ASTM’s new Language Services and Products committee holds first meeting

Recently, the ASTM’s new Language Services and Products committee met for the first time. The scope of the committee is to develop standards for language services and products. This includes developing specifications, guides, test methods, classifications, practices and terminology.

The services and products that the committee will deal with initially include language interpreting, foreign language instruction, language translation and language proficiency.

The past fifteen years have seen a rapid expansion of the language industry in the US and globally. International trade, globalization, localization and government services have put significant demands on all sectors of the language industry. Groups active in the development and provision of services and products such as translating, interpreting, language training, machine translation and human language technology, and language testing recognize the need for standards.

While the ASTM, under other committees, has developed some standards, many sectors and activities have none. The new committee will own the standards already developed and will work on defining standards to fill the existing gaps.

The NLSC was instrumental in the formation of this committee (see more on that here) and is involved in a significant way, as the committee’s chairman is our Chief Linguist, Dr. Bill Rivers, and two other NLSC staff on the committee. In addition, committee members include federal government agencies, private sector companies in the language industry, and universities.