Emrah ERİŞ

Translator training at all levels in Turkey

This study sheds light on the history and the current situation of translator training at universities in Turkey. Since the early 1980s, when the very first Department of Translation Studies was established at Bosphorus University, Istanbul, a plethora of successive departments have admitted students to associate degree, undergraduate, Master Degree and PhD programs. Yet, there are three different types of degree programs at which translators are trained. The first of these is a two-year associate degree program called Applied English and Translation (AET), which admits students based on a general score from LYS (Undergraduate Placement Exam) without background of English education. The second is a four-year undergraduate program called Translation and Interpreting (TE), an upper level of education program during which translator candidates are taught basic theories and techniques of translation and interpreting. The third type of program called Translation Studies (TS) involves a translator training in all fields related to translation, including the history and the paradigms of translation at high levels including Master and PhD Degrees. There are 23 universities where AET programs are available only in English language, 40 universities where translators are trained under TE programs in English, French, German, Russian and Bulgarian languages, and 3 universities where TS programs are available in English and German. It is observed that the majority of these are foundation universities.  Besides top three universities, Bosphorus, Hacettepe and Yıldız Teknik, where TS is taught very efficiently at all levels, other universities hire professors and instructors who are specialized in other fields than TS such as English Language Teaching and English Literature. This leads to an unsatisfying and ineffective teaching environment as domain experts are not active in education and training. As a result, translator training programs should be restructured based on the abovementioned fact by involving competent instructors to level up.    

Bionote

I am Emrah ERİŞ from Siirt University, Turkey. I have been working at Siirt University for 8 years at Department of Foreign Languages. I had my Bachelor Degree in English Language Teaching at Muğla University in 2007, my Master’s Degree in English Language and Literature at Kafkas University in 2013 and am set to finish my PhD Degree in Translation Studies soon. I am mainly interested in Sociology of Translation, Cultural Studies and Journalistic Translations.  I am planning to write a book on Journalistic Translations during Ottoman Period within a year.