John Milton

Theory and Practice: the experience of Postgraduate Translation Studies Courses in Brazil

 

This presentation will analyse the enormous growth in postgraduate courses in Translation Studies in Brazil over the last 20 years. These M.A. and Ph. D. courses generally have a strong theoretical and methodological base and ignore translation practice, particularly at the technical level. And translation practice is only taught at undergraduate level at a number of Brazilian universities.

After presenting a historical overview of the situation in Brazil, the following questions will be addressed:

  1. The problems of training translators at universities in Brazil;
  2. Should the university, and postgraduate courses in particular, be training translators?;
  3. Are there differences between the teaching of translation to and from different languages?
  4. The situation with the training of Interpreting at university level;
  5. The situation of new areas such as Media Translation, Audiodescription, Sign Interpreting etc.;
  6. Training translators and interpreters outside the university
  7. How does the situation in Brazil compare with other countries and what can Brazil learn from other experiences?;
  8. Recommendations.

Hopefully a dialogue can be established at the conference with academics, translator trainers, teachers and students involved in the postgraduate teaching and training of researchers, translators and interpreters.

John Milton, Birmingham, UK, 1956, is Titular Professor, University of São Paulo, Brazil, teaching English Literature and Translation Studies at M.A. and Ph. D. level, and helped to start the M.A. and Ph.D. Postgraduate Programme in Translation Studies, and was Coordinator of the Programme from 2012-2016.

He main interest in in the theory, history, sociology and politics of translation and has published several books in Brazil and edited (with Paul Bandia) Agents of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009, and  Tradition, Tension and Translation in Turkey (com Şehnaz Tahir Gürçaglar e Saliha Paker) (2015).

He has also published many articles in Brazil, and has also published in Target and The Translator, and has also translated poetry from Portuguese into English.