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Tolk- en Vertaalcongres, Date: 2016/01/11 - 2016/01/12, Location: Hilversum, Nederland

Publication date: 2016-03-12

Author:

Balogh, Katalin
Salaets, Heidi

Abstract:

The training of legal interpreters and translators at the KULeuven Campus Antwerp already exists for 16 years. Since 2000 about 1000 trained legal interpreters and translators in 53 different languages graduated from this programme. The initiative for this joint training – the lecturers are representatives from the court, police, bar association, and professors of translation- and interpreting studies - was taken by the court of Antwerp which formulated the need for high-quality legal translators and interpreters. In our presentation we will on the one hand stress the unique form of cooperation between the two types of the stakeholders e.g. academics and professionals, and explain the training as such. On the other hand we want to give an example of which kind of challenges we are facing when we have to train a candidate with an ‘exotic language’. The research project TraiLLD (Training in Languages of Lesser Diffusion) (JUST/2013/JPEN/AG/4594, funded by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Justice) focuses on the training of legal interpreters, and particularly on those legal interpreters who speak an ‘exotic’ language. The rationale is twofold. Firstly, the project team mapped the current situation regarding the different methodological training frameworks covered by the different project partners. In our presentation we will give an overview of these different methodological frameworks. Secondly, based on a collection of best practices of these different methodological frameworks, we developed a new training methodology and strategy to enable speakers of a Language of Lesser Diffusion (LLD) to become legal interpreters after a short, intense period of training. This new training method is now in the pilot phase. In our presentation, we will discuss the example of joint training sessions for Mongolian-Dutch (set up by KU Leuven and SIGV), which are on the one hand an excellent illustration of international cooperation and cross-border training and on the other hand a decent model for combining a traditional face-to-face course with the usage of new technologies such as e-learning and internet-based training for legal interpreting students. We will address the difficulties and challenges, which we were faced with during the start-up of the training course and the entrance exam. How do you for instance find an assessor for Mongolian in Europe? How can you offer exercises in this particular language, if there are no peers in the group with the same language combination? How can we provide enough training material for the Mongolian students? In our presentation, we will offer possible solutions for this kind of problems.