This paper investigates the effects of uncontrolled use of Google Translate (GT) on the development of students' translation skills. It aims to find out if the current patterns of GT use by translation students could impact their learning outcomes, and if so, in what ways. The study uses think-aloud data from actual translation efforts of four students. Analysis of the four subjects' translations show that their overreliance on GT for first drafts reduced their propensity to search for equivalents. However, when students post-edit poorly constructed GT sentences, they carry out a process of analysis and synthesis similar to the process of translating from scratch. The study concludes that post-editing GT translation is beneficial for translation students' development of translation skills, but it warns against introducing or allowing its use at the elementary stages of translation training.
This study aims to determine whether translation students at an undergraduate translation program have sufficient awareness of the availability and usability of online vocabulary and terminology search tools that can be of valid assistance to a translator. The study surveyed 50 female translation students of the Translation Program at Prince Sultan University, Saudi Arabia. The survey consisted of questions about knowledge and use patterns and included texts for translating between English and Arabic. Results show that although the students know and use a variety of online resources, they still lack in awareness of some of the very useful ones, and a small minority of the students does not use monolingual dictionaries at all. Analysis of the students' translations of selected terms reveals that availability of excellent online resources is not enough to prevent mistranslations if the students cannot select the right equivalent. The study has implications for lexicographers about the dictionary features most frequently used by translators-to-be. It also provides pedagogical tips for translator trainers who should guide their students to making use of the full potential of online dictionaries and term banks in order to achieve better translation outcomes.
The humanitarian sector has steadily pushed forward with efforts to cultivate negotiation capacity among aid workers. However, considerations of how the profile of the humanitarian negotiator might shape negotiation outcomes have been, at best, in the background of ongoing professional discussions or, at worst, entirely overlooked. This working paper aims to fill this gap. Based on semi-structured interviews and survey data, this working paper assesses the role of identity characteristics in humanitarian negotiation processes. As the interview and survey results suggest, a negotiator’s profile—including identity characteristics and past professional experiences—can shape counterparts’ perceptions of humanitarian negotiators; fuel humanitarians’ own biases and stereotypes of their interlocutors; and feed into challenging internal organisational dynamics, as humanitarian organisations seek to promote diversity and foster inclusion and belonging among staff.
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