Heriot-Watt University’s LINCS department will be holding its 11th annual SWATI event online on 16 February 2022 from 1.30 to 4.30 pm UK time.
We will be welcoming a range of experienced professionals, who will give you an insight into different career paths in translation and interpreting. The event will feature potential recruiters as well as representatives from the main translation and interpreting bodies for the UK. This event is designed to help you better understand these career paths, and to gain valuable advice to help you refine your career plan.
Our event on the 16 February 2022 is open to all students currently enrolled in a Higher Education institution as well as professionals who are considering continuous education in a translation and interpreting programme.
To register for the event in advance, please use this link:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information about how to join the webinar.
Are you a current Heriot-Watt student or alumni?
You are also invited to the speed networking on the 17 February 2022 were you can have one-to-one talks with our guests and ask all the questions you want about the various career options available to you.
A member from the Heriot-Watt Careers and Employability team will be available to answer any questions about the support available to you to start your search for employment.
(The speed-networking event is exclusive to past and current Heriot-Watt students).
Schedule
Day 1. 16 February 2022, 1.30 to 4.30 pm UK time
1.30 – 1.40 pm Opening of the event: career planning for translation and interpreting
The perspective of potential employers: international organisations, translation agencies
1.40 – 1.50 pm Hannah Riley, Head of Recovery Management & Planning at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Brussels, Belgium
1.50 – 2.00 pm Helen Courtney-Hinsch, Head of Talent Management at the Wolfstone Group, the UK’s fastest growing language service provider
In this session, we first discuss our individual experiences which led us to developing a collaborative project on translating memorial perspectives in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. Dorota, who has a translation studies background, will talk about engagement with museum employees during a pilot study on translation in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. Focusing on her interviews with museum guides, she will reflect on the process of selecting participants, her positionality vis-à-vis the interviewees, as well as the conceptualisations of translation and multilingualism that emerged from the study. Agnieszka, a Hebrew and Holocaust studies scholar, will share her experiences of translating texts for the Litzmannstadt Ghetto Model project, from Polish into Hebrew. She will consider direct and indirect influences that museum representatives and other stakeholders exerted on her work, to then comment briefly on her agency as a translator and on the politics of translating Holocaust memorial texts in today’s Poland.
Afterwards, we will introduce our new project, which examines translation of memorial perspectives in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and focuses on the renegotiations between different representations of Polish and Jewish victimhood in museum texts. Alongside textual analysis, the study will include interviews with curators, translators and other stakeholders. Although the work is in its very early stages, we will share our hypotheses regarding translation policies and discuss some of the challenges we anticipate. We shall also explore how our previous experiences inform our interviews design and shape our understanding of the nexus between translation, memory and politics in the context of Holocaust memorial museums.
Bios
Dorota Gołuch is a lecturer in translation at Cardiff University. She has published book chapters and articles on Polish translations of African writing and on the reception of postcolonial literature in Poland. She is currently writing about solidarity and translation, as well as conducting research on translation, memory and the Holocaust.
Agnieszka Podpora – literary scholar and translator. Her interests revolve around Polish and Hebrew Holocaust literature and its impact on the cultural renegotiations of Holocaust memory. Currently, she is working on Polish-Hebrew literary translations in the interwar years.
This seminar sets out to explore the situational and textual-contextual conditions and constraints surrounding art translation, a hitherto under-researched mode of translation. It presents the key findings of a survey conducted among art translators in the German-speaking countries to provide a first insight into the field (Krein-Kühle 2021). It discusses the implications of these findings for translator training and presents an art translation module that can be included in translation curriculum design. On an art essay corpus-in-context basis, it also discusses and exemplifies the specific challenges involved in art translation. It discusses specific textual features used in such essays and highlights relevant trends in translation solutions that can be useful for the applied branches of art translation. Moreover, this seminar will explore the more foundational requirements involved in art translation, focusing on the relevance of seeing and on training a translator’s eye that is receptive to the power of visual phenomena and able to grasp the artistic impulse as “an impulse of cognition” (Fiedler [1876] 1949/1978: 76). (Re)learning how to see works of art may be regarded as an indispensable prerequisite for felicitous art translation.
Keywords: Art translation, translator training, survey among art translators, exhibition catalogue essays, translator’s eye.
Bio
Monika Krein-Kühle, MA, PhD, is Professor Emerita of English Linguistics and Translation Studies at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany, where she founded and directed the MA course in Specialized Translation which is part of the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) network. She has extensive working experience as a translator, translator trainer and as head of the translation departments of major German companies. Her research interests are specialized translation in the field of the visual arts, scientific and technical translation, translator training, research methodology, literary and corpus-based translation studies. She has published widely in all these fields.
As a repository of human experience, knowledge, and values, memorial museums offer a space for visitors to engage with both individual and collective narratives and experience memory, which may lead them to actively participate in social change. Interpretative and affective engagements, in addition to intercultural communication, are some of the most dynamic, and also central activities that take place in the museum space. As such, translation plays a significant role in generating a similar level of engagement from a wide range of international visitors, whose attachment to the messages presented is likely to be different from that of home visitors. The extent to which translation helps memorial museums mediate the international visitors’ schematic process and challenge their established knowledge can be examined by investigating the visitors’ reception, for example, through questionnaires, interviews and close readings of blog posts. However, failing to acknowledge the audience’s diverse spectrum in the interpretation of survey data is likely to return skewed results, precisely because the audience’s schematic and established knowledge and background information ultimately determine the extent to which they engage with museum narratives, and their willingness to be part of social change. For the same reason, the socio-political and historical context in which museum translators are embedded needs to be considered when analysing any significant translation strategies identified. Thus, centring on the methodological issues arising from museum translation research, this talk discusses rigorous and nuanced ways to read both museum visitors’ as well as translators’ engagement with museum narratives.
Readings
Deane-Cox, Sharon. 2014. “Remembering Oradour-Sur-Glane: Collective Memory in Translation.” Translation and Literature 23 (2): 272–283.
Valdeón, Roberto A. 2015. “Colonial Museums in the US (Un)Translated.” Language and Intercultural Communication 15 (3): 362–375.
Ünsal, Deniz. 2019. “Positioning Museums Politically for Social Justice.” Museum Management and Curatorship 34 (6): 595–607.
This talk will draw on Sharon and Pauline’s experience of working with professionals in the heritage and museum sector, with examples taken from their individual projects and from their joint involvement in the RSE Translating Scotland’s Heritage research network. The first issue to be addressed will be best practice in terms of identifying and establishing contacts, including the need to ensure that research ethics protocols are taken into consideration. The subsequent importance of analysing the needs, interests and expectations (NIEs) of stakeholders who come on board will also be stressed, along with the inherent value of effective communication with non-academic audiences. Throughout, Sharon and Pauline will also draw attention the specific challenges of stakeholder engagement that they have encountered, not least problems associated with timeframes, data availability and other practical difficulties, and discuss how these were handled. Finally, they will highlight how keeping track of the impact of your research and remaining alert to longer-term co-operation are both crucial steps that will serve to maximize the potential of your activities with stakeholders. Overall, this talk aims to provide participants with ideas and tools that will help to facilitate and underpin engagement around translation, in its various forms, within and beyond the sector.
Bios
Sharon Deane-Cox is Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Strathclyde, UK, assistant editor of Translation Studies, and member of the Young Academy of Scotland. She is author of a monograph on Retranslation (2014) and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory (2022). Key research interests include the translation of Holocaust memory in testimonies and memorial museums, Scottish heritage translation, and interpreter history. She was also PI of the RSE ‘Translating Scotland’s Heritage’ research network (2019 – 2021).
Pauline Côme is a PhD student at the University of Strathclyde. Her research investigates the use and impact of translated materials on French speaking visitors in Scottish heritage sites. She was also the administrative assistant for the ‘Translating Scotland’s Heritage’ research network (2019 – 2021). She previously completed a Bachelor’s degree in English Studies at Le Mans Université (France) and a Master’s degree in Business Translation and Interpreting with the University of Strathclyde.
This online event, made up of 4 related webinars held over 2 weeks, is co-hosted by the Training Committee, International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) and The Centre for Translation & Interpreting Studies in Scotland (CTISS), at Heriot-Watt University.
Museum translation, an encompassing term which can be understood as translation activities in their broadest sense taking place in or in relation to museums, has gradually received some attention from translation scholars in recent years. The multimodal and intercultural museum space and exhibitions have provided opportunities for researchers in translation studies to explore new dimensions, and in particular, to work with different stakeholders in this process and space of communication. This event consists of four webinars, with each presenter sharing their experience of engaging with one or more groups of stakeholders, including museum curators and visitors, interdisciplinary research collaborators, translation trainees, and the multilingual community. It is hoped that this event will further studies and interaction with other stakeholders in museum translation.
Tuesday, 1 March (16.00-17.00, UK time)
Initiating and Boosting Stakeholder Engagement around Translation: A Look at the Heritage and Museum Sector
The events will be held on Zoom and are free to attend, but to confirm your place at these events please register in advance. Log-in details and Zoom link will then be emailed to all those who have registered. You are welcome to join one, more or all of the events.
If you have any questions, please contact the event organizer: Dr. Min-Hsiu Liao (m.liao@hw.ac.uk)
The role of Arabic translation in the dissemination of scientific knowledge
The Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University invites you to celebrate International Arabic Day by joining our roundtable focusing on the role of translation from and into Arabic in the dissemination of knowledge in the sciences.
Interpreting services will be available in Arabic, BSL, English, French and Spanish.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the webinar and use interpreting services.
Translation has played and continues to play a pivotal role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge. One of the greatest examples is the translation movement from Latin and Ancient Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into other European languages which played an undeniable role in the development of the sciences geographically in Europe and historically in the Renaissance era (Montgomery 2000, Salama-Carr 1990, 2009). It is also widely recognised that translation from European languages, mainly French, as a global lingua franca, into Arabic, at the beginning of the 19th century played a similar role in the Arabic renaissance (Al-Nahda) in the Arab-speaking world.
On this International Arabic Day, we would like to reflect on the role of translation in knowledge dissemination and highlight the role of translation from and into Arabic in disseminating and cross-fertilising scientific knowledge. We would like also to acknowledge the impact of this translation activity in enriching the Arabic language.
Our distinguised speakers are invited to share their knowledge and personal experiences concerning the impact of translation from and into Arabic in the dissemination of science and in enriching the Arabic language. They are:
Dr Ali Almanaa, Associate professor, Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar;
Mr Driss Aboulhoucine, Coordinator, Translation and Interpretation Services, World Health Organisation, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt;
Dr Fayza El-Kacem, Professor in Translation Studies, Ecole Supérieure de l’Interprétariat et de la Traduction, Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris 3, France ;
Dr Layla Al Musawi, Program manager for Publicizing and Dissemination of Science and Technology, Scientific Culture Directorate, Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, Kuwait;
Dr Mohammad Al Refaei, Resident Physician, Internal Medicine at Aleppo University Hospital, Syria, Science Writer at Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences;
Mr Nawaar Sobh, Translator and editor, Altaqa.net, Syria;
Dr Rana Dajani, Professor at the Hashemite University, Jordan, President of the Society for Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World.
I am Jemina Napier, from Heriot-Watt University, and I am Celia Hulme, from the University of Manchester, and here we provide an overview of a project that we are both involved in as part of a research team.
The aim of the project is to explore mental health and interpreting but very specifically how AMHPs (Approved Mental Health Professionals) work alongside spoken language interpreters or sign language interpreters, particularly if an individual needs assessing under the Mental Health Act (in England). The person may be unable to access English written or spoken, for whatever reason, so the interpreter and the professional need to work together. Very little research has been done in this area, so it’s a very important and novel project.
We have a team of six people on the core research team, all from different backgrounds bringing different expertise and experiences. Firstly, we have Alys Young, Principal Investigator on the project. She is at the University of Manchester, a Professor of Social Work and brings a social work perspective, and also a Deaf Studies perspective. Then, we have, Jemina Napier, Co-investigator on the project, who is from Heriot-Watt University, a Professor and Chair of Intercultural Communication and the Director of Research for the School of Social Sciences, bringing perspective as a sign language interpreter and someone that trains interpreters and also uses BSL. Next, we have Dr Rebecca Tipton, another Co-investigator on the project. She is also from the University of Manchester and she lectures in Translation and Interpreting Studies, and speaks French. Next, we have Dr Sarah Vicary, who is also a Co-investigator on the project. She is from the Open University and is the Associate Head of School of Nations. She is also a registered qualified social worker and has been for 30 years, and she brings a social work perspective. We also have Dr Natalia Rodriguez Vicente from the University of Essex. She lectures in Modern Languages, Interpreting and Translation, and she is also a Spanish speaker and works as a postdoctoral research associate on the project. And Celia Hulme who is from the University of Manchester and is a final year PhD student in health research and I am involved in the INForMHAA project as a research assistant bringing a deaf perspective, but also a PPIE perspective. Jackie Wan Brown has recently joined the project as an intern as part of her NIHR funded pre-doctoral programme.
Project Advisory Group
With respect to the Project Advisory Group, it’s really important as a research team to have an advisory group as we have knowledge about the research process but we also need people to advise whether they are AMHPs, social workers and also interpreters; they are experts in their field. We set up an advisory group so that throughout the process of doing the research, we make sure that their personal and professional experiences are included. We also want to include key stakeholders, interpreters, both for spoken and sign languages, but also people that work as AMHPs and even teach AMHPs and go through that process.
The aim of the advisory group is to meet once every three months. So, we get together on a regular basis to talk about the research, we update them as to what we’ve been doing and how things are going. We ask them to contribute any ideas, resources that we could use such as academic literature, policies, and legislation. Also, anything that they would like to recommend that they know about, for example key contacts if we are trying to recruit people, so we also use their network alongside ours. When we produce our preliminary results, we will ask them for feedback in the results and methods. We will work alongside them to promote the research through their networks and contacts; hopefully recruit people and make sure that this research has a real strong impact. It is a really important group to have involved in the project. Hopefully at the end of the research when it’s all been completed, they will help with dissemination as well through their networks. It is an ongoing process, not only for a limited time. We are hoping that they will support in the long term as well.
Patient and Public involvement and Engagement (PPIE) group
The PPIE group is for people that are not on the Advisory Group. These are a different group; they may be service users themselves or have direct experience of being assessed under the Mental Health Act. Their inclusion in the project is of real importance so
that is why we have a PPIE group. Our aim is to recruit eight members, all from different backgrounds, because the project is focused on Interpreter-Mediated Mental Health Act Assessments, we need to get people who have direct experience of working with interpreters and being assessed by an AHMP. So, we need to reflect their background.
We are trying to make sure we have diverse representation, so, we may have different language speakers on the panel, but also people with different skills and experiences.
When we recruit individuals, we don’t get going straight away, we will train the panel members to enable them to be effective panel members. We give them information as to
what PPIE means, the research process, and then we will get them involved in the research project. They are involved in different tasks such as project design, where we will ask their opinions. They can get involved in data collection also in dissemination of the research, be potential authors, attend conferences, present findings from the study to difference audiences and pass on information on our behalf. So, they are going to be very busy in the project.
Scoping review
The scoping review is an important part of the project. What we need to do is try to understand what research has been done in this area and how our research can fill a gap in knowledge. It’ really important for us to identify this gap. People talk about literature reviews, that is one way of doing it, but our project is different because its social care research. We will be doing something different and it is referred to as a scoping review. So, this helps us identify what’s been published, and what research has been done in the area, but not only academic research. It could be things that have been published such as policies, legislation, any information pertaining particularly to the Mental Health Act assessments. We have a strict inclusion and exclusion criteria that we must follow. For example, we are interested in research to do with mental health and interpreting but would not be interested in health interpreting generally. We try to narrow it down and understand particular research about mental health. We try to identify the gaps to make sure our project aims are covering a gap and giving new knowledge. It is a long process, and we are currently in the process of filtering the research, checking, agreeing what we will and will not include. We are going through that process at the moment and that’s just one of our methods.
Mixed-methods research
There are two phases to the project, and each phase is different. This is a mixed-methods study, so we are not only using one method but several. One method, is the scoping review, which is taking place in Phase 1. But we also want to find out the experience of the AHMPs and the interpreters, and we are getting that information through a survey questionnaire, also in Phase 1. There are two surveys because the questions are different for interpreters and AHMPs. In the survey, there is an option for them to agree to be involved in an interview so they can talk in more detail about their experiences.
Phase two involves what we call ‘simulated practice’ and what we envision will happen is
people will observe a Mental Health Act assessment taking place, so there will be
an AHMP with an interpreter, in BSL or a spoken language, doing an assessment with other
individuals (from the advisory and/or PPIE groups) observing this happening. We will then discuss what has worked well and if there were any issues that we need to think about. This will help us develop training materials. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided that everything has to take place online.
We are lucky that Zoom has different options and a special function that we can turn on that allows you to provide different language interpretations, so different spoken languages can be used simultaneously. Our aim is to adopt a multilingual approach. So that means AHMPs could speak English, and the individual being assessed could use BSL or a different spoken language and people can listen to different language options or watch BSL interpreters. And then after the simulation is finished we will gather their thoughts and opinions on the process and what that felt like. We want to ask them different questions using a poll. We have trialled several different options to see what works well so that people to contribute their views. We’re still in midst of that. We are currently piloting what works well. Then, we will work out the situation and what that is going to look like. We will start developing that soon, so it’s very exciting.
Data analysis
In terms of the analysis, we will use various different methods. For example, for the survey, we will be using descriptive analysis and may use statistical analysis. For the interviews, we will use something called the phenomenological approach which allows us to examine the individuals and their experiences. For the simulated practice, we will using different approaches. We will be analysing the interaction between the interpreter, the assessor, the service user, or the carer. We will be using software tools GoReact and ELAN. So, we will use both to analyse the information.
So, that’s the overall project.
Knowledge Exchange and Information Exchange (KEIE)
We also have a responsibility to share our findings. We have to make sure that research is accessible and has an impact and will benefit those people concerned. For example, service users, AMHPs and interpreters, so we do this through KEIE. We will publish papers but the main foundation and principle behind our project is accessibility, making sure information is accessible. So, we will disseminate information in English, in sign language like we’re doing today with this vlog. But also, we want to try to make it available in different spoken languages. We will have a website where these different language options are available and everything will be available in sign language. We will post regular updates as we go along that will be on the website, so that people can engage and see the information we are putting out there. We will also host workshops, deliver presentations at academic conferences and for professional organisations and communities, making sure that people are aware of what is going on with the project. For example, we delivered a workshop to NIHR SSCR, who funded the project and we talked about accessibility, what that means and how we designed our project with accessibility in mind using a multilingual approach and how we have embedded the principle of accessibility in the whole research design that will hopefully continue long after the lifespan of the project.
Website & Resources
A website is currently being developed for the project. There will be information and guidance available on the website at the end of the project. We hope to create some training materials, guidelines for interpreters working with AMHPs and guidelines for AMHPs working with interpreters plus, these resources will be free and available online, so anybody interested in the topic can download these materials, whether they teach AMHPs or are interpreters, they will have access to these materials as well.
The IndyLan project has developed a mobile application that will help speakers of English, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish to learn Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Basque, Galician and Northern Saami, all endangered at different degrees. Our project’s educational tool is designed to help users learn some of Europe’s endangered languages and find out about the cultures of the people who speak these languages.
The IndyLan app contains more than 4,000 vocabulary items (terms and expressions) in about 100 categories. The modes in the application are: Vocabulary; Phrases; Dialogues; Grammar; Aural Comprehension; Culture.
Our vision is for the IndyLan app to contribute to endangered language learning and revitalisation so that these languages remain alive and relevant in contemporary societies and economies.
The testing phase – Intellectual Output 3 is now complete. Thank you to everyone who participated in our testing survey and gave us feedback! We have made changes to the app and fixed bugs following the internal and external testing phase, so your feedback counts.
The IO3 testing report has now been published on our website.
On our website you can also find a dedicated section on the languages and people of the IndyLan app, with videos and resources, news and updates, as well as a list of our downloadable outputs.
Remember, you can still give us feedback on the app via App Store/Google Play ratings, or by emailing info@indylan.eu
Local Dissemination Events will take place in Scotland, Cornwall, Spain, Sápmi (Norway) and Finland.
