Olga Witczak

Teaching translation technology and action research: Comparing teamwork in desktop- and cloud-based CAT tools

The technologisation of the ever-changing translation market and practices require high technological literacy of translators and the tools and resources utilised in the translation process are such an integral part of it, that they are referred to as ‘everyware’ (Cronin, 2012).  From a teaching perspective, Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools are instrumental in the development of technological competence (EMT expert group, 2009). This study recaps impressions from two different years of the same CAT tools course (originally designed by Marta Kajzer-Wietrzny, PhD) at a written translation MA programme at Adam Mickiewicz University, focusing on a team project completed by students. The theoretical framework of this study is action research, as the project in question required „bringing together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions” to the encountered problems (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, p. 1). This paper outlines the process of team translation with the student team members’ reflections on encountered problems and of their solutions as they worked with desktop- and cloud-based CAT tools – Wordfast Classic, Wordfast Anywhere, and Memsource Cloud. The course exercise intended to mimic the workflow of a translation project, therefore it required the students to be able to confront a number of issues apart from the linguistic aspects of translation. These included telecollaboration, troubleshooting, work organisation, project management, thus also enabling simultaneous development of other translator competences and soft skills (Marczak, 2016). The team project required dealing with and solving challenges similar to real life translation assignments (Kiraly, 2012, p. 84). The results show that becoming familiar with CAT tools blends into the collaborative experience of team work.

Cronin, M. (2012). The Translation Crowd. The Translation Studies Reader, 469.

EMT expert group. (2009). Competences for professional translators, experts in multilingual and multimedia communication. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/programmes/emt/key_documents/emt_competences_translators_en.pdf

Kiraly, D. (2012). Growing a Project-Based Translation Pedagogy: A Fractal Perspective. Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 57(1), 82. https://doi.org/10.7202/1012742ar

Marczak, M. (2016). Students’ perspective on Web 2.0-enhanced telecollaboration as added value in translator education. In S. Jager, M. Kurek, & B. O’Rourke (Eds.), New directions in telecollaborative research and practice: selected papers from the second conference on telecollaboration in higher education (pp. 245–252). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.telecollab2016.514

Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2001). Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice. Sage.