Anthony Pym, visiting researcher at GSTILE, is in Brussels on October 25 to present the results of a one-year research project on Translation and Language Teaching.
The presentation will be part of the DGT’s Translation Studies Days, to be webcast live: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/publications/studies/.
The research has been carried out for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Translation. Professor Pym is the lead investigator, with input from the European Society for Translation Studies, the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and over 100 experts contacted worldwide.
The research shows that there is no strong empirical evidence that the creative use of translation has a negative effect on the learning of a foreign language.
The Executive Summary can be downloaded here.
The final report can be downloaded here.
While in Europe, Professor Pym will be in Tarragona on October 24 for the public defenses of two doctoral dissertations that he has supervised: Postediting Machine Translation Output and its Revision: Professional Translators versus Subject-Matter Experts, by Özlem Temizöz, and Training for the Translation Market in Turkey: an Analysis of Curricula and Stakeholders, by Volga Tilmaz-Gümüs.
MIIS Professors Barry Slaughter Olsen and Jacolyn Harmer were invited to participate in the annual Clifford Symposium at Middlebury last week. The topic of this year’s Symposium was “Translation in A Global Community: Theory and Practice.” As part of this event, Middlebury brought in faculty from MIIS to work together with Middlebury students. The Middlebury students were invited to try their hand at interpretation with coaching from Olsen and Harmer. (see video)
From an interpretation booth on stage, two MIIS graduates were interpreting the keynote speaker’s address into Chinese for audience members.
Vladimir Pereverzin is a former executive of the YUKOS oil company, which was forced into bankruptcy by the Putin administration for what many observers believe were political motivations. The company’s top executives, including Mr. Pereverzin, were accused of economic crimes and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Mr. Pereverzin was released in February 2012 after serving seven years and two months in Russia’s notorious prison system. He refused to testify against his former colleagues, has steadfastly maintained his innocence, and has never recognized the legitimacy of his prison sentence, which he is contesting in the European Court of Human Rights. Since his release from prison, he has written a book (Hostage) and given numerous talks about his experiences as a Russian political prisoner.
Mr. Pereverzin will be on campus on Friday, October 4, at 1:15pm in the Irvine Auditorium to speak about his experience as a former Russian political prisoner.