That was the Translation and Terminology Translating Europe Workshop 2019 in Vienna
Bridging the gap between translator training and market requirements was the topic of the Translating Europe workshop "Translation and Terminology" at the Centre for Translation Studies of the University of Vienna, Austria on 11 July 2019. The numerous guests from all over Austria and Europe filled the lecture hall.
Claudia Kropf, Language Officer of the European Commission Representation in Austria and Alexandra Krause, EMT representative at the Centre for Translation Studies welcomed the guests. Terminology, in particular, is a subject that has a long tradition in Vienna thanks to Professor Gerhard Budin's work based on Eugen Wüster.
Alexandra Krause introduced the topic of the connection between academic translation education and language service providers. She pointed out that academic research should reflect future developments. In addition, a definition of translators that is too narrow cannot cover current and future translation-related professions. Thus, research-led teaching has to increase the status and visibility of translators in society, to redefine the professional profile of translators and to strengthen its contact with the language industry.
Terminology work for and by translators was the subject of Márta Fischer’s talk, who is from the Centre for Modern Languages at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and eTransFair project coordinator. She drew attention to the distinction between a narrow and a broad definition of terminology in the daily work of translators. Thus, any lexical unit that causes problems in translation and limits the creativity of translators should be understood as terminology. Domestication and foreignisation strategies can therefore also be applied when finding a target-language equivalent for a term. This should also be considered when teaching a translation-relevant course of study.
After the coffee break, Annamária Fótos from the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission (DGT) explained the terminology workflows at the European Commission. Both translators and terminologists work in the 24 language departments of the DGT. The Terminology Coordination Unit is responsible for coordinating terminology projects and terminology training. All terminology is fed into IATE, the EU's central terminology database, on the basis of defined rules.
Terminology work as part of university-level translator education was described by Jozef Štefčík from the University of Economics in Bratislava and Oľga Wrede from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Based on their experience, systematic terminology work and the demands of professional practice do not receive much attention in translator education. Therefore, it is necessary to combine theory and practice in translation didactics. They gave an insight into the creation of glossaries and terminology databases by their students. The resulting didactic terminology database TransTerm can be used by others for various purposes.
Audiovisual translation and its training were presented by Emília Perez from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. After an overview of the situation audiovisual translators in Europe, she showed, illustrated by the situation in Slovakia, how cooperation between actors needing audiovisual translation and universities can be successful and how students can gain valuable practical experience (also in dealing with customers).
Writing situations in transcultural communication and a corresponding model were presented by Sabine Dengscherz of the Centre for Translation Studies. Using the HRAH concept (heuristic and rhetorical demands and challenges) she outlined the process of professional writing in several languages (PROSIMS). Although writing and translation are similar processes, they address other needs and challenges. Therefore, professionalisation in the field of transcultural communication is needed.
Finally, machine translation and relevant didactic approaches were discussed by Vesna Lušicky, Senior Lecturer and Barbara Heinisch, University Assistant at the Centre for Translation Studies. Machine translation has made great progress in recent years. Some universities have therefore already included machine translation and post-editing in their curricula. On the basis of the EU Council Presidency Translator project, they outlined the training of machine translation systems and their integration into teaching. They concluded with future trends related to machine translation progress derived from literature.
Photos: Juan José Arevalillo, Barbara Heinisch, Zita Krajcso
