Multimodal Translation

This innovative module will highlight the roles translators play in promoting access to audiovisual content via services and activities such as audio description, captioning and fan subtitling. You will study monomodal and multimodal text types and authentic contexts in which they are routinely translated/meditated, such as in the arts and heritage sector and publishing. Via case studies, you will be encouraged to evaluate the current provision of descriptive and subtitling services and the policies underpinning them and to understand the constraints involved in responding to the needs of diverse audiences. You will discover the creative and educational potential of multimodal translation via a discussion of innovation within its fields.

Assessment: either a reflective or a practical portfolio

Professional Development (Translation/Interpreting)

Our Translation Studies programme is designed around the revised list of competences in which professional translators should be trained, issued in 2017 by the European Master’s in Translation network. The aim of this module is to place emphasis on your professional development, in the spirit of EMT competence #26: Continuously self-evaluate, updat and develop competences. Taught sessions will deepen your understanding of the translation industry, support you in understanding how to market yourself, set your rates, interact with clients and so on. It will also afford you space to ‘self-evaluate’ and ‘updat and develop’ your competences in ways that you deem appropriate, depending on your future career plans. The portfolio-based assessment will allow you to showcase any activities undertaken in preparation for your working lives (e.g. undertaking freelance commissions, work experience placements or study visits, learning how to use a piece of software/technology, setting up your on-line presence, learning business skills such as profit-and-loss accounting, attending talks or ad hoc training on- or off-campus).

Assessment: Professional portfolio

 

Theoretical and Analytical Skills

The module introduces the most significant translation theories and their application to translation practice. It focuses on the conceptual tools required for the analysis of the source text prior to translation and the key theoretical approaches and strategies to carrying out a translation. It also examines the importance of pragmatic, socio-cultural, and ethical considerations in informing translation decisions.

Assessment: one essay and one paper analysing a source text and justifying the approach that you would take to translating it

Translating for Business

This module aims to provide you with solid training in written translation. It will focus on translating texts for businesses and organisations, across a range of sectors (e.g. consumer goods, retail, charities and cultural institutions), with particular emphasis on general or technical texts for a general readership (consumers, the public, non-specialist readers). Typical genres covered will be brochures, product descriptions, press releases, instructions and webpages. You will learn key concepts and skills (client interaction, information mining, translating using appropriate strategies, use of corpora and parallel texts and revising/editing/quality assurance) and be introduced to the followed tools: general IT resources, online dictionaries, search engines, termbases, aligned texts and corpus tools.

Assessment: translation from or into English and a reflective commentary

Translation Technology

This module is designed to provide students with hands-on experience of a range of technologies applied to the study and practice of translation. Students will learn how to use the tools most commonly required by employers, such as translation memory and terminology management tools, and critically assess the technological requirements for different translation projects. They will also gain a sophisticated understanding of how translation tools work and how they have impacted translation, both as a discipline and as a practice.

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