ثورة الترجمة العربية تنطلق من الخليج – The Arabic Translation Revolution Starts in the Gulf

An Asharq Al-Awsat piece arguing that the new wave of Arabic translation is being driven from the Gulf – a claim worth weighing against what we see in the region's universities.

ثورة الترجمة العربية تنطلق من الخليج

الوثائقي الغامض كيف اكتشف المسلمون أمريكا قبل كريستوف كولومبوس بزمن بعيد...

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The Politics of Competing Pedagogies in a Translation Programme (TII Conference 2016)

My paper at the 7th TII Translation Conference in Doha, on the politics of competing pedagogies and curricular practices inside a translation programme – as captured by the conference's live tweet.

The politics of competing pedagogies and curricular practices in a translation program, Fouad El Karnichi #TII_Conf7 pic.twitter.com/t0KGKRIC4Y — TII (@TII_HBKU), 29 March 2016

Video Remote Interpreting Goes Round-the-Clock

A Common Sense Advisory note on a new video remote interpreting solution offering 24-hour language services – one more sign of where interpreting work is heading.

New Video Remote Interpreting Solution Delivers Round-the-Clock Language Services

Anthony Pym on Translation and Language Learning

A talk by Anthony Pym on translation and language learning – the two have been kept apart for too long, and Pym explains why that is changing.

Philip Kerr: The Return of Translation

Philip Kerr's webinar on the return of translation to language teaching – a good starting point for anyone bridging language pedagogy and translator education.

حوار العرب: الترجمة – Arab Dialogue on Translation

An Arabic-language television discussion on translation and its place in Arab culture.

التعليم الجامعي في العالم العربي تحت المجهر – Arab University Education Under the Microscope

Hassan Dawah, in Asharq Al-Awsat, puts university education in the Arab world under the microscope – a useful backdrop to the translation-programme questions I keep returning to.

التعليم الجامعي في العالم العربي تحت المجهر – حسن دواح

وزارة التعليم العالي تبدأ في ترجمة الكتب الجامعية العالمية إلى العربية – Translating International Textbooks into Arabic

An Asharq Al-Awsat report on a Ministry of Higher Education initiative to translate international university textbooks into Arabic – exactly the kind of project that needs trained translators.

وزارة التعليم العالي تبدأ في ترجمة الكتب الجامعية العالمية إلى العربية

Jacques Tardif : L'approche par compétences – Jacques Tardif on the Competency-Based Approach

A lecture by Jacques Tardif on the competency-based approach and the change of paradigm it demands – foundational viewing for anyone designing competency-based translation programmes.

Apprendre et enseigner à l'ère numérique – Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age

A French-language talk on learning and teaching in the digital age – relevant to how we blend online and face-to-face work in translator education.

Les compétences au cœur du dispositif pédagogique – Competencies at the Heart of Pedagogical Design

A French-language talk that puts competencies at the centre of pedagogical design – a companion to the Tardif lecture.

The Complex Profile of the Translation Instructor

Being a doctoral student in a faculty of education has taught me a great deal about my own practice, both as a translator educator and as a member of the translation profession. Many concepts used across the education field, from primary and secondary to tertiary, professional, online and continuing education, can be transferred to translation and interpreting studies, and above all to translator education, training, teaching and programmes.

Some of these concepts are already in use in research or teaching. Others remain unexplored, especially at the regional level, in the Arab world and particularly in Gulf universities. Because academically based translation programmes are new in many of these countries, the research field is still largely virgin territory.

Why the Instructor's Profile Matters

One such unexplored element is the identity of the teacher, faculty member or instructor, and the competencies required to teach in a university translation or interpreting programme. To many this seems a trivial matter; even research in applied translation studies has neglected it (Kelly, 2008). But things have changed in recent years. Translation programmes are booming worldwide, and there is growing interest in professionally oriented programmes, driven by globalisation and by developing countries' need to join the knowledge-based society. The profile of the faculty working in such programmes must therefore be taken seriously (Gambier, 2012), since a programme's success depends heavily on the professional, disciplinary and pedagogical competencies of its instructors.

Four Typical Profiles

Because translation and interpreting are occupational fields, the true professional identity of the instructor raises concerns. These are the profiles most often found in translation programmes:

• PhD holders in translation studies with little or no up-to-date professional know-how. This profile is fine, but such educators are most likely to be assigned theoretical or semi-theoretical courses. Translation is an academic discipline, but reflection on practice counts, and students make sense of concepts more readily when the educator offers authentic examples and scenarios drawn from the profession, whether in-house work in the private and public sectors or freelancing online and offline. In a professionally oriented programme this is crucial: students, whether traditional adult learners or returning professionals, want a trainer who can bring everyday professional knowledge into the classroom and theorise it. Professional students are allergic to detached theory, so the choice of content matters. Recruiting only PhD holders in TS without considerable, multidimensional professional experience is a point administrators and recruiters should review.
• PhD holders in language studies or comparative literature. Here we may face a serious problem. The educator's baseline education in linguistics or literature will inevitably shape how they design, develop and assess courses and learning. They carry an identity gained in a discipline that once housed translation, but translation studies has since developed its own frameworks and concepts, along with a socio-professional dimension that must inform teaching and course design.
• MA holders in translation with professional experience, hired to run practical courses. Their disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical abilities need questioning. This profile usually delivers the skills the market needs, but years of non-academic identity in the profession, combined with a lack of sound pedagogical competencies for facilitating practical courses, may compromise the quality of outcomes.
• The dual professional. Teaching and translation are both recognised professions in many countries. An instructor with exposure to both may face a double identity. Juggling the two can produce a hybrid, balanced framework (a double agent, if you like), or it can lead to clinging to a single identity, teaching or translating, simply to make a living. The first is desirable; the second needs to be questioned, because it creates problems for quality assurance and performance at programme and outcome level, in other words for how graduates contribute to society after graduation.

NB: The author addresses this problem in his ongoing doctoral research.

Simultaneous Arabic Interpreting

A demonstration of simultaneous interpreting into and out of Arabic – useful material for interpreting classes.

6th Annual Translation Conference, Day 2

Recording of the second day of the 6th Annual Translation Conference – conference sessions like these are a good way to keep students in touch with the field.

الحياة - بيئة الترجمة في السعودية.. عشوائية ومعوقات

الحياة - بيئة الترجمة في السعودية.. عشوائية ومعوقات

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Translating Europe Forum: A Model for the Arab World?

The Translating Europe Forum is a smart strategy for mobilising every stakeholder in the translation and interpreting industry. Forums of this kind generate a huge store of knowledge about the field.

I wonder whether we could do the same in the Arabic context: encourage dialogue between academics, professionals, and the private and public sectors through a platform, online or face-to-face, like the one organised by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation.

Dorothy Kelly at the Translating Europe Workshop, London

Dorothy Kelly's talk at the Translating Europe Workshop in London – Kelly's work on translator training is essential, and this is a good way in.

Dorothy Kelly: Implications of the EHEA (Bologna) for Translator Training

Dorothy Kelly on what the European Higher Education Area (Bologna) means for translator training – and, by extension, for any programme trying to align with international standards.

Why Translator Educators Need a Community of Practice

One of the best ways to advance translator education, and translation studies in general, is for our community of practitioners (academics, professionals, and future academics and professionals) to engage in dialogue through social media and the internet, alongside meetings, conferences and online forums. This solidarity and exchange of ideas, experiences, initiatives and innovative approaches, in teaching, in the profession and in research, empowers everyone in it.

Here is an example: an exchange between me and a colleague who inherited a course I had taught the previous semester, Multimedia Translation II. I was a visiting lecturer at that university for one semester and the first to design and teach the course for the department. It was also the first time I had taught such a course.

His Question

"… your course content seems largely technical, which calls for having technological resources in place! It is evident that you did a challenging and hard job!

However, I would like to share this with you and have your valuable feedback: Don't you think the course content could be geared towards highlighting the strategies employed by translators in subtitling and interpreters? I feel it would be more straightforward and practical to focus, in this higher-level course, on what translators/interpreters do and what roles they assume in the media. This can include showcasing and discussing audiovisual and online samples. I have done some research work on Reuters translation, which may be relevant here, when compared with that of other media, say, Al Jazeera. Film subtitles can be another topic, whereby cultural norms condition and constrain translation, e.g. principles of politeness."

My Reply

I invested a good deal of time and effort in conceptualising the course this way. I took into account the student profiles and needs, and the local and regional professional practices I had already documented in my doctoral study. Class size was another factor that shaped the design, the activities, the teaching modes and the assessment tools: I favoured a workshop, coaching and training mode over lecturing. Two of the four enrolled students hoped to do a Master's in audiovisual translation (AVT) at TII the following year, and I kept that in view during the design phase.

The ICT element was integrated to fit this hands-on, coaching mode. I placed many open e-resources on Blackboard for students to use in solving terminology and documentation problems. I used videos to explain how subtitling works. I did not start with subtitling software; I used educational videos first to demonstrate manual subtitling, then introduced the software to train them to caption (or transcribe) and then subtitle. Students liked cartoons, so I used some of those (Arabic/English), along with news reports and documentaries, where speech rate is regulated. I focused on building students' instrumental and reflective competence, supported by the technical material above and by knowledge of audiovisual translation from the literature (Díaz Cintas, 2007).

A related phenomenon is audio and video (remote) interpreting. This is current practice in the profession, and I felt students needed an introduction to it. Multimedia translation is diverse; it is not only subtitling, as students tend to think. To support that, I drew on recent publications and on best practices published by professional associations and consortia.

Your plan sounds rational and clear, and you may well follow it. As I see it, it makes sense for an undergraduate minor: comparing media samples, case studies, and the strategies and techniques they reveal. You are a translation scholar and you know what you will offer the students. Your material would be another valid way to run the course, though different from mine.

Did you check with Prof. XXX whether she covered that in Media I? I recall she said she dealt with that declarative knowledge there, working mostly on written texts (newspapers, advertising). Please check with her first. What I did in Media II was extend the course by adding two practical, missing elements: the profession and technology. As a minor course, it only introduced students to these areas, without the depth that a major or a professionally oriented BA or MA would allow. You might also diagnose students' needs; it could help, if you choose to.

I may have said too much, but I hope you now have a clear picture of the mechanics and rationale (pedagogical reasoning and intended learning outcomes) behind the design. It is up to you to shape the course as you prefer. Your proposal is sound. But please check with Prof. XXX about Media I to avoid redundancy or misalignment.

Takeaway

This is what a community of practice looks like at its most basic: two colleagues comparing design decisions openly, and both courses ending up stronger for it.