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Global Journal of
Computer Sciences
Volume 05, Issue 1, (2015) 19-23
http://sproc.org/ojs/index.php/gjcs
Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting
practice and to innovation
Dagmar Vesela *, Faculty of Arts, Matej Bel University, Tajovského, Slovakia.
Katarina Klimova, Faculty of Arts, Matej Bel University, Tajovského, Slovakia.
Suggested Citation:
Vesela, D., & Klimova, K. (2015). Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting practice
and to innovation. Global Journal of Computer Sciences. 5(1), 19-23.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/gjcs.v5i1.28.
Received 22 January, 2015; revised 28 February, 2015; accepted 27 March, 2015.
Selection and peer review under responsibility of. Prof. Dr. Doğan İbrahim, Near East University, Cyprus.
©
2015 SciencePark Research, Organization & Counseling. All rights reserved.
Abstract
As an economic sector, creative industries include all human activities associated with creativity, and they
comprise a modern phenomenon which contributes significantly to the sustainment of economic growth
and employment in a world afflicted by the financial and economic crisis. It is for these reasons that they
have become a part of the EU agenda, where they are seen as connected to the cultural industries (CCI).
Discussions focused on the creative economy are increasingly included in legislators’ speeches and EU
working and legislative materials filled with the new terminology of this field. The philosophy of creative
industries and of the creative economy has its origins in the Anglophone world and this is also reflected in
the key CCI terminology. As intercultural and interlingual mediators, interpreters and translators are
confronted with this fact in their work and offer information to the intended recipient in the language of
the target culture. In the EU’s case, this means more than 20 working languages. In this paper, we focus
on two of them – Slovak, French – and we will point out the specifics of translation of borrowed lexical
units (Anglicisms). We also briefly describe the efforts to establish an innovative university programme
focused on the multilingual processing of information.
Keywords: Creative industries, Terminology, Multidisciplinary Education, Innovation.
*ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE: Dagmar Veselá, Faculty of Arts, Matej Bel University, Tajovského 40, Banská
Bystrica 974 01, Slovakia. E-mail address: dvesela27@gmail.com / Tel.: +0421-48-446-4194
Vesela, D., & Klimova, K. (2015). Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting practice and to innovation. Global
Journal of Computer Sciences. 5(1), 19-23. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/gjcs.v5i1.28.
20
1. Introduction
Creative industries and the creative economy, as mutually interconnected phenomena, have
been gradually brought into public attention since the end of the 20
th
century. More and more
they have become a point of interest for politicians, but also for public figures in business,
science and research, education, the arts, etc. It is a very interesting research subject from the
sociological, demographical, and economic points of view, particularly its effect on employment,
economic growth, and living standards.
Until recently the support of the knowledge economy, based on knowledge and information,
was considered an effective tool in fighting the economic crisis. The functioning of advanced
countries has been and is conditioned by the creation, distribution, and use of knowledge and
information. Information and knowledge is considered the primary and most productive source
for wealth generation [1]. Nowadays, the opinion prevails that the crisis cannot be defeated
without the creative economy, as it is now known. This term was coined by John Howkins in
2001 [6] in his book The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas. He was the
first to point to creativity as an engine for the economic growth but he was not the only one
with such convintions about it. Florida [4] also considers creativity to be the “fundamental
source of economic growth” and “the decisive source of competitive advantage”. It is therefore
a common denominator for:
a creative economy based on ideas, creativity and innovation
creative industry, which is a kind of a backbone for creative economy
the creative class, to which the generation of new ideas, technologies, and creative
content have been attributed [4].
European Union support for the creative economy and creative industry is indicated in many
legal and working documents, such as the [2] European Parliament Report dated 13 April 2011 –
Report on unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries (CCI) and the [3] European
Parliament Report dated 20 August 2013 – Report on promoting the European cultural and
creative sectors as sources of economic growth and jobs. The EU intention to support the
creative economy is also manifested in the initiative to declare year 2009 the European Year of
Creativity and Innovation. Activities related to this initiative affect numerous areas: education,
culture, business, media, research, social and regional politics, and rural development.
The European Union attributes a double function to the creative industry – economic and
cultural. Economic development related to employment, economic growth and the generation
of wealth is the result of the economic function, while the cultural function consists of creating
and presenting cultural heritage and identity. If the creative industry is to fulfil these functions,
existence of a qualified creative class is needed, as well as adequate professional preparation
from educational institutions. The EP Report on unlocking the potential of cultural and creative
industries (2011) promotes education that enables citizens to acquire creative and intercultural
skills, as well as the innovation of study programmes and the establishment of new programmes
for providing multidisciplinary education based on an interdisciplinary approach.
The objective of getting intercultural skills can be reached through study programmes which
include, for example, the study of foreign languages connected with the languages’ respective
cultures. The importance of language education is also promoted by The Business Forum for
Multilingualism established by the European Commission. They consider knowledge of foreign
languages an inherent part of business activities and recommend implementing practically-
oriented language teaching models.
Interpreters and translators play an important role in intercommunication among members
of various language communities. Creative industry and the creative economy are relatively new
fields and therefore their key terminology manifests certain indications of instability. The
philosophy of creative industry and the creative economy itself was born in the Anglophone
world. Therefore many Anglicisms occur in professional written and oral communication in
these fields. However interpreters and translators should not just adopt Anglicisms
Vesela, D., & Klimova, K. (2015). Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting practice and to innovation. Global
Journal of Computer Sciences. 5(1), 19-23. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/gjcs.v5i1.28.
21
indiscriminately: they should try to provide information to the target recipient in the language of
the target culture, if of course the terminology system of the target language has domestic
terminology available which is equivalent to the Anglicisms used up to now.
Considering the above-mentioned facts, we would like to have a look at the creative industry
from three different perspectives:
its relation to interpreting and translating practice regarding terminology
innovation – using ICT (information and communication technology) in interpreting and
translation practice
innovation – establishing innovative study programmes focusing on an interdisciplinary
approach.
2. Creative Industry and Interpreting and Translation Practice
The emergence of the concepts creative industry and creative economy has been
accompanied by many other new, related concepts and terms; they are related to this new
model of society development, since it has been necessary to designate new realities. We have
witnessed the introduction of so-called creative cities, creative metropolises, and creative
regions. Even though this process has been underway since the late 20
th
century, the term
creative city can only be found at scholarly writings starting at the beginning of the 21
st
century
[7, 6, 4, 9, 8]. The formation of creative cities is connected to a process called gentrification;
primarily this process was a spontaneous one, based on the fact that artists were moving to
declining city districts where they were able to find suitable conditions for the development of
their activities thanks to low real estate prices. Later on cities tried to attract artists and other
creative workers in hopes of jump-starting the declining local economy. Currently gentrification
has been criticized more and more due to negative impact on the local poor residents, but also
on the artists themselves, who are forced to move out under the pressure of increasing real
estate prices. In this context Vivant [9] has mentioned the so-called “creative city paradox”,
which is based on the paradox that the extraordinary effort to attract creative workers ends up
killing creativity.
Even though the term creative city has been generally used in the literature, it has not yet
occurred in the terminology databases used by interpreters and translators, meaning that its
content (described in a definition) has not been clearly determined. This might be caused by the
varying definition of the term creative industry itself, depending on the country. For example in
Great Britain, the creative industry is understood quite widely as a set of industries which are
based on creativity, skills and individual talent, and which enable the generation of wealth and
jobs thanks to the support of intellectual property protection and its use. In such cases it
comprises industries such as architecture, advertising, film production, photography, audio-
visual production, music, theatre, design, fashion, publishing, videogames, computer software,
but also the trading of antiques and works of art.
The lack of the universal definition of the term creative city leads to the fact that not only any
cosmopolitan city, but also regional centres, prospering cities, even cities in economic decline
can be considered creative cities [5]. Scoffier [8] has even mentioned that some cities can even
be considered creative without a creative class or creative industry.
We have arrived at another key term; namely creative class. The term was mentioned and
defined by Florida (2002): however, for interpreters’ and translators’ work the decisive factor is
what is mentioned in the terminology databases, since logically they cannot know and study the
contents of all specialist books in order to interpret or translate well. In the case of creative
class, it describes an entity which cannot be identified with a social class, since its members
have various educations, various incomes, and often various social origins. Florida (2002) credits
the creative class with an ability to use ideas and creativity when practicing their profession,
which does not necessarily have an artistic character. Therefore it consists of intellectual
Vesela, D., & Klimova, K. (2015). Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting practice and to innovation. Global
Journal of Computer Sciences. 5(1), 19-23. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/gjcs.v5i1.28.
22
workers in information and telecommunication technologies, high technology, the judicial
system, finance, education, and culture.
The existence of creative cities is connected with another pair of English-origin terms – cluster
and startup. Cluster is a group of professionals and companies doing business in the same
sphere of business. Startup is a new, dynamically developing firm.
Apart from the French and Slovak terms ville créative/kreatívne mesto, industries
créatives/kreatívny priemysel, économie créative/kreatívna ekonomika and classe
créative/kreatívna trieda, Anglicisms are mostly preferred for the above-mentioned terms in
French and Slovak texts. Slovak has not yet introduced equivalent one-word terms to the English
terms cluster and startup and if Anglicisms are to be avoided, descriptions are used.
3. Importance of Terminology Databases
Terminology databases have become an indispensable tool for translators and interpreters
from a practical perspective. They are usually terminology products freely available to the public
online. They represent a valuable source of information for translators and interpreters (and
others as well) about the meaning of specialized terminology from different areas of human
activities, about their correct use in specialized texts and when translating such texts. We have
worked in our research with multilingual English – French databases and an English – Slovak
database in order to find corresponding French and Slovak equivalents to English terms.
However, we have reached the conclusion that in spite of the fact that we were interested in
key terms from creative industry and the creative economy, the databases (Termium, Le grand
dictionnaire terminologique, FranceTerme, Base de terminologie, Slovenská terminologická
databáza/Slovak Terminology Database) have not provided us with all the information we
needed, and in some cases we got no information at all. Thanks to the Canadian database
Termium we were able to find several French equivalents to the English term startup: entreprise
en démarrage, jeune entreprise, jeune pousse, entreprise naissante. Based on the definitions
provided in this database, all the mentioned terms designate “jeune entreprise innovante à
croissance rapide” and therefore their content is equivalent to the Anglicism startup. In spite of
the fact that the database does not recommend using an Anglicism for such a well-defined term
in French texts, practice tells a different story. As for the term cluster, in specialized texts of
Francophone origin we have encountered thea French equivalent filière with the same
denotation. However, it has not (yet) been mentioned in the databases.
The term gentrification, in connection with the emergence of creative cities, was first coined
by British sociologist Ruth Glass in the 1960s, and she used it to ironically describe members of
the new middle class buying old dilapidated Victorian houses in London. Later on this term was
used to describe the socio-economic transformation of urban districts that we have already
described above. Termium offers two French equivalents – embourgeoisement and élitisation,
though the meanings, apart from revalorization of urban districts, also includes the intentional
objective of expelling/banishing less wealthy citizens from these districts. We have not
encountered any domestic (Slovak) term for the denomination of such a process.
To our great surprise, none of the existing databases included Slovak equivalents of the terms
discussed above, and that is yet another reason to innovate the existing study programmes and
establish new ones, which would cover several professions based on an interdisciplinary
approach towards them. For example, they would prepare professionals in the field of
terminography, translatology, and at the same time computer science and economics.
4. Multilingual Processing of Information
Considering practical demands and as a response to the appeal from the Ministry of
Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic for structural funds (ASFEU)
within the Operation Programme Education, the Faculty of Arts in cooperation with the Faculty
of Economics have started on the project Innovative Steps for the Needs of Academic Education
Vesela, D., & Klimova, K. (2015). Creative industries and their relation to translation/interpreting practice and to innovation. Global
Journal of Computer Sciences. 5(1), 19-23. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/gjcs.v5i1.28.
23
in the 21
st
Century. The purpose of the the Project is to introduce a bachelor’s programme
entitled Multilingual Information Processing. The outline of the programme has been prepared
based on the market research done by Matej Bel University. Nowadays it seems that potential
employers need graduates who have a command of more foreign languages at a decent
communication level, understand the basics of computer science, economics, accounting and
law, and are prepared to take on the role of an assistant manager. This should roughly
correspond to the profile of a graduate from the study programme under preparation. Our
paper is limited and the fact is that the work on the programme has only just began. Therefore
we cannot describe it in more detail. We expect that we will have a chance to present it in more
detail later on in some other scholarly periodical.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Viera Osterová and Michael Dove for their
enthusiastic help with the translation of the present paper into English and with editing and
proofreading.
The paper has been prepared with support from the project Innovative Steps for the Needs of
Academic Education in the 21
st
Century (ITMS 26110230109), activity 3.1 Establishing and
innovating interdisciplinary (interfaculty) study programmes in world languages at the Faculty of
Arts and Faculty of Economics of Matej Bel University.
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