Call for ATA Annual Conference Presentation Proposals

Call for ATA Annual Conference Presentation Proposals
_______________________________________________________

The American Translators Association is now accepting
presentation proposals for ATA's 53rd Annual Conference
in San Diego, California (October 24-27, 2012).

More than 1,800 translators, interpreters, educators, language
services companies, and project managers are expected to
attend this year's Conference. Making a presentation to such
a diverse audience is an excellent strategy to gain widespread
recognition as a leader and expert in your field.

Speaking at an ATA Annual Conference is also a challenging
and rewarding opportunity. A competitive peer-review process,
with an emphasis on relevant topics in the translation and
interpreting communities, is used to select presentations. The
prestige of being accepted--as well as a discount on conference
registration fees--is an unbeatable benefit of presenting.

Submissions are invited from all areas of translation and
interpreting, including finance, law, medicine, literature, media,
science and technology, terminology, independent contracting,
business management, and training/pedagogy. Sessions
may be language specific or general.

Click https://www.atanet.org/conferencesandseminars/proposal.php
to learn more about the proposal process and to access the proposal
form.

_______________________________________________________

The deadline for submitting a presentation proposal is March 12, 2012.
_______________________________________________________


The ATA 53rd Annual Conference in now online! Look for hotel details,
registration rates, and a Google calendar reminder to register early and
save. Go to http://www.atanet.org/conf/2012.

Question? Need Info?
Contact Kwana Ingram, Member Relations Manager
Phone: (703) 683-6100, extension 3001
Email: Kwana@atanet.org

Social Inclusion strand

Grupo Alfaqueque, University of Salamanca

(Icíar Alonso, Jesús Baigorri, Concepción Otero and Críspulo Travieso have carried out this project with the cooperation of Poliglotti4.eu, the European Academy of Yuste Foundation and COMUNICA)

Executive summary

Data collection

During the summer of 2011 questionnaires were distributed to nationals from different European countries who work in the field of governmental and non-governmental social services with the aim of finding out certain patterns of perception and behaviour with people experiencing communication difficulties, inter alia: a) frequency of contacts; b) occurrence of communication difficulties; c) solutions applied; d) examples of best practices; e) potential proposals of improvement; and f) impact of those contacts on employees’ approach to multilingualism. The total number of completed questionnaires is 246, a figure that attest to the intensive work of compilation carried out as well as to the descriptive value of the report. Data from the questionnaires were processed with the SPSS statistical programme, which provided the database that allowed the research team to carry out the analytical work. An additional database was created to store the qualitative responses from participants.

Brief description of the results

Over 90 percent of the respondents have direct contact with users of their services. So they speak about their own personal experience. Almost 30% of the respondents declare that their service deals with people who speak foreign languages “very often” or “often” and only in 14% of the cases they declare that they “never” deal with foreign-speaking people. The figures are only of about 11% of “very often” or “often” occurrences when referring to communication disabilities (such as users who are deaf, mute, etc.).

Over 50% of the cases of language related difficulties occur with labour migrants. Fifty-eight percent of the people who seek assistance from public services go accompanied by someone to help them. In over 70% of the cases they go accompanied by a relative (40%+) or a friend (30%+) and only in less that 20% of the cases by a professional interpreter or social worker. Communication problems are solved in 60% of the cases by non-specific staff and only in under 30% of the cases by professional interpreters or by linguistic and cultural mediators.

Only 35% of the services provide users with information in other languages.

The tools they use to solve communication difficulties are in over 40% of the cases pictures or dictionaries and only in 12% of the cases videoconferencing or telephone interpreting services. Only 25% of the respondents say that their service cooperates with other services. And only about 9% of the respondents say that their service has a good practice manual or an established procedure to deal with cases in which a communication problem occurs. The perception by respondents about the level of satisfaction in the solution of communication problems is satisfactory in about 50% of the cases and unsatisfactory in only about 23% of the cases. However 82% of the respondents say that their performance would improve if they were given courses in other languages and in specific techniques.

Some of the main conclusions we can derive from the results are:

• A majority of social services rely on ad hoc solutions to resolve their language communication difficulties.
• Although many respondents declare themselves satisfied with current arrangements, when figures are cross tabulated by the scope of the services, a relatively high level of dissatisfaction emerges in key areas, such as health and legal services. 
•  A great majority of our respondents consider that training in language issues would improve their professional performance.
• The limited use of advanced technologies as tools to facilitate communication in public services, as attested by our respondents, opens enormous opportunities for improvement, potentially involving many actors.

The outcome of this report can be of value for policymakers at different levels (from local to supranational), civil society organisations, teaching institutions in the field of languages (including applied linguistics, translation, interpreting, and socio-cultural mediation), social and political researchers, and the media, among others.

EMUNI Translation Studies Doctoral and Teacher Training Summer School

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS



EMUNI Translation Studies Doctoral and Teacher Training Summer School
23 June – 7 July 2012, Portorož, Slovenia

Guest Lecturer 2012: Dr. Michaela Wolf, University of Graz

The more than 300 MA programmes in translation across Europe indicate that there is both a great need to provide high-level doctoral study for prospective teachers and a pressing need to continuously provide teacher training to existing translation teachers in order to keep them up to date with the latest developments in the field. The EMUNI Translation Studies Doctoral Summer School and Teacher Training Summer School, a joint initiative by 7 different universities (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Boğaziçi University, Turkey; University of Turku, Finland; University of East Finland, Finland; University of Granada, Spain; Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain; and EMUNI, Portorož, Slovenia), responds to this need by focusing, in particular, on contemporary research into literary and non-literary works from a historical perspective.

Participation will be limited to a maximum of 30 individuals; particularly welcome are doctoral students in the early stages of their projects, teachers of translation at MA level or its equivalent and other academics, as well as professionals who are involved in research in translation and interpreting studies or in other doctoral fields where translation, interpreting or intercultural mediation is a focus of interest.

Basic activities at the EMUNI Summer School:

a) Critical discussion of the most current approaches to translation theory, paying particular attention to contemporary research into literary and non-literary works from a historical perspective.

b) Presentation and critical discussion of different methodological approaches in TS, focusing in particular on researching the translation of literary and non-literary texts in historical TS from the perspective of historical and sociological studies, or through the use of ethnological and corpus approaches.

c) A series of lectures by the guest lecturer.

d) Teacher-training in the field of translator training, with a particular emphasis on curriculum and syllabus design, definition of objectives and learning outcomes, trainee and trainer profiles, ICT resources, classroom dynamics and assessment.

e) Tutorials for doctoral students and young researchers.

f) A graduate conference.

Teaching Staff:

Dr. Özlem Berk Albachten, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Dr. Elisa Calvo, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain
Dr. Ebru Diriker, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Dr. Vojko Gorjanc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. Dorothy Kelly, University of Granada, Spain
Dr. Nike K. Pokorn, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. Kaisa Koskinen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Dr. Outi Polaposki, Turku University, Finland
Dr. Sehnaz Tahir-Gürçağlar, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Dr. Špela Vintar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Publication: participants shall be invited to submit an article to be refereed and published in print and on the EMUNI summer school website.

Expenses: Associates will be responsible for their own airfare and local transportation to and from Portorož. The expected maximum costs for students for 14 days (registration + tuition + accommodation + full board) is 1030 €. All students, but in particular students from the non-EU countries of the Union for the Mediterranean, are eligible for grants.

Application Deadline: March 15, 2012



Website: For the application procedure and more details of the school please visit the website at: http://www.prevajalstvo.net/emuni-doctoral-summer-school%20or%20write%20to%20emuni.info@ff.uni-lj.si

Publicación de traducciones en la web del Ministerio de Justicia

En la página web del Ministerio de Justicia hay publicadas numerosas traducciones al francés y al inglés de textos legislativos, incluido el Código Penal.

Se puede acceder ellas pinchando en este enlace.

Me pregunto por la calidad de dichas traducciones. Si quieres compartir tu opinión déjanos un comentario.

NUEVA PUBLICACIÓN DEL GRUPO MIRAS. "COMUNICAR EN LA DIVERSITAT, INTÈRPRETS, MEDIADORS I TRADUCTORS ALS SERVEIS PÚBLICS"

Publicación de la monografía digital “Comunicar en la diversitat. Intèrprets, mediadors i traductors als serveis públics”, del grupo de investigación MIRAS (Mediación, Interpretación e Investigación en el Ámbito Social) de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona en colaboración con Linguamón-Casa de les Llengües.

http://www10.gencat.cat/casa_llengues/AppJava/ca/index.jsp

http://www10.gencat.cat/casa_llengues/binaris/informe_miras_ispc_2011_tcm302-177894.pdf

Habrá dos actos de presentación del informe:

el 10 de noviembre en la Universitat de Vic, a las 13 horas y

el 16 de noviembre en la Universitat Autònoma a las 12.30 horas

ESTAIS TODOS INVITADOS!!!!