翻訳者の労働生活の質と翻訳テクノロジーとの関連性
Impacts of technology use on translators’ work-related quality of life
I am a principal investigator of this Kaken-funded project (22K20040 and 25K04108) which measures the quality of translators’ working lives, including their job satisfaction and work motivation. The outcomes will offer evidence-based information for the language industry to ensure that the industry maintains highly skilled and motivated language workers in the long term. This is an international and inter-disciplinary project, which are conducted across different countries, including the UK, US and Japan. This is a collaborative project with the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), UK’s largest professional body.
The T-WRQoL scale
The T-WRQoL scale developed in this project is available here.
The T-WRQoL scale is free to use for non-commercial, educational or research purposes only. Please contact akiko-s[at]kansai-u.ac.jp if you wish to translate the T-WRQoL scale to other languages.
Activities
27 February/29 April 2026 – Post-survey roundtable with LSPs (hosted by the ITI)
January 2026 Publication of the UK report (available here)
August to September 2024 – Final survey study (with ITI)
October 2023 – Second pilot study (with ITI)
March 2023 – First pilot study (with ITI)
Publications
Sakamoto, A., Van Laar, D., Moorkens, J., & do Carmo, F. (2025). Translators’ Work-Related Quality of Life: Survey Report . Kansai University
Sakamoto, A., Van Laar, D., Moorkens, J., & do Carmo, F. (2024). Measuring translators’ quality of working life and their career motivation: Conceptual and methodological aspects. Translation Spaces, Special Issue: , 13(1), 54–77. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.23026.sak Open Access
Sakamoto, A., & Bawa Mason, S. (2024). In search of a fair MTPE pricing model: LSPs’ reflections and the implications for translators. Perspectives, 32(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2023.2292572 Open Access
Blog posts
Blog post by Sara Robertson, CEO of the ITI (January 2026)
Blog post by Akiko Sakamoto on the ITI website (August 2024)
Presentations
Sakamoto, A. (2026, April 26), The impact of AI on translators’ quality of working lives [Invited talk], Translation Future: AI, Creativity, and Reception, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Sakamoto, A. (2025, February 23), Why translators still matter in the AI-driven world [Invited talk], Hallo KI – Nachhaltigkeit und die Rolle der menschlichen Übersetze, (Hello AI-Sustainability and the role of human translators), Fachbereich Translations-, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany
阪本章子（2025年12月2日）「ポストエディットが翻訳者の仕事満足度に与える影響」（ポスター発表）AAMT 2025, Tokyo ～LLM時代における翻訳と人間の共進化～
阪本章子（2025年9月7日）「ポストエディットが翻訳者の仕事満足度とやる気に与える影響：統計的手法による考察」（口頭発表）日本通訳翻訳学会 年次大会 東京科学大学
Sakamoto, A., Van Laar, D., Moorkens, J., & Do Carmo, F. (2025, July 2), Translators’ perceptions about the economic value of translation in the face of AI: A data-based analysis from the T-WRQoL survey [Conference presentation], 11th EST Congress: The Changing Faces of Translation and Interpreting Studies, University of Leeds, UK
Van Laar, D. and Sakamoto, A., (2025, May 23). Adaption of the Work-Related Quality of Life (WRQoL) scale for freelance translators [Conference presentation], The 22nd European Congress of Work and Organizational Psychology, “Transforming working environments: Challenges & Opportunities”, Prague, Czech Republic
Sakamoto, A., Van Laar, D., Moorkens, J., & Do Carmo, F.(2025, May 22). Impact of machine translation and post-editing on translators’ work satisfaction and motivation: A statistical analysis [Conference presentation], The 11th Asia-Pacific Translation and Interpreting Forum (APTIF11) “Culture, Connectivity and Technology: Translating Communities, Transforming Perspectives”, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Sakamoto, A., Van Laar, D., Moorkens, J., & Do Carmo, F. (2024, September 12). You’re a translator – are you OK? Results from the pilot of a new measure of translator wellbeing (T-WRQoL) [Conference presentation]. Ethics & Self-Care: Translation/Other Professions, University of Newcastle, UK. https://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/ethicsandselfcareintranslation/
阪本章子 （2023年9月2日）「翻訳現場離れは防げるか：翻訳者の労働生活の質とモチベーションを測定する心理尺度の開発」 （口頭発表）日本通訳翻訳学会 年次大会 関西大学
Research Collaborators
Dr Darren van Laar (University of Portsmouth, UK)
Dr Joss Moorkens (Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland)