[CFP] Special issue: The Interpreter and Translator Trainer

Journal Calls

The Interpreter and Translator Trainer – a Special Issue

The language services industry is changing rapidly: newspapers and trade journals are full of hype about technological developments such as neural machine translation and automatic simultaneous interpreting that some people claim will soon eliminate linguistic barriers. These developments have triggered societal expectations of localized content and a consequent explosion in demand, much of which is currently being met at relatively low cost by what is becoming known as fully automatic usable translation. However, the premium market for human translation still exists and is also growing steadily since high-quality translation is crucial for reputation-relevant, marketing, advertising, financial, legal, national security, and cutting-edge scientific texts.

The claim has been made that translation technology is one of the major factors in changing the very nature of translation as a human activity. Attempts have been made in the past to model that activity in terms of super and sub-competences. A number of programs, most notably those within the EMT network in Europe, have been built around multi-competence models. This has raised the question of whether those competences are still relevant and if or how they can best be integrated into a holistic model of competence development. For example, the integration of machine translation into translation memory systems has blurred the distinctions between target text production, editing, revising, and post-editing. Indeed, the ever-increasing importance of technology in the language mediation professions may even cause some people to ask whether there is still a need for translator education in a broader sense, or if routinized training in using computer-based tools might be sufficient. With such disruptive changes to conceptualizations of translation and interpreting, the challenge to I&T trainers is to prepare future professionals to learn when and how to embrace the new technologies, and to exploit how and when the added value of human intuition and creativity can and should be deployed.

This special issue aims to contribute to a fruitful debate on the possible future directions that translator education and training could or should take, as well as the extent to which accepted ethical, epistemological, and pedagogical stances might be reconsidered. Themes and topics that may be addressed by contributors include but are not restricted to the following:

  • Redefining translators’ and interpreters’ tasks and responsibilities
  • Developing curricula for a changing I&T market
  • Modelling the development of translator competence
  • Fostering writing and transcreational skills
  • Teaching user-centered, intersemiotic, multilingual text production
  • Including other disciplines in I&T curricula (e.g. marketing, PR, organizational communication, process management)
  • Understanding ethics and risk in I&T work
  • Building evaluative awareness of appropriate use of technology

Submissions Details

We are seeking original, well-informed, research-based contributions that appeal to an international audience. Priority will be given to contributions that report on completed research. Contributions will not exceed 8,000 words including tables, references, captions footnotes and endnotes. All papers will be subject to double-blind peer review. All submissions must have a clear training focus in line with the ITT aims and scope.

Schedule for publication

  • 1 December 2017: Deadline for submission of abstracts (500 words)
  • 1 February 2018: Selected contributors notified of acceptance of abstracts
  • 1 July 2018: Deadline for submission of accepted papers
  • July-November 2018: Review of first submission by editorial board
  • November 2018: Notification of provisional acceptance of papers
  • November 2018–February 2019: Finalization of article by authors and second review where necessary
  • 1 March 2019: Deadline for submission of final versions of papers to guest editors
  • March-June 2019: Final editing and proofreading
  • September 2019: Publication

Editorial information

 

http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/ah/ritt-si-training-4q2017