I don't translate I create! - This is the slogan of a translation agency called Sternkopf
Communications located in Flöha Germany. The translators at this translation agency are
specialized in the field of marketing and perceive creativeness their daily bread. But what
does this actually mean - I don't translate I create? Undoubtedly the translation of a text
from one language into another is not an easy and straightforward process. On the contrary the
translator needs to invest much time and one or the other headache before a target text (TT)
finally sounds natural fluent coherent and logical for the target audience. Different
possible translation solutions will have to be considered language as well as culture-related
equivalents often are not easily at hand etc. Would it not be pleasant if machine translation
(MT) was there to help with this process? Nevertheless as promising as this may sound no
machine or software developed so far is able to independently produce TTs meeting the standards
of marketable translations despite copious efforts to do so. This just goes to show how
important the human capacity of creativity in language and text production is for the
translation process. Without human creative thinking TTs would in fact truly only read like
translations i.e. mechanical reproductions of the source text (ST) in a different code rather
than natural texts in their own right. Good translations however distinguish themselves by
not revealing their readership that they are merely renderings of the original text. Hence a
slogan such as I don't translate I create emphasizes the effort that is put into the
translation process quite well making the customers of Sternkopf Communications instantly
aware of the fact that their texts are in good hands and will eventually not read like
mechanical translations but as if they were well-composed originals. Yet despite the enormous
importance of creativity in translating computer-aided translation (CAT) tools are being used
frequently by professional translators not to replace but to support the translator in their
daily business. From the 1990s onwards using CAT tools has been becoming increasingly popular
for the following reason: They are said to help translators to achieve faster turnaround times
by storing completed translations in a translation memory (TM). In so doing CAT tools enable
their users to translate in a more consistent way since they search source texts for words
phrases or sentences that have already been translated before and stored in the TM so that the
translator does not need to translate this text unit again 'from scratch'. Accordingly this
paper pursues two related purposes. The first is to compare the different CAT tools in their
degree of usability to gain an impression of which of these translation memory solutions is
perceived to meet translators' technological requirements best. The second purpose is to
identify translators' perspectives on uniformity and creativity in translations with the goal
to shedding light on the question whether CAT tools generally tend to positively or negatively
influence the translation process on a rather linguistic than technological basis.
