Aims

1.       For students to gain a good working knowledge of key professional and practical issues involved in translation.
2.       In and out of their mother tongue (in one of 2 language pairs, e.g. English<>French, English<>German and English<>Spanish), for students to:
•       Gain higher-level text-analysis skills, translating and translating-teamwork skills in 2-3 genres chosen for this Stage (e.g. prose literature, legal, medical).
•       Further develop a critical understanding of their own and others’ translation practices.

Outline Of Syllabus

The lectures will cover the following topics:
Finding work, professional organisations and career management
Working as in-house translator
Working as a freelance translator: dealing with clients and agencies, financial aspects
Delivery, presentation and quality control
Ethics and good practice
Translation and technology; computer-assisted translation
The module will also focus on the linguistic and communicative features of the Stage’s genres.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Along with structured guided learning (“lecture materials”), the lectures will give students grounding in the key professional and practical issues involved in translating in a professional context, as outlined in the syllabus (including, but not limited to, AVT, CAT tools, translation quality, terminology and project management etc.). This module contains some asynchronous online lectures as the blended learning mode of teaching allows students to reflect in their own time, to complete collaborative activities and to revisit some of the lecture materials for new tasks (e.g. translation workflow). Evaluation from last year showed that a majority of students appreciated the online elements as part of the module contact hours. The blended learning mode of teaching showed to be very effective as it allowed students time to reflect in their own time. Lectures on topics such as Translation Workflow work best online as they allow students to take part in reflective peer-exercises and to come back to these resources throughout the year.

Small-group teaching will give students the opportunity to discuss and simulate the professional principles covered in the lectures, and will give lecturer input on translation skills development. This will allow students to develop written, communication and problem-solving skills.
Skills practice allows students to prepare and practise translation tasks, and to develop knowledge about the
translation industry.


*(Continued from above) Students will normally follow the language-specific strand.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Under pressure of tight deadlines, the off campus exam assesses students’ command of translation skills presented and practised in the module. These skills include PC-based writing, terminology management and web reference skills – presented and practised in the module. The required commentary allows students to demonstrate that they can contextualise their translation work and justify their translation decisions professionally and critically. It also allows students to demonstrate their knowledge of some of the key issues of professional translating.

The coursework tests the students’ practical translation skills as well as their ability to reflect on their own translatorial action while simulating real-life translation work and procedures. It also allows students to demonstrate their knowledge of the areas of professional practice covered in the module.