Introductory description

This module introduces students to current professional practices in the language industry from a critical perspective. Through a combination of lectures and seminars based on problem-solving activities and analysis of real-world scenarios, it will offer an in-depth understanding of the main stages in a professional translation process, providing both knowledge of and skills in a variety of professional aspects relevant to the translation industry. As well as becoming familiar with language industry demands, emerging job profiles, translation competence models, the role of technology, market requirements and the need to specialise, students will develop a critical and reflexive stance towards their position within the current translation job market. Crucially, students will acquire the necessary analytical skills to assess ethical dilemmas and the challenges and opportunities of translation as a sustainable profession.
Additionally, the module will provide students with opportunities (shadowing or volunteering) to engage with Language Service Providers or organisations through an optional company visit. This exercise will allow students to engage with professionals in the industry and reflect on the themes covered in class.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The syllabus is structured in six sessions, combining lectures and seminars, with specified independent reading time in between each session. Students will be provided with handouts to prepare for group discussions and seminars based on problem-solving activities and analysis of real-world scenarios.

Session 1. The job market: insights from the profession

Session 2. The translation profession in the 21st century: European Masters of Translation competence framework

Session 3. The need to specialise

Session 4. Translation and technology: societal implications

Session 5. Translation ethics and sustainability: the future of the profession

Session 6. Work-in-progress seminar about the professional development plan (ideally in week 10)

Additionally, students are encouraged to attend an optional company visit.

Representatives from the local translation industry and members of the regional Institute of Translation and Interpreting may contribute as guest lecturers for this module.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Develop a comprehensive understanding of the parameters informing professional practice in relation to translation ethics and sustainability, as well as the wider economic, political, cultural and technological context of translation.
• Acquire advanced knowledge of key translation competences and critical skills in a variety of theoretical and practical aspects relevant to the current translation industry.
• Demonstrate a profound awareness of how technology supports and modifies the role of the translator, as well as of the societal implications of CAT tools and machine translation services.
• Engage in independent evaluation of trends in the translation profession from an ethical and sustainable perspective, reflecting on the advancement of their own careers in a professional development plan.
• Develop an in-depth understanding of the value of specialisation in the language industries

Indicative reading list

-Session 1. The job market: insights from the profession.
Abdallah, K. 2010. "Translators’ agency in production networks." In T. Kinnunen & K. Koskinen (eds.) Translators’ agency. Tampere University Press, 11–46.
Biel, Ł., & V. Sosoni. 2017. "The translation of economics and the economics of translation." Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice 25(3), 351–361
Courtney, J. & M. Phelan. 2019. "Translators’ Experiences of Occupational Stress and Job Satisfaction. Translation & Interpreting 11(1), 100–113.
Dam, H. V. & K. K. Zethsen. 2016. "’I Think It Is a Wonderful Job’: On the Solidity of the Translation Profession." JoSTrans – The Journal of Specialised Translation 25, 174–187.
Dunne, K. 2012. "The industrialization of translation. Causes, consequences and challenges." Translation Spaces 1, 143–168.
Gambier, Y. 2014. "Changing landscape in translation." International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2(2), 1–12.
Gouadec, D. 2007. Translation as a Profession. John Benjamins.
Katan, D. 2009. "Translation Theory and Professional Practice: A Global Survey of the Great Divide." Hermes. Journal of Language and Communication Studies 42: 111–153.
Katan, D. 2009. "Occupation or profession: A survey of the translators’ world." Translation and Interpreting Studies, 4(2), 187–209.
Kujamäki, M. 2021. "Translation as a professional service: an overview of a fragmented field of practice." Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice (ahead of print).
Rodríguez De Céspedes, B. 2020. "Beyond the margins of academic education: fining out translation industry training practices through action research". Translation and Interpreting 12(1), 115-126.
Schäffner, C. 2019. "Translators’ roles and responsibilities." In: M. Ehrensberger-Dow, G. Massey & E. Angelone (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Language Industry studies. Bloomsbury, 63-90.

-Session 2. The translation profession in the 21st century: EMT competences framework.
EMT Expert Group. 2009. "Competences for Professional Translators, Experts in Multilingual and Multimedia Communication." Brussels: Directorate General for Translation. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/emt_competences_translators_en.pdf
EMT Expert Group. 2017. “"Competence Framework." Brussels: Directorate General for Translation. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/emt_competence_fwk_2017_en_web.pdf
Neubert, A. 2000. "Competence in Language, in Languages and in Translation. Developing Translation Competence." In: C. Schäffner & A. Beverly (eds.) Developing Translation Competence. John Benjamins, 3-18.
PACTE Group. 2005. "Investigating Translation Competence: Conceptual and Methodological Issues." Meta, 50(2), 609-619.
Pym, A. 2003. "Redefining Translation Competence in an Electronic Age: In Defence of a Minimalist Approach." Meta XLVIII(4), 481-97.
Reza Esfandiari, M., N. Shokrpour & F. Rahimi. 2019. "An evaluation of the EMT: Compatibility with the professional translator’s needs." Cogent Arts & Humanities, 6(1).
Schäffner, C. 2012 "Translation Competence: Training for the Real World." In: S. Hubscher-Davidson & M. Borodo (eds.) 2012. Global trends in translator and interpreter training. Continuum Advances in Translation.

-Sessoin 3. The need to specialise: mastering specialised translation.
Ahmad K. & M. Rogers (eds). 2007. Evidence Based LSP: Translation, Text and Terminology. Peter Lang.
Alcaraz, E. & B. Hughes. 2014. Legal Translation Explained. Routledge.
Basílio, M. C. 2005. "The overall dance of specialised translation." Journal of Specialised Translation, 3.
Byrne, J. 2014. Scientific and technical translation explained. Routledge.
Giehl, C. 2006. "Optimizing and Translating LSP Texts." Hermes. Journal of Language and Communication Studies 37.
Kübler, N. 2003. "Corpora and LSP translation." In: F. Zanettin, S. Bernardini & D. Stewart (eds.) Corpora in Translator Education. St. Jerome, 25-42.
Kübler, N., A. Mestivier & M. Pecman. 2018. "Teaching Specialised Translation Through Corpus Linguistics: Translation Quality Assessment and Methodology Evaluation and Enhancement by Experimental Approach." Meta 63(3), 807–825.
Kussmaul, P. 1997. "Text type conventions and translating: some methodological issues.". In: A. Trosborg (ed.) Text Typology in Translation. John Benjamins, 67-83.
Maher, A., S. Waller & M. E. Kerans. 2008. "Acquiring or enhancing a translation specialism: the monolingual corpus-guided approach.", Journal of Specialised Translation, 10.
Montalt, V. & M. González-Davies. 2007. Medical Translation Step by Step. Learning by Drafting. Routledge.
Nord, C. 1991) Text Analysis in Translation. Rodopi.
Pearson, J. 2003. "Using Parallel Texts in the Translator Training Environment." In: F. Zanettin, S. Bernardini & D. Stewart (eds). Corpora in Translator Education. St. Jerome, 15-24.
Rogers, M. 2015. Specialised Translation. Shedding the ‘Non-literary’ Tag. Palgrave Macmillan.
Sage, J.C. 1997. Text types and translation. In: A. Trosborg (ed.) Text Typology and Translation, John Benjamins, 25-42.
Simard, M. 2020. "Building and using parallel text for translation." In: M. O'Hagan (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology. Routledge.
Trosborg, A. (ed). 1997. Text Typology in Translation, John Benjamins.

-Session 4. Translation and technology: societal implications.
Alonso, E. & Nunes Vieira, L. 2020. "The impact of technology on the changing role of the translator in globalized translation workflows." In: E. Bielsa & D. Kapsaskis (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization. Routledge, 391-405.
Bowker, L. 2002. Computer-aided translation technology: A practical introduction. Didactics of translation series. University of Ottawa Press.
Bowker, L. & J. Buitrago Ciro. 2019. Machine Translation and Global Research. Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly Community. Emerald Publishing.
Bowker, L. 2021. "Translation Technology and Ethics." In: K. Koskinen & N. Pokorn (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, 262-277.
Doherty, S. 2016. "The impact of translation technologies on the process and product of translation." International Journal of Communication 10, 947–969.
Ehrensberger-Dow, M. & G. Massey. 2017. "Socio-technical issues in professional translation practice." Translation in the Field: Current Research on Socio-Cognitive Processes,6(1), 104–121.
LeBlanc, M. 2013. "Translators on translation memory (TM). Results of an ethnographic study in three translation services and agencies." Translation & Interpreting, 5(2), 1–13.
Moorkens, J. & Lewis, D. 2020. "Copyright and the reuse of translation as data." In: M. O'Hagan (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, Routledge.
Nunes Vieira, L. 2020. "Automation anxiety and translators." Translation Studies 13(1), 1-21.
Nunes Vieira, L. 2020. "Post-editing of machine translation." In: M. O'Hagan (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, Routledge.
O'Hagan, M. 2020. "Introduction: Translation and technology: disruptive entanglement of human and machine." In: M. O'Hagan (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, Routledge.
Ragni, V. & Nunes Vieira, L. 2021. "What has changed with neural machine translation? A critical review of human factors.". Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice (Ahead of print).
Savoldi, B., Gaido, M., Bentivogli, L., Negri, M. & Turchi, M. 2021. "Gender Bias in Machine Translation." Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics 9: 845–874.

-Session 5. Translation ethics and sustainability: the future of the profession.
Abdallah, K. 2011. "Towards Empowerment." The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 5(1): 129-154.
Baker, M. & Maier, C. 2011. "Ethics in Interpreter and Translator Training: Critical Perspectives." The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5(1), 1-14.
Fisher, M. 2009. Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Zero Books.
Han, B-C. 2015. The Burnout Society. Stanford UP.
Hubscher-Davidson, Séverine. 2017. Translation and Emotion. A Psychological Perspective. Routledge.
Koskinen, K. & N. K. Pokorn. 2021. "Ethics and Translation: An Introduction". In: K. Koskinen & N. Pokorn (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, 1-12.
Lambert, Joseph. 2021. "Professional Translator Ethics". In: K. Koskinen & N. Pokorn (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, 165-178
Leblanc, M. 2017. "’I Can’t Get No Satisfaction!’: Should We Blame Translation Technologies or Shifting Business Practices?" In: D. Kenny (ed.) Human Issues in Translation Technology, Routledge, 45–62.
Leicht, K. T., & E. C. W. Lyman, 2006. "Markets, institutions, and the crisis of professional practice." Research in the Sociology of Organizations: Professional Service Firms 24, 17–44.
Moorkens, J. 2017. "Under pressure: Translation in times of austerity." Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 25(3), 464–477.
Moorkens, J. & M. Rocchi. 2021. "Ethics in the Translation Industry". In: K. Koskinen & N. Pokorn (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, 320-336
Moorkens, J. 2020. "Comparative Satisfaction among Freelance and Directly-Employed Irish-Language Translators." Translation & Interpreting 12(1): 55–73.
Pym, A. 2021. "Translator Ethics". In: K. Koskinen & N. Pokorn (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, 147-160.
Rodríguez-Castro, M. 2016. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sources of Translator Satisfaction: An Empirical Study." Entreculturas 7-8: 195–229.

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of Britain and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

Students will develop the ability not only to understand key aspects in the translation profession in the 21st century, but also critical skills to (1) assess the key demands and expectations of the job market, (2) negotiate ethical working conditions enabling social, economic and environmental sustainability in the profession, and (3) ultimately apply their knowledge to reflect on and make informed decisions regarding the advancement of their careers.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and the other language(s) of study, intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the other language(s) of study, personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.