Last week I attended the graduate student conference in translation studies at the University of Ottawa. The theme was networking in the context of literary translation, and the proposals were intriguing. Here I sum up the presentations that spoke to me most: the practical or semi-practical ones, and those touching on social, technological or pedagogical issues, the last being my own PhD focus. Many other topics were good in their own right.
I travelled from Quebec on Friday morning and reached campus around 1 pm, so I missed a few discussions. A pity. I cover only the sessions I attended.
ATIO and the academy
First, an excellent presentation by Mme Charbonneau of ATIO, who raised many sound points about translation and interpreting practice in Canada. She gave me a clear answer to something I had been asking about: the relationship between academia (translation programmes) and the association. To what extent does ATIO take part in curriculum design and development, or in vetting translation and interpreting degrees and certificates in Ontario? To my surprise, she replied that the association is hardly involved, or at least not enough. That told me a good deal about current curricular practice at decision-making level.
Social networking and connectivism
Sandra Najar from Kent State University went straight to the heart of the conference theme, networking in relation to literature. She presented a genuinely innovative initiative grounded in social networking theory. The area is new; it sits well in the human and social sciences despite its close ties to information technology. She also flagged a gap she wants to work on: how to apply the social networking framework to teaching literary translation.
I suggested she look at Siemens (2005), of Athabasca University in Canada, who proposed connectivism as a new learning theory and showed how it could apply to a learner's development, for instance that of translation and interpreting trainees. For Siemens, the brain is not the only source of knowledge; knowledge also resides in nodes and other resources, online, in the cloud, and in communities of practice or of learners. This could be a sound move, but careful instructional design and relevant pedagogy still need to be mobilised to make the learning experience succeed. Wenger's work on communities of learners, and how to develop them in a teaching context, is another useful source, particularly for collaborative work, crowdsourcing, cloud-sourcing and fan-subbing in translator training.
Crowdsourcing: outside the curriculum
Gulnara presented a strong paper on crowdsourcing, a topic Prof. Elizabeth Marshman also showed interest in. It is a new practice that challenges traditional definitions of professional translation, and we cannot dismiss it as amateurish, since many experienced practitioners volunteer for it too. My interest, again, was pedagogical: can we bring this new content into a university translation classroom, whether face-to-face, blended or virtual?
My view is that crowdsourcing, because of its voluntary (and sometimes reactive) nature, will remain a recognised practice outside academia. If our programmes are professionally oriented and aimed at competences that lead to jobs, crowdsourcing is something students can learn on their own, just as they learn to navigate other social media.
Freelancing: bring it in
What I would like to see integrated in the curriculum is freelancing, where students act both as receivers of translation assignments and as outsourcers, and later as project managers. It has a professional and an educational dimension, with a gradual progression of competencies. Surprisingly, some Canadian universities offer this content only as an elective (under the name réalités professionnelles). Well, universities have their traditions. Perhaps in five or ten years it will be a core, compulsory three-credit course. In Spain, Cravo (2011) introduced it into a Master's programme at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona as a core activity for future professional translators. A great move.
In 2012 I delivered an online course on virtual professional translation practice on the ProZ.com platform, in Arabic and English, to about 20 students from the US, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. I used case studies and screen demonstrations to show how to manage portfolios and bid for assignments online. In 2013, as part of the fieldwork preparation for my PhD, I worked as a lecturer in translation and community interpreting (Arabic-English) in Oman. The Omani students were intrigued by the idea of freelancing and working from home. It is a practice in demand.
Those are the three presentations I feel able to discuss; all the others were good too. We all lean towards our own areas of knowledge and practice. Feel free to react here on the blog or on the mailing list.
