Training translators. Programmes, curricula, practices

The present essay discusses the results of a survey aimed at investigating the state of the art in translator training practices at tertiary level at Universities and Translator and Interpreter (T&I) Institutions and assesses the degree to which their educational and professional goals are equipped to meet the challenges that prospective translators increasingly have to face in a rapidly evolving world. The object of the survey was to observe and report on the situations where translation is taught as an end in itself rather than as a means of learning a foreign language. Thus, T&I institutions as well as other centres of higher education, especially modern language faculties with established professionally-oriented translation courses, mainly in Europe and North America were included in the survey. The first part of the essay provides an overview of the way curricula and courses are structured and examines the underlying rationale. The second part looks specifically at methodological issues such as the inclusion and sequencing of theoretical and practical components, and the availability of up-to-date technological tools. The final part of the essay discusses these findings in relation to market needs and the rapidly changing profile of translators in the professional world. An important aspect of the survey was to glean whether the courses offered by the various institutions envisaged a blend of educational and vocational ingredients in order better to meet real-life criteria. What emerged was a general trend on the part of the majority of institutions to envisage an all-round translation training programme in their curricula to satisfy not only market needs but also the growing demands within higher education for professionally-oriented degrees.