Situated close to the coast of Venezuela, the small twin-island nation of Trinidad & Tobago is geographically South American, but culturally Caribbean. Despite colonisation by various European powers, years of British rule and the ensuing dominance of English have meant that the country’s rich ethnic and cultural heritage is currently not paralleled by equivalent linguistic diversity. Building on the country’s natural position as a bridge between the English and Spanish-speaking worlds, the government launched the Spanish as the First Foreign Language (SAFFL) policy in 2005, with the aim to enhance trade links with Latin America through increased use of Spanish in the education system, civil service, and wider society. After outlining the historical and sociocultural background underpinning the SAFFL policy, this study examines the initiative’s implementation and surveys its impact, seeking to evaluate the policy’s effectiveness as a whole.

Although the country has a long history of language contact, conference interpreting in the Republic of Ireland is a relatively new field of activity and has largely evolved in response to the recognition of Irish as the 23rd official language of the European Union in 2007. Building on previous studies undertaken in other EU translation and interpreting markets, it was decided to evaluate the professional status of conference interpreters in the Republic of Ireland through applying a professionalization model. The research findings were based on a series of six interviews with qualified conference interpreters active on the Irish market. Through the analysis of practitioners' views regarding professional identity, recognition, and the unique role of the Irish language, an exploratory overview of the domestic conference interpreting profession was provided.

This overview explores the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the associated restrictions on the professional status of the conference interpreting profession, paying specific attention to the EU context. With international conferences cancelled or transformed into online events, employment prospects for many conference interpreters have been affected sharply as the profession adapts to the new reality. In the first instance, historical and contemporary aspects of the conference interpreting profession are outlined, including the key role that international organisations played in its development as well as the growing level of scholarly interest in the profession and in conference interpreters themselves. Using information obtained primarily from language industry media sources, this is complemented by an overview of the impact of COVID-19 on the profession, with a particular focus on the EU and its accredited freelance conference interpreters during the pandemic. In addition, issues regarding technological changes – including the shift to remote simultaneous interpreting – are also outlined, with reference to some of the legal and ergonomic implications of this move. The impact on education and professional development is also touched upon, as well as the move towards a more holistic approach to interpreting settings in research and practice. Finally, given the preliminary nature of this overview, suggestions for further empirically-based research projects following the COVID-19 pandemic are offered.

This article provides an overview of the current provision of translator and interpreter training in the English-speaking Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. In contextualising the country's current linguistic and geopolitical situation, including the growing prominence of Spanish in the country's society, present conditions regarding the need for translational services are outlined. The overview adopts a literature-based approach which involves analysing the websites of tertiary institutions in Trinidad and Tobago where translation and interpreting-related training provision is currently on offer. Through examination of the relevant course syllabi and the pertinent degree and diploma programmes available, available course offerings are presented and discussed, thus giving a solid panorama of the present landscape regarding translator and interpreter training options in the country. Finally, although interpreter training seems well-established in the country, suggestions are offered regarding possible future steps for translator training in the Trinidad and Tobago context, as well as pointers for subsequent empirical research in the future.

This contribution explores a new addition to the range of international awards available for literary translation into English, the EBRD Literature Prize. It was founded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) with the key objective of broadening the range of translated literatures available to the wider English-speaking public. The Prize was created in 2017 and it has been awarded four times to date. Accordingly, building on a brief overview of the broader role of prizes and awards within the global literary translation market, the genesis and rationale which underpin the EBRD Literature Prize are presented and highlighted. This information provides the basis for the subsequent exploratory analysis, which uses the regional groupings of the EBRD’s countries of operations as a preliminary framework of reference. As such, using the relevant publicly-available data, the geographical and linguistic origins of the translated literary works which have been shortlisted and longlisted for the Prize are outlined and discussed. The main aim is to determine whether any specific trends can be identified in the relevant works. Subsequently, the findings of these observations are presented, and, in recognition of the exploratory nature of this contribution, some possible indicators for additional research on the topic are offered.