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In academia, translation scholars fervently discuss whether localization and transcreation should be seen as new types of translation processes or as simply translation rebranded for marketing purposes. They debate whether post-editing of machine translation (MT) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) output are evolutions of traditional translation practices enhanced by technology or new practices in their own right.Meanwhile, language industry professionals spend their days delivering and developing new high-end services for demanding clients. For them, these academic discussions may seem trivial or irrelevant. But in fact, defining the concept of translation and effectively conveying the differences among diverse services could be key to helping businesses succeed in competitive markets.In my recent doctoral research conducted at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, I analyzed service diversification in the marketing translation sector and found that — in an attempt to appeal to potential clients who might otherwise turn to freely or cheaply available MT solutions — language service providers (LSPs) often obfuscate the meaning of translation and ultimately weaken potential client views of their services in the longer term. In this article, I argue that LSPs that want to market a range of services need to be able to differentiate them clearly in relation to the generic concept of translation, highlighting which client needs are met by each service.

This exploratory study of translation company websites introduces the concept of translation service diversification and concludes that it is a strong feature in the marketing translation sector, with translation, post-editing, localisation, and transcreation as primary services. It highlights the difficulty in distinguishing between translation as a concept and standard translation as a service, and companies’ tendency to describe other services as superior to translation. It suggests that the dominance of negative descriptions of translation might influence companies’ ability to signal the value of translation to uninformed clients, which is vital in an industry climate characterised by the growth of freely available MT.It identifies the inverse scale between efficiency and text customisation as the primary differentiator between services. They are hypothesised to be based on different perceived client needs and require different sets of professional expertise to deliver. In providing their definition of translation, do Carmo and Moorkens underline that the notions of efficiency and text customisation (adaptability, and effectiveness) represent added values in demand in the language industry, but also concepts that have always been part of translation (2022, p.19). This reveals a potential gap between translation studies theory and industry realities which warrant further investigation.