Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Teaching translation: language vs. technology Braga, Portugal, June 23-27, 2008

A training seminar for translation teachers

The Consortium for Training Translation Teachers, in cooperation with the Intercultural Studies Group and the Institute of Arts and Humanities/CEHUM at the Universidade do Minho, announces this intensive training seminar to be held in English.

Based on the model developed since 2001, the seminar is designed to bring together professional translators and translation teachers, and to facilitate exchanges between those two groups.

Seminar leaders: Daniel Gouadec, Debbie Folaron, Frank Austermühl, Brian Mossop
Academic coordinators: Anthony Pym, Fernando Ferreira Alves
Learning hours: 50 (including software demonstrations) 
ECTS credits: 2
Industry sponsor: SDL Trados Technologies 
Tuition fee: 390 euros

Aim

Technical translation has been radically transformed by the use of electronic technologies. The teaching of technical translation has thus been pressured to transform itself in similar ways. This presents translation teachers with numerous problems. To what extent can we ignore language problems? What kinds of language skills are required for work with electronic technologies? How do we integrate the technologies into the classroom? How do we compensate for the linguistic effects of electronic technologies? To what extent should we be teaching beyond the traditional classroom?

The aim of the seminar is to address these questions as they concern the training of professional technical (non-literary) translators at university level..

The seminar is designed to address many teaching environments in many countries. It does not insist on a profile of any one ideal teacher, nor on a set of fixed best practices. Instead, it encourages awareness of a number of approaches and is based on exchange between professional translators and teachers.

The contact days are supplemented by the use of reference texts, in many cases written by the course leaders.