Teaching And Testing Interpreting And Translating

The book presents a range of theoretical and practical approaches to the teaching of the twin professions of interpreting and translating, covering a variety of language pairs. All aspects of the training process are addressed - from detailed word-level processing to student concerns with their careers, and from the setting of examinations to the standardisation of marking. The articles show very clearly the strengths and needs, the potential and vision of interpreter and translator training as it exists in countries around the world. The experience of the authors, who are all actively engaged in training interpreters and translators, demonstrates the innovative, practical and reflective approaches which are proving invaluable in the formation of the next generation of professional translators and interpreters. While many of them are being trained in universities, they are being prepared for a life in the real world of business and politics through the use of authentic texts and tools and up-to-date methodology.

Topics included in this volume are centered around the politics of translator and interpreter education in higher education in the US as well as in Europe and the perceived image of elitism of these disciplines; other essays discuss the tension and disciplinary boundaries between foreign language training and translator and interpreter education. Topics dealing with specific quality control issues in the teaching of interpreting and translation, discussions of innovative approaches to research, e.g., isotopy and translation, and a review of teaching conference interpreting complete this volume.

Selected papers from a lively conference on the state of the art in translator and interpreter training. Topics range from culture specific problems (in Iran, South Africa and Canada, for instance) to the internationalization of the profession. The book is brim-full of teaching ideas and strategies: problems of assessment, teaching translators to be professional and business oriented, using cognitive methods, terminology management, technical translation, literary translation, theory and practice, simultaneous/consecutive interpreting, subtitling and many other related topics.

"Testing and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies" examines issues of measurement that are essential to translation and interpreting. Conceptualizing testing both as a process and a product, the collection of papers explores these issues across languages and settings (including university classrooms, research projects, the private sector, and professional associations). The authors have approached their chapters from different perspectives using a variety of methods, some focusing on very specific variables, and others providing a much broader overview of the issues at hand. Chapters range from a discussion of the measurement of text cohesion in translation; the measurement of interactional competence in interpreting; the use of a particular scale to measure interpreters renditions to the application of a specific approach to grading or general program assessment (such as interpreter or translator certification at the national level or program admissions processes). These studies point to the need for greater integration of research and practice in the specific area of testing and assessment and are a welcome addition to the field."

This book is the first and only dictionary on education and assessment in the context of translator and interpreter training. It offers the reader in-depth and up-to-date knowledge regarding key issues of the education and assessment of translators and interpreters, including how best to train translators and interpreters and how best to assess their performance in pedagogical settings. It contains key terms defined and discussed with a broad focus, and arranged alphabetically. It will serve as a valuable resource for academic researchers, educators, and assessors in translation and interpreting studies, as well as practitioners and students of translation and interpreting studies.

For at least a century, attitudes to the use of translation in language teaching have been predominantly negative, the deprecators of the methodology having been particularly vocal at the turn of the 20th century and again in the 1960s and 70s. Yet, for all of this time, translation has remained a significant component in the teaching of many languages in many parts of the world, and the 1980s saw a revival of support for the practice among a number of applied linguists. Language teaching for translators has been rather less contentious. It has always been assumed that translators must know their languages thoroughly, but little has been written about how they, as a special group, might be taught their languages. In the final quarter of the 20th century, attention among translation scholars and pedagogues has turned so decisively away from linguistics that even teaching translators about their languages and how they can be put to use has been frowned on in many quarters. This book takes a fresh look at both issues. Part One addresses the question of the place and nature of language teaching in translator training programmes. Part Two deals with the issue of how translation might best be used as a teaching and testing methodology in language classes. Finally, the papers in Part Three address the relationship between translation and language teaching from the somewhat divergent points of view of the translator trainer and language teacher.

The Evolving Curriculum in Interpreter and Translator Education: Stakeholder perspectives and voices examines forces driving curriculum design, implementation and reform in academic programs that prepare interpreters and translators for employment in the public and private sectors. The evolution of the translating and interpreting professions and changes in teaching practices in higher education have led to fundamental shifts in how translating and interpreting knowledge, skills and abilities are acquired in academic settings. Changing conceptualizations of curricula, processes of innovation and reform, technology, refinement of teaching methodologies specific to translating and interpreting, and the emergence of collaborative institutional networks are examples of developments shaping curricula. Written by noted stakeholders from both employer organizations and academic programs in many regions of the world, the timely and useful contributions in this comprehensive, international volume describe the impact of such forces on the conceptual foundations and frameworks of interpreter and translator education.

This book focuses on new perspectives on assessment in translator and interpreting education and suggests that assessment is not only a measure of learning (i.e. assessment ‘of’ learning) but also part of the learning process (i.e. assessment ‘for’ learning and assessment ‘as’ learning). To this end, the book explores the current and changing practices of the role and nature of assessment not only in terms of the products but also the processes of translation. It includes empirical studies which examine competence-based assessment and quality in translation and interpreting education both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. This includes studies and proposals on formative and summative assessment in a wide range of educational contexts, as well as contributions about relatively unexplored research areas such as quality assurance and assessment in subtitling for the D/deaf and the hard of hearing, and how closely translation programmes fit the reality of professional practice. The findings of this book lend support to existing theoretical frameworks and inform course planning and design in translation education. As such, it will be a valuable resource for translation educators, trainers and researchers, translation and interpreting practitioners and associated professionals. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer.