PROJECT WORK IN TRANSLATOR TRAINING: PROFESSIONAL ADAPTATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY


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Abstract. Project work is considered as a practice-oriented approach in professional training. Its efficiency for translation training has always been acknowledged, and students aspire to see the results of their work published or used in professional communication. It helps motivate students’ responsibility and independence. Besides, creativity develops their personal and teamwork skills. Students’ projects are often volunteer translations. In such projects, students can gain experience, skills and feedback, which is no less important. Translation projects can also provide research materials for students’ graduation thesis or publications. As professional translation is changing due to AI, so are students’ volunteer translation projects. The objective of this paper is to analyse the experience of project work fulfilled by the students who study translation at Northern (Arctic) Federal University (Arkhangelsk, Russia). Translation Project Work disciplines and modules are taught by the Department of Translation Technology and Practice at AKM-WEST (NArFU). This joint department is the result of the cooperation between a federal university and a successful Moscow translation company that provides its resources and expertise for training translators (Bachelor and Master programs) and their professional adaptation. Students’ projects are good for practical training. Project Work disciplines and modules under the supervision of AKM representatives follow the structure of translation projects within the company. Translation software tools (CAT tools or their academic versions) are used in order to control the workflow and assign tasks for project managers, translators and editors. Machine translation modules allow practicing post-editing machine translation and enhancing project performance. Project technology is introduced at the second year of the Bachelor program, and the projects vary according to the students’ experience from translating different articles on familiar topics to subtitling films for an International Film Festival (e.g., Arctic Open). Working languages are Russian, English, French, and German. As practice has shown, students who have worked with professionals since the first year of Bachelor studies and who have been introduced to translation software tools and project work acquire better professional skills and adaptation.

Keywords: project work, translator training, professional orientation, professional adaptation, translation tools, NArFU

Elena Kokanova1, Maxim Berendyaev2, Aleksandra Epimakhova3, Nikolay Kulikov4

1, 2, 3, 4Northern (Arctic) Federal University

Arkhangelsk, Russia

1e-mail: e.s.kokanova@narfu.ru 2e-mail: m.berendyaev@narfu.ru 3e-mail: a.epimahova@narfu.ru 4e-mail: n.kulikov@narfu.ru

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