Chartered Institute
of Linguists
NEWS & VOICES
By Dom Hebblethwaite
CIOL roundtable on freelance careers in a changing professionThe Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) recently hosted an online roundtable addressing key questions about freelance careers in the language services industry. The event drew significant interest with over 850 registrations and 367 live attendees, reflecting the importance and widespread...
We all have daily habits so natural that they slip under our radar. Breathing, eating, sleeping — these are the first three essentials we rarely think about. But there’s a fourth, just as vital, that often goes unnoticed: language. The words we speak, the stories we tell, the way we make sense of the world — language is the silent engine driving much of what we do....
The Linguist Editorial Board member Professor Binhua Wang invited several MA translation master’s students in Chinese to translate one feature article from each of the four issues of The Linguist in the past year. Each translation has been translated by one, then revised by another, and then proof-read by their translation tutor.
Binhua’s initiative seeks...
Using metrics and corporate speak to make the case for localisation to clients in language they understand
By Melanie Morawetz
As localisation specialists in 2025, we are navigating a landscape of relentless, unforgiving change. What once felt like steady, incremental progress in CAT tools and neural machine translation (NMT) has collapsed under...
By Teresa Simone
When you change language, you're not just translating words. You're rewriting yourself.
Those who live between languages know it well: speaking is never just about communication. It's about inhabiting a world, a body, a way of thinking.
Take two examples: Italian and Danish.
Italian has high...
“I knew it was a scam – but I needed it to be real.” Charlotte Hale-Burgess examines a growing problem
When I left a successful sales career to become a freelance translator, I brought with me a sense of purpose, excitement and the (potentially dangerous) need to prove myself. I had made a bold decision to follow a long-held passion and turn it into a...
Amina Saif is a Chartered Linguist and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. Just back from a major interpreting assignment at the G7 meeting in Canada, which she describes as ‘a career milestone, and a moment of reflection on how far I’ve come in this journey..’, she shares with us what it takes to work with world leaders, interpreting on the international...
If you look at today’s leadership playbook, you’ll see a lot of talk about empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ). These are, of course, crucial. But as the world grows more diverse and interconnected, it’s becoming clear that the next big leap in leadership isn’t just about feeling what others feel — it’s about being truly eclectic: blending, adapting, and drawing...
CIOL Vice President David Crystal writes on the recent CIOL competition to select a suitable collective noun for linguists
The Origins of Collective Nouns in English
I imagine all languages have ways to talk about groups of animals, people, and things, but I doubt any can match English for the range and variety of collective nouns that this language has...
