the standardization of principles and methods related to terminology, ontologies, terminology policies and knowledge organization, and publishes standards on a typology of language registers, concept modelling in terminology work, terminology principles and terminology policies. 

• SC 2 - Terminology workflow and language coding SC 2 covers standardization of terminological methods and applications for languages and linguistic content, and publishes standards on language varieties, including codes for the representation of names of languages, translation-oriented terminography and assessment and benchmarking of terminological resources. SC 2 standards play a role in language coding, cultural diversity management, assessment and quality management. SC 3 - Management of terminology resources 

• SC 3 covers standardization of the specification, design and interoperability of terminology resources. SC 3 publishes standards on data categories, data interchange, database management, including computer applications in terminology and management of terminology resources. SC 3 standards have an impact on terminology extraction, specifications and modelling principles for computer systems to manage terminology, semantic interoperability, controlled authoring and search engine optimization, chatbots, machine learning and AI. 

• SC 4 - Language resource management SC 4 covers standardization of the modelling, specification, design, documentation and encoding of digital language resources to enable integration, interchange and replicability. SC 4 publishes standards ISO/TC 37/SC 5 N 491 on mechanisms for language resources, semantic annotation, lexical resources, workflow of language resource management and linguistic annotation. 

• SC 5 - Translation, interpreting and related technology SC 5 covers standardization in the field of translation, interpreting, as well as translation and interpreting related technology, technical writing, content management, localization, globalization, and internationalization. SC 5 publishes standards on simultaneous interpreting, translation projects, translation services, community interpreting, post-editing of machine translation output, interpreting ergonomics and legal translation. 

To publicize the impact of ISO TC 37 standards worldwide, we invite both professionals and scholars to submit unpublished, original 6,000-8,000-word articles. 

Submission deadlines: 

• Abstracts (500 words): July 15, 2021 

• Notification to authors: July 31, 2021 

• Full papers: September 1, 2021 

• Revised papers due (following peer review): November 15, 2021 

• Publication: March 2022 

Inquiries and abstracts should be addressed to the journal’s co-editors and the to the special issue editor: 

• Minako O’Hagan (University of Auckland, New Zealand), minako.ohagan@auckland.ac.nz 

• Julie McDonough Dolmaya (York University, Canada), dolmaya@glendon.yorku.ca 

• Hendrik J. Kockaert (KU Leuven, Belgium), hendrik.kockaert@kuleuven.be 

For any further enquiry, please contact: Prof. Dr Hendrik J. Kockaert hendrik.kockaert@kuleuven.be

AILIA recently hosted a webinar, "The rising importance of deaf interpreters". The recording is now available here for everyone to download and view. 

In August of 2020, AILIA and Women in Localization signed a Partnership Agreement which allows for cross-promotion of our events and other benefits for members. We look forward to a longstanding partnership with Women in Localization and its work in advancing women in the localization industry and promoting gender diversity.

Please check out Women in Localization's future events here. 

AILIA recently hosted a webinar, Language Industry M&A Marketplace. The recording is now available here for everyone to download and view. 

Canada’s Language Industry Association (AILIA) and La Asociación Argentina de Servicios Lingüísticos (AASL) are delighted to announce their new partnership.

This strategic alliance will foster a culture of sharing best practice and market intelligence, as well as offering opportunities for collaboration between our respective members of both associations, said Robin Ayoub, President of AILIA.

María José Alberto, President of AASL commented “The translation industry is about bridging, and this new partnership is another solid step that AASL and AILIA take towards that ultimate goal. We're pleased to start collaborating with AILIA in the promotion of this wonderful industry that allows us to connect in so many ways.”

The agreement will allow both organizations to support each other through unique cross promotional offers, while providing their members with discounts to participate in each other’s events.

Members will also have the opportunity of collaboration to drive additional value in their business through strategic initiatives, thus improving their outcome.

AILIA and AASL are both committed to providing members with the clarity, guidance and direction they deserve to optimize the value in their business and achieve their goals.

May 13th 2020

The Honorable Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister of Canada

Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington St.

Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Subject: The importance of bilingual communication laws

Mr. Prime Minister,

First, allow me to congratulate you on your wise leadership in guiding Canada through the COVID-19 crisis. Much like myself, all Canadians have become reliant on your daily updates and we listen attentively to your press conferences. I would like to congratulate you, and your team, on the excellent work and impressive accomplishments achieved during this difficult time.

I am writing to you to discuss a hasty decision that was initially made by Health Canada to suspend the obligation of having bilingual labeling on various products that are used to combat COVID-19. During a press conference on April 28th, you mentioned that the reason for this decision was due to an apparent “lack of labour resources and the logistics that are not always available for the importing companies” also stating “we need to balance different vulnerabilities.”

More recently, a news article (https://onfr.tfo.org/etiquetage-bilingue-sante-canada-fait-un-pas-en-arriere/) confirms that Health Canada has “taken a step back” and reversed its decision, confirming that importers will have to adhere to proposed alternatives to provide bilingual information.

On behalf of AILIA and its Canadian Language Service Providers, I still wanted to express how concerning it was to hear of such a decision, which in our view, posed a threat to public safety, with potential long-term implications to the health of the most vulnerable unilingual Canadians who may not understand or misinterpret the labels, their instructions and important hazard warnings.

The message I want to leave with you, Mr. Prime Minister, is that our member companies (79 in total) employ thousands of professional translators, project managers, IT, AI and various other professionals all across the country, to support the language requirements of Canada. Since this pandemic started, and shortly after the stay at home order was announced, our industry immediately stepped up. Each company quickly sent all employees to work remotely, via secured networks, to ensure a safe working environment while maintaining optimal service levels for our clients, most notably the Government of Canada.

Mr. Prime Minister, Canada’s language industry is here to support your efforts in helping our country through this pandemic. Put us to the test, in whatever capacity you deem necessary. We have the capacity, the skills and the know-how to help Health Canada, and any other client, meet their demanding mandates, without cutting corners. There is no need to sacrifice bilingual labeling for the sake of expediting products to market. We can absolutely help with go-to-market strategies, while ensuring timely delivery of all translations in any language. We even suggest expanding the list of languages for those domestic cleaning products which could have potential hazardous health risks to Canadians, who may not speak either official language. Simply put, we are here to help the Government of Canada and support your efforts.

In conclusion, my letter today stems from our passion for our official Canadian languages. By working together, I strongly believe that we will come out of this crisis stronger and more united than ever. I thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

With my sincere respect,

Robin Ayoub

President, AILIA

(Association de l'industrie de la langue  – Language Industry Association)

CC : Health Minister, Hon. Mrs Patricia A. Hajdu

Public Services and Procurement Minister, Hon. Ms. Anita Anand

COSTA, Rute, Raquel SILVA and Maria Inês BATISTA. “Terminology, a discipline of interfaces”

Terminology science, a subject characterised by its interdisciplinarity, is two-dimen-sional, linguistic and conceptual in nature. Any terminological work grounded in this two-dimensional nature must take these two dimensions into account, regardless of the methodological approach used – semasiological or onomasiological – for the ‘systematic collection, description, processing and presentation of concepts and their designations’ (ISO 1087: 2019, p.13). Whatever the approach, and at some point, the terminologist has to identify the term and the concept it designates (semasiology), or the concept and the term that designates it (onomasiology), where the textual definition renders the relationship between one and the other stable.

Read the editorial here.

As machine translation technology continues to develop, the questions that remain are: how to harness the power of this technology with minimal risks and at the same time consider the impact it has on the society and the people involved in the process?

Whether you are an MT evangelist or skeptic, this webinar offers a down-to-earth view on how far the technology has gotten as well as what it can mean for businesses and people today and in the future. While the future means change, it doesn’t have to be scary.

The speakers will share practical tips on how to choose a path to introducing machine translation in an efficient and responsible way:

1. Machine Translation in the Enterprise & Factor 1000, Chris Wendt (Microsoft)

2. NMT Expectations and Fears, Andrew Jones (Nikon)

Click below to join the live webinar and to receive the recording the next day.

JOIN THE WEBINAR