Thinking of a career as a translator or interpreter?

Join us for our annual SWATI event!

Our annual Starting Work as a Translator or Interpreter event will take place on Wednesday 8th February. We are delighted to open our online talks to anyone interested in careers in translation and interpreting. Note that the 2nd part of the event, the networking session, is reserved to Heriot-Watt LINCS students and graduates only. 

PART ONE:  Online Panel Session – OPEN TO ALL

Wed 8th Feb: 2pm-4pm [Registration Link HERE]

This online part of the event will include contributions from employers, alumni, and practitioners will give you an insight into different translation and interpreting career paths and advice on starting out. The event will cover the following:

  • Working with agencies
  • Working with European institutions
  • Understanding various professional pathways in Translation and Interpreting and knowing where to start

The line up will be confirmed ASAP, but we have some great speakers who can hopefully inspire and empower you to feel more confident about a starting a career in interpreting and/or translating.

PART TWO:  Networking Session (Carnegie Lounge, JWCC) – Heriot-Watt LINCS graduates and students only

Wed 8th Feb 5pm-6.30pm: [Registration Link HERE]

This informal networking event will give you an opportunity to speak with previous Heriot Watt graduates who have gone on to carve career paths in the Translating and Interpreting industry.  You can find out what first steps they took, what worked (and what didn’t) and create some professional connections all at the same time. 

Metaphor Translation Workshop

Are you a language student or professional interested in exploring new theory and practice in the field of metaphor translation?  

The Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University invites you to participate in a 1-day training workshop on Saturday 9 April, 9:30 am – 4pm on our Edinburgh campus. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.  

The workshop is free of charge as it is part of a research project funded by a Heriot-Watt University ‘enhancement themes’ grant to investigate a collaborative learning approach to teaching translation. At the end of the workshop, participants will be asked to complete a detailed feedback form about their learning experience to inform the research. Ethical approval for this project was granted on 13/9/2020 under ref no. 2021-1480-4597. 

This workshop is a fully accredited CPD (Continuing Professional Development) training and all participants who complete it will receive a CPD Certificate. 

The event covers the following language combinations: Arabic<>English, Chinese<>English, French<>English. Proficiency in one of these combinations is required in order to fully benefit from the teaching.  

There are 20 spaces available on a first come first serve basis. 

Click here to register for the event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/metaphor-translation-workshop-tickets-293983983007

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email. Pre-workshop material and further information will be provided 2 weeks before the event.

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Conceptual metaphors exist in all languages and across all genres and text types. For example, the English conceptual metaphor COVID IS AN ENEMY gives rise to expressions such as ‘fighting Covid, shielding against Covid, working on the front line’. However, these conceptual mappings are not universal and might vary across languages.  Consistency in translating these metaphors is especially important when those metaphors are used as behaviour triggers (e.g. stay home to protect lives in the context of the war on Covid). 

The workshop will combine theoretical presentations with discussion and practical group work activities. It will cover:

  • Text analysis 
  • Conceptual metaphor theory 
  • Metaphor identification 
  • Conceptual metaphor translation 
  • Text accuracy and consistency 

Who can attend this workshop: Postgraduate or final year undergraduate students in languages and/or translation; Early-career or experienced translators (Arabic, Chinese, French).

Both students and professionals can benefit from this in-depth exploration to improve their analytical skills and the quality of their translations.

Who will deliver this workshop: The workshop will be delivered by three experienced researchers and translation trainers.

Dr. Sui He is a Lecturer in Chinese-English Translation and Interpretation at Swansea University. She completed her PhD in translation studies in 2022, with a focus on metaphor translation in popular scientific discourse. She is an experienced freelance translator/interpreter between English and Mandarin Chinese/Cantonese.

Dr. Khadidja Merakchi is Assistant Professor of French at Heriot-Watt University. She is a fluent speaker of Arabic, French and English. She completed her PhD in popular science metaphor translation from English to Arabic at the University of Surrey in 2017. She is an experienced professional translator and interpreter, as well as a teacher in both of these fields.

Ms. Juliette Rutherford is Assistant Professor in Chinese at Heriot-Watt University. She is a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish and English. She worked as a professional in-house translator for 8 years before joining Heriot-Watt in 2019. She studied conceptual metaphor theory as part of her MSc programme, and is interested in researching this topic further both from a pedagogical and translation studies perspective.

Museum Translation: Interaction and Engagement

1 – 10 March 2022

A short webinar series

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

More information: https://lifeinlincs.org/?p=2910

Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KARLL0sSTRyWfKBolFYFSg

Thursday, 3 March (11.00-12.00, UK time)

Dr. Kyung Hye Kim (Shanghai International Studies University)

Engaging the Visitors: The Impact of Translation in Memorial Museums

More information: https://lifeinlincs.org/?p=2913

Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hzTd6ToMQUaKwx03WHSxRw

Tuesday, 8 March (16.00-17.00, UK time)

Prof. Dr. Monika Krein-Kühle (TH Köln, University of Applied Sciences, Cologne)

Training the Art Translator

More information: https://lifeinlincs.org/?p=2917

Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zZv7Oh5ERJSyZZZhivFeNQ

Thursday, 10 March (11.00-12.00, UK time)

Dr. Dorota Goluch (Cardiff University)

Dr. Agnieszka Podpora (independent researcher)

Translating Perspectives in Holocaust Memorial Museums in Poland: Experiences, Hypotheses, Challenges

More information: https://lifeinlincs.org/?p=2920

Registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sswImlIITJyZ7zqqnp1NmQ

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)

IPCITI returns to Heriot-Watt after 4 years!

by Paola Ruffo

The Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in Scotland (CTISS) at Heriot-Watt hosted the 13th International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (IPCITI), 9-10 November 2017

IPCITI is an annual postgraduate conference organised by students for students and it marks the consolidation of the collaboration between Dublin City University, Manchester University, the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University. Its main aims are to promote greater participation in Translation and Interpreting research and foster a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment where research and academia can be accessible in real terms.

This year, the IPCITI 2017 Organising Committee (Jafar Ahmad, Nga-Ki Mavis Ho, Lorraine MacDonald, Michael Richardson and Paola Ruffo) has worked hard to welcome delegates from all over the world to Heriot-Watt and create a diverse and enriching programme, which included meaningful contributions across all areas of Translation and Interpreting Studies.

The conference started with a workshop by Mr Ramon Inglada (CTISS, Heriot-Watt University) on ’CAT Tools: welcome to the cloud-based (r)evolution’ followed by Dr Ana-Frankenberg Garcia’s (University of Surrey)  keynote on ‘The use of corpora in translation research’. Day two saw Interpreting research and practice join forces to discuss ‘Interpreting theory and practice in dialogue’ with a panel formed by Prof Graham Turner (CTISS, Heriot-Watt University), Prof Claudia Angelelli (CTISS, Heriot-Watt University), Mr Martin Gallagher (Police Scotland) and Ms Delphine Jaouen (NHS Scotland).

A variety of topics has been discussed by our international presenters over the course of these two days, covering diverse areas of T&I Studies such as translation and interpreting technologies, literary translation, interpreters’ training, British Sign Language interpreting, risk in translation, and news translation in relation to ideology and human rights.

To quote our Head of School, Prof Robert MacIntosh, who opened the conference: “We have a long heritage of Translation and Interpreting of which we are very proud” – this year’s successful and high-quality IPCITI drove that point home again.

You can follow The International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting on twitter (@ipciti) and on the dedicated website www.ipciti.org.uk.

See you in Manchester for IPCITI 2018!

 

Celebrate International Translation Day 2017 with us

International Translation Day is celebrated every year on the 30th of September, the day of the feast of St Jerome, who was a Bible translator and is considered today as the patron saint of translators. LINCS is celebrating this important day with an event focused on 21st century translators and translation research. There will be talks by Prof Graham Turner, Dr Marion Winters, Paola Ruffo, Ramon Inglada and David Miralles Perez.

The event will take place on Wednesday 4th October 17:30 – 20:00 and is open to the public. Join us in celebrating International Translation Day in LINCS! #ITD2017

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-translation-day-event-tickets-37836589257 

International Translation Day (2)-1 International Translation Day (2)-2

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-translation-day-event-tickets-37836589257 

New academic year starting!

 

 

With RADAR workshops, Critical Link 8, EIRSS, performing at the Fringe and the Applied Languages and Interpreting Summer School, our summer this year was busy but fun. The “holidays” have traditionally been a creative time in terms of research and impact.

Now Welcome week is here and the campus is buzzing with newly arrived students. There is a truly international mix, and that’s not just LINCS.

Teaching starts on Monday 12th September. In the meantime, we are running events to welcome all LINCS students. From coffee and muffins for 1st year students at the newly-opened Learning Commons, to drinks and nibbles in town for MSc students, we make sure that you are properly welcomed and are ready to start your academic journey with us. Our consistently high NSS results (2nd in Scotland and 6th in UK for student satisfaction!) prove how much we value the student experience.

But we never rest on our laurels.

This year, we are asking new and continuing students to participate in a competition to celebrate European Day of Languages. Students need to answer the questions “Why study languages?” and “The best thing about studying languages is…” for a chance to win Harriet, the Heriot-Watt cow that can also be used as a stress ball. There are 10 cows up for grabs!

hwu_cow

The winning statements will be put on a poster which will be displayed at the LINCS stand during the University Open Day on 23rd September, as part of the celebrations for the European Day of Languages on 26th September.

We have a range of programmes in both languages and cultural studies, as well as some exciting new elective courses to add more flexibility to your degrees and give you more options depending on your needs. More information here for undergraduate and here for postgraduate programmes.

If you’re thinking of joining us, why don’t you come along to one of our Open Days? More info on www.hw.ac.uk/opendays

@HW_LifeinLINCS

#languages

#culturalstudies

 

LifeinLINCS in Top 25 Language Professional blogs!

The results from the bab.la competition are out and LifeinLINCS is at the

Top 25 Language Professional Blogs (out of 1,000 nominees and 100 language resources!)

and Top 100 Language Lovers Blog !

These accomplishments will soon feature as “badges” in our pages.

We would like to thank our readers as well as staff and students in LINCS who contribute to the blog.

The Top 5 posts for 2015 were:

 

The Top 5 posts for this month were:

 

With 246 posts, almost 90,000 views and more than 42,000 visitors since the blog was launched in 2011, we will continue to publish posts about research and practice in Languages, Interpreting, Translation and Cultural Studies.

Thank you for your support. Stay tuned!

Katerina Strani

Blog Editor

 

 

Justisigns Translation workshop

 By Jemina Napier

       hwnewlogo         justisigns        Police ScotlandEU Lifelong Learning

 

Click here to see a version of this blogpost in BSL.

 

As part of the Justisigns project, which is funded through the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme, a masterclass was run in November 2015 jointly between the Heriot-Watt University BSL/Justisigns team and Police Scotland and included CID/police interview advisors, Deaf community representatives and BSL/English interpreters. The workshop involved joint and group sessions on the potential barriers for deaf people in accessing police interviews, the challenges for interpreters to accurately convey the goals of police interviewers, and deaf/sign language awareness raising for police interviewers, as well as interactive simulation role plays of BSL interpreted police interviews.

One of the issues raised during the discussions was the lack of standardization in a translation of the Scottish police caution, so interpreters may produce different versions of the caution in BSL. As the police caution is legally binding, the words are used specifically and are read out verbatim by police interviewers and sometimes followed up by an explanation if the person being questioned does not understand the formal caution.

Although a BSL translation of the English police caution is available, the wording of the caution is different from the Scottish caution, and therefore the BSL translation is also different from what is needed in Scotland.

At the masterclass workshop it was identified that having a BSL translation of the Scottish Common Law Caution available on video as a reference point for police, interpreters and the Deaf community would be a useful development. The ideal would be for a BSL translation to be accessible online for police to access on a mobile device (for example if detaining someone before an interpreter arrives) or for interpreters or deaf people to access at the point of a police interview (e.g. through an iPad or computer). At no point would the availability of the BSL translation circumvent the need for a BSL/English interpreter, as it is a legal requirement for interpreters to be present for any interaction between a police officer and a person who uses a different language.

So as a follow-up to the masterclass, we organized a translation workshop and invited key stakeholder representatives to be involved in discussing, developing and finalizing a standard BSL translation of the Scottish police caution. In addition to the Heriot-Watt University BSL/Justisigns team participants included representatives from Police Scotland, the British Deaf Association (Scotland), experienced legal BSL/English interpreters and a deaf interpreter.

The participants engaged in a ‘forward and backward’ translation process (Tate, Collins & Tymms, 2003), reviewing drafts of BSL translations, discussing lexical and legal conceptual challenges and creating new BSL versions of the caution.

At the end of the workshop a final version was agreed upon and filmed. This BSL translation of the Scottish Law Caution is now available to be referenced by BSL/English interpreters and interpreting students, police officers and Deaf community members in Scotland. 

Clare Canton

(Scottish Law Caution BSL translation translated by deaf interpreter, Clare Canton)

As part of the discussions it was also agreed to film an explanation of the Scottish Law Caution in BSL, to reflect what typically happens in a police interview where a police offer would read the caution verbatim, and then provide an explanation. The explanation that we agreed upon is as follows:

This Scottish police Caution means: You have the right to be silent. You don’t have to answer any questions, and you don’t have to tell me anything about what’s happened. But if do you have any explanation or comment to give at any point in this process, this is your opportunity to do that and we will record it (written, audio, video). And the recording may be used for further investigation in this case and in court proceedings.

This BSL translation of the explanation is also now available to be referenced by BSL/English interpreters and interpreting students, police officers and Deaf community members in Scotland.

Brenda Mackay

(Scottish Law Caution BSL explanation produced by legal interpreter, Brenda Mackay)

 

We would like to thank all the workshop participants for their contribution to creating this resource for interpreters, police and deaf BSL users in Scotland, and encourage as many people as possible to access this resource.

 

Translating Cultures Peru / Traduciendo Culturas Perù

by Raquel De Pedro Ricoy

“Unequal exchanges: The role of Peruvian indigenous translators and interpreters in resource-exploitation consultation processes”

Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. 14:15-17:15, 12 April 2016

The Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in Scotland (CTISS) at Heriot- Watt University will host a symposium on the role of Peruvian indigenous translators and interpreters in consultations regarding the exploitation of natural resources. The symposium is open to the public. Registration is free, but places are limited. Please book yours  here.

Programme:

o Welcome

o Prof Rosemary Thorp (Peru Support Group): “Mining and the threat to indigenous communities”

o Mr  Agustín  Panizo  (Head  of  the  Indigenous  Languages  Division, Ministry of Culture, Perú): “Prior Consultation as a space for redefining communication  between the State and the indigenous peoples of Peru”

o Presentation by Dr Jan Cambridge (Chartered Institute of Linguists): “A code of conduct is the scaffold supporting ethical safe outcomes”

o Prof  Rosaleen  Howard  (Newcastle  University),  Dr  Luis  Andrade (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Dr Raquel de Pedro

(Heriot-Watt University): Findings of the project “Translating Cultures: The legislated mediation of Indigenous Rights in Peru”

o Q&A session

The event will be followed by a drinks reception.

We look forward to seeing you there!