3 ARTICLES ARTICLES ARTICLES . Translating in Theory and Action: Contemporary Contexts in Translation T. Mikolic Južnic, N. K. Pokorn In Search of the Essential Competences for Overcoming Language Barriers ... 10 nglish anguage verseas erspectives and nquiries Vol. 18, No. 1 (2021) TRANSLATING IN THEORY AND ACTION: CONTEMPORARY CONTEXTS IN TRANSLATION Editors of ELOPE Vol. 18, No. 1: Nataša HIRCI, Agnes PISANSKI PETERLIN and Simon ZUPAN Journal Editors: Smiljana KOMAR and Mojca KREVEL Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani Ljubljana, 2021 CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 81'25(082) TRANSLATING in theory and action : contemporary contexts in translation / editors Nataša Hirci, Agnes Pisanski Peterlin and Simon Zupan. - Ljubljana : University Press, Faculty of Arts = Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, 2021. - (ELOPE : English language overseas perspectives and enquiries, ISSN 1581-8918 ; vol. 18, no. 1) ISBN 978-961-06-0489-1 COBISS.SI-ID 67223555 Contents PART I: INTRODUCTION Nataša Hirci, Agnes Pisanski Peterlin, Simon Zupan9 Translating in Theory and Action: Contemporary Contexts in Translation PART II: ARTICLES Tamara Mikolic Južnic, Nike K. Pokorn15 In Search of the Essential Competences for Overcoming Language Barriers in Public Services Iskanje kljucnih kompetenc za premagovanje jezikovnih ovir v javnih službah 37 In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpreting V središcu pozornosti? Vidnost tolmacev in tolmack pri cezmejnem tolmacenju Giuseppe Palumbo55 “Visible” at Last? Some Notes on English as a Target Language and Translated Books in the US Koncno “vidni”? Anglešcina kot ciljni jezik in prevedene knjige v ZDA Astrid Schmidhofer, Enrique Cerezo Herrero, Melita Koletnik71 Why We Need TI-Oriented Language Learning and Teaching (TILLT) Zakaj naj bo poucevanje L2 prilagojeno potrebam bodocih prevajalcev in tolmacev Martina Paradiž91 CoLecTer KIN: Mobile Application for Collaborative Bilingual Glossary Compilation in the ESP Classroom CoLecTer KIN: Mobilna aplikacija za kolaborativno izdelavo dvojezicnega glosarja pri pouku anglešcine kot strokovnega jezika Csilla Szabó107 Revisiting Consecutive Note-Taking: What to Note, How to Note, and in What Language? Ponoven premislek o zapiskih pri konsekutivnem tolmacenju: Kaj zapisati, kako zapisati in v katerem jeziku zapisati? Tjaša Mohar, Tomaž Onic125 Margaret Atwood’s Poetry in Slovene Translation Poezija Margaret Atwood v slovenskem prevodu Jean Boase-Beier 139 Translating Patterns of Style in ‘Hour of the Wolves’ Prevajanje slogovnih vzorcev v »Uri volkov« Snježana Veselica Majhut151 Did You Try Our Good Smoked Ham? Assessing the Quality of Translation as Cross-Cultural Mediation on Croatian Tourist Board Websites Ste poskusili našo okusno prekajeno šunko? Ocenjevanje kakovosti prevoda kot medkulturnega posredovanja na spletnih mestih Hrvaške turisticne skupnosti Tadej Pahor, Martina Smodiš, Agnes Pisanski Peterlin169 Reshaping Authorial Presence in Translations of Research Article Abstracts Preoblikovanje avtorjeve prisotnosti v prevodih izvleckov znanstvenih clankov Primož Jurko187 Semantic Prosody in Translation: Slovene and English ADV-V Combinations Semanticna prozodija in prevajanje slovenskih in angleških parov prislov-glagol PART III: BOOK REVIEW Anamarija Šporcic213 Book Review: Words, Music and Gender (Michelle Gadpaille and Victor Kennedy, eds.) Part I Introduction Translating in Theory and Action: Contemporary Contexts in Translation One of the challenges of Translation Studies is to shed light on the elusive figure of the translator, carefully hidden from the view of the audience. Since Lawrence Venuti’s seminal work on translator invisibility (1995), an increasing number of studies have attempted to explore the role of the translator from various angles (e.g., Wilson 2009; McAuliffe 2016; Kadiu 2019). It is not surprising that the image of the translator or interpreter is gradually shifting from that of an inconspicuous assistant to an indispensable participant in communication, bridging linguistic as well as cultural barriers. In turn, Translation Studies as a scholarly discipline must keep abreast of the developments in translation as a profession, reflect on and respond to them from a theoretical and methodological standpoint. Some of the deliberations ultimately resulted in the present special issue of ELOPE. When compiling the Call for Papers, our main objective was to open up a space for researchers to reflect on and rethink the role of different categories of translation and interpreting in contemporary contexts, engaging with both theory and practice. In addition, given the prominent and occasionally almost exclusive position of English in international communication and the scope of ELOPE as primarily an English Studies journal, the idea was to examine in particular the complex, dynamic and rapidly changing relationship between translation and English as the global lingua franca, an intriguing academic subject for many years (cf. Anderman and Rogers 2005; Taviano 2010, House 2013; Palumbo 2013; Pisanski Peterlin 2013; Taviano 2018). Although it may seem that cross-cultural communication is increasingly reduced to monolingual exchanges in English, research into diverse forms of translation and interpreting reaffirms their presence and place in the globalized world. As the Table of Contents indicates, the submissions not only matched but even exceeded the projected scope of the special issue. Several papers re-examine the visibility of translators and interpreters from different angles, ranging from the recognition of their professional status to their physical visibility and function in re-voicing the text when rendering it in other languages. Another dimension, explored from the point of view of visibility, is the practice of translation itself, particularly in terms of its presence in the traditionally monolingual settings of the English-speaking world. Methodologically, the authors used a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interdisciplinary ones, reflecting the current state of the field. Although thematic lines were not always clear-cut, revealing the interdisciplinarity that has permeated Translation Studies for some time (cf., Zupan and Nuc 2017; Ehrensberger-Dow et al. 2018; Kocijancic Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic 2020), we decided to divide the articles into four sections. The first addresses the theme of the visibility of translation and interpreting from three different perspectives. Tamara Mikolic Južnic and Nike Kocijancic Pokorn explore the profile of the community interpreter, juxtaposing it with that of the intercultural mediator, to underscore the visibility of the interpreter’s profession. Their comparison of the competences of the two profiles facilitates a clearer insight into the role of the community interpreter, highlighting the importance of having interpreting services in high-risk situations provided by trained professionals. Aleksandra Nuc and Sonja Pöllabauer examine the physical visibility of interpreters in transborder humanitarian interpreting. Using photographs taken along the Slovene and Austrian border during the mass displacement of refugees from the Middle East between 2015 and 2018, the authors study these images as ethnographic records of interpreting, which reveal a high degree of interactional agency and physical visibility, but less social visibility. In the third article of this section, Giuseppe Palumbo addresses the issue of visibility of translation in the Anglo-American cultural and publishing settings, investigating the position of English as the “hyper-central” language in the international system of translations. The paper examines the significance of translated titles in the publishing markets of English-speaking countries, and the increasingly prominent role ascribed to translation. His exploratory analysis of records on book translation in the US spanning from 2008 to the present indicates the renewed attention given to translation in the US market. The second section turns to translator and interpreter training, a field that is increasingly focusing on establishing interdisciplinary links with related research areas. Astrid Schmidhofer, Enrique Cerezo Herrero and Melita Koletnik explore foreign language teaching in Translation and Interpreting programmes, proposing that Translation and Interpreting-oriented Language Learning and Teaching be established as a separate category of Language for Specific Purposes. Such foreign language teaching would focus on both enhancing communicative competence and developing the initial competences relevant for translation and interpreting. Their survey engaging students from Austria, Slovenia and Spain helped identify areas to which the students attribute particular importance, and should thus be considered in the TI-oriented curricula design. Martina Paradiž presents a smartphone application that can be used in bilingual glossary compilation, exploring another angle of using translation in language learning. The author presents the results of a student survey on the usability, perceived benefits and feedback on the features of an Android mobile application built by the author. The section closes with a paper on consecutive note-taking by Csilla Szabó. Although note-taking is taught at all interpreter training institutions, opinions still vary on questions such as what and how much to note down or what language and notation system to use in the notes. By first revisiting prescriptive views, followed by insights based on empirical research, the author proposes her own recommendations on how to teach note-taking today. The literary translation section comprises two articles on the translation of poetry, a domain of translation where the “licence for creative agency is perhaps most evident” (Summers 2020, 36). In the first, Tjaša Mohar and Tomaž Onic provide an overview of Margaret Atwood’s poetry in Slovene translation. Although the Canadian author has published as many poetry collections as novels, her poetry remains relatively unknown among Slovene readers in their native language, given that only around thirty poems have been translated into Slovene and published sporadically in various literary magazines. The authors provide a stylistic analysis of a few selected poems, particularly those that are challenging for translation. In the second article on poetry translation, Jean Boase-Beier examines the stylistic aspects of the translation of a German poem, ‘Stunde der Wölfe’ by Volker von Torne, into English. As the author points out, the original poem features a number of metaphors based on wolves, birds, paths or journeys, which serve as images of curtailment, intervention and impediment caused by natural agents such as wolves, hawks, wind and snow. As shown in the article, the translator must consider the interaction of all these elements in order to preserve the central images and stylistic patterns. The last section investigates the relationship between translation and language through discourse, genre and semantic prosody. Snježana Veselica Majhut’s study of multilingual websites created by Croatian tourist boards centres on a quality assessment of the English translations. Her analysis considers different aspects of the text, ranging from linguistic categories, such as spelling, grammar and idiomaticity, translation-based categories, such as pragmatic equivalence and translation of culture-bound lexical items, to genre-related questions concerning web readability. Tadej Pahor, Martina Smodiš and Agnes Pisanski Peterlin take genre as the starting point in their analysis of translations of research article abstracts from Slovene into English by focusing on authorial presence. Pahor et al. consider the effect of translation on the interplay between personal and impersonal rhetorical patterns in academic writing. The section closes with Primož Jurko’s analysis of cross-linguistic data for Slovene and English, focusing on ADV-V patterns. The study relies on a top-down corpus-driven approach, attempting to shed light on the meaning-forming process in some of the most frequent lexical items in Slovene and English, revealing the potential of this approach for further studies of semantic prosody. The present volume would not have been possible without the support of a number of individuals. We wish to thank the journal editors, Dr Smiljana Komar and Dr Mojca Krevel, who kindly accommodated our proposal for a special issue of ELOPE on translation; the contributors for the timely submissions of their revised papers; and the many anonymous colleagues for their thorough peer reviews. Last but not least, we would like to thank Dr Andrej Stopar, the journal’s Technical Editor, for his continuous support in the editing process. All of the above deserve credit for the scholarly merits of the volume, while the pleasure shall remain ours. Nataša Hirci, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Agnes Pisanski Peterlin, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Simon Zupan, University of Maribor, Slovenia Guest editors of ELOPE, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2021) References Anderman, Gunilla M., and Margaret Rogers. 2005. In and Out of English: For Better, for Worse? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen, Susanne Go¨pferich, and Sharon O’Brien, eds. 2018. Interdisciplinarity in Translation and Interpreting Process Research. Benjamins Current Topics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. House, Juliane. 2013. “English as a Lingua Franca and Translation.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7 (2): 279–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2013.10798855. Kadiu, Silvia. 2019. Reflexive Translation Studies: Translation as Critical Reflection. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352513. Kocijancic-Pokorn, Nike, and Tamara Mikolic Južnic. 2020. “Community Interpreters versus Intercultural Mediators: Is It Really All about Ethics?” Translation and Interpreting Studies 15 (1): 80–107. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.20027.koc. McAuliffe, Karen. 2016. “Hidden Translators: The Invisibility of Translators and the Influence of Lawyer-Linguists on the Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.” Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 3 (1): 5–29. https://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/14339.pdf. Palumbo, Giuseppe. 2013. “Divided Loyalties? Some Notes on Translating University Websites into English.” Cultus 6: 95–108. Pisanski Peterlin, Agnes. 2013. “Attitudes towards English as an Academic Lingua Franca in Translation.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7 (2): 195–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2013.10798851. Stewart, Dominic. 2013. “From Pro Loco to Pro Globo: Translating into English for an International Readership.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7 (2): 217–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2013.10798852. Summers, Caroline. 2020. “Authorship.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 35–39. Abingdon: Routledge. Taviano, Stefania. 2010. Translating English as a Lingua Franca. Florence: Le Monnier Università. —. 2018. “ELF as a Translational Lingua Franca: Reciprocal Influences between ELF and Translation.” The Translator 24 (3): 249–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2018.1504271. Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge. Wilson, Andrew. 2009. Translators on Translating: Inside the Invisible Art. Vancouver: CCSP Press. Zupan, Simon, and Aleksandra Nuc., eds. 2017. Interpreting Studies at the Crossroads of Disciplines. Berlin: Frank & Timme. INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Part II Articles Tamara Mikolic Južnic, Nike K. Pokorn University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 15-35(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.15-35 UDC: 81'253 In Search of the Essential Competences for Overcoming Language Barriers in Public Services ABSTRACT It is argued in the article that despite the relatively strong presence of English in Slovenia, the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) alone does not guarantee access to quality public services. To supplement the use of ELF interpreting support is needed, in particular in high-risk situations. A step in this direction was the certification of a national vocational qualification for community interpreters for Albanian in 2020. Since at the same time a new vocational profile for intercultural mediators was created, which also aims to assist the inclusion of migrants in the Slovene society, we investigated the differences between these two profiles by comparing the competences defined in both. The results show that despite some overlaps Slovene vocational standards for both professions differ significantly: while transfer and linguistic competences are central to community interpreter’s profile, conflict resolution and mediation competence figure more prominently in the intercultural mediator’s profile. Keywords: linguistic inclusion, national vocational qualification, community interpreting, intercultural mediation, competences Iskanje kljucnih kompetenc za premagovanje jezikovnih ovir v javnih službah IZVLECEK Clanek prikazuje, kako kljub razmeroma mocni prisotnosti anglešcine v Sloveniji raba anglešcine kot lingue france sama po sebi ne omogoca jezikovne vkljucenosti in ne zagotavlja dostopa do kakovostnih javnih storitev. Ob anglešcini kot lingui franci je potrebna še tolmaška podpora, zlasti v visokorizicnih situacijah. Korak v to smer predstavlja nacionalna poklicna kvalifikacija za skupnostne tolmace za albanski jezik, sprejeta leta 2020. Ker je hkrati nastala tudi nacionalna poklicna kvalifikacija za medkulturne mediatorje, ki je prav tako namenjena podpori vkljucevanja migrantov v slovensko družbo, v clanku s primerjavo poklicnih kompe­tenc razišceva razlike med tema dvema profiloma. Rezultati nakazujejo, da se, kljub nekaterim podobnostim, slovenska poklicna standarda izrazito razlikujeta: medtem ko sta prevodna in jezikovna kompetenca osrednji v profilu skupnostnega tolmaca, osrednje mesto v profilu med­kulturnega mediatorja zavzemata kompetenci razreševanja konfliktov in mediacije. Kljucne besede: jezikovno vkljucevanje, nacionalna poklicna kvalifikacija, skupnostno tolmacenje, medkulturna mediacija, kompetence 1 Introduction The English language is the most widespread and only true global lingua franca in the contemporary world (see e.g., Mauranen 2014). Moreover, the attitude towards English, at least in the EU, seems to be overwhelmingly positive (see Henry 2016): according to European Commission’s survey of 26.751 respondents in 2012, two thirds of Europeans (67%) considered English as one of the two most useful languages in the EU. Although Slovenia was one of the eight EU member states where English was not the first foreign language of the population (Croatian was reported as the foreign language most commonly spoken in Slovenia (61%)), a very high percentage of surveyed Slovenes (59%) stated that English is a language that they know well enough in order to be able to have a conversation (European Commission 2012, 21). Despite these results, it will be argued in this article that in Slovenia the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) does not enable linguistic inclusion, in particular to the most vulnerable groups of migrants, and that it does not guarantee access to quality public services. The use of English as a lingua franca needs to be supplemented by community interpreting, in particular in high-risk situations. However, in order to provide support that leads to quality services, the profession of community interpreting needs to be defined and the individuals practicing it need to undergo a certification process. This article presents the new vocational certifications for community interpreters and intercultural mediators in Slovenia, and compares the list of competences indicated in three documents defining the profession of community interpreter to three documents defining the profile of intercultural mediator, and highlights the main differences. The article starts with an overview of the existing research reporting on cases and situations in Slovenia in which ELF did not enable the establishment of successful communication. Next the introduction of community interpreting is proposed as a more suitable communication strategy in high-risk situations, such as healthcare settings, allowing equal access to public services to users who do not speak or understand Slovene. Subsequently, the ongoing discussion on the difference between community interpreters and intercultural mediators is addressed. This is followed by a description of the Slovene vocational qualification for community interpreters for Albanian, which also envisages a certification exam for the candidates. Then an analysis of selected documents comparing community interpreters and intercultural mediators in terms of competences is presented, and the implications of the results are discussed. 2 When the Use of English is Not the Solution – Review of the Literature Although the results of the European Commission’s survey show that in Europe the attitude towards the use of English was overwhelmingly positive in 2012, the status of English in Europe is changing and some researchers argue that it is no longer seen only as the language that enhances opportunities to take part in the global market, but is sometimes also viewed as a threat to the national languages in Europe (Linn, Bermel, and Ferguson 2015). In addition to that, Michele Gazzola and Francois Grin in their article “Is ELF more effective and fair than translation? An evaluation of the EU’s multilingual regime” (2013) argue that “the use of translation and interpreting, though not free, remains more effective (and at a reasonable cost) than a monolingual regime based on English alone; it also more fair than a monolingual regime which unavoidably privileges native speakers” (2013, 93). Taking Slovenia as the case in point, we argue here that not only are translation and interpretation fairer than the imposition of the use of English, particularly considering that interpreting is also envisaged by the Slovene Administrative Procedure Act (ZUP; PISG Legal Information System 2013),1 but that very often the complexity of interlingual and intercultural encounters in the contemporary western world and the varieties of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the speakers attempting to establish linguistic contact make translation and interpretation the only means of enabling successful communication. In 2016 a survey of linguistic profiles of migrants in Slovenia applying for international protection was made, in an attempt to define the preferred mediation strategy of this group of migrants (Pokorn and Cibej 2018a). They were asked if they prefer to use interpreters or machine translation tools, practice intercomprehension, use a lingua franca or learn the dominant language of the receiving culture. With the help of a questionnaire, data were gathered on linguistic profiles of 127 residents of asylum seeker centres in Slovenia, and interviews were conducted with a representative group of 38 asylum seekers speaking ten different mother tongues (Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Russian, Kurdish, Albanian, Bosnian, French, Ibo and English). In the questionnaire the asylum seekers were asked to indicate the level of proficiency in any foreign languages they believed they had knowledge of (shown in Figure 1). The results indicated that English was by far as the most widespread foreign language among this population. Figure 1. Foreign languages indicated by the residents of the Slovene asylum seeker centres in October 2016 (Pokorn and Cibej 2018a). 1 ZUP provides legal grounds for the provision of interpreting services. In article 62 (7), inter alia, it stipulates the following: “Parties and other participants to the procedure who do not speak the language in which the procedure is conducted, or who are unable to use it because of disability, shall have the right to follow the course of the procedure through an interpreter. The authority shall be obliged to instruct such persons of such possibility.” (ZUP, 36). Further results showed that English is also used in a variety of settings in Slovenia: in the representative group of 38 interviewees, 25 migrants indicated that they spoke English, and that they use this language always (n=24) or often (n=1) in their everyday contacts with other people in Slovenia. We asked them to rate their proficiency in listening, reading, speaking and writing on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), and the results are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. Interviewees’ self-reported proficiency in English. Two thirds of the interviewees thus stated that they use English for communication in Slovenia and indicated that their knowledge of the language in all four skills is good (average grade was 3). However, in the interviews they also pointed out that English was not useful in all settings and environments: for example, the refugees and asylum seekers noticed that in Slovenia the older generations do not speak English, and that English is also rarely spoken in rural areas. Similar results were obtained by Fiedler and Wohlfarth (2018), who interviewed twenty migrants in Germany with English in their language repertoires. The migrants reported a major discrepancy in English-language proficiency between young and old people, and between different urban centres. Similarly to the migrants in Slovenia, migrants interviewed by Fiedler and Wohlfarth did not see English as a reliable or viable option for communication in Germany. Another study (Pokorn and Cibej 2018b) examined the mediation strategies of foreign teachers at two international schools working in Slovenia. The results showed that although the interviewees found English to be the most useful foreign language in Slovenia, the use of English failed in healthcare settings, where they would often encounter providers, in particular nurses, who did not speak English. This observation was corroborated by another nation-wide survey among healthcare workers in Slovenia in 2016, which gathered responses of 564 healthcare providers (Milavec Kapun and Pokorn 2019). The survey responses of 331 nurses showed that, regardless of the level of education attained, nurses rated their foreign-language competence considerably lower than doctors or dentists,2 and in fact as many as 101 nurses (36%) indicated that their knowledge of English was elementary. Thus, in the Slovene healthcare system the use of English as a lingua franca does not guarantee successful communication, due to the lack of knowledge of this language among healthcare providers. Moreover, it has been observed that some patients reject the use of ELF in high-risk healthcare situations. Pokorn, Maticic and Pokorn (2009) describe such a case: in 2008, 2 Only 3% of doctors and 16% of dentists indicated an elementary knowledge of English (see Milavec Kapun and Pokorn 2019, 51).a 15-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, whose parents were killed in Afghanistan, was admitted to the Department of Infectious Diseases, University Clinical Centre Ljubljana. He had a knowledge of some basic English and was accompanied by a female Slovene guardian, assigned to him by the detention centre, who spoke English with him. He was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, but the patient refused all medical procedures and did not want to communicate with healthcare providers who tried to speak to him in English. The treating physician was convinced that the patient would need someone to explain the risks to him but was unable to communicate with him effectively. Because no support was provided to medical doctors in such cases, the physician contacted an Afghan interpreter working for the Slovene mission at the NATO base in Afghanistan. The interpreter had a long telephone conversation with the patient in his native language – and was eventually able to change his mind. The patient started to take the prescribed medications, and in the following days his mood picked up and his medical condition improved significantly. There is no doubt that the treatment of the patient was successful largely because communication in his native language was enabled. Research thus shows that in high-risk situations, in particular in healthcare settings, the support of interpreters is sometimes vital. Since in Slovenia there is no training for community interpreters for the languages of newly arrived migrants, interpreting in different public-service settings is sometimes provided by relatives or friends of patients (i.e., the so-called ad hoc interpreters), or by individuals who support themselves by interpreting but who have no training for the profession of interpreters. Some of them, with the help of intensive self-study, practice interpreting according to the international standards for community interpreters, others do not. In order to raise the level of service, the national vocational certification for community interpreters was formed. 3 Competing Profiles The need for bridging linguistic and cultural differences has become ever more pressing in Europe in recent years, which have been marked by an increase in migration. Countries whose populations have been more prone to emigration until recently (such as Italy or Greece; see Schuster 2005, Apostolou 2012) or that have only faced immigration from certain countries in the neighbourhood (such as Slovenia in relation to the former Yugoslav republics and territories, see Gorjanc and Pokorn 2013), suddenly encountered in their midst a multitude of immigrants, coming from different cultures and speaking different languages, which became quite a challenge, especially in official or high-risk situations such as healthcare. This often called for ad hoc solutions that resulted in a rather confusing state of affairs in the EU countries in terms of legislation and definitions of the names and roles of the professionals (and non-professionals) who were employed to overcome emerging language barriers. As a result, two profiles started to compete in the same field, i.e., the community interpreter and the intercultural mediator. The apparent confusion regards both the name of the profession and the nature of the work performed: on the one hand, the terms community interpreter and intercultural mediator (and their various more or less synonymous forms3) are used in different ways by different people; on the other hand, their work and competences are also understood differently. An in-depth discussion of the problem is outside the scope of this article: here we refer to just a few selected articles made by some scholars who attempted to distinguish the two profiles, and pay a particular attention to two intrinsically divergent points of view. Proponents of both sides recognize the need in the market and society for professionals whose job would be to help migrants access services which are offered in the languages of the host country and in which they are not proficient. But while proponents of intercultural mediators (Theodosiou and Aspioti 2015, Verrept 2019) largely reject community interpreters – claiming that they only transpose linguistic elements from one language into another, separating language from the cultural content of the communication, which, according to them, is the domain of the intercultural mediator – others, such as Pöchhacker (2008), Martín and Phelan (2010) and Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic (2020), for instance, reject such oversimplifications of the competences of community interpreters, but nevertheless acknowledge the need for both profiles. They argue that interpreting services should be offered by trained professionals (i.e., community interpreters), while other tasks, such as informing and assisting the migrants in accessing services and integrating in the host society, which involve mainly dyadic, not triadic (i.e., interpreted) communication, should be carried out by intercultural mediators. Furthermore, Pöchhacker (2008) and Martín and Phelan (2010) argue that terminological indeterminacy reflects negatively on the professionalization of the two profiles. We believe that the difference between intercultural mediators and community interpreters should also not be boiled down just to a question of ethical positioning (Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic 2020). As a consequence of this indeterminacy, as Martín and Phelan (2010) observe, in France, Italy, parts of Belgium and Germany, the two terms are often used interchangeably, without a real distinction of their roles. In Italy, the situation is particularly complex, as the term intercultural mediator is used as the name of at least three very different profiles, i.e., the term is used as a synonym of community interpreters; it may define specialists in conflict prevention and resolution, or it may be used for community integration facilitators and non-professional interpreters (see Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic 2020: 86–88). In Belgium, according to Cox (2015), both profiles coexist and intercultural mediators and community interpreters often work in the same hospitals, though abiding by different codes of ethics, especially in terms of advocacy. Additionally, it should be specified that community interpreting is a certified profession in a number of countries and defined within the international standard “Interpreting – Guidelines for community interpreting” (ISO 13611:2014) as “oral and signed communication that enables access to services for people who have limited proficiency in the language of such services”. 3 Community interpreters are also called public service interpreters, interpreters in institutional discourse, dialogue interpreters, or liaison interpreters. Intercultural mediators have been named also linguistic mediators, linkworkers, ethnic minority health counsellors, bridgepersons, intercultural interpreters, and so on (see Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic (2020) for further details). 3.1 Situation in Slovenia In Slovenia, the need for a profile of an interpreter who would be able to respond to the challenges of a new linguistic landscape in the country was recognized in the mid 2000s (see Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic 2021). Already at that time, the translation studies community defined a community interpreter (“skupnostni tolmac”) as a trained or an untrained individual who performs oral or signed translational activity from and into the societal language, and thus assists individuals who are not proficient in the societal language to access the services provided by public institutions (see also Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg 2020, 10). Efforts for the professionalization of community interpreting began as early as in 2007, when the University of Ljubljana joined an EU-funded project with the aim of creating a curriculum for medical interpreting, which culminated in the preparation of a one-year community interpreter training programme (Gorjanc 2013). Unfortunately, lack of funding and qualified teachers prevented the programme from being launched (Gorjanc and Pokorn 2013). In an effort to overcome such deficiencies, a short specialization course for sworn interpreters was introduced in 2018/19 by the University of Ljubljana (Macek and Schlamberger Brezar 2019). Furthermore, another project was undertaken in 2019 by four universities from Italy, Norway, Greece and Slovenia, in order to train teachers for community interpreting, especially for languages that are traditionally not taught in Slovene universities: in Slovenia, the TRAMIG project (Training newly arrived migrants for community interpreting and intercultural mediation, see Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg 2020) trained community interpreter teachers for Albanian, Arabic and Persian to work in tandems with local interpreting teachers with the purpose of harnessing both the expertise of the interpreter trainers of the University of Ljubljana, and the language expertise in Albanian, Arabic and Persian of the volunteers with a migration background. Intercultural mediators appeared in Slovenia in the last decade in connection with several projects mainly carried out by non-academic institutions and organizations (see Lipovec Cebron and Škraban 2020), which resulted in the absence of systematic training. With the exception of a few short courses organized by the International Organization for Migration in Slovenia and the National Institute of Public Health in Slovenia, no plans to establish training of intercultural mediators seem to be currently under way. At present in Slovenia there seem to be two understandings of the profile of intercultural mediator. One is defined in the National Vocational Qualification (described below), and the other in some of the publications of National Institute of Public Health. The publications of the National Institute of Public Health, such as Bofulin et al. (2016), promote intercultural mediators at the expense of interpreters, claiming that “interpreting transfers the language, while mediation transfers the cultural meaning” (Bofulin et al. 2016, 2334), despite the fact the research leaves no doubt that language and culture are inseparable and that linguistic and cultural mediation are intrinsic to interpreting (see, e.g., Falbo 2013). 4 All translations are our own unless otherwise indicated. It should be noted that next to the quoted part, the authors refer to Bowen (2001, 8), misinterpreting her words: Bowen does not speak of intercultural mediators, but rather discusses how the roles and tasks of interpreters can be understood and expanded in different contexts by different users of their service. The understanding of the profile of an intercultural mediator found in Bofulin et al. (2016) is modelled after the definition of the tasks of intercultural mediators as presented recently by Verrept (2019), which is translated into Slovene in Huber and Lipovec Cebron (2020). Verrept reduces “linguistic interpreting (‘interpreting’ in the strict sense)” to a ‘translation machine model’, and places it to the bottom step of his “ladder model” in which higher functions of intercultural mediation include resolving misunderstandings, cultural brokerage, helping provider/patient take up their roles and advocacy. Similarly, Lipovec Cebron and Škraban (2020, 38) argue that the aim of intercultural mediators is “to assure equity and reduce language and cultural barriers in access to public services for people who do not master societal language”, supporting the notion that the characteristic that distinguishes them from community interpreters is their ethical positioning, in which advocacy has a central position. As discussed in Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic (2020), however, the reasons for the emergence of this kind of understanding of a new profile of intercultural mediators seem to be much more complex, including the lack of trained interpreters for the languages of newly arrived migrants, the fight for dominance in the training of migrants’ languages specialists and the sometimes unreasonable expectations of healthcare providers. However, there exists also an alternative understanding of the role and profile of intercultural mediators, where intercultural mediators are defined as integration facilitators, i.e., individuals who assist migrants when they lack cultural awareness and understanding of the system and, consequently, cannot access and benefit from quality basic social services, education, primary health care, fair trial and political participation in the host country (Martín and Phelan 2010; Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg 2020, 11). 4 The Certification Apart from training, an important milestone was achieved in 2020 with the development of two occupational standards: the National Vocational Qualification for Intercultural Mediator and the National Vocational Qualification for Community Interpreter for Albanian. Within the European Qualification Framework and the Slovene Qualification Framework, the National Vocational qualification (NVQ) “is a formally recognised work-related, competence-based qualification, which reflects the skills and knowledge needed to do a job effectively” (RIC – National Examination Centre). If they pass the exam, the certificate a candidate gets “shows that a candidate is competent in an area of work or individual segments of work, within an area at a certain level of achievement” (RIC – National Examination Centre). NVQs are based on national occupational standards, documents that serve as the basis for designing different pathways to achieve professional qualifications. Occupational standards determine the content of NVQs by defining the knowledge, skills and professional competence necessary to practice a profession. Catalogues of professional knowledge (CPKS), which are always prepared parallel to the NVQs, further define the procedures, requirements, and examinations, as well as repeating the competences listed in the relative NVQs (Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg 2020, 52–57). One of the most important advantages of NVQs is that they give individuals a possibility to validate their skills and knowledge obtained through the pursuit of their occupation, volunteer work, leisure activities, participation in non-formal training programs, self-learning etc., i.e., they do not normally entail any obligatory formal education. The standards and the catalogues are formulated by a group of invited experts led by a senior officer of National Institute for Vocational Education and Training, usually taking into account similar qualifications abroad. For example, the NVQ for community interpreters includes in its reference list, among others, the international standard ISO 13611: 2014 Guidelines for Community interpreting (2014), the document developed by the European Network for Public Service Interpreters and Translators Public Service Interpreting: minimally required competence in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, California Standards for Healthcare Interpreters (2002), the US National Standards of Practice for Interpreters in Healthcare (2005), and the Canadian National Standard Guide for Community Interpreting Services (HIN 2007). The NVQ for intercultural mediators, however, does not refer to any international standards or international literature (with the notable exception of Ethnicity and Globalization (Castles 2000) and Guide for intercultural mediation in health care (Verrept and Coune 2016)) and includes in its reference list either works by members of the expert committee responsible for the formation of NVQ for intercultural mediators (for example, the monograph Integracija kot clovekova pravica [Integration as a human right] (Vrecer 2007)) or verified educational programs for learning Slovene or the integration of migrants, applicants for international protection and refugees into Slovene society. In the next section we highlight the differences in competences between the two profiles as defined in the Slovene CPKSs, and the main characteristics of the two profiles are summarized. The text used for the analysis is the English translation of CPKSs by Nataša Hirci, published in Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg (2020). 4.1 Slovene National Vocational Qualification ‘Community Interpreter for Albanian’ The Slovene NVQ ‘Community Interpreter for Albanian’ is included in the KLASIUS5 classification system within the wider category of Language Acquisition (other, foreign, sign language, translation studies). In the Standards for Professional Knowledge and Skills and in the Catalogue of Professional Knowledge and Skills, we find a list of the key tasks and knowledge and skills necessary to obtain the certification, presented in Table 1. Table 1. Knowledge and skills of the NVQ ‘Community interpreter for Albanian’. Key tasks Knowledge and skills Consecutive interpreting, chuchotage and sight translation plus translation of short texts relevant for interpreting • interpret and translate texts connected to the interpreting task from Albanian to Slovene and vice versa • interpret and translate texts connected to the interpreting task (e.g., medical examination report, instructions for follow-up treatment) as accurately as possible with no unnecessary addition or omission • listen carefully, use various memory techniques 5 KLASIUS (https://www.stat.si/Klasius/Default.aspx?id=1) is the obligatory standard used in Slovenia for classifying activities in education and training (including the field of national vocational qualifications). • adhere to basic features of interpreting, i.e., initial introduction of all participants, positioning, turn-taking • select and provide interpreting suitable in the given circumstances: consecutive interpreting for a dialogue or a lengthy exchange supported by note-taking, chuchotage (for lectures) or sight interpreting • use different techniques of note-taking • recognize situations when a primary-speaker position has to be assumed and communication interrupted (e.g., asking for clarification, pointing out cultural misunderstanding) • respect different roles of participants (distinguish between the role of an interpreter and that of a healthcare provider, etc.) • invest into additional (self)training and their own professional development Interpreting and translation of discourse in different registers and from different fields • use Albanian for different language users and adapt it to their age, gender, regional background as well as socio-economic status • understand different language varieties of Albanian (e.g., different dialects, idiomatic expressions, etc.) and different registers (e.g., less formal spoken discourse, formal standard language, etc.) • use register appropriate for the given situation and the type of discourse • use terminology typical of the interpreted field, i.e., terminology used in healthcare or educational settings, administrative procedures or police proceedings • know the field they interpret (e.g., know the basics of healthcare, asylum procedures, educational system in Slovenia, administrative and police proceedings, etc.) • respect cultural differences and respond properly • understand specific behaviour, gestures, tone of verbal and non-verbal communication • show awareness of different culture-specific roles of professionals and identities in different cultures Use suitable tools and technologies for translation and interpreting • use technical equipment for remote interpreting (telephone, web applications) • understand the prospects and limitations of machine translation and interpreting • work with word processing software • efficiently use different computer-assisted programmes for documents, word processing and terminology management Acquire additional information for the field they interpret • recognize their own information and documentation needs • seek reliable information required for interpreting • obtain additional information for the interpreted field • seek additional information on language use and specific terminology for the interpreted field • make efficient use of document and terminology sources (e.g., terminology databases, language corpora, etc.) • properly assess reliable documents and sources available online and in other media • create their own terminology databases needed for the interpreted field Communicate and establish contacts with colleagues, professionals and end-users • are polite, respectful and tactful • recognize their own cultural, political, religious and other prejudices and refrain from them in interpreting and communication with their clients • work efficiently with people from different cultures, respect other cultures and recognize cultural differences • respect the rules of collaboration with other participants of interpreting (e.g., in healthcare settings) • know how to obtain information on the nature of the meeting/conversation to be interpreted, and know how to agree with other participants on the behaviour protocol and positioning of all the participants 4.2 National Vocational Qualification ‘Intercultural Mediator’ Unlike the above NVQ, the NVQ ‘Intercultural Mediator’ belongs to the wider category of Social work and counselling in KLASIUS, which is reflected in the catalogue of standards on professional knowledge and skills for the NVQ ‘Intercultural mediator’ (translated into English in Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg 2020, 61-75) and in the specific key tasks and skills, given in Table 2. Table 2. Knowledge and skills of the NVQ ‘Intercultural Mediator’. Key tasks Knowledge and skills Establish and facilitate intercultural communication within and outside of institutions related to the integration of migrants • provide intercultural and language mediation in Slovene and the language of migrants in education and vocational training, employment, healthcare and social security, housing, public administration, etc. • use different modes of language mediation • understand most common barriers to the integration of migrants in Slovenia • use and adapt terminology on intercultural mediation • show awareness of social, cultural and economic characteristics (including linguistic, religious, political and other) of at least one foreign country/territory and constantly strive to improve their knowledge through lifelong learning • understand how public services work • understand different beliefs and practices of the migrants in need of intercultural mediation, and understand culture-specific beliefs and practices present within and outside of institutions in Slovenia Provide information to target groups/migrants on their rights and duties in Slovenia • understand the structure and activities of state and public administration and other organizations in Slovenia, and the migrants’ territories/countries of origin for whom intercultural mediation is provided • know categories or statuses of migrants and understand the rights and duties of migrants in Slovenia • assist migrants to get acquainted with the structure and activities of state and public administration and other organizations in Slovenia • assist migrants to exercise their rights and duties in Slovenia related to education, employment, healthcare, administrative procedures, social security, etc. • understand social, cultural and economic characteristics (including linguistic, religious, political and other) of at least one foreign country/territory of origin of the migrants and improve their knowledge in the process of lifelong learning Promote intercultural dialogue between migrants and other members of the Slovene society • understand the importance of integration as a two-way process and show an ability to convey this to the target group and other residents of Slovenia in the process of intercultural mediation • promote social networking • understand the importance of intercultural dialogue in various fields: cultural, social, economic, etc. • respect and promote gender equality • understand migration processes and the importance of migrant integration • make workers in various organizations and other citizens aware of the cultures of migrants and facilitate them in developing an appropriate attitude towards the cultural habits, practices and beliefs of the migrants 5 The Study The aim of the empirical part of this study was first to identify which competences in the above-presented NVQs are considered more central for each of the two profiles, and second, if the core competences of each profile can be found in the documents defining the two profiles in other countries. We first hypothesize that while the core competences for both profiles are similar, the importance of each competence for one or the other profile differs. Second, we argue that while the competences of community interpreters as defined in the Slovene NVQ are in line with those listed in international standards for community interpreting, the competences of intercultural mediators defined in the Slovene NVQ differ from those found in the lists of competences in documents on intercultural mediators understood as culturally enhanced interpreters/advocates, and are more aligned with the profiles of intercultural mediators understood as integration advisors for the migrants. 5.1 Corpus To gain insight into the differences between the two profiles, i.e., the profile of community interpreters and that of intercultural mediators, we have compared the two Slovene Catalogues of Professional Knowledge and Skills (CPKS) with each other as well as with two sets of documents concentrating on the two profiles issued by public bodies or professional associations. The English translations of the CPKS for community interpreters and intercultural mediators are available in Pokorn, Viezzi, and Radanovic Feldberg (2020, Appendix 6). For comparison we have selected four international documents: two competence profile documents for community interpreters, and two competence profile documents for intercultural mediators, all of which were issued recently in the EU. We are aware of the existence of competence documents for community interpreters, such as the Canadian National Standard Guide for Community Interpreting Services or of the US competence models for healthcare interpreters, one of the largest subgroups of community interpreters, such as, for example, Core competencies for health care interpreters (Refki, Avery and Dalton 2008). Our focus on the EU is intentional, as the situation in the USA and other countries like Canada and Australia with a long history of receiving migrants with no knowledge of the dominant or official language of the state and assisting them to access public services differs from that in the EU, where some of the Member States are encountering problems associated with mass migration for the first time. In addition to this, in order to minimize the subjectivity bias we did not select the competence documents that were the reflection of the views of an individual or a pair of scholars (e.g., Martín and Phelan 2010 or Verrept and Coune 2016), but focused only on those documents that were an expression of an association, NGO or international project. The documents in the corpus are thus the following: a) two catalogues of standards on professional knowledge and skills: ––A Catalogue of Professional Knowledge and Skills for Community Interpreters for Albanian (henceforth CPKS CI); ––A Catalogue of Professional Knowledge and Skills for Intercultural Mediators (henceforth CPKS IM); b) two competence profile documents for community interpreters: ––Public Service Interpreting: minimally required competence in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes by the European Network for Public Service Interpreting & Translation (henceforth ENPSIT); ––ISO Standard 13611/2014: Interpreting – Guidelines for community interpreting(henceforth ISO 13611/2014); c) two competence profile documents for intercultural mediators: ––Intercultural Mediator Profile and Related Learning Outcomes, Erasmus+ projectTIME (Train Intercultural Mediators for a Multicultural Europe, 2015) (henceforth TIME); ––Criteria for Approving Programs to Qualify Mediators for IMI Inter-CulturalCertification by the International Mediation Institute (henceforth IMI ICC). 5.2 Method The selected texts were analysed in terms of competences with the computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software NVivo. Five competences identified as the most relevant in previous research (Pokorn and Mikolic Južnic 2020) were used as nodes. Items (sentences, phrases) were analysed so that each coded instance represents a specific type of knowledge or skill associated with a competence, while taking into account the amount of detail and the length of description. If a type of knowledge and/or skill is associated with different types of competences, such items were coded with multiple nodes. The analysed competences are the following: • Transfer competence • Linguistic competence • Thematic competence • Cultural competence • Conflict resolution and mediation competence Finally, the aggregated qualitative data for each competence was analysed to determine its relative importance. 6 Comparison of Competences The qualitative analysis of the texts yielded the results summarized in Table 3, which shows a comparison of the number of coded items for each category in every text for each of the analysed competences. Below we concentrate on a detailed comparison of the way competences are represented in the analysed texts. In Table 3 we notice that overall there are considerable differences in the number of coded instances for each competence in each document. Cultural, thematic and linguistic competence are present in all documents, while transfer competence is not mentioned in IMI ICC, and conflict resolution and mediation competence is not present in ENPSIT. The most frequently coded competence by far is the cultural competence (with a sum of 90 instances), followed by the transfer competence, which refers to interpreting, translation, etc. (N=59), and the thematic competence (i.e., factual knowledge about the institutions and fields in which community interpreters/intercultural mediators work; N=57). Similarly to thematic competence, linguistic competence, is also present in all documents (N=50), albeit with varying frequency and consequent weight. The least present is conflict resolution and mediation competence (N=48), which is not present in ENPSIT and barely present in CPKS CI. In fact, it is only given relevance in the documents devoted to intercultural mediators. 6.1 Comparing the Two Slovene CPKSs Firstly, focusing on the two Slovene CPKSs, there is a noticeable difference between them in terms of the number of instances coded for each of the analysed competences. While all the competences are present in both texts with at least one mention, it is evident in Figure 3 that in CPKS CI, for Community Interpreters, the core competence is the transfer competence, which includes different kinds of interpreting as well as translation skills. This is followed by the linguistic competence, i.e., excellent knowledge of at least two languages (in this case Slovene and Albanian), and cultural competence. Thematic competence seems only slightly less present, although it is insisted in the CPKS that it is important for community interpreters to have enough knowledge of the topics they are asked to interpret. The conflict resolution and mediation competence is mentioned only once. Figure 3. Comparison of CPKS IM and CPKS CI. In CPKS IM, the two most prominently featured are cultural and thematic competences, followed by the conflict resolution and mediation competence, which is far more present in CPKS IM (N=13) compared to CPKS CI (N=1). Linguistic and transfer competences are the least present, with the latter being mentioned rather marginally. Such an attitude towards these two competences, which, in contrast, are considered crucial for community interpreters, seems to reflect the notion that in the Slovene standard intercultural mediators are primarily facilitators of integration and are expected to share factual knowledge about the host country with public service users. The results of the comparison thus show that there indeed is a considerable difference between the two profiles and the different tasks and activities toward which the two are oriented. 6.2 Comparing the Slovene CPKSs with the Other Sets of Texts Secondly, comparing the two CPKSs with the two sets of international documents, pronounced similarities are revealed between CPKS CI and the set of competence profile documents for community interpreters (ENPSIT and ISO 13611/2014): both devote considerable attention to the transfer and linguistic competences, while the conflict resolution and mediation competence is virtually absent in these documents (mentioned only as connected to advocacy, which, according to ENPSIT and ISO 13611/2014, should be avoided). Unlike the two international documents, however, in CPKS CI cultural competence is mentioned as much as linguistic competence. Figure 4. Comparison of CPKS CI with the set of profile competence documents for community interpreters. In contrast, CPKS IM is more similar to the two documents on intercultural mediators (TIME and IMI ICC; Figure 5), especially in terms of the conflict resolution and mediation competence, which is given a prominent position in all three documents, and cultural competence, which is the most frequently mentioned competence in CPKS IM and IMI ICC. But leaving aside thematic competence, which is given the least prominence in IMI ICC, the competences in the Slovene CPKS IM seem to be much more similar to IMI ICC than to TIME. Considering that IMI ICC is a document defining intercultural mediators as professionals who perform mediation understood as “negotiation facilitated by a trusted neutral person” (International Mediation Institute 2021), while TIME defines intercultural mediation as “the facilitation of the integration process through the removal of both linguistic and cultural barriers”, it is not surprising that in the former transfer competence is completely absent and linguistic competence is barely mentioned (N=2), while in the latter the two competences are much more present (N=14 for transfer competence and N=11 for linguistic competence). Unlike in TIME and similarly to IMI ICC, in CPKS IM transfer competence is rarely mentioned (N=4), while linguistic competence is slightly more present (N=8); both are, however, much less prominent than the other competences. Figure 5. Comparison of CPKS IM with the set of profile competence documents for intercultural mediators. 6.3 Discussion Today we see in several European countries a competition between two professions, both aiming to assist migrants and facilitate integration into the receiving society: the profession of a community interpreter and that of an intercultural mediator. In different European countries the profiles of these professions are defined differently, and in some environments the boundaries between the two professions are blurred. The comparison of the two Slovene and four international definitions of the profiles show that the differences in competences between the two Slovene CPKSs reflect their different positioning in the Slovene KLASIUS framework. While the main tasks of community interpreters – to enable communication between people with different languages in order to ensure proper administration/use of public services – require primarily excellent linguistic and transfer competences, for intercultural mediators it is essential to acquire a well-developed thematic competence and a cultural competence, so as to inform the public service providers and users of the particularities of the host country and/or the country of origin. The comparisons of the Slovene definitions of the two profiles and the four international documents, defining the competences of both professions, provided an additional insight into the positioning of the Slovene standards. While the Slovene definition of a community interpreter demonstrates the essential adherence to the international standards, the comparison of Slovene standards with the two documents defining the competences of intercultural mediators proved less straightforward. The international documents defining the competences of an intercultural mediator reflect the current confusion about this profession in the labour market: IMI ICC thus defines an intercultural mediator primarily as a person who mediates and uses an interpreter when needed, while TIME merges the profession of an interpreter with that of a mediator. The comparison of the Slovene CPKS IM with the two international documents defining the profile of intercultural mediator shows that the Slovene standards do contain transfer competence, but to a lesser degree than the TIME competence document. In fact, the Slovene standards give the most prominent role to the cultural competence, similarly to IMI ICC competence document. 7 Conclusion Despite the fact that Slovenia is a country with an exceptionally high percentage of inhabitants who can use English as a lingua franca, and the fact that numerous migrants who come to Slovenia, including those who apply for international protection, claim that they can communicate in English, various research has shown that ELF cannot be effectively used in high risk situations, such as healthcare. In such cases, high-quality language support is essential. As a response to this need, two national vocational qualifications were registered in Slovenia in 2020: that of a community interpreter for Albanian, and that of an intercultural mediator. Moreover, two additional NVQs – Community Interpreter for Arabic and Persian –are currently in preparation. In this article, apart from examining the limitations of English as a lingua franca in public services, we have focused on the competences expressed in the two CPKSs, with the aim to establish the relative importance of the competences for each profile. We have confirmed the hypothesis that the competences are similar: in fact, the same competences are mentioned in both documents. The weight given to each competence, however, differs considerably. The greatest dissimilarities were found in the mentions of transfer and linguistic competence, which are very important for community interpreters, and conflict resolution and mediation competence, which is much more prominent with intercultural mediators. The comparison further revealed that the professional qualification for community interpreters closely followed the definitions of the profile by European associations and by the international ISO standard. The comparison of the Slovene standards for an intercultural mediator, however, showed that the Slovene vocational qualification did not follow the models where the profession of an interpreter is merged with that of a mediator, but opted for a description that defines the intercultural mediator as primarily an integration facilitator. This is also reflected in the testing procedure envisaged in both profiles: while the candidates for the national certificate of community interpreters will be tested in interpreting from and into Slovene, the candidates for the national certificate of intercultural mediators will be tested only in Slovene on their knowledge of the Slovene public institutions. Since the CPKSs came into being in 2020 and no certification exams have taken place as of the beginning of 2021, a limitation of this study is that currently the descriptors have not been tested in practice. This will be carried out as soon as examinations start. Finally, we hope that the establishment of the two National Vocational Qualifications is a step towards greater clarity and more clear-cut definitions of the two profiles on the labour market, which will have potential benefits both for the public service providers and users, who will be able to choose, for each task, the most appropriate professional, and will know what to expect from each of them. References Primary Sources International Mediation Institute. 2012. Criteria for Approving Programs to Qualify Mediators for IMI Inter-Cultural Certification. https://imimediation.org/. International Organization for Standardization (ISO). 2015. ISO 13611:2014 Interpreting – Guidelines for Community Interpreting. https://www.iso.org/standard/54082.html. Remael, Aline, Jan Cambridge, Ulrike Fuhrer, Heidi Salaets, and Carmen Valero-Garcés. n.d. 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Macek, Amalija, and Mojca Schlamberger Brezar. 2019. “Oddelek za prevajalstvo na Filozofski fakulteti UL.” In Bela knjiga o prevajanju 2018: premiki na podrocju prevajanja, tolmacenja, podnaslavljanja in lektoriranja v Sloveniji, edited by Barbara Pregelj, 52–54. Ljubljana: Društvo slovenskih književnih prevajalcev. https://www.belaknjigaoprevajanju.si/files/2019/03/Bela_knjiga_cela.pdf. Martín, Mayte, and Mary Phelan. 2010. “Interpreters and Cultural Mediators – Different but Complementary Roles.” Translocations: Migration and Social Change 6 (1): 1–20. https://doras.dcu.ie./16481/1/Martin_and_Phelan_Translocations.pdf. Mauranen, Anna. 2014. “Lingua Franca Discourse in Academic Contexts: Shaped by Complexity.” In Discourse in Context. Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 3, edited by John Flowerdew, 225–46. London: Bloomsbury. Milavec Kapun, Marija, and Nike K. Pokorn. 2019. “Jezikovne kompetence zdravstvenih delavcev.” In Vecjezicno zdravje: Komunikacijske strategije in veckulturni stiki s tujejezicnimi bolniki v slovenskem zdravstvenem sistemu, edited by Nike K. Pokorn and Uršula Lipovec Cebron, 48–65. Ljubljana: Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts. PISG Legal Information System. 2013. Administrative Procedure Act (ZUP). Zakon o splošnem upravnem postopku (ZUP). http://www.pisrs.si/Pis.web/npbDocPdf?idPredpisa=ZAKO6643&idPredpisaChng=.ZAKO1603&type=doc&lang=EN. Pöchhacker, Franz. 2008. “Interpreting as Mediation.” In Crossing Borders in Community Interpreting: Definitions and Dilemmas, edited by Carmen Valero-Garcés and Anne Martin, 9–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pokorn, Nike K., and Jaka Cibej. 2018a. “‘It’s So Vital to Learn Slovene’: Mediation Choices by Asylum Seekers in Slovenia.” Language Problems and Language Planning 42 (3): 265–84. https://doi.org/10..1075/lplp.00024.pok. —. 2018b. “‘Do I Want to Learn a Language Spoken by Two Million People?’: Mediation Choices by Mid-Term and Long-Term Migrants.” Language Problems and Language Planning 42 (3): 285–304. https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00025.pok. Pokorn, Nike K., and Tamara Mikolic Južnic. 2020. “Community Interpreters versus Intercultural Mediators. Is It Really All about the Ethics?” Translation and Interpreting Studies 15 (1): 80–107. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.20027.koc. —. 2021. “From Conference to Community Interpreter Education: The Transformation of Interpreter Education in Slovenia.” In Changing Paradigms and Approaches in Interpreter Training: Perspectives from Central Europe, edited by Pavol Šveda. New York: Routledge. Pokorn, Nike K., Maurizio Viezzi, and Tatjana Radanovic Feldberg, eds. 2020. Teacher Education for Community Interpreting and Intercultural Mediation. Selected Chapters. Ljubljana: Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts, and National institute of Public Health. Pokorn, Nike K., Mojca Maticic, and Marko Pokorn. 2009. “Medical Interpreting in a New Member State: A Plea for a Proactive Approach.” In Spürst du, wie der Bauch rauf-runter? Fachdolmetschen im Gesundheitsbereich / Is Everything All Topsy-Turvy in Your Tummy? Health Care Interpreting, edited by Sonja Pöllabauer and Dörte Andres, 171–80. München: Meidenbauer. Refki, Dina. H., Maria-Paz B. Avery, and Angela C. Dalton. 2008. Core Competencies for Health Care Interpreters: Research Report. https://www.albany.edu/womeningov/publications/core_competency.pdf. RIC – National Examination Centre. n.d. “General Information” https://www.ric.si/national_vocational._qualifications/general_information/. Schuster, Chiara. 2005. “Role and Status of Public Service Interpreters in Italy Today: A Perspective from Regional and National Policies.” In Traducción como mediación entre lenguas y culturas, edited by Carmen Valero-Garcés, 17–26. Madrid: Universidad de Alcalá. Theodosiou, Aspasia, and Maria Aspioti, eds. 2015. Research Report on Intercultural Mediation for Immigrants in Europe. TIME Project Partnership. http://mediation-time.eu/images/TIME_O1._Research_Report_v.2016.pdf. TIME. Train Intercultural Mediators for a Multicultural Europe. 2015. Intercultural Mediator Profile and Related Learning Outcomes. TIME Project Partnership. http://www.mediation-time.eu/images/TIME._O3_intercultural_mediator_profile.pdf. Verrept, Hans, and Isabelle Coune. 2016. Guide for Intercultural Mediation in Health Care. Brussels: FPS Health, Safety of the Food Chain and Environment. https://www.health.belgium.be/sites/default./files/uploads/fields/fpshealth_theme_file/2017_11_14_guide_english_0.pdf. Verrept, Hans. 2019. Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report 64. What are the roles of intercultural mediators in health care and what is the evidence on their contributions and effectiveness in improving accessibility and quality of care for refugees and migrants in the WHO European Region? World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. http://www.euro.who.int/_data/assets/pdf_file/0014./406004/WHO-HEN-Report-64-Summary-Web.pdf?ua=1. Vrecer, Natalija. 2007. Integracija kot clovekova pravica. Prisilni priseljenci iz Bosne in Hercegovine v Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, Andragoški center Republike Slovenije. In Search of the Essential Competences for Overcoming Language Barriers ... T. Mikolic Južnic, N. K. Pokorn Table 3. Comparison of the coded competences in the analysed documents.   Conflict resolu­tion and media­tion competence Cultural compe­tence Thematic compe­tence Linguistic compe­tence Transfer compe­tence CPKS CI 1 11 8 11 21 ENPSIT 0 5 2 9 11 ISO 13611/2014 3 10 2 9 9 IMI ICC 13 28 4 2 0 TIME 14 13 19 11 14 CPKS IM 13 23 22 8 4 CPKS IM CPKS CI Aleksandra NucUniversity of Maribor, SloveniaSonja PöllabauerUniversity of Vienna, Austria 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 37-54(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.37-54 UDC: 81'253:341.43 In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpreting ABSTRACT This paper explores photographs that were taken along the Austrian and Slovene border between 2015 and 2018 as ethnographic records of a specific field of interpreting. The photographs show interpreters who helped bridge communication barriers in situations when the mass displacement of refugees from the Middle East resulted in an increased demand for interpreters for a range of languages that had previously not been as sought after. The photographs come from a corpus of pictures and accompanying texts that were compiled through a picture search in digital media. Drawing on the constructs of (in)visibility and bodily semiotics, a set of chosen examples is analysed qualitatively, using a visually oriented approach to examine interpreters’ positionality and agency in transborder humanitarian interpreting. The results suggest a high degree of interactional agency and visibility, but less social visibility. Keywords: public service interpreting, humanitarian interpreting, visual analysis, interpreter agency, visibility V središcu pozornosti? Vidnost tolmacev in tolmack pri cezmejnem tolmacenju IZVLECEK V prispevku analiziramo fotografije, posnete vzdolž avstrijske in slovenske meje v letih od 2015 do 2018, ki predstavljajo etnografski posnetek specificnega tolmaškega okolja v zelo raznolikem kontekstu institucionalne in humanitarne interakcije. Na posnetkih so prikazani tolmaci in tolmacke, ki so pomagali premagovati komunikacijske ovire v casu, ko se je zaradi obsežnejših begunskih migracij iz Srednjega Vzhoda povecalo povpraševanje po tolmacenju v razlicnih situacijah ob in na nacionalnih mejah za najrazlicnejše jezike, po katerih pred tem ni bilo povpraševanja. Fotografije izvirajo iz korpusa fotografij in pripadajocih besedil, ki smo ga sestavili z iskanjem fotografij v digitalnih medijih. Na podlagi koncepta (ne)vidnosti in semiotike telesa v prispevku kvalitativno analiziramo nekaj izbranih fotografij z uporabo vizualno-naravnanega pristopa, kar omogoca proucitev pozicionalnosti in angažiranosti tolmacev in tolmack v okolju cezmejnega humanitarnega tolmacenja. Rezultati pricajo o visoki stopnji angažiranosti in vidnosti v interakciji ter o nižji stopnji socialne vidnosti. Kljucne besede: tolmacenje za potrebe skupnosti, humanitarno tolmacenje, vizualna analiza, tolmaška angažiranost, vidnost 1 Introduction A UNHCR handbook on training interpreters in asylum proceedings (UNHRC 2015, 2018) includes a quotation from a non-trained interpreter on its title page: “It is a fiction that I am neutral and invisible.” This remark addresses two multi-faceted concepts that are much present in interpreting (and translation) literature, and, as confirmed by the quotation, also among practitioners: neutrality and (in)visibility. The concept of visibility, which holds a prominent position in the extract, also forms the starting point for this contribution, which explores photographs that were taken along the Austrian and Slovene border between 2015 and 2018 as ethnographic records of a specific field of interpreting in the context of institutional and humanitarian interaction. The photographs show individuals who supposedly helped bridge communication barriers. In the wake of the mass displacement of refugees from the Middle East, who made their way by various routes across Europe in the mid-2010s, the demand for interpreters increased, especially for rarer1 non-European languages which had not been in high demand before. The term interpreter as we use it in this contribution refers to what are called community interpreters (public services interpreters, dialogue interpreters, liaison interpreters), who may be either trained or untrained interpreters. The profile of interpreter should be distinguished from that of intercultural mediator (also mother-tongue mediator, cultural mediator or integration assistant), whose task is to assist and support migrants (see Pokorn 2020, 10–11, Pokorn et al. 2020, and Pokorn and Mikolic. Juz.nic. 2020 for a more detailed outline of these occupational profiles). Our countries, Austria and Slovenia, which have one joint border that lies along the Western Balkans route, also had to cope with increased demand for interpreting. It was our impression in the wake of these developments that it was not only language barriers (see Federici 2020) and the often-urgent need for interpreters that were more present in the media than before, but that interpreters were also more often shown in photographs and thus were literally more visible. It is not our intent to quantify this impression, and neither would our corpus allow for such an assessment, but we take Fernández-Ocampo and Wolf’s (2014a, 72) suggestion that photographs are an “ethnographic record” of a field, as a starting point to discuss interpreters’ visual and visible positionality in the specific field of transborder interpreting.2 We use the concept of visibility to analyse photographs of interpreters in action in close vicinity to the Austrian-Slovene border between 2015 and 2018 (border control stations, reception centres) to take a glimpse into interpreting practice. Our overarching research question is what photographs such as those chosen for this contribution may tell us about the tangible physical visibility, positionality and agency of interpreters/mediators in such specific situations. Based on what can be gleaned from a 1 In interpreting literature, languages that are not much sought-after in terms of the market are often referred to as languages of limited diffusion, or, in a less neutral register, as exotic or migrant/refugee languages. This labelling, however, depends on the user’s perspective: in an interpreting context, a language that is rare in one country may have a large number of speakers in other environments, which also holds true for some of the languages that were in high demand in the situations shown in the photographic examples we use (e.g., Dari, Farsi and Arabic). 2 The “pictorial turn”, as it was coined by Mitchell (1992), brought about a reorientation towards visual analysis. A number of authors have adopted such approaches in interpreting studies, but there does not yet seem to exist an agreed analytical or methodological framework for conducting such visually oriented analyses (see for instance Fernández-Ocampo and Wolf 2014b; Zimányi 2015; Baigorri-Jalón 2016; Torresi 2017).review of the public service interpreting (PSI) literature, we hypothesize that interpreters are physically visible in many of the photographs and that the photographs will show instances of open agency and involvement. Photographs can play an important role in addressing dimensions of visibility because they generate meaning “on a non-linguistic level” (Breckner 2010, 107; our translation3) and “add something to the world, a visible object of a view which would not exist without this picture or these kinds of pictures” (Breckner 2010, 107). Photographs, as objects of study, allow for a specific perspective, which can only be consciously perceived after close and “reflexive attention” (Breckner 2010, 94). This conscious perception results in social visibility and, theoretically, increased social recognition. Following Brighenti, recognition is a form of social visibility that may also have important consequences for the relationship between a minority group and a majority (2007, 329), which seems particularly relevant for a field like PSI, where one party in an interpreter-mediated encounter belongs to a marginalized clientele, often the “losers of globalisation” (Prunc 2017, 25), with low social, economic and cultural status, while the other (institutional) party often has a higher status as a member of the majority group, and where interpreters, who may also have a minority background, may “fall prey to this powerlessness” (Prunc 2017, 25). Visibility is also an important social category that is shaped by information and communication technologies: [...] As communication technologies enlarge the field of the socially visible, visibility becomes a supply and demand market. At any enlargement of the field, the question arises of what is worth being seen at which price – along with the normative question of what should and what should not be seen. These questions are never simply a technical matter: they are inherently practical and political. (Brighenti 2007, 327) This practical and political dimension of visibility is also closely linked, though not in a linear fashion, with various dimensions of social recognition: “[t]hresholds of visibility come into play here: there is a minimum and a maximum of what we may call ‘fair visibility’ – regardless of the fairness criteria we want to adopt. Below the lower threshold, you are socially excluded” (Brighenti 2007, 329–30). Once an individual enters the upper zone of fair visibility, however, they are in a zone of “supra-visibility, or super-visibility, where everything you do becomes gigantic” (Brighenti 2007, 331). The social visibility of an individual or a group of people can thus be lowered or increased through visual addressing, which makes photographs an interesting tool for studying a specific field. We will outline the geopolitical background of the context in which the photographs we analyse were taken, before discussing various dimensions of interpreter visibility, which will be used for our analysis of a sample of four photographs from our corpus. Corpus compilation and our methodological approach are described in section 4, which is followed by our analysis of the chosen set of photographs. 3 All quotations from German-language publications are the authors’ translations unless otherwise specified. 2 Geopolitical Context and Research Coverage What has negatively been portrayed as the European refugee crisis in the mass media is a situation that started around 2013 and peaked in 2015/2016, where large groups of refugees of varied origin travelled by many routes and across various states in the Near East and Europe to reach destination countries in Europe, a movement which tested European reception and asylum systems (UNHCR 2016, 34). The major source countries for arrivals in the Mediterranean in 2015 were Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq (UNHCR 2016, 35). In peak times, the groups of people on their way towards the north were so numerous that many countries no longer saw fit to impose any kind of border controls, and large groups crossed the borders between countries unimpeded. After governments tried to regain control by stepping up border controls and setting up fences and temporary camps to steer these movements and restrict access, the situation often still remained challenging for some time, with transit camps and fenced-off areas, for instance at the major border crossing between Austria and Slovenia, Spielfeld/Šentilj. Management was often sustained only through the help of volunteers and humanitarian organizations (Mokre 2015), and communication barriers were also often bridged through the help of volunteer translators/interpreters. Studies on the role of interpreters in these contexts are scarce4. From what little is known, many of these volunteer interpreters were highly committed and driven by the need to help (see, for instance, Wagner 2017), though media reports also indicated cases of mismanagement where interpreters were given considerable leeway (Mokre 2015, 29–44; Pišek and Šucur 2016). Since then, many countries have closed off their borders and established stronger control, and refugees have become stranded in camps in different countries with often inhumane conditions. On an international level, the literature on the positionality of interpreters in such transnational transit zones also remains scarce. Only a small number of contributions seem to have addressed issues of interpreting in relation to these more recent European developments in more depth (Todorova 2017; Cemerin 2019; Rudvin and Carfagnini 2020; Todorova 2020; also see Declercq and Federici 2019).5 Besides, organizations such as Translators without Borders (2017 a, b) have also addressed the topic and prepared “field guides” for “humanitarian interpreting and cultural mediation” (for a critical review of volunteerism and activism in this context, see Piróth and Baker 2019). The kind of interpreting that takes place in such transnational conflict situations has produced a number of new labels, such as “interpreting in conflict zones” (Ruiz 2020), “humanitarian interpreting” (Delgado-Luchner and Kherbiche 2018), or “shuttle interpreting” (Todorova 2017); the demarcation lines between these still seem to be hazy, however, and, depending on the concrete situation, the field shows parallels to fields of extra-court legal interpreting, such as asylum interpreting. 4 There are a small number of studies dealing with communication problems arising from the mass displacement of refugees from a Slovene perspective, focusing, e.g., on mediation strategies used by migrants (Pokorn and Cibej 2018a, 308–27), commonly used communication strategies of asylum seekers (Pokorn and Cibej 2018b, 288–307) and community interpreting in various settings (Morel and Gorjanc 2016). 5 For studies on an extra-European context, see for instance, Delgado-Luchner and Kherbiche (2018) on Kenya, or Wallace and Hernandez (2017) on the situation along the Texan border. 3 Dimensions of Interpreter Visibility We will study interpreters’ visibility on three levels. Our first dimension of visibility will be interpreters’ tangible physical visibility, and how this category is discernible in the photographs we use as examples. Secondly, we will address visibility as an interaction-related category to take a look at what the photographs in our corpus may tell us about the degree of interpreter “agency” (Kinnunen and Koskinen 2010). For this, we will make use of Kalverkämper’s (2008) observations on bodily semiotics and his typology of different types of bodily communication and posture used by interpreters. Our third dimension will address interpreters’ social visibility and recognition. 3.1 Physical Visibility A first dimension of visibility is interpreters’ concrete physical visibility, which is particularly tangible in the field of PSI, where there is often little distance, at least in face-to-face interpreting,6 between interactants. When taking a first look at interpreters in photographs, the initial step will be to ascertain who is who: who of those framed in a photograph are interpreters, what are their relations to other individuals shown, and how is their supposed function signalled to users? We assume that in spite, or perhaps because, of the chaotic situations in which interpreters had to work in the examples we use, they will have made use of or been given some kind of external signage (vests, badges or signs) to make them distinguishable from others. 3.2 Interactional Visibility The introductory quotation is multi-faceted in that it mixes two complex concepts, and it may remind readers of Metzger’s (1999) deconstruction of the “myth of neutrality”: It links the concept of neutrality, as a central tenet of codes of ethics and a maxim that is also conveyed in interpreter education, to the concept of visibility. Neutrality, in its literal sense, means that interpreters should not take sides but should be impartial, although as Harrington holds (2004, 110), from a more linguistic perspective, “it can be used to describe the extent to which an interpreter might remain faithful to the content and form of each utterance” and can thus be linked to the old debate about faithful or free translation and the bon mot of “traduttore – traditore”. Recently, the construct of impartiality has been expanded to concepts such as “multipartiality” (Kadric in print), which seek to underline that interpreters have an equal responsibility towards all primary participants, even though, as convincing as this may seem, examples from the field of PSI suggest that this will not always be feasible for moral/ethical reasons (Pöllabauer and Topolovec 2020). (In)visibility, with a focus on interpreting, has been linked to the role and the degree of agency interpreters have and perform in a given situation. As a metaphor, invisibility has been used if interpreters are viewed as mere “conduits” (Roy 1993) and mechanistic language converters, a view that has been particularly prominent, and sometimes vociferously supported, in conference interpreting (Angelelli 2004b, 20), where interpreters are viewed as invisible as long as they produce “fluent”, elegant renditions and become visible only if they intervene (Torikai 2009, 6 The situation is different in distance interpreting, yet issues of physical visibility are equally important. 158). The fact that, for instance in monological situations such a simultaneous conference interpreting, interpreters in their booths are indeed invisible (or minimally visible) to their audience, can explain why such metaphors have come into use (Torikai 2009, 158) and are still popular among some representatives of this faction (Angelelli 2004b, 79), though more recent studies have shown that conference interpreters also view themselves more broadly as “facilitators of communication” or “intermediaries” (Zwischenberger 2009, 247; see also Diriker 2004). With an increased focus on dialogical situations in court and in different fields of PSI, the invisibility metaphor has lost its persuasiveness, since interpreters are physically visible in dialogical face-to-face situations through their sheer presence in close proximity to the primary interactants, and occasionally heavily involved in situations. Starting with ground-breaking studies such as those by Wadensjö (1998) or Metzger (1999), many studies have since shown that interpreters in such fields adopt a more visible participatory role (Angelelli 2004a, 16) in explicitly and implicitly coordinating talk (Wadensjö 1998, 108–10). As Martínez-Gómez claims, the maxim of invisibility “has […] started to be deconstructed in favour of the image of interpreters as active third parties who exert their agency in order to help to achieve interactional goals, be it through the organization of talk or by participating with their own voices” (2015, 189). Here the aforementioned agency concept comes into play, defined as the “the willingness and ability to act” (Kinunen and Koskinen 2010, 165). Angelelli (2004a) views interpreters’ agency along a “visibility continuum”, with “minor visibility” if interpreters are “co-owners” of texts and “major visibility” if they are original authors and “owners of texts” (see also Zhan and Zeng 2017). If visibility is limited to coordinating talk (Wadensjö 1998), interpreters may still be impartial in that they are equally aligned with all parties. If, however, visibility means taking sides or advocating (Barsky 1996) on behalf of one party, interpreters are no longer in a position to serve as neutral intermediaries. And in more extreme situations, where interpreters feel morally obliged to become involved (Camayd-Freixas 2013), visibility may even entail the conscious decision to forfeit impartiality to protect the interests of the weaker party, as advocated by some. To what degree such an advocacy position, where the lines between interpreting and mediation seem blurred, is accepted, has however, been subject to controversy (Pöllabauer 2015).We aim to analyse how interactional visibility is reflected in examples from our corpus and will use three categories of Kalverkämper’s typology of interpreters’ bodily agency and types of posture (2008, 107–48). Kalverkämper underlines the primacy of the “communicative body” by deconstructing one of the most famous biblical sentences: “In the beginning, there was the body” (2008, 78). Based on the assumption that nonverbal communication plays a central role in communication, he links aspects of visibility with “types of posture”. His category of the “political body”, where interpreters represent specific interests, is related to the view that interpreters have the power to intervene, interfere, or correct (2008, 114). Interpreting may be viewed as a political act if interpreters side with one party (2008, 130). The category of the “functional body”, where in his view interpreter “co-act” (2008, 131) relates to the serving role of interpreters, not in the sense of submissive service, but in the sense of functioning as professional intermediaries in a given situation between other interactants. The prefix con- is used to account for the more traditional view of the role of interpreters outlined above, which, according to Kalverkämper, is still upheld particularly by conference interpreters, who tend to A. Nuc, S. Pöllabauer In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpretingview themselves and their bodily communication as instruments (con-actants) in a situation (2008, 134). Interactivity is linked with Kalverkämper’s third category of the “engaged body”, where interpreters engage as helping agents (2008, 146–48); in such a function, interpreters truly inter-act with others but may sometimes also serve as helpers and highly committed active agents. 3.3 Social Visibility (In)visibility, as a concept, has also been used to indicate that in translation the influence of translators on text design has often been ignored or underestimated, especially if target texts are aligned to the target cultural conventions (“domesticated”) and are fluent translations, to be read as if they were originals (Venuti 2008). If translators produce translations that are domesticating, they are less visible, and their work, according to Venuti, also often finds little recognition (e.g., translators are often not even mentioned).7 In this sense, (in)visibility is linked with the social recognition of translators. This dimension of visibility has become a central topic in critical media studies, which address the links between visibility and recognition and how these processes shape the granting and gaining of access to economic, social, and cultural resources (Thomas et al. 2017, 11). With respect to interpreting, visibility can also be linked to recognition: for Takeda, social recognition is an important facet of interpreters’ visibility and involves “seeing” the interpreter in a metaphoric sense: “[…] the ‘seeing’ is performed by all parties, whether present or not, and visibility is determined by whether these parties note the action or existence of interpreters, either positively or negatively” (Takeda 2014, 151). Wolf and Fernández-Ocampo (2014, 4)also link the study of pictures from a range of war contexts with the social recognitionof interpreters in their approach to a visual perspective: “Being produced and consumedby agents external to the interpreting profession, visual documents and representationsof interpreters cast light on the visibility of the translator. However, they also show howinterpreting overlaps with other professional and symbolic activities”. PSI is one of thosefields of interpreting where interpreters have little social recognition in the form of symbolic capital (Prunc 2017). It is thus interesting to study what kinds of social visibility can beread into the examples that are studied in this contribution under section 5. In section 4,below, we will outline our corpus and methodological approach. 4 Corpus Compilation and Methodology Following Brighenti’s assumption that mass media can be viewed as “high-visibility places endowed with the quality of conferring visibility to the people who join them” (Brighenti 2007, 332), we decided to use the Internet as a reservoir of digital mass media to compile our corpus. We conducted an online search via the Google web browser8 in November 2020, with the picture search function to narrow results (only hits from the first results page 7 Venuti relates to Schleiermacher’s view of foreignizing vs. domesticating translation strategies, though his views differ from Schleiermacher in that he sees foreignizing as a dissident practice that could help translators to be more visible, while Schleiermacher sees it as a form of enriching the target cultural codes (Prunc 2012, 311). 8 The surprisingly high number of results that were yielded through a search via a widely used commercial browser such as Google, made us change our initial plans to subsequently expand our search to browsers that are less commercial and more specific picture search engines. This, however, might be a suggestion for similar projects with a broader scope.were included). The results included hits from different digital media (newspapers, blogs, forums, journals and website text). A previously agreed set of German and Slovene search words (incl. truncation and Boolean operators) was used.9 The following exclusion criteria were used to narrow the hits: 1) material dated before 2013, 2) situations that are most probably not interpreting situations, and 3) material addressing the situation in countries other than Austria or Slovenia. Criteria to assess the eligibility of those records that passed the first screening were that at least one of the individuals shown in the photograph could be assumed to be an interpreter because of 1)visible signs (badges, vests), 2) picture captions, 3) accompanying text, or 4) picturecontent (the “situation”). Following the exclusion of records based on these exclusioncriteria, the final corpus included a total of 43 photographs, four of which were analysedin more detail in this contribution. Two were chosen from the German records and twofrom the Slovene. Our criterion for selection of this sample was that the situations shownbe as diverse as possible. The flowchart10 in Figure 1 documents the search process andinclusion/exclusion criteria. Our analysis of four examples from our corpus comprises two steps: 1) description of the factual context, if available at all, for the chosen photographs (date of publication, medium, photographer, captions and any additional information available); 2) description of the interpreters’ agency and alignment to other interactants as visible from what is shown in these photographs based on the dimensions of visibility outlined above. Our interpretations are complemented, if available, by information and comments from the co-texts in which the photographs are embedded. Formal written permission for the reproduction of all the photographs was obtained from the copyright holders. 9 German search phrases: “Dolmetschen/Dolmetscher + Grenze” [interpreting/interpreter + border]; “Übersetzen/Übersetzer + Grenze” [translation/translator + border]; “Dolmetschen/Dolmetscher + Flucht” [interpreting/interpreter + displacement]; “Übersetzen/Übersetzer + Flucht“ [translation/translator + displacement]; “Dolmetschen/Dolmetscher + Flüchtling(e)” [interpreter + refugee(s)]; “Übersetzen/Übersetzer + Flüchtling(e)” [translation/translator + refugee(s)]; “Dolmetschen/Dolmetscher + Asylwerber” [interpreting/interpreter + asylum seekers]; Slovene search phrases: “tolmacenje/tolmac + meja” [interpreting/interpreter + border]; “prevajanje/prevajalec +meja” [translation/translator + border]; “tolmacenje/tolmac + mejni prehod” [interpreting/interpreter + bordercrossing]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + mejni prehod” [translation/translator + border crossing]; “tolmacenje/tolmac +beg” [interpreting/interpreter + displacement]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + beg” [translation/translator + displacement];“tolmacenje/tolmac + begunec/begunci” [interpreting/interpreter + refugee(s)]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + begunec/begunci” [translation/translator + refugee(s)]; “tolmacenje/tolmac + migrant/migranti” [interpreting/interpreter +migrant(s)]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + migrant/migranti” [translation/translator + migrant(s)]; “tolmacenje/tolmac+prebežnik/prebežniki” [interpreting/interpreter + fugitive(s)]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + prebežnik/prebežniki”[translation/translator + fugitive(s)]; “tolmacenje/tolmac + prosilec za azil/prosilci za azil” [interpreting/interpreter +applicant(s) for asylum]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + prosilec za azil/prosilci za azil” [translation/translator + applicant(s) for asylum]; “tolmacenje/tolmac + iskalec azila/iskalci azila” [interpreting/interpreter + asylum seeker(s)]; “prevajanje/prevajalec + iskalec azila/iskalci azila” [translation/translator + interpreter + asylum seeker(s)]. (Owing to wording and the availability/frequency of synonyms, the Slovene list of terms is longer than the German.) 10 The flowchart (Moher et al. 2009) is an adapted version of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram that, apart from reviews and meta-analyses, may also be used for other types of research. 5 Analysis: In the Limelight? As outlined above, the focus of this analysis will lie on the physical visibility, positionality and agency of the individuals serving as interpreters/mediators in these photographs. This photograph was published on the online portal Pomurec.com on 17 October 2015 (N.N. 2015). It appeared as part of a series of photographs that were taken in the border town of Petišovci and at the Dolga vas border crossing; the photographer is not credited. The article describes the registration of refugees, and in connection with this the interpreter (the man with glasses in the black jacket and brown trousers) is briefly mentioned. His role in the registration process is also clear from the photograph, in which a migrant shows his document to the interpreter. The physical visibility of the interpreter for the migrants and other people at the location was based solely on his positioning; other photos published in the article indicate that officials were sitting on the other side of the table. It can thus be concluded that the man functioned as an interpreter between the officials and the refugees during the registration process. It is evident from the photograph that the interpreter was not wearing a vest with the label “interpreter”. The angle from which the photograph was taken does not allow viewers to determine whether he wore any other kind of visible external designation (e.g., a badge) indicating his function. The photograph was not given a caption or further commented upon; therefore, the interpreter was not clearly identifiable as such for readers of the online portal. Unlike in conference interpreting at high-level political meetings, for example, where the primary interlocutors often exclusively maintain eye contact with one another (Kalverkämper 2008, 145), here the refugee holding the documents explicitly turns physically towards the interpreter. The police officer or border official, for whom the refugee’s statement is being interpreted, is not shown in the photograph. The aforementioned eye contact suggests that at this point the official was not directly involved in the conversation. Instead, it can be presumed that the interpreter was clarifying a specific matter with the refugee, which he then (possibly) rendered for the official, perhaps in a summarized form. Thus, in the framework of interactional visibility, the interpreter in the photograph appears to adopt an active, engaged role, possibly also seeking to help the man with whom he speaks. In the photographed moment, the interpreter and the migrant have eye contact exclusively with each other and are disregarding the official. Perhaps the interpreter also served as “principal” (Wadensjö 1998, 88), asking the refugee for clarification without having been asked to do so by the official. Thus, the act of interpreting may also have a political dimension, which is further emphasized by the fact that the interpreter works while standing; a certain position of power can thus be ascribed to him also. The interpreter’s social visibility in this case is low. The photograph was not provided with any further detailed commentary, nor was it captioned. The photograph in Figure 3 published on the Slovene online news portal 24ur.com on 21 October 2015 (S.S., K.H. and STA 2015). It was taken at the railway station in Središce ob Dravi, and the Slovene police are credited as the author of the photograph. The photograph appears in an article along with 16 other photographs, all of which are provided with the caption Police officers in Središce ob Dravi. The man in the black jacket with “Interpreter” written in white letters on it can easily be identified as the interpreter. This ensured the interpreter’s physical visibility for both the migrants and other people at the location, as well as for readers of the article. With respect to the degree of interactional agency adopted by the interpreter, the interpreter is very present and very visible in the centre of this photograph. He seems to be friendly or joking, although it is unclear whether with the police officer or the other man who stands smiling between the police officer and the interpreter, though clearly not with the family standing to the left of the interpreter. The hand gestures used by the interpreter and the man in the middle of the photograph suggest that they might be the main interactants at this precise moment. From the interpreter’s positioning, which is a triangular, equidistant arrangement between interpreter, police official, and the interlocutor to the interpreter’s right, and the direction he faces, one can speculatively deduce that he is not primarily focused on mediating between the family to his left, who are more in the role of passive bystanders, and the official. From the interpreter’s posture, it is evident that he is turned solely to the police officer and the other man at the centre of the interactional triangle, thereby adopting the role of a “positioned interpreter” (Kalverkämper 2008, 118) to the communication partners. The man with the two children at his left is standing aside, at a distance from the conversation zone, as if he were not part of the conversation. It can also be presumed that in this conversation with the police officer, the interpreter is trying to clarify something for the man with the two children, but his proxemic posture possibly indicates a hierarchical relationship and thus suggests that the interpreter is clarifying a specific matter with the police officer without directly involving the migrant and his children (see also Tryuk 2017, 191, who suggests that it is unrealistic to expect that interpreters will not align with officials if they are positioned near them when interpreting). It could also be assumed that the interpreter is an official police interpreter, which might again have an influence on his loyalty towards his employer (police) and his other client(s). The interpreter in this photograph is not socially recognized in his function as interpreter at all: he is not mentioned, either in the text or in the caption. The photograph in Figure 4 was published on 04 April 2017 in the online version of the Austrian daily Kurier, under the heading “Asylum and Police: 24.6 million euro for interpreters” (Wammerl 2017). The caption reads: “With the refugee crisis, costs for interpreters increased”; the photographer’s name is available if one clicks on a separate information button. The article itself addresses the high overall costs for interpreters in the wake of the refugee crisis, and very negatively links it with “crime rates among foreigners” and a “communication problem”. The first sentences set the tone for the remainder of the article: “The refugee crisis and a crime rate of almost 40% among foreigners confronts Austrian authorities with a massive communication problem”. The photograph was also used some time after it was presumably taken at the Austrian/Slovene border to illustrate what is said in this article. The interpreter is clearly physically visible by the bright orange vest he wears, showing the word Translator and its Arabic translation. He is shown in interaction with a group of male persons who, for the average reader, will most probably be identifiable as foreigners through their physical appearance. And though the photograph does not explicitly say so, a reader so-inclined will most probably link the individuals shown in the photograph with the biased portrayal of foreign nationals that dominates the entire article. The interpreter himself is shown only from behind, and his physical posture is one of attentive listening. The fact that he seems to bury his hands in the pockets of his vest may be interpreted either as a touch of reserve or simply as a strategy to protect himself from the cold, since the others’ posture also suggests that this was a cold spring day. It appears that one man in this group of men, which is a small sub-group within a larger group of people that is faintly visible in the background of the photograph, is the main speaker, with a hand gesture that could be negatively interpreted as imperious. And though the interpreter does not seem to be overly active at this given moment, his interactional visibility is still distinct: he is shown in a group of individuals, possibly his fellow nationals, although this cannot be proven through the accompanying text, nor assumed based on his appearance, as he is shown only from behind, and he is at the centre of the group and attention. There is no other party visible for whom he interprets, so he seems to act in a production role as the principal, providing information on his own. The interpreter’s social visibility and recognition are very low in this case, owing to the tone of the article. At the end of the text he is indirectly outed as a “lay interpreter” – which will most probably be the case, since there was hardly any training available for interpreters for languages such as Arabic or Dari/Farsi, which were much needed in the period when the photographs were taken. The text uses a quotation from a representative of the Austrian Court Interpreters Association to negatively juxtapose the use of lay interpreters with the use of court interpreters: “The police often use lay interpreters. These are for instance taxi drivers with good language skills. But the responsibility is extremely high”. And while the use of lay interpreters is indeed problematic, the way this quotation is used in the text seems to reflect a certain degree of reservation on the part of established groups of interpreters towards newcomers, even if they are needed for specific languages when no trained interpreters are available for certain language combinations.A. Nuc, S. Pöllabauer In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpreting The photograph in Figure 5 was was published on 23 October 2015 in both the print and online version of an article in the Austrian daily Der Standard, together with two other photographs (Schmidt 2015). Both the author’s name and the photographer’s name are given. In the photograph that was chosen as an example, the interpreter is referred to by her first name (Moni). She does not wear a vest or any other visible sign but is identified through the photograph’s caption, which says, “Interpreter Moni explains in Farsi what will happen”. This caption clearly identifies the woman standing in front of a group of refugees in a gym as the interpreter. Her role as interpreter as identifiable through this photograph is again a very active one: She is the one providing information to an entire group of people, who seem to listen attentively to what she says. Moni, who is introduced in the article as a senior citizen with a Farsi background, who has been living in Austria for a long time, again seems to be the original author of what she says; there is no other party visible whose utterances she might render. Her work is portrayed in a very positive manner, making her also socially visible. Translation is viewed as a means of preventing “panic”: “Retiree Moni knows how important translation is because ‘the people then know what happens to them and this prevents them from panicking’”. The article lends voice to Moni’s view of interpreting, where cultural explanations are described as an integral part of her task: “We explained that people here are friendly, that they don’t need to be afraid and that they will be taken to Vienna in buses[.]” 6 Conclusion The analysis we present in this contribution is an attempt at describing interpreters’ physical visibility, agency and positionality in transborder humanitarian interpreting, based on a visual approach that is complemented by integrating information gleaned from accompanying co-text(s). This approach could be expanded by extending the overall corpus (alternative search strings, search machines), including more examples in the analysis, and integrating additional interdisciplinary perspectives for visual analysis. It might also be interesting to pay closer attention to the differences in the portrayal of interpreters in Austrian and Slovene media against a background of different political and sociocultural parameters. The situational and interactional context shown in the photographs we chose underlines the established fact that this was not an ordinary context, but that the overall circumstances were extraordinary and offered specific challenges for anyone involved in these situations, interpreters and others. Physically, interpreters were more visible in a greater number of photographs than we had originally expected. In this respect, it might be interesting to see whether their media visibility has indeed changed in view of these circumstances: just as many refugees were only paid attention and only obtained real visibility when they arrived in Europe in larger numbers, interpreters only seem to have obtained greater visibility because of this situation and because they were suddenly needed in larger numbers.Their positionality as interpreters, often wrongly but typically for media reports labelled as translators, was indicated in the photographs by visible signs such as badges or vests, but also by their presence and posture in a specific interactional space. What could also be deduced, not unexpectedly, from the situations shown in the photographs under review, was that the other interactants accepted, or perhaps even expected, a high(er) degree of interactional agency (visibility) which seems to support our initial hypothesis. What we cannot deduce for sure from the photographs is whether the interpreters offered their services as volunteers or were officially appointed, though, as far as we can tell from the accompanying texts, some of them will not have received prior training in interpreting, though some seem to have had long-term experience. This volunteering perspective and interpreters’ positionality as volunteer-interpreters are visible in the active attempt by many of the interpreters in these photographs to help, assist and even comfort and reassure, as explained in some of the co-texts. And even though the mediators shown in these photographs are presented as translators, as a common umbrella term for translation and interpreting, the situations in which they were precipitated would most probably not always have involved interpreting proper but rather a form of explaining matters to (larger) groups of individuals; if institutional representatives are shown, they are mostly shown in a less active, waiting position, while the interpreters are at the centre of the photographs and apparently the attention. Yet, even though interpreters may have been in the limelight, at least in some of these situations, for some moments and in this set of photographs, their agency and positionality are not comprehensively recognized, in the sense of social recognition and visibility, at least not in the small sample of photographs that was chosen for this analysis. While some of the accompanying texts positively, and sometimes quite warmly, recognize their important position as mediators amidst a challenging and chaotic situation, others fail to acknowledge their presence or function at all, even though large sums of money were invested in paying for interpreting services (Bergunde and Pöllabauer 2019, 1–2). There are also limitations to our approach that we would like to address: We drew assumptions on a visual basis and on additional co-texts only, and cannot corroborate our suppositions about the interpreters’ agency or the assumed relations in the photographs, since we lack information on their background and biography, and on whether they are interpreters or A. Nuc, S. Pöllabauer In the Limelight? Interpreters’ Visibility in Transborder Interpretingintercultural mediators, except for what is stated in the accompanying co-texts. In some cases, additional research and sleuthing might turn up additional personal information; in other cases, it might not be possible to identify the persons in the photographs and get in touch with them. It might, however, be a valuable additional perspective for similar research, or even a follow-up study, to have interpreters retrospectively analyse their positioning and the associated challenges. In spite of these limitations, and while the corpus we have chosen for this contribution allows only a small glimpse into interpreting in action in a particular interactional space, we nonetheless think that working with pictures may help to shed light on the interactional agency of interpreters, and it is hoped that other studies will also attempt to address issues of interpreters’ positionality through a visual approach. 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(© Dieter Schmidt) Giuseppe Palumbo University of Trieste, Italy 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 55-69(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.55-69 UDC: 81'25=111:655.4/.5(73) “Visible” at Last? Some Notes on English as a Target Language and Translated Books in the US ABSTRACT In the international system of translations, English has been described as playing a “hyper-central” role. At the same time, translation is seen as playing a marginal role in the Anglo-American cultural and publishing scenarios. The present paper is aimed at revisiting this idea. After an overview of recent studies that have examined the role and significance of translated titles in the publishing markets of English-speaking countries, the paper reports on an exploratory analysis of records available in a database that collects information on books in translation published or distributed in the US starting from 2008. The analysis indicates that translation is enjoying a renewed attention in the US market, in terms of both the number of translated titles and the distribution of translations across different genres. Keywords: translated books, translation flows, globalization, translation into English, translated literature Koncno “vidni”? Anglešcina kot ciljni jezik in prevedene knjige v ZDA IZVLECEK V mednarodnem prevodnem sistemu velja, da anglešcina zavzema »hipersredišcni« položaj, prevajanje v kontekstu anglo-ameriške kulture in založništva pa obrobnega. Pricujoci prispevek je posvecen ponovnemu premisleku o tej ideji. Po pregledu novejših raziskav, ki so razclenile vlogo in pomen prevodov na založniških trgih angleško govorecih držav, je v clanku predstavljena analiza baze podatkov, v kateri se zbirajo informacije o prevedenih knjigah, ki se izdajajo ali distribuirajo v ZDA od leta 2008 dalje. Analiza kaže, da je prevajanje znova deležno vecje pozornosti tudi na ameriškem trgu, tako kar zadeva število prevodov, kot tudi žanrov, ki se prevajajo. Kljucne besede: prevedene knjige, prevodni tokovi, globalizacija, prevajanje v anglešcino, prevodna književnost 1 Introduction The role of English with respect to translation has recently received renewed attention on the part of scholars. Not only in translation studies, but also in areas such as linguistics, literary studies, cultural sociology and publishing, both scholars and commentators have felt the need to reappraise the ways in which English, seen as the dominant language of international communication, affects the dynamics of translation markets and, more generally, of language and cultural contact. In this article I propose an overview of studies which in recent years have looked at the role of English in the international system of translations and, more specifically, at the role and significance of translated titles in the publishing markets of English-speaking countries. My immediate aim is to check whether the traditional view of English as primarily a source language in the publishing industry is still justified. Statistical data about the number of translated titles that are published and sold in English-speaking countries would seem to support this view, but their reliability has been put into question (Pym and Chrupala 2005, 31–32; Zhou and Sun 2017, 115–16). At the same time, quite a few scholars and observers have pointed to an increased attention and a change of attitude towards translated literature in the media. This may have been helped on the one hand by the new modes of distribution of published titles (in terms of formats, such as e-books and audio books, and online commercial platforms) and, on the other, by the increased tendency to rely on the interaction between media formats to promote best-selling authors, who are effectively turned into franchises responsible for books but also films and, increasingly, TV series based on or inspired by their books. The studies included in the present overview are concerned with issues related to the following questions: is it true that the number of books in translation sold in English-speaking markets is still very limited compared to other markets? Considering the books that are translated into English, is it possible to detect patterns in terms of source languages, countries of origin and genres? If, regardless of changes in sales, a renewed attention to translated titles by critics and the media can be assumed, what is it that led to this change? How do literary works cross borders in general, and what factors play a predominant role when the literary border-crossing occurs from the “periphery” to the “core” of the global publishing market? What are the linguistic and stylistic features of translated literature in English? My intention is not that of providing extensive and definitive answers to these questions. Rather, I’d like to sketch out a few ideas and try to link them to new approaches that relate translation to the dynamics of the global circulation of goods and commodities, including cultural and intellectual products. I am interested, in other words, to learn more about the ways in which investigating translation into English, i.e., the dominant, “hyper-central” (Heilbron 2000) language of the global publishing market, can contribute to delineating “the disciplinary changes that a global focus brings to translation studies” (Bielsa 2020, 3). These changes have to do both with the emergence of new topics for research and the adoption of new methodological perspectives and paradigms, especially ones that are better suited to account for the at times extreme language diversity associated with today’s global exchanges. One overarching idea for the questions explored in my discussion is that of “translation flows”, as initially characterized by Heilbron (1999). These flows can be observed in essentially quantitative terms (i.e., how many books are translated between any given pair of languages), but hypotheses can also be put forward, with reference to a variety of factors, as to what produces or conditions these flows. These factors may have to do, for instance, with the relative prestige of the languages and cultures involved, the role of individuals (e.g., translators or literary agents), policy decisions, or business or marketing strategies. One notion that should never be left aside when observing and analysing translation flows is that books are today mainly traded as a “cultural commodity” (Thompson 2010). In my overview, I’ll refer to some recent studies or reports that have attempted to provide an up-to-date quantitative picture of such flows, especially in relation to books translated into English. For reasons I’ll mention during the discussion, obtaining reliable data on book sales in any market is not a straightforward matter, and translated books are no exception. Various studies have used data from UNESCO’s Index Translationum,1 but these are only available up to 2009. A report specifically dedicated to the percentage of translated books in the UK and Irish markets (Büchler and Trentacosti 2015) examines the years between 1990 and 2012. While no such report is available for the US market, data on translated books in the US starting from 2008 are available in the Three Percent translation database hosted by the Publishers Weekly website. In the final section of the article, I present, as a case study, an exploratory analysis of these data, in counterpoint to the findings presented by Büchler and Trentacosti (2015) for the UK and Irish markets. For clarity of exposition I will divide my overview of existing studies into three short subsections, based on the predominant disciplinary interest or focus of the studies I give an account of, or – in other words – on the types and nature of the factor(s) elucidated by each study. This division by no means implies that either the studies or the questions they address should be seen as unrelated or even mutually irrelevant. In fact, the phenomena they investigate may be seen to overlap to a considerable degree. As frequently happens when translation, translations or translators are investigated, an interdisciplinary perspective is the one best suited to explore the issues at hand and to analyse the interrelation between the different factors involved. My account of the three, interconnected disciplinary “views” on translation into English will obviously be very personal and selective and it is likely to require integrations from other disciplinary standpoints, for example that of “world literature”, which could be taken as an additional, independent perspective on the role of translation in the international circulation of literary works. The case study on translated books in the US presented in Section 3 of the article is mainly intended as an exploratory investigation, and one likely to suggest avenues for further, more rigorous analysis in either statistical or qualitative terms. 2 Disciplinary Perspectives on Translation into English 2.1 The View from Translation Studies From a translation studies perspective, Laviosa (2018, 449) assesses “the world status of English in terms of its central role in the international translation system”. She explicitly acknowledges 1 At the time of writing, the web page for accessing the Index Translationum within UNESCO’s website is under maintenance. Therefore, no URL can be specified for it.that one of the main concerns of translation studies is the study of the translation procedures “that perpetuate this alleged one-way flow of culture, by effacing the cultural values of other languages in English translations and encoding English cultural values in texts translated into other languages”. In particular, when English is the target language, its hegemonic status leads to the use of textual translation procedures that depend on “domestic cultural values” (Laviosa 2018, 450). This observation is in line with the fundamental argument proposed by Venuti (2008), according to which literary texts translated into English in the US systematically adopt a domesticating approach that is ultimately aimed at rendering the translator “invisible” and establishing relations with works in the same genre originally published in English. The same underlying strategy, notes Laviosa, can be observed in the “shallow multilingualism” of recent transnational authors writing in English, as studied in particular by Pandey (2016): the multilingual elements in these writers’ works are ultimately intended to create a familiarizing effect, which is in stark contrast to the alienating effect sought by most transnational authors who published in English in the 20th century. The multilingual elements in more recent transnational writers are token and cosmetic, and they are used in the service of normative monolingualism. The effects or consequences of the role of English as the dominant language in the global market of translations are also discussed by MacKenzie (2018) as part of a sociolinguistic overview of the position of English in the world and the ways in which it is affected by, and affects, other languages through language contact. Following remarks by Parks (2015), Mackenzie (2018, 130) notes, in particular, the increase in the number of writers, and especially novelists, who “deliberately simplify their style and eschew local cultural references to facilitate translation into English as a gateway to the global market”. He also adds (Mackenzie 2018, 143), however, that not all authors who have enjoyed critical or commercial success in translation into English fit this description. A more nuanced view of the translatability assumingly inherent in the work of writers who have enjoyed international success is offered in two studies by Segnini (2017; 2018) who focuses on the Italian authors Elena Ferrante and Andrea Camilleri. In particular, Segnini points out the ambivalence of the cultural specificity represented by these authors. On the one hand, the choice of authors to be presented in translation is based on a process of selection in which “preference is given to translation-friendly texts, works that radiate vernacular flavour but do not challenge the knowledge or expectations of target audiences” (Segnini 2017, 115). On the other, the appeal of authors such as Ferrante and Camilleri can be related to international readers’ needs for authenticity as a dimension of the local. As a result, their success can be seen to emerge from the interplay between resistance and adherence to the mechanisms of the global market. 2.2 The View from Cultural Sociology The idea of treating translated literature as part of a larger literary “polysystem” was first proposed by Even-Zohar (1978). Later, Heilbron (1999) proposed a sociological framework presenting the translation of books as a “cultural world-system”. In essence, this system is described in terms of a core-periphery structure which accounts for the uneven flow of translations between languages and for the varying role of translations within each language community or country. In this model, core position (or centrality) is the result not so much of the number of native speakers of a language as of the number of speakers for whom that language is a second language and the share of books translated from that language. The core-periphery model has been expanded and refined in later studies by both Heilbron and Gisele Sapiro, writing together or independently (see, for instance, Heilbron 2000; Heilbron and Sapiro 2018). A useful overview of the questions and topics related to translation flows as analysed by studies adopting a cultural-sociological perspective is provided by Sapiro (2016) herself. The questions these models investigate have to do with how literary works circulate beyond national borders and what obstacles they encounter. Sapiro identifies four main categories of factors (political, economic, cultural, and social), with the usual proviso that in reality they may be intertwined. The political (or, more broadly, ideological) factors are those relating to the situations in which translation serves as a means to disseminate a particular doctrine or vision of the world. In some cases, this objective of dissemination may function obliquely, such as when translation is used to circumvent censorship. In a perspective of power relations between countries, translation may become an object of ideological and cultural exportation, with governments allocating financial support for the translation of books into one or more specific foreign languages. The economic factors affecting the circulation of literary works are related to the book and press industries and to distribution networks. As far as the US and the UK are concerned, Sapiro (2016, 87) points out that in these two countries, “cultural goods appear primarily as commercial products that must obey the law of profitability”. In the US and UK, the concentration of book production (reinforced by the concentration of book distribution around chains) turns translation into an unattractive commercial option, which ultimately ends up having a negative impact on cultural diversity. The publication of books in translation, in other words, is considered unprofitable, even though the pole of small-scale production (i.e., small independent publishers) has traditionally been able to ensure a minimum quota of diversity in the presentation of international literature to an English-speaking audience. The cultural factors in the international dissemination of literary works as identified by Sapiro can be related to two main aspects. One is the contribution of translated works to the formation of national literary canons, a role that has more recently been discussed in relation to the canon of “world literature”, defined as “all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in the original” (Damrosch 2003, 4). The other aspect of relevance in terms of cultural factors is the role of translation in securing “symbolic profits” (such as recognition in the literary field) to those who promote it, e.g., translators, publishers, and critics. From this perspective, which draws on the works of Pierre Bourdieu, translation responds to the specific logic of “cultural fields” and is not subject to political and economic constraints. Finally, the social factors Sapiro relates to the international circulation of literary works concern the power relations between different social groups and the ways in which these shape literary canons and redirect interest towards authors coming from groups that were previously marginalized (e.g., postcolonial writers and female authors). Of particular relevance with respect to translation into English, is Sapiro’s (2016) description of the structure of the global book market. This is illustrated in more detail in a previous study (Sapiro 2010, 421), where the publishing market is said to combine “high concentration” with “great dispersal” and to be articulated around three levels: “production” (with conglomerates in competition with small independent publishers), “spatial relations” (in terms of core vs periphery), and “circulation” (which can be large-scale or small-scale). Based on this description, it can be added that the translation of books into English seems to have been affected by developments on all these three levels. In terms of production, conglomerates now have to face direct competition from other conglomerates which are not strictly speaking publishers, such as Amazon. Spatial relations have also been redefined by e-commerce and new modes of distribution such as e-books. Finally, circulation has changed, once again thanks to new modes of distribution: even a few copies of a given book can today be circulated on request, or “print on demand”. 2.3 The View from Publishing and Bibliometrics What is translated (which particular titles, authors and genres) and where translations are “produced” (i.e., written, printed and distributed) and by whom (i.e., by what publishers) have traditionally been among the objects of “translation history” (see the overview in D’hulst 2010). More recently, translation history has “turned its attention to the networks of agents involved, the technologies with which translations are produced, and their reception and impact” (O’Sullivan 2012, 131). The adoption of empirical approaches, including corpus-based research and the collection of quantitative and visualizable data, was already advocated in one of the seminal works in this area, i.e., Anthony Pym’s (2014) Method in Translation History, originally published in 1998. A recent overview of the various bibliographical sources available for quantitative research in translation history is provided in Zhou and Sun (2017), who focus on sources comprising metadata and allowing the batch retrieval of records (as opposed to sources where data can only be “handpicked”, such as online bookstores). These sources include catalogues of various kinds and “subject bibliographies”. The catalogues may be those available in national libraries, “union catalogues” that combine library catalogues of a group of participating libraries, or trade catalogues (such as Bowker’s Books in Print).2 Of the “subject bibliographies” devoted to translated books the most well-known is UNESCO’s Index Translationum, which in the digital, online version contains bibliographical information on books translated and published in about one hundred of the UNESCO Member States between 1979 and 2009, for a total of over two million entries in all disciplines. Some problems associated with using data contained in bibliographical databases for quantitative analyses of translation flows are discussed in Poupaud, Pym, and Torres Simón (2009). These problems have to do with aspects such as possible inconsistencies in the census techniques, leading to marked fluctuations in year-on-year data, and a lack of agreement on basic categories such as “books” or “translations”, especially in databases that combine information coming from different countries. Still, the authors note, by appropriately defining the specific object of their research and by accepting that results from a given database are 2 See https://about.proquest.com/products-services/print-books/Books-in-Print.html.supplemented with information from other relevant sources, interesting findings can be obtained that shed light on the significance of particular translation flows.3 3 Book Translations into and from English: Recent Trends Using data from UNESCO’s Index Translationum, Zhou and Sun (2017) show that in recent decades English has been the most translated language in the world. In particular, between 1979 and 2007 the proportion of translated books with English as the original language increased from 40% to around 60% worldwide. In absolute terms, the annual number of books translated from English went from slightly over 20,000 in 1979 to around 67,000 in 2007. After English, the other top four source languages for translated books over the period 1979–2007 were French, German and Russian. The first two exhibited a steady increase year after year, while still remaining very distant from English: both started with around 5,000 translations in 1979 and went up to around 10,000 in 2007. Russian ranked second in 1979 but declined markedly after 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. These, or similar figures found in other studies, are often used as the basis for the claims about the predominance of English as a source language in international translation flows. In the same paper, Zhou and Sun also present the list of the top five target languages worldwide in the same time span (1979–2007): German, French, Spanish, English and Japanese. As can be seen, English ranks fourth in the list.4 “Three percent” is the oft-quoted share of translations (especially literary) in the publishing output of the UK and US. Sapiro (2010; 2016) accepts this estimate and takes it as a sign that the concentration on large scale production in the book industry has had a negative impact on cultural diversity at global level. An overview of the market of translated books in the US is provided by Ban (2015), who enumerates and discusses the difficulties (real or perceived) of publishing titles in translation on the North American market. These difficulties have to do with both editorial and financial aspects. From the editorial angle, one particular difficulty is related to the inability of many editors to read foreign languages, which is felt by many as an obstacle for a full appreciation, and the accurate editing, of a translated title. Not all editors consulted by Ban, however, agree that this is a major problem, and some even maintain that consulting the original may be distracting. More generally, some of the industry actors consulted by Ban (2015, 164–65) mention problems linked to the evaluation of translations, and especially their quality relative to the original text, although some publishers or editors point out that problematic manuscripts may also come from English-speaking authors. From the financial perspective, the difficulties Ban discusses are related to the cost of translations, the acquisition of rights and the promotion of translated titles. That a translation is more expensive than an original manuscript is not always and necessarily true. If the price 3 For instance, if someone is interested in investigating all the “published” translations of a given author in one particular language, they may have to combine data from a commercial database produced by the publishing industry (which is likely to focus on translated titles that are distributed for sale) and data from other sources that include translations published for non-commercial use. 4 A more recent contribution (Brisset and Colón Rodríguez 2020) analysing data from the Index Translationum confirms the findings of Zhou and Sun (2017) with respect to the position of English as both a source and target language.of rights is considered, then translating a book may even turn out to be less expensive than acquiring an original manuscript (Ban 2015, 166). Another way to profit from translation is to acquire the world rights for a title and then sell rights of translation to other countries (Ban 2015, 167). In terms of marketing and promotion, although some publishers consider translated titles to be at a disadvantage due to lacking a “platform” (i.e., blogs or author friends who write blurbs or recommend books through social media or at their universities), others point out that communities of readers are forming around translated books, promoted at times by smaller, specialized publishers. Some publishers, such as Europa Editions, have even pursued “brand identification” (Ban 2015, 167) through their book covers. At the end of her overview, Ban (2015, 172) lists some of the signs that the US publishing industry is paying increased attention to foreign titles: these include the creation of an exclusive area for books in translation and translation grants at Book Expo America (the main publishing event in the country), websites that facilitate the negotiation of foreign rights, and newsletters, blogs and literary magazines presenting international fiction in English. US media in general have, according to Ban, started to change their attitude towards translated literature (and here it is worth noting that Ban’s article was written immediately prior to the international commercial and critical sensation caused by Elena Ferrante’s novels). For the UK and Irish publishing markets, a statistical report on the number and percentage shares of translated titles is presented in Büchler and Trentacosti (2015). The report uses data from the British National Bibliography (as received from the British Library) for the period 1990–2012. More specifically, raw data from the British Library were used by the authors to calculate the percentage shares of translations published annually, while refined data (restricted to translations of creative literary genres) were used for the analysis of translated titles according to source languages and genres. The report found that the translations published in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the analysed period represented around 3% of all publications and that literary translations account for around 4% of all literary publications, with a peak in 2011, when translations surpassed 5% (in the report, “literary” refers to titles falling within the 800 Dewey classification category). 3.1 Translated Books in the US in Recent Decades In their report, Büchler and Trentacosti (2015, 6) acknowledge that for the creation of their database they were inspired partly by the annual book market reports of EU countries (usually also containing translation statistics), and partly by the Three Percent project in the US. Three Percent is a website5 launched and maintained by Rochester University and Open Letter, its translation press, with the goal of becoming “a destination for readers, editors, and translators interested in finding out about modern and contemporary international literature”. The website contains reviews of books in translation, articles on translation-related matters and a translation database collecting raw data on translated books published and distributed in the US. Since 2019 the Three Percent database has also been available on the website of Publishers Weekly6 in a searchable format and with an enlarged focus: while initially the database only 5 See http://www.rochester.edu/college/translation/threepercent/. 6 See https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/translation/home/index.html.collected information on translated fiction and poetry, in its current version it also includes data on children’s books and non-fiction titles. The time span covered by the database is 2008 to the present. Entries in the database are mainly added by hand based on publishers’ catalogues and review copies. Individual authors, translators, publicists and readers can also add entries through a dedicated online form. The database can be searched using a number of criteria, including title, genre,7 name and gender of author, name and gender of translator, author’s country of origin, year of publication, publisher, and more. Records from the database can be imported in tab-delimited format into a spreadsheet for statistical analysis.8 In what follows I will propose a brief exploratory analysis of the data available in the Three Percent database, in the attempt to uncover some general trends and discuss them with reference to the data about the UK and Irish markets (as presented in Büchler and Trentacosti 2015) and against the background of sales figures in the US publishing markets for recent years. The time span for the data presented here is 2008–2020. The analysis refers to the contents of the database as of February 2021. For the years between 2008 and 2020, the Three Percent database contains records for a total of 8,443 titles. Table 1 shows the number of translated titles per year for all four macro-genres covered by the database. There is a steady and marked increase in the number of recorded titles, with two peaks, one in 2013 (the highest number of titles in the time span considered) and one in 2018. Although the numbers decline after 2018, they still remain considerably higher than in 2008. For 2020 the number of titles is 531, with an increase of 39% over 2008, the year with the lowest figure in the time considered. Table 1. Number of translated titles in the US in the period 2008–2020 according to the Three Percent data. 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 386 389 372 429 844 936 843 669 720 776 810 737 531 Figure 1 provides a different view of the same data that better highlights the overall increasing trend in the number of translated titles, showing in particular that for a period of five years (i.e., from 2012 to 2019) the number of translated books consistently remained above the threshold of 600 titles. To put these numbers in perspective, consider that the UK and Irish markets (Büchler and Trentacosti 2015) saw a steady increase in the number of published literary translations from 2000 to 2012, with a peak of 587 in 2011. As a percentage of all published literary titles, in the UK and Irish markets translated titles did indeed oscillate between 4% and 5% for most of the longer period (i.e., 1990 to 2012) considered by Büchler and Trentacosti (2015). The 2011 peak meant that translations reached 5.23% of all published titles. A comparable proportional representation of the Three Percent data presented here would have to be made against national yearly data on published books in the US. Obtaining these, however, is not a straightforward matter, and once they had been obtained, the data would still require 7 The four macro-genres represented in the database are: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s books. 8 See the FAQs about the database at https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/corp/translation-database-FAQ.html.much more time for processing than was feasible for the present exploratory analysis. Even so, the trend visible in the Three Percent data seems to provide some support to the idea that, numerically, translated titles are on the rise in the US market. Before focusing on figures on the most translated languages, it is worth giving a brief look at how the four macro-genres are distributed across all source languages. Table 2 provides an overview of the number of titles translated every year in each macro-genre. Fiction is by far the most translated genre (with 66.2% of all titles over the 12-year period), followed a long way behind by poetry (14.8). Non-fiction follows closely behind poetry (12.8%), and children’s books come last at 6.2%. In findings for the UK and Irish markets by Büchler and Trentacosti (2015, 18), fiction accounted for a similarly large share (i.e., around 60%) of translated titles. Table 2. Distribution of translated titles in the US per macro-genre (2008–2020). Genre 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total Fiction 282 292 277 327 403 463 531 519 569 530 560 493 340 5586 (66.2%) Poetry 88 87 86 87 83 102 108 107 117 143 122 80 41 1251 (14.8%) Nonfiction 3 6 8 11 237 226 93 37 29 79 113 116 115 1073 (12.8%) Children’s 13 4 1 4 121 145 111 6 5 23 14 48 35 530 (6.2%) Of particular interest, in Table 2, is the marked increase in the number of translations of non-fiction titles. Only 28 titles are recorded for this genre between 2008 and 2011, but there is a sudden, remarkable leap to 237 titles in 2012 (which is also the peak year of the period). In spite of some oscillations, the share of non-fiction titles remains significant over the subsequent years, and in some cases (e.g., 2012, 2013, 2019, and 2020) it is higher than the share of translated poetry titles. Poetry itself, on the other hand, sees a trend of significant growth between 20012 and 2018. A closer look at the source languages, individual authors and publishers for both the non-fiction and poetry titles might shed some light on these trends and contribute to explaining what is undoubtedly a sharp increase in the attention devoted to the translation of these genres. Data on the most translated languages as available in the Three Percent database are given in Table 3, which focuses on the top 20 source languages for translated titles and indicates how many were translated from each language every year. Table 3. Top 20 most translated languages in the US (2008–2020). 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total French 66 55 64 67 177 213 178 136 122 140 133 145 122 1618 Spanish 52 67 54 54 91 106 95 86 113 107 124 100 80 1129 German 32 37 38 46 147 140 146 85 85 76 73 73 58 1036 Italian 14 26 21 24 69 64 51 42 35 41 47 46 37 517 Japanese 21 19 27 26 41 44 30 21 30 48 64 47 32 450 Swedish 19 17 10 21 30 33 37 23 33 33 29 29 23 337 Arabic 30 21 17 18 28 23 30 27 27 32 24 22 11 310 Chinese 15 9 14 16 26 22 31 24 25 39 32 27 20 300 Russian 20 15 11 19 30 38 31 16 15 18 25 28 16 282 Norwegian 6 11 8 14 14 20 18 15 20 28 28 20 16 218 Portuguese 16 9 7 11 20 23 23 17 18 12 20 19 11 206 Dutch 3 10 9 2 35 33 16 9 10 9 19 24 16 195 Hebrew 12 6 14 12 12 24 9 13 17 15 13 14 15 176 Korean 4 8 4 16 5 15 15 14 24 16 11 17 13 162 Danish 3 3 3 11 11 14 14 17 12 16 15 14 3 136 Polish 6 4 8 7 16 13 8 5 5 11 15 7 9 114 Czech 5 7 5 4 4 6 7 8 12 16 8 3 2 87 Turkish 4 12 3 3 6 11 5 8 10 6 5 4 3 80 Finnish 2 2 2 2 5 8 7 11 11 10 6 7 4 77 Icelandic 3 3 2 2 11 8 7 3 5 8 11 5 4 72 A brief comparison and contrast of the languages in Table 3 with data on the most translated languages in the UK and Ireland from Büchler and Trentacosti (2015) provides some interesting insights. Even though the UK and Ireland figures refer only to the translations of literary texts, they can still be taken to be comparable with data from the Three Percent database, where fiction and poetry are the most represented genres (see Table 2). The comparison is particularly interesting as far as the top 10 languages are concerned (Table 4).9 Table 4. Top 10 most translated languages in the US (2008–2020) and in the UK and Ireland (2000–2012). US UK-Ireland Language No. of titles Language No. of titles French 1,618 French 1,217 Spanish 1,129 German 728 German 1,036 Spanish 481 Italian 517 Russian 432 Japanese 450 Italian 383 Swedish 337 Swedish 359 Arabic 310 Norwegian 190 Chinese 300 Dutch 185 Russian 282 Arabic 135 Norwegian 218 Japanese 123 In the US top 10 list, the non-European languages feature more prominently. Japanese ranks 5th, (with a number of titles which is slightly lower than one third of the number for French, the most translated language); Arabic and Chinese rank 7th and 8th, respectively. By contrast, in the UK and Ireland top 10 list, the only two non-European languages are Arabic (9th) and Japanese (10th). The top three languages are the same in the two lists, with French ranking at number one in both. Spanish and German swap second and third places, with Spanish ranking second in the US. This could be a sign of the closer relationship of US publishers with the Spanish-speaking book markets in Central and South America. Country-of-origin data confirm this: of the 1129 titles translated from Spanish in the US, the vast majority (i.e., around 800) originate from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. Of particular interest in both lists in Table 3 is the presence of Swedish and Norwegian. The consistent and steady growth of translations from Swedish had already been noted (and labelled as “one of the most significant trends”) by Büchler and Trentacosti (2015, 16). In their data, Norwegian showed a similar trend, with a peak of translated titles in the same year as Swedish (i.e., 2011). In the US data, if the analysis is extended to the top 20 translated languages (see Table 3), all of the Nordic languages feature very prominently. The interest in titles from these languages seems to emerge slightly later than in UK and Ireland, but from 2011 onwards it establishes a significant and consolidated trend: Swedish peaks at 37 translated titles in 2014, and remains at around 30 titles per year between 2012 and 2019. Norwegian also sees a steady increase from 2008, reaching a peak number of titles for two consecutive years (2017 and 2018). If taken collectively, the contingent of Nordic languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, and Icelandic, representing a population of around 27 million people) would rank, with a total of 840 translated titles, before Italian, a language representing a country with more than double the population. The case of Iceland 9 For the UK and Ireland, Table 3 collates figures from different tables in Büchler and Trentacosti (2015).and Icelandic is particularly impressive: from 2008 to 2020 a country of around 360,000 people had 72 books translated into English and published in the US – that is, only eight titles fewer than Turkey (population: 84 million). The attention to titles translated from Nordic languages can be linked to the critical and commercial success enjoyed by authors from Nordic countries, and especially writers of genre fiction such as thrillers and mysteries (e.g., Karin Fossum Anne Holt, Jo Nesbo, and Karin Fossum from Norway; and Camilla Lackberg, Stig Larsson, and Henning Mankell from Sweden). The analysis of the Three Percent data could go on to uncover other trends and reveal interesting comparisons (and contrasts) with data on translation flows for other countries. The analysis could focus, for example, on individual countries and look at how the success of specific authors then contributed to drawing attention to other titles written in the same original language. Italy is a case in point. Data from the Three Percent database could, for example, help understand if and how the “Ferrante fever” (a journalistic label which later even became the title of a documentary film featuring an interview with Ann Goldstein, the translator of most of Elena Ferrante’s novels into English) led to an increased number of similar titles translated from Italian into English. The data could also be used to test hypotheses about translation flows between the US and other non-European countries, building on the observation already made above that, in comparison to the other large English-speaking market (the UK), the US sees a much more significant presence of titles coming from outside Europe. Complements to the analysis of the Three Percent data could (or indeed, in some cases, should) also be sought in data on book sales. A cursory look at some easily obtained data would seem to confirm that over the last decade or so translated titles have gained more visibility in terms of both critical acclaim and commercial success. According to the market research group NPD, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by the Swedish author Stig Larsson ranks number nine (with 7.9 million copies) in the list of the best-selling print books and e-books in the US in the period 2010–2019.10 The same report by NPD also highlights a growth in US sales of poetry titles and non-fiction titles in general in the latter half of the decade. This could be linked to the trends observed above (in Table 2) with regard the genre distribution of translated titles, with poetry and especially non-fiction showing marked increases in the number of published titles starting from 2011. More specifically, this could indicate that publishers are willing to invest in titles in translation in genres that enjoy commercial success. 4 Final Remarks Several scholars and observers have agreed that the role and share of translations in English-speaking book markets are particularly weak if compared to those seen in markets such as France, Germany and Italy. Data from UNESCO’s Index Translationum have often been used to back up claims on the extremely marginal role of translations in markets such as the US or UK, but these data are not available for the years beyond 2009. In this contribution, I have referred to a report based on more recent data (Büchler and Trentacosti 2015) showing that in the UK and Ireland the share of translations has in some years risen over the traditionally quoted threshold of “three percent”. I have also proposed an exploratory analysis of the records 10 See the press release at https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2019/fifty-shades-of-grey-was-the-best-selling-book-of-the-decade-in-the-us-the-npd-group-says/.contained in the Three Percent database, which collects information about titles published in translation in the US starting from 2008. Although the data from this resource have not been analysed against the background of the total publishing output of the United States, the analysis has pointed to a renewed vitality of books in translation, which has been linked to signs testifying to their critical and, in some cases, commercial success, as in the case of Elena Ferrante’s novels or Scandinavian crime fiction. In short, even in publishing markets that were traditionally considered particularly insular and self-referential, such as the UK and the US, books in translation have made it to the best-selling lists, and the presence of foreign authors in the culture sections of newspaper and magazines is no longer an exception. There are several signs that translations and translators are no longer as “invisible” at they were taken to be in the 1990s, when Lawrence Venuti first published his widely quoted The Translator’s Invisibility (Venuti 2008). Further investigation, and more rigorous quantitative analyses, would be needed to back up these claims and establish how consolidated the trends indicating a renewed vitality for translations into English really are. For the interpretation of these trends, support could also be sought in recent accounts of the ways in which cosmopolitanism and globalization are shaping translation in diverse social contexts and through the effect of supranational factors (see, in particular, the discussion of cosmopolitanism in Bielsa (2016) and the reflections on globalization and translation in Bielsa and Kapsaskis (2020)). Claiming that translation is affected by supranational factors would appear to be a truism, as translation entails a supranational dimension by definition. However, approaches to translation and research paradigms up until, and including, Descriptive Translation Studies, rarely explicitly considered and investigated the flow of ideas and the dynamics of communication at supra- and transnational levels, preferring instead to concentrate either on the source or on the target poles of translational phenomena. One particular supranational factor that may be playing a role in the renewed interest in translation in English-speaking countries is the disembodied nature of much communication, i.e., the fact that it is not realized through spatial movements of people and products across borders, but rather through the exchange of ideas and content over digital networks. This may be having the effect of making readers (and film and TV viewers) in English-speaking markets more alert to cultural products coming from non-English speaking countries, in a process that global publishing (and film production) conglomerates may view favourably if it leads to increased sales and profits. References Ban, Ana. 2015. “Books in Translation in the United States.” Publishing Research Quarterly 31 (3): 160–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-015-9406-7. Bielsa, Esperança. 2016. Cosmopolitanism and Translation: Investigations into the Experience of the Foreign. Translation Theories Explored. London: Routledge. 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D’hulst, Lieven. 2010. “Translation History.” In Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, 1: 397–405. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hts.1.tra5. Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1978. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem.” In Literature and Translation: New Perspectives in Literary Studies, edited by James S. Holmes, José Lambert, and Raymond van den Broeck, 117–27. Leuven: Acco. Heilbron, Johan. 1999. “Towards a Sociology of Translation: Book Translations as a Cultural World-System.” European Journal of Social Theory 2 (4): 429–44. https://doi.org/10.1177./136843199002004002. —. 2000. “Translation as a Cultural World System.” Perspectives 8 (1): 9–26. https://doi.org/10.1080./0907676X.2000.9961369. Heilbron, Johan, and Gisèle Sapiro. 2018. “Politics of Translation: How States Shape Cultural Transfers.” In Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in ‘Peripheral’ Cultures, edited by Diana Roig-Sanz and Reine Meylaerts, 183–208. Cham: Springer International. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78114.-3_7. Laviosa, Sara. 2018. “English and Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of English Language Studies, edited by Philip Seargeant, Ann Hewings, and Stephen Pihlaja, 447–60. London: Routledge. MacKenzie, Ian. 2018. Language Contact and the Future of English. Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics 18. New York: Routledge. O’Sullivan, Carol. 2012. “Introduction: Rethinking Methods in Translation History.” Translation Studies 5 (2): 131–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2012.663594. Pandey, Anjali. 2016. Monolingualism and Linguistic Exhibitionism in Fiction. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Parks, Tim. 2015. Where I’m Reading from: The Changing World of Books. New York Review Books Collections. New York: New York Review Books. Poupaud, Sandra, Anthony Pym, and Ester Torres Simón. 2009. “Finding Translations. On the Use of Bibliographical Databases in Translation History.” Meta: Journal Des Traducteurs / Meta: Translators’ Journal 54 (2): 264–78. https://doi.org/10.7202/037680ar. Pym, Anthony. 2014. Method in Translation History. London: Routledge. Pym, Anthony, and Grzegorz Chrupala. 2005. “The Quantitative Analysis of Translation Flows in the Age of an International Language.” In Less Translated Languages, edited by Albert Branchadell and Lovell Margaret West, 27–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.58.03pym. Sapiro, Gisèle. 2010. “Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Book Market: The Case of Literary Translations in the US and in France.” Poetics 38 (4): 419–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2010..05.001. —. 2016. “How Do Literary Works Cross Borders (or Not)?” Journal of World Literature 1 (1): 81–96. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00101009. Segnini, Elisa. 2017. “Local Flavour vs Global Readerships: The Elena Ferrante Project and Translatability.” The Italianist 37 (1): 100–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614340.2016.1273649. —. 2018. “Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano and Elena Ferrante’s L’amica geniale: The Afterlife of Two ‘Glocal’ Series.” The Translator: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2018.1502607. Thompson, John B. 2010. Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Polity. Venuti, Lawrence. 2008. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Zhou, Xiaoyan, and Sanjun Sun. 2017. “Bibliography-Based Quantitative Translation History.” Perspectives 25 (1): 98–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2016.1177100. G. Palumbo Figure 1. Number of translated titles in the US in the period 2008–2020. Astrid Schmidhofer University of Innsbruck, Austria Enrique Cerezo Herrero Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain Melita Koletnik University of Maribor, Slovenia 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 71-89(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.71-89 UDC: 81'25-051:378.147 Why We Need TI-Oriented Language Learning and Teaching (TILLT) ABSTRACT The teaching of foreign languages to students in Translation and Interpreting (TI) programmes should be framed within the field of Language for Specific Purposes (LSP). This would make it possible to pinpoint specific curricular content and methodological traits that contribute to the enhancement of the communicative competence and initial development of TI competences. This paper analyses the students’ perspectives on L2 teaching in a TI programme and how it should be undertaken to best comply with the linguistic demands imposed by translation and interpreting. A thematic analysis of 117 open questionnaires returned by students from Austria, Slovenia and Spain identified five areas to which the students attribute particular importance, and which should be considered when developing TI-oriented curricula. Keywords: future translators and interpreters, TI-oriented Language Learning and Teaching (TILLT), Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) Zakaj naj bo poucevanje L2 prilagojeno potrebam bodocih prevajalcev in tolmacev IZVLECEK Poucevanje tujih jezikov za bodoce prevajalce in tolmace se uvršca na podrocje poucevanja tujih jezikov stroke. Z vsebinsko in metodološko prilagoditvijo kurikulov je mogoce prispevati k napredovanju tako sporazumevalne zmožnosti bodocih prevajalcev in tolmacev kot tudi k zacetnemu razvoju njihovih prevajalskih in tolmaških zmožnosti. V opisni raziskavi so študenti prevajanja in tolmacenja so odgovarjali na vprašanja o svojih jezikovnih potrebah in nanizali predloge, kako tem (naj)bolje prilagoditi poucevanje tujih jezikov. V analizi 117 odprtih vprašalnikov, ki so jih izpolnili študenti iz Avstrije, Slovenije in Španije, smo prepoznali pet podrocij, ki jim študenti pripisujejo poseben pomen in za katera menimo, da bi jih morali upoštevati pri snovanju kurikulov, prilagojenih potrebam bodocih prevajalcev in tolmacev. Kljucne besede: bodoci prevajalci in tolmaci, poucevanje in ucenje L2 za potrebe bodocih prevajalcev in tolmacev, tuji jezik stroke 1 Introduction Ever since Translation Studies became a fully-fledged discipline in the 1980s (Hurtado 2011), the main focus of research into translation and interpreting (TI) has been to decipher its nature and offer an epistemological framework that allows for its consolidation and scientific advancement. In spite of having experienced a period of flourishing, Hurtado (1999, 15) in the late 1990s warned of a considerable delay in applied studies in this discipline, with foreign language teaching in TI training being one area greatly affected by this. The vast amount of research produced by applied linguists has not shed any light on how to tackle the methodological challenges posed by TILLT. Therefore, despite being the driving force behind any activity of a translating nature, the translators’ (and interpreters’) language competence, and consequently their language training, have not received sufficient attention to date. Hence the need for studies that contribute to the understanding of the complexities involved in this form of teaching. Due to the paucity of research in this area, this paper aims to offer insights into the state of TILLT by analysing the opinions and beliefs1 that TI students hold about the language courses offered at university, and how these have contributed to their training as prospective translators and interpreters. To this end, an exploratory study based on linguistic and pedagogical needs has been carried out to define more precisely the role that language courses play in a TI programme. In Section 2, an overview of relevant research related to language training in TI programmes, and a needs analyses in TI language training in the form of curriculum analysis and questionnaires among students and teachers, are provided. In Section 3, the aims, instruments, environments and results of our study are described. The results are first presented for each country participating in the study, i.e., Austria, Slovenia and Spain, and are finally presented in a comprehensive, overall analysis. Our conclusions in Section 4 highlight the most relevant insights and suggestions for further research. 2 State of the Art 2.1 L2 Training in TI Programmes Language training for TI students needs to be different from general language training (cf. Hernández Guerra and Cruz García 2009). In fact, foreign language teaching for TI students presents itself as a specific teaching approach (Berenguer 1997; Möller 2001; Beeby 2004; Cruz García and Adams 2008; Clouet 2010; Cerezo Herrero 2019b). It can be regarded as a form of teaching that straddles the divide between translation and foreign language teaching (Berenguer 1996). This is possible through a curriculum design based on the analysis of the students’ specific needs and career opportunities (Berenguer 1997), which will make the curricular content relevant and appropriate. 1 In survey research (Lavrakas 2008), opinion is defined as “subjective attitudes, beliefs, or judgments that reflect matters of personal (subjective) preference”. We understand opinions as the broadest category that includes both attitudes, i.e., “general evaluations that people hold regarding a particular entity” and beliefs, i.e., more detailed evaluative statements regarding that entity. Berenguer’s pioneering LSP model (1997) has served as a basis for subsequent investigations attempting to draw the contours of this teaching. Using Holmes’ (1988) model of Translation Studies, Berenguer incorporates the teaching of languages for translation into the field of applied studies as an independent field of study. This classification attests to the need to have a specific branch in Translation Studies that includes TILLT. On the other hand, Cerezo Herrero (2019b) goes a step further and makes a proposal based on the ESP model put forward by Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998), one of the most prominent ESP models so far; however, Cerezo Herrero (2019b) warns of the limitations that this model presents for foreign language teaching in TI programmes. The field of translation deals with a wide range of academic disciplines (Hurtado 1999). Hence the need to establish a branch with an interdisciplinary scope. Additionally, the model by Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) does not address the methodological aspects which are considered fundamental in this training. Based on this, Cerezo Herrero (2019b) establishes, in the case of English, a specific branch called English for Translation Purposes flanked by two filters: a thematic filter, which encompasses the various fields established by the classification of Science and Technology fields by UNESCO, and a filter called Methodology that shapes TILLT. A model for translation-oriented language competence inspired by models of translation competence was put forward by Schmidhofer (2020). This goes beyond the list of specific goals for this kind of training that was compiled in a previous study (Schmidhofer 2017). These goals comprised communicative and metalinguistic competence, viewing language as a tool for translators, integrating language in one’s own life, creating a translator’s identity, analysing texts critically, developing a conscious use of resources, evaluating one’s own performance critically and being able to work autonomously. The proposed model comprises five competences (systemic competence, communicative competence, metalinguistic competence, research competence, and extralinguistic competence) and a metacompetence called monitoring. The competences described coincide to a large extent with the competences included in the CEFR, but other aspects are added that are mentioned in the CEFR framework only marginally, if at all. 2.2 Needs Analysis in TI-Oriented Language Teaching Empirical research studies into language teaching in TI programmes are most common in the area of curriculum analysis, probably because this data is easily accessible. Even though the informative value of this data is limited, since it only reflects institutional specifications, it can show the amount of time, expressed in ECTS, that is dedicated to language teaching and learning, and the goals and the methodological guidelines laid down by different institutions. All comprehensive analyses published to date have been carried out in Spain and focus on Spanish universities. The first curriculum analysis, to the best of our knowledge, was carried out by Möller Runge (2001, 93-175), analysing courses in German as a second foreign language at 18 Spanish universities. She points out that, at the time of her study, even though hardly any university required an entrance level for the C language (second foreign language), the hours of instruction, although varying considerably, were usually below the threshold of 650 hours, which is the amount estimated by the Goethe Institut as necessary to reach an intermediate level (Mittelstufe). The number of hours that have to be completed on a compulsory basis before starting translation courses were even fewer. Möller Runge (2001, 172) also provides a list of descriptors that are commonly found in descriptions of language modules, from which she concludes that foreign language teaching in TI programmes should have unique features. Based on these findings, she suggests designing guidelines in line with translation students’ needs but concedes that most lecturers use general language coursebooks that they complement with extra material. Möller Runge maintains that the approach adopted by lecturers is based on intuition and experience “pero, en realidad, no se apoya[n] en una metodología claramente definida para este grupo de destino2” (2001,174). Cerezo Herrero’s study (2015b) offers a general overview of linguistic and socio-cultural training in the Translation and Interpretation degrees conferred by 24 Spanish universities. From the main data gathered, it can be observed that all analysed universities offer language training in their B language (first foreign language) and C language. C languages receive the most ECTS, since in these languages, usually German or French, training starts from a basic level. Although both foreign languages have a curricular presence in the study programmes, this author concludes that it would be necessary to increase the teaching load devoted to languages, since they are considered to be the driving force in Translation Studies (Delisle 1980, 41; EMT 2017, 6). Likewise, he advocates re-establishing the language admission test in order to homogenize the students’ initial linguistic level and ensure that the teaching load devoted to different foreign languages be adequate. The most recent study was carried out by Carrasco Flores (2018, 186-219), who also explores English language courses in 25 TI programmes offered at 24 Spanish universities, with special attention to the type of course (General English or English for Specific Purposes) and the materials used. According to his results, 76% offer Applied Linguistics courses. For these courses, he establishes a continuum between English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and states that in 52% of the programmes only EGP is taught, in 16% a combination of both, while ESP is taught only in 4%. For the remaining 28%, there is no relevant data available. From his qualitative analysis, Carrasco Flores concludes that “the high percentage of degrees that only offer EGP courses points to lack of awareness when it comes to the specificities of this language training” (2018, 216). Additional insight into the linguistic needs of TI students is offered in research by Koletnik (2017, 2020a, 2020b). Since 2012, she has been continuously testing and monitoring her students’ linguistic competence in English (B language) at the commencement of their academic TI studies. Based on data from eight generations of Slovenian students of English, with a total of 211 participants, she has found that their skills were notably advanced, with some 55% of the students reaching C1 on the CEFR scale and a further 20% reaching the C2 and B2 levels (2020a). In line with Cerezo Herrero (2015a), she is convinced that an adequate linguistic level should thus be established ab initio to enable more streamlined 2 “…but they are actually not sustained by a clearly defined methodology for this particular group of learners” (translation by the authors).language development in TI students. She further advocates that careful introduction and judicious use of bidirectional translation exercises in TI students’ foreign language teaching, which complements monolingual teaching, is supportive of the development of their translation skills in both languages, L2 and L1 (2020b). Koletnik (2017) also elicited the first year TI students’ opinions on the way they were taught English in their language development classes, focusing mostly on grammar. To obtain answers from three generations of students, she carried out and analysed 40 qualitative, semi-structured interviews and qualitative questionnaires, as well as 56 quantitative questionnaires. In their responses, students expressed the wish for less theory and more hands-on grammar exercises through either translation or contrasting of the linguistic systems of languages A and B (2017, 152–53). The interviews further revealed students’ opinion that translation is naturally linked to language teaching. Two main advantages of translation as a language teaching tool are, in their opinion, to consolidate grammar knowledge and develop vocabulary. To a lesser extent, the students also believed translation allowed for more practice, greater automaticity and more natural expression, leading to better retention and more autonomous learning. Ultimately, they collectively supported the use of translation in language development classes and expressed their wish that translation classes started on “day one” of their studies (2017, 168). Language lecturers have been targeted by only one large survey, carried out by Möller Runge in connection with her curricular analysis (2001). She conducted a survey among 57 Spanish lecturers who teach TI courses with German as a C language. Her results show that the vast majority of teachers are dissatisfied with the students’ language level and consider their level insufficient for translation/interpreting activities. The problems the teachers mentioned comprise almost all aspects of language use. As for the reasons, most participants named the structure of the curricula as the most important cause of this unsatisfactory situation, stating that curricula do not include enough teaching hours; however, the criticism also included lesson content, which, according to the participants, focuses too much on everyday situations (2001, 90–91). 3 Our study 3.1 Aim of the Study The overall aim of this study is to find out more about the students’ opinions of the language training received as part of their TI programmes. The overarching research question we seek to answer is thus: How do students evaluate their language training within TI programmes with regard to its usefulness for subsequent translation and interpreting activities? 3.2 Questionnaire With the exception of Koletnik (2017), there is hardly any data on student perspectives in this context; we therefore decided to carry out an exploratory study that would allow us to break ground in this area. To this end, we designed a questionnaire with the following open questions. • Q1: Have the language courses prepared you sufficiently to be able to translate in translation courses? • Q2: What content/procedures/techniques/materials/references, etc. that you learned about in your language courses were the most useful for your translation courses? • Q3: What content/procedures/techniques/materials/references, etc. that you learned about in your language courses were the least useful for your translation courses? • Q4: What are your suggestions for improving language training in TI programmes? The reason for choosing open questions was that they allow the students to discuss their experiences and opinions. According to Hyman and Sierra (2016, 2–3), open questions “offer respondents an opportunity to provide a wide range of answers”, and thus allow the researcher to obtain an in-depth response and, consequently, deeper insight into the researched phenomenon. Also, such questions do not hint at “correct” answers, and thus are more fully reflective of a respondent’s attitude. The questionnaire was translated into the main languages of the surveyed participants, i.e., German, Slovene and Spanish, to ensure that all participants expressed their thoughts as accurately as possible. Answers were later translated into English by the authors. The answers to Q1 were partly quantifiable and could be, after a thorough analysis of received responses, categorized into the following five categories: Yes, Rather Affirmative, Partly, Rather Critical, and No. The answers by category could thus be translated into percentage points and numerically presented in pie charts. The descriptive answers to Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 were analysed qualitatively using inductive (bottom-up) thematic analysis, which was employed to identify, analyse, and report themes, i.e., patterns, within the data (Braun and Clarke 2006, 79). Owing to its theoretical autonomy, thematic analysis provides “a flexible and useful research tool, which can potentially provide a rich and detailed, yet complex account of data” (Braun and Clarke 2006, 78), and is particularly useful when searching for themes across the entire dataset. Themes were identified mainly – but not exclusively – by their prevalence across the dataset; when the prevalence criterion could not be employed, we used researcher judgement. Prevalence was measured, i.e., counted, at the level of the data item, taking into account the relative share of each population (i.e., in Austria, Slovenia, and Spain). 3.3 Participants 3.3.1 Austria In Austria, the questionnaire was completed at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 by 60 undergraduate students who had at the time completed all language modules3 and various translation and introductory interpreting courses. The L1 of most participants was German4. Questionnaires were completed anonymously in class or at home and later handed in via a university mailbox. 3 Modules, as used in many curricula, comprise a series of related courses. 4 The students’ mother tongue was not asked, as this might reveal students’ identities. The BA degree in Translation Studies that is offered at the Austrian university has a duration of three years, with a workload of 60 ECTS each year. The curriculum comprises three consecutive language modules each worth ten ECTS. These modules must be completed for two foreign languages, the languages offered being English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and German as a Foreign Language for non-native German speakers. The entrance level is B2 for English and German as a foreign language and B1 for French, Italian and Spanish. No entrance level is required for Russian5. From the third semester onwards, students have to take translation courses into German and into one foreign language. The curriculum also comprises a few introductory courses in interpreting. 3.3.2 Slovenia In Slovenia, the questionnaire was administered to translation students in October and November of 2020 via the online survey platform 1ka6. Participation in the survey was voluntary and anonymous. Responses were received from 32 undergraduate and graduate students. Of those, 22 surveys were completed in full and were later considered representative and analysed. Twelve representative surveys were completed by the third year BA students, and 10 were returned by the first- and second-year MA students, all with English and/or German as their B language. All BA students had courses worth 36 ECTS developing their B language competence, and one practical, bi-directional Slovenian-language B translation course (3 ECTS), starting in semester four of their second year. In addition to these courses, all MA students passed another two language courses (6 ECTS), two additional translation courses (6 ECTS) and an introductory course on interpreting to conclude their BA translation training. Their MA-level training included several specialized translation courses and theoretical courses in each semester, as well as traineeship. 3.3.3 Spain In Spain, the questionnaire was administered to BA students in the last year of their degree in Translation Studies in October 2020. The questionnaire was completed in person through Google Forms. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. A total of 35 students participated in the study. Twenty-five respondents had English as their first foreign language (B language) and French or German as their second language (Language C). They had completed six English language training courses (36 ECTS) and four language courses in their C language (24 ECTS). The other ten participants had English as a second foreign language. Nine of them had German as their B language, and only one had French as a first foreign language. They had completed 24 ECTS in English and 36 ECTS in their respective B language. The main difference between the two languages is that the students are required to undertake both direct and inverse translation and interpretation in their B language, whereas in the C language they are only expected to do translation and interpreting tasks from this language into their mother tongue. 5 The entrance level is congruent with the languages and levels taught in Austrian schools. 6 https://www.1ka.si. As for specific training in translation and interpreting, the participants had already taken several translation courses in their B language: Direct Translation B-A (12 ECTS) and Specialized Translation I B-A (6 ECTS). None of them had yet taken any interpreting courses. On the other hand, as far as the C language is concerned, they lacked any prior academic experience with translation or interpreting in this language. 3.4 Findings 3.4.1 Austria Among the Austrian students participating in the survey, answers to Q1 varied between a short clear-cut yes or no and longer, wordier answers that required some interpretation. It should also be mentioned that some students assigned different values to the teaching in their foreign languages (they have to study at least two). The distribution can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 1. Training has been sufficient: Austria. Answers were not limited to a general evaluation but comprised, in many cases, additional comments. Participants highlighted the usefulness of grammar courses, particularly contrastive aspects and the courses’ orientation towards translation. Translation orientation was also mentioned in a few more general comments. A group of six students, for example, remarked that courses were seldom geared towards translation and were laid out just like general language courses. Answers to Q2 were the longest. We identified 36 mentions of translation: 14 students reported directly that they found translation exercises helpful. Some participants also specified the type of translation exercises they found helpful, such as translation of examples, sentence translation or short translations, or “learning how to translate grammatical structures, e.g., from English into German” (AT21). Another large group of answers referred to translation strategies with eight mentions and translation problems with five mentions. Four participants highlighted that they found sight translation useful. Another frequent topic in the answers of the Austrian students was grammar, with 33 participants mentioning this. Fourteen participants underlined the usefulness of contrastive grammar. The next topic in terms of frequency was vocabulary. Nine students stressed the usefulness of glossaries, and 13 mentioned different areas of vocabulary work, such as synonyms, collocations or idioms. Working with texts was another topic that was frequently mentioned. Nine students highlighted the importance of textual analysis and seven the usefulness of text production. Six found working with parallel texts helpful, even though none specified any details about this text work. Regarding the use of resources, we identified four mentions of dictionary work and research tips without further specification. Some answers also referred to the teachers’ role and attitude, where six participants mentioned correction by teachers, particularly of written texts. In Q3, students most frequently referred to teaching techniques and classroom procedures. Student presentations were mentioned by twelve respondents, i.e., a fifth of all participants. Five students criticized group work and found it unhelpful. Lectures and typical textbook exercises were mentioned by three students each. Criticism was also noticeable in terms of vocabulary, which received eleven comments, with learning words in isolation being the most frequent subject of negative comments. As one student pointed out, “vocabulary tests were useless because we do not need such specific vocabulary in the BA courses” (AT13). Two students mentioned learning vocabulary by heart as minimally useful, which combined with one mention of learning grammar rules by heart and an additional one of learning a translation by heart makes the technique of rote learning noteworthy in this context. Among the nine comments referring to text work, answers varied considerably, and only textual analysis was mentioned by three students as being unhelpful. In Q4, exactly half of the students mentioned that classes should be more targeted towards translation; ten students wrote about general translation orientation and twelve about translation in general, and six specifically mentioned translation problems and solutions. On the other hand, two students were in favour of giving more attention to general language competence. Another aspect that was very frequently mentioned was contrastive analysis, with 16 answers in total, eight of which specifically mentioned grammar. One student suggested “comparing the grammar of both languages right from the beginning” (AT3). Content-wise, one-fifth of the students suggested linking the classes more tightly with the translation profession, without specifying how. As far as individual language skills are concerned, ten students suggested that more activities involving oral expression be included, which might be interpreted as a hint that they feel insufficiently prepared for interpreting activities. As one student put it, “In our programme, not enough time is assigned to the development of oral competence”. Textual analysis was mentioned by three students. Eight students also mentioned vocabulary development, with two specifically mentioning bilingual glossaries. With regard to teaching techniques and teachers’ involvement, the answers were quite scarce, with three students suggesting language courses should be taught in the foreign language only, and three requiring more detailed feedback from teachers. 3.4.2 Slovenia Based on their answers to Q1, the majority (13) of the total of 22 Slovenian students believed that they were sufficiently prepared for translation in their language courses. Two responses could be interpreted as “rather affirmative”, while three students said they were only “partly” prepared. No students’ answers could be assigned to the “rather critical” category, while four students thought language courses did not provide a good foundation for translation classes. Figure 2. Training has been sufficient: Slovenia. In their comments on Q1, four Slovenian students expressed their belief that learning about grammar was helpful and the key to successful translation - despite one isolated opinion to the contrary. Seven believed that the language courses they took were, in general, relevant for their future translation orientation. Nevertheless, three students responded that these courses were too theory-driven and lacking in translation-oriented exercises. Student opinions were also divided on vocabulary development: three students thought this was given enough consideration in language courses, while two thought vocabulary development was inadequate. Finally, an important positive observation was that through language classes the students felt able to broaden their horizons and receive a broad spectrum of knowledge that was not only language related. As one student put it, “teachers gave us a broad spectrum of the knowledge we need for this [translation exercises]. And also a lot of personal experience” (SI4). In their answers to Q2, five Slovenian students pointed to grammar exercises as being helpful. In terms of particular in-class activities, they specifically benefited from shadowing exercises and from activities with practical translation-related value (two mentions each). Five students recognized the benefits of targeted vocabulary development - as can be inferred from the following answer where one student (SI3) mentioned “strengthening and development of vocabulary and language comprehension” - and transmitted documentation and research skills, particularly teacher’s research tips (five mentions), dictionary use (four mentions) and learning about translation tools (two mentions). In general, they appreciated their teachers speaking from personal experience and presenting practice-related examples, which is an argument in favour of language teachers with professional translation experience. As for Q3, twelve Slovenian respondents particularly disliked theory-related classes, which is to some extent driven by the fact that they shared several courses with students from the English and German philology degrees, as noted in the following statement (SI14): “The content of the course […]; I find it more useful for students of English Studies and not for translators”. It could thus be inferred that they would rather attend language courses that addressed their specific linguistic needs as future translators. Other comments included unappealing teacher presentation techniques, i.e., uninteresting PowerPoint presentations (three mentions), followed by a dislike for oral presentations by the students (two comments), and dealing with unattractive and/or repetitive topics (two mentions). In their suggestions for TI-oriented language instruction, four Slovenian students called for a more practical approach and two for a more translation-related approach. Five students mentioned the wish for greater involvement of native speakers and translation practitioners as guest lecturers. In terms of linguistic skills, two students wanted even more vocabulary exercises, and three more oral production and more language competence development in general. Six students also recognized the importance of motivation mirrored in the selection of current and varied topics, as can be inferred from the following suggestion: “Themes about current events in the world, or interesting informative articles/documentaries that would broaden our horizons” (SI21). Finally, two students acknowledged the importance of feedback. 3.4.3 Spain Figure 3. Training has been sufficient: Spain. Regarding Q1, most respondents conceded that the foreign language course load was not enough to help them tackle their subsequent translation courses, especially in their C language (14 mentions). One of the main reasons they mention is the difficulty in assimilating all curricular content in so few contact hours in class. In addition, they maintained that it was necessary to go deeper into vocabulary to guarantee that the necessary linguistic competence for translation courses be achieved. This led the majority of the sample to state that language courses should cater to the specific linguistic needs of TI students and be different from other language courses offered in Philology degrees, official languages schools or academies (15 comments). As stated by one respondent, “In my opinion, teaching languages to Translation students in the same way that they are taught to Philology students is not the most appropriate way. I think it would be more useful if these courses followed a more translation-based approach” (ES10). Thus, one of their main concerns regarding these courses was that they focus too much on official language examinations, instead of teaching the language so as to enable students to carry out intercultural mediation activities (eight comments). As for Q2, many respondents regarded translation and contrastive linguistics as essential in this training (16 comments), followed by the use of dictionaries (eight mentions), glossaries, corpora or databases (seven comments), and to a lesser extent, documentation strategies (three comments). With regard to linguistic skills, writing was valued above others, since it helped them prepare for inverse translation courses (four mentions). This is at odds with prior research, which highlights the importance of reading (Berenguer 1997; Brehm 1997). However, this preference could be determined by the high level of English with which the students access university; moreover, this production skill could help them not only in dealing with inverse translation courses, but also in perfecting their competence in the foreign language. In line with the answers to Q1, vocabulary was also perceived as a major component in TILLT (five comments). In particular, students found specific vocabulary, collocations, idioms and synonyms of special relevance in this training. Among other useful resources they mentioned audio-visual material and songs, because both offer more direct exposure to real language. As for Q3, it is worthwhile highlighting that the participants praised the kind of teaching that is practice- rather than theory-driven (six comments). Following this line of thought, grammar was not regarded as an essential teaching component in TILLT (five comments). Likewise, formal language exams were also labelled as unhelpful (six comments), since they do not connect the language with translation courses. As one student stated, “language subjects should be taught differently so that they help more when translating and should not just teach the grammar of the language. In general, the language courses of this degree should be more practical and not as theoretical” (ES32). In their responses to Q4, the students called for a more translation-oriented approach (eight comments) and the use of translation as a pedagogical resource (six comments). In the same vein, more contrastive work was viewed as necessary (eight comments). Instead of focusing attention almost exclusively on tests, students thought that projects and other activities aimed at improving foreign language competence should be encouraged (five comments). Therefore, evaluation procedures should be changed and adapted. On another front, more hours should be devoted to language courses (two mentions). In terms of pedagogical materials, the participants oppose the use of textbooks because their objectives do not meet the specific needs of TI programmes. Activities should be contextualized and simulate tasks performed by a professional translator/interpreter, while fostering the communicative and plurilingual competence of the students. Specialized vocabulary should also be a top priority in TILLT. In brief, language courses should assist in improving translation competence rather than language per se. 3.5 Comparative Analysis of Results Q1. Categorical answers to Q1 were translated into absolute values and adjusted according to the percentage of the total sample they represented (Austria n=60 ˜ 50%; Slovenia n=22 ˜ 20%, and Spain n=35 ˜ 30%). They reveal that, on average and across the entire dataset, for 26% of students the language skills acquired in the language courses were sufficient preparation for their translation classes, and they “rather” sufficed for a further 12% of students. Thirty percent maintained that these skills were “partly” sufficient, while a further 15% were rather critical of their adequacy, with 17% opting for a straightforward “no”. The answers to the remaining questions were analysed qualitatively, following the premises of thematic analysis. After extracting the data from the questionnaires, generating initial codes and collating the relevant data items, prevalence was measured at the level of the data item for individual countries and compared across the entire sample. One data item equalled one opinion and/or comment expressed by a respondent in the questionnaire. When determining prevalence, the relative share of each population (Austria, Slovenia, and Spain) was, again, taken into account. Consequently, and as a rule, two or more instances were considered as possibly significant for the Slovenian sample, three or more instances for the Spanish sample and five to six instances for the Austrian sample. However, some flexibility was allowed in interpreting statements, and researcher judgement was used in determining relevant instances and their count. Thematic analysis identified the following overarching TI-oriented language learning and teaching (TILLT) themes and sub-themes, which are summarized in the Coggle diagram in section 3.5.4: 1. Translation-orientation, 2. Content and topics, 3. Language skills to be developed, 4. Documentation work, and 5. Teacher attitudes. 3.5.1 Translation Orientation The most frequent observation by respondents from all three countries was the expected relevance of TILLT for translation orientation and its ability to cater to the specific linguistic needs of emerging translators and interpreters. To some extent, this criterion has already been met in Slovenia; for the majority of Austrian and Spanish respondents, it remained number one on the priority list of requirements. Another indispensable element of TILLT, as observed by respondents from all three countries, was translation, or rather “more translation” (SI5), in various forms and types, ranging from translation of words, sentences and short texts, to sight and oral translation in general, as well as shadowing exercises. Another overwhelming belief expressed primarily by Austrian students was that TILLT should include the presentation of typical translation problems in conjunction with the methods and strategies for solving them. Particularly relevant to all respondents was that language courses should be practice- and not theory-driven, and that “more practice” (SI19) was required. In short, in TILLT, translation should be used as both a language teaching tool and a goal (cf. Carreres 2014), and should be primarily practice-driven. 3.5.2 Content and Topics In terms of content, respondents from all countries underscored the importance of grammar and grammar exercises, possibly in conjunction with or through translation exercises, as voiced particularly by the Austrian respondents. In this context, Austrian and Spanish students indicated that contrastive grammar should be integrated into TILLT to a greater extent. This belief was, however, not shared by all students across the entire dataset; individuals from all countries voiced their displeasure with memorizing grammatical rules and too many unhelpful grammar exercises. The importance of vocabulary development and acquisition, e.g., through learning about collocations, synonyms, and idioms, as well as by preparation of glossaries was unequivocally supported. The Austrian students, however, argued that this should not be done in isolation, with their Spanish counterparts adding that a well-thought-out approach should be used, particularly when learning specialized vocabulary and contrastive lexis. Another general observation was that “more contrastive work is needed” (AT50) in all areas. In terms of topics, the Austrian students stated that these should be related to real life and, again, translation-relevant, while their Slovenian counterparts considered the motivational aspect and added that topics should be varied and related to the current events. They also commented that, in order to broaden their horizons, knowledge from different domains should be acquired in their language courses. 3.5.3 Language Skills The Spanish students agreed that greater importance should be given to (foreign) language competence development in general by assigning more contact hours to language courses. Students from all three countries recognized the importance of developing receptive and productive skills, particularly of text reception through reading and of text production through creative writing, note taking and summarizing, and, indirectly, also through textual analysis. A particularly sore point in all three countries seems to be oral production, which is either inappropriate or missing from language courses, and thus should be assigned greater importance. 3.5.4 Documentation Work All students underscored the importance of learning about dictionaries and their use; some Austrian students, however, warned against too much emphasis being placed on dictionaries. Highly appreciated by all students were teachers’ research tips, e.g., about online tools and websites where students “can check things they don’t know much about or are unsure of” (SI15). In this context, the idea of a “dictionary of English usage as a type of specialized language dictionary”, as put forward by Gabrovšek (2020), would be useful for the purposes of future translators and interpreters. Figure 5. Summarized results of thematic analysis. 3.5.5 Teacher Attitudes In terms of teachers’ contributions and attitudes, and teaching techniques and materials, the Slovenian students were particularly appreciative of the teachers who taught from personal experience and professional practice, and wished that more native speakers and professional TI practitioners collaborated on TILLT. In terms of teaching techniques and materials, students from all three countries agreed on the ineffectiveness of PowerPoint presentations as used by their teachers, and the Austrian and Slovenian students acknowledged the importance of feedback. Additionally, the Austrian students warned against injudicious use of group work, while their Spanish colleagues recognized the shortcomings of communicative language teaching for emerging translators and interpreters, an unwelcome disconnect between the content taught in class and content tested, and a displaced focus on evaluating language proficiency instead of on learning. 4 Discussion The themes identified above (translation-orientation, content and topics, language skills to be developed, documentation work, and teacher attitudes) corroborate previous research (cf. Berenguer 1997, Möller Runge 2001, Clouet 2010, Koletnik 2017, Schmidhofer 2017, Carrasco Flores 2018, and Cerezo Herrero 2019a) and open new and interesting avenues for investigation into language learning and teaching for emerging translators and interpreters (TILLT). The themes, again, confirmed our conviction that TILLT should be placed within the field of Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), with specific thematic and methodological filters (Cerezo Herrero 2019b). Foreign language courses in TI programmes cannot be restricted to one thematic area, since translators and interpreters need to be ready to cope with any thematic field. Additionally, the linguistic demands on practitioners posed by translation and interpretation make it necessary to rely on a specific methodology to help link language courses with prospective TI courses. A recurring belief expressed by the students in our study is that their language courses simply must be targeted towards translation. Indirectly, and particularly in the case of Spain, this confirms Möller Runge’s (2001) and Carrasco Flores’ (2018) opinion that if courses are not adapted to the translation scenario - in terms of content, topics, activities, methods, strategies, and, not unimportantly, the number of contact hours - they remain too superficial for the needs of future translators and fail to motivate the students to learn. By the same token, because translation is a hands-on activity, language classes should be practice- and not theory-driven, an idea which was also commonly expressed by students in their questionnaires, and previously recognized by Schmidhofer (2020) and Koletnik (2017). In more detail, we identified the following key elements as missing or insufficiently present in the language classes of students taking part in our survey: a) Translation as a language teaching tool AND a competence (an end) that is developed through language exercises (Carreres 2014); b) Contrastive study of the languages under instruction (Berenguer 1996); and c) Greater focus on development of students’ productive and receptive language skills in general. Grammar and vocabulary were, again, identified as two areas deserving explicit attention, as previously recognized by Carrasco Flores (2018), and Koletnik (2020b). However, there seems to be a thin line between too much and too little, and a well-thought-out and judicious approach is advised, involving, in particular, a contrastive grammatical analysis and presentation, as well as the contextualized study of (specialized) vocabulary. In terms of language skills, two observations are noteworthy. The first is the belief shared by all students that oral production seems to be the most neglected area of language teaching and learning, with oral activities either unsuitable for the development of TI students’ language skills or altogether missing from instruction. The second is the importance of textual analysis for translation-oriented text production, expressed primarily by Austrian students, which confirms previous observations by Schmidhofer (2017) and Berenguer (1997). Without doubt, both aspects have important implications for TI students and should be given more consideration in TILLT curriculum development. The Slovene students in particular identified the importance of a broad spectrum of knowledge – linguistic and non-linguistic – that should be acquired by TI students, which once again confirms observations by Cerezo Herrero (2019b). This is particularly important in the light of findings by Pokorn et al. (2019) that the breadth of a translator’s knowledge exerts an important, positive influence on translation quality. Another significant theme we identified was working with sources. Students indicated that they found guided dictionary and research tips important and stressed the usefulness of collecting and preparing glossaries. As these approaches would help students develop greater learner autonomy (Schmidhofer 2017), which is paramount since much of the language development must take place outside the classroom, this aspect should also be considered an important pillar of TILLT. Many of the comments related to teachers, teaching methods and classroom activities. As mentioned above, students appreciated teachers who spoke from their own experience, offering practical research tips and advice on solving language and translation problems. Consequently, this raises the issue of the skills needed by a TILLT teacher. Given the importance of contrastive study of languages and the assumed presence of translation as a language teaching tool and a skill, TILLT teachers should at least be well-versed in both languages and possess at least some translation skills. That said, students also appreciated input by native speakers (of B language), thus favouring tandem teaching. Further to this, students underscored the significance of constructive feedback – an issue which has been abundantly addressed by translation scholars in the past (cf. Dollerup 1994; Washbourne 2014), although not in immediate conjunction with TILLT – and frustration with PowerPoint presentations when used without proper context or careful planning. Moreover, although group work can be a suitable method to motivate students and encourage learning, Austrian students in particular mentioned the ineffectiveness of such work for their purposes, while their Spanish counterparts highlighted the need to establish a better connection between course content and assessment. The latter also stressed that the focus of TILLT courses should be on learning and not just on the evaluation of knowledge. 5 Conclusion In this article we have presented the results of an exploratory, qualitative study into the opinions and beliefs of students in TI programmes regarding the suitability of their language courses for TI activities, using participants from Austria, Slovenia and Spain. The most important conclusion that applies to all countries is that there is a real need for a TI-oriented language learning and teaching (TILLT) approach, and that the communicative language teaching approach, even though not inadequate per se, is insufficient for the needs of TI students. This is supported by the fact that the students stress the need for TI orientation and consider activities related to translation or with a contrastive focus as particularly useful. Apart from providing interesting insights into the area of TILLT, our results might also serve as a reference for institutions, departments and teachers designing TI study programmes. Certain limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. For example, only one university per country has been taken into account. In addition, the fact that students were asked to participate on a voluntary basis limited the number of responses in some countries. As such, the sample was not proportionate in all three countries, and the final observations might be slightly skewed. Additionally, within- and inter-cohort analysis could have yielded further results if the B and C languages of all participants had been considered, since the learning process is not immediately comparable across languages. Nevertheless, the study sought to establish common opinions and beliefs regarding foreign language teaching in TI programmes. This study thus helps us gain a better understanding of the nature of foreign language teaching in TI programmes and of how, according to students from Austria, Slovenia and Spain, it can be shaped to meet their specific linguistic needs with regard to TI activities. We consider this study to be a starting point for further research in this field. 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Salobreña: Alhulia Pokorn, Nike K., Jason Blake, Donald Reindl, and Agnes Pisanski Peterlin. 2020. “The Influence of Directionality on the Quality of Translation Output in Educational Settings.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 14 (1): 58–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2019.1594563. Schmidhofer, Astrid. 2017. “Sprachausbildung im Übersetzungsstudium: Zielsetzungen übersetzungsrelevanten Sprachunterrichts.” In Translation Studies and Translation Practice: Proceedings of the 2nd International TRANSLATA Conference, 2014, Part 2, edited by Lew N. Zybatow, Andy Stauder, and Michael Ustaszewski, 329–35. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. —. 2020. “Translationsorientierte Fremdsprachenkompetenz: Versuch einer Modellierung.” In Bausteine translationsorientierter Sprachkompetenz und translatorischer Basiskompetenzen, edited by Astrid Schmidhofer and Annette Wußler, 21–33. Innsbruck: University Press. Washbourne, Kelly. 2014. “Beyond Error Marking: Written Corrective Feedback for a Dialogic Pedagogy in Translator Training.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 8 (2): 240–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2014.908554. A. Schmidhofer, E. Cerezo Her­rero, M. Koletnik Figure 4. Summarized results for Q1. Q1: Have the language courses prepared you sufficiently to be able to tackle translation courses? Martina Paradiž University of Primorska, Slovenia 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 91-106(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.91-106 UDC: 81'374.8-022.215:[37.018.43:621.395.721.5] CoLecTer KIN: Mobile Application for Collaborative Bilingual Glossary Compilation in the ESP Classroom ABSTRACT The ubiquitous use of smartphones has shown to offer great advantages in language learning, which still remain to be harnessed in the field of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), ESP teaching and translator training in higher education. Language teachers are predominantly the users of existing mobile applications and not their producers, which may narrow their range of choices and options in using mobile technology in teaching. This paper presents the results of a student survey on the usability, perceived benefits, and feedback on the features of an Android mobile application built by the author. The CoLecTer KIN application was used by first-year undergraduate students of Applied Kinesiology in a collaborative project of compiling a Slovene-English bilingual glossary of topic-specific terminology. The design of the application makes it suitable for use in the ESP and translation classroom and in collaborative translation projects. Keywords: bilingual glossary of terms, mobile application, ESP, translation, MALL CoLecTer KIN: Mobilna aplikacija za kolaborativno izdelavo dvojezicnega glosarja pri pouku anglešcine kot strokovnega jezika IZVLECEK Vsesplošna raba pametnih telefonov ponuja precejšnje prednosti pri ucenju tujih jezikov, in tujih jezikov stroke in prevajanja, ki pa so na podrocju mobilno podprtega ucenja jezikov še neraziskane in neuporabljene. Ucitelji tujih jezikov so v veliki meri zgolj uporabniki obstojecih mobilnih aplikacij in zelo redko njihovi razvijalci, kar lahko postavlja precejšnje omejitve pri uporabi mobilne tehnologije v razredu. V clanku je predstavljen primer mobilne aplikacije, razvite s pomocjo prostodostopnega razvijalskega orodja, uporaba katerega ne zahteva podrobnega znanja programskih jezikov. Predstavljeni so rezultati raziskave študentskega mnenja o avtorski mobilni aplikaciji CoLecTer KIN, namen katere je bila izgradnja dvojezicnega glosarja podrocne terminologije ter možnost interaktivnega ucenja zbranih terminov. Aplikacija je uporabna tako v okviru ucenja jezikov stroke in prevajanja kot tudi pri kolaborativnih prevajalskih projektih. Kljucne besede: dvojezicni glosar terminov, mobilna aplikacija, jezik stroke, prevajanje, mobilno podprto ucenje jezikov 1 Introduction It is becoming apparent that due to their portability, increasing computing power and internet connectivity, the use of smartphones among young people has surpassed the use of laptop or desktop computers for connecting to the internet. According to Eurostat (2020), 92% of young people accessed the internet through a smartphone in 2019, while only 52% used a computer to do so. In fact, this trend started in 2012 and has continued ever since (cf. Eurostat 2015, 194-198). In recent years, this ubiquitous use of smartphones has encouraged their adoption and use in English language teaching as well, and as a consequence mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) has now come to the forefront of research on technology-assisted language learning, both in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL), as well as English for specific purposes (ESP) and translator training in higher education. Nevertheless, it seems that the seemingly obvious benefits of incorporating MALL into language teaching have not yet been fully explored, and its practical applications are still in their infancy (e.g., Elaish et al. 2019; Hoi 2020; Sung, Chang, and Yang 2015). To date, several studies have been conducted on the use and application of mobile devices in language learning at different levels of education. In these, terminology (and vocabulary) acquisition has been one of the central aspects of research in MALL (e.g., Elaish et al. 2019, Gu¨rkan 2019; Hwang and Fu 2018; Kohnke 2020; Wang et al. 2020). Given the fact that one of the main aims of EFL, ESP and translator training is vocabulary acquisition, this is hardly surprising. In ESP courses in higher education, the use of MALL has stimulated the design of engaging learning activities which focus not only on the acquisition of domain-specific terminology but also encourage effective peer interaction and collaboration through the application of critical thinking and utilization of authentic materials (e.g., Chirobocea-Tudor 2018; Deniko et al. 2015). Such engagement also motivates student for subject-matter learning and lifelong learning (Chen and Chung 2008; Salcines-Talledo, González-Fernández, and Briones 2020). It is probably safe to say that in the context of MALL, as in other educational contexts, ESP teachers are mostly consumers of existing technologies and mobile applications and only rarely their producers (Patton, Tissenbaum, and Harunani 2019), due to their lack of technological knowledge and programming skills. The aim of this study was to challenge this situation and design a mobile application which would enable students enrolled in the first year of the undergraduate programme of Applied Kinesiology at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Primorska, Slovenia, within the course of English for Kinesiology (ESP), to collaborate in building a bilingual glossary of terminology related to sports injuries and use the application to individually revise the collaboratively collected terms, and to collect their feedback on the perceived usability, benefits and enjoyment of using of this purpose-built application. Consistent with previous studies, it was hypothesized that students would rate the usability and benefits of the application as generally positive. In order to improve the application for future use, in addition to testing this hypothesis, the aim of the survey was also to collect student feedback regarding its perceived positive and negative features and design characteristics. 2 Theoretical Background Students’ needs and solutions for learning domain-specific terminology have been frequently discussed in the context of ESP (e.g., Deniko et al. 2015; Mežek 2013). While students’ motivation for terminology acquisition should, ideally, stem from the perceived connection between their future professional practice and needs and the course materials (Dudley-Evans and St. John 1998), it is often the case that ESP courses are offered early into the university programme, which means that students need to learn the terminology of a subject area they are not yet familiar with (Chung and Nation 2004, 252). Students are thus expected to acquire not only the terminology in English, but in parallel also that in their first language (Deniko et al. 2015). While specialized dictionaries may be regarded as an obvious resource for students in learning terminology, few also include semi-technical terms from less formal contexts of use within a specialized domain (Fernández, Flórez de la Colina and Peters 2009, 19–21) or cover specific academic fields such as kinesiology, where interdisciplinarity is a key feature (integrating, for example, sports, medicine, physical therapy, biochemistry, etc.). Considering this situation, several studies have been devoted to the development of educational activities aimed at effective terminology acquisition. For example, Gajšt (2011) reports on a study conducted in an ESP course in Slovenia, in which students were instructed to compile a bilingual glossary of terms they had collected through extensive independent reading, thus focusing on students’ autonomous learning, dictionary skills as well as critical evaluation of information provided in various sources. This study effectively incorporates the guidelines by Sanchez et al. (2008) stating that terminology and ESP teaching in general should also develop and promote students’ future professional skills, autonomy at work, personal responsibility and collaboration, as well as their critical, creative and practical thinking skills. Research shows obvious advantages to using smartphones for learning terminology, e.g., ease of use virtually anywhere, including during students’ informal time, promotion of self-discipline and active learning, faster acquisition of the material and possibility of frequent revision (Foomami and Hedayati 2016; Reychav and Wu 2015; Sung, Chang, and Yang 2015). However, as noted by Wang et al. (2020), in the process of integrating MALL into terminology acquisition within ESP classes, it is mostly the teacher who is the generator and distributer of the content (e.g., wordlists), which places a heavy burden on the teacher and might also have a negative impact on student engagement and motivation. The authors therefore suggest a contribution-oriented learning model, i.e., a participation model (Collins and Moonen 2006, 53), which involves students’ active contribution to the knowledge base or co-generation of the content. It is important to note, however, that despite the proven efficiency of the participation model, the importance of personalized learning should not be neglected, so that there is a balance between collaboration and personalized learning (Chang and Chen 2007; Foomami and Hedayati 2016; Looi et al. 2010), with group learning used to strengthen one’s individual learning (Slavin 2011). This supports the usefulness of the MALL model developed by Collis and Moonen (2006), which defines the role of the teacher as that of activity coordinator and attributes to students the contributing role of learning-resource creators and designers. This is similar to the field of problem-based learning (PBL), characterized by cooperative learning and teamwork in which teachers are perceived as facilitators of the students’ learning process and perform various roles, such as activity coordinators, parents, professional consultants, confidants, learners and mediators (Wilkerson and Hundert 2001, 164–168).1 The results of a study by Wang et al. (2020), incorporating individual and contribution-oriented learning, confirm the positive effect of collaborative learning on students’ motivation. Students rated mobile-assisted vocabulary learning through contribution and collaboration as being more effective, enjoyable, flexible and efficient (2020, 24). Similarly, recent studies on mobile-assisted vocabulary learning (e.g., Klimova 2019; Kohnke 2020; Poláková and Klímová 2019) demonstrate that the use of smartphones and mobile applications positively influences students’ academic performance in vocabulary acquisition and retention. Students find the use of mobile applications as an enjoyable alternative to traditional learning approaches, and positively evaluate the collaborative component of such learning. This may also be explained by the fact that learning new words through verbal as well as visual channels increases learners’ vocabulary retention (Kohnke, Zhang, and Zou 2019, 684). While smartphones offer immense advantages which, as has been shown, can be successfully and effectively utilized in the ESP classroom, the full potential of these technologies has yet to be harnessed. The fact is that due to their limited programming and app developing skills, ESP teachers are often limited to using the applications which are already available and thus, like students, mostly use rather than produce suitable mobile applications (Patton, Tissenbaum, and Harunani 2019). Most of the available language learning applications are either commercial and require students and teacher to pay for their use, contain advertisements, or have simply not been designed with due account taken of the communicative or collaborative pedagogical approaches used in language learning (Lindaman and Nolan 2015, 1). However, there are some ways to overcome this drawback. While collaboration with other experts within university-based collaborative projects is definitely a viable option, so is the design of simple mobile applications which can serve the purposes of a class activity by individual teachers by taking advantage of freely available programming tools which require little or no knowledge of programming languages. One of the most accessible platforms for designing smartphone applications for the Android operating system (OS) with minimal learning curve is MIT App Inventor (for an outline of the history of its development, see Patton, Tissenbaum, and Harunani 2019). By offering a block-language interface, the platform provides an accessible solution for anyone who wishes to create a mobile application to address a specific need, regardless of their background in programming. Over the past decade, MIT App Inventor has been used particularly successfully within computer science courses, with teachers at all levels of education designing applications and teaching students various principles of application design, machine learning, artificial intelligence and other topics.2 1 In her study, Celinšek (2014) finds that in terms of involvement these roles are ranked in the following order by language teachers: the professional consultant, the confidant, the mediator, the learner, and the parent. 2 For a list of studies based on MIT App Inventor, see MIT App Inventor - Related Research at https://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/research. 3 Methods For the purposes of this study, the author created a mobile application which can be used on Android OS based smartphones for collecting and revising topic-specific terminology. The reason Android was chosen over iOS as the platform on which the application would run is that the Android OS offers the possibility of running third-party applications, which is not the case with the iOS platform. Moreover, Android applications published on Google Play, the official applications store for Android-based devices, go through a revision process, the purpose of which is to make sure the application is safe and secure. The application, named CoLecTer KIN (an acronym for Collaboration in Lectures focused on Terminology in Kinesiology) (Paradiž 2020), was developed using the MIT App Inventor platform and distributed to students at the beginning of the course. Students were given instructions to prepare and present a seminar paper on sports injuries and, at the same time, to enter the terminology they had encountered in the preparation of their seminar paper into the joint database through the use of the CoLecTer KIN mobile application. Their participation in this activity was voluntary. At the end of the course, students were asked to complete a survey about their experience as users of the application. 3.1 CoLecTer KIN Mobile Application: Design and Functions The CoLecTer KIN application was created using the MIT App Inventor online tool, which consists of two main components: the Designer, a drag-and-drop interface which allows the user to arrange the elements as they should appear on the smartphone screen, and the Blocks Editor, which enables the user to create algorithms by connecting colour-coded blocks to define the function of each element of the application. Figures 1 and 2 show the respective components of the MIT App Inventor platform. The application consists of three screens. The first screen of the application displays a simple interface containing the title, a help button for instructions of use, and a form for entering terms along with an example of how the term can be used in a sentence, and the topic. Once the student has filled out the entire form,3 the data is entered into a termbase (a Google Sheets database). The screen also contains three buttons (at the bottom of the screen) which provide hyperlinks to the online Cambridge Dictionary (button ‘Dictionary’), the Corpus of American English (button ‘COCA Corpus’) and Linguee English-Slovene Dictionary (button ‘Linguee’). Figure 3. Screen 1 of CoLecTer KIN. Tapping on the ‘View All Entries & Revise’ button takes the user to Screen 2, which, as shown in Figure 4 below, displays a list of all entries recorded in the database (not only those entered by an individual student). Students can use the search box to browse through entries in both languages, simultaneously searching through terms, examples and topics. By tapping on a term, this term is added to a sub-database of terms selected for revision with the use of flashcards. There is no limit to the number of terms which can be selected for such revision. 3 The fields ‘Your name’, ‘English term’, ‘Slovene translation’ and ‘Example’ were mandatory for the entry to be recorded in the database, while adding the ‘Topic’ was optional. The ‘Flashcards’ button takes the user to Screen 3, which displays the flashcards (See Figure 5), whereas the ‘Back to Form’ button takes the user back to Screen 1 (term entry form). In Screen 3, the user uses a vertical drag gesture to draw a card from the deck. The card shows the term in English, randomly selected from those chosen for revision in the previous step. Tapping the card flips it over to show the Slovene translation of term, example of use and topic. The card can be flipped over several times. Alternatively, the user can also draw a new card. Figure 5. Screen 3 of CoLecTer KIN – Flashcards. 3.2 CoLecTer KIN Termbase The terms and examples of use, along with the student’s name and the topic of the entered term (optional), are recorded in the CoLecTer KIN termbase, for which a Google Sheets spreadsheet was used that contains the following elements (columns): (A) Timestamp, (B) English Term, (C) Slovene Term, (D) Example, (E) Student’s Name and (F) Topic. Figure 6 shows a screenshot of the database displaying elements B – D. Figure 6. Screenshot of the CoLecTer KIN database (termbase). As there was no option to correct mistakes through the application, all students participating in the activity were also given permission to edit the items directly in the termbase and were provided a direct link to the CoLecTer KIN termbase. The teacher checked the termbase regularly to remove duplicate entries and correct spelling and other errors. 3.3 Student Task Students attending the course English for Kinesiology conducted within the undergraduate degree programme of Applied Kinesiology at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Primorska (Year 1 of the programme), in the 2018/2019 and in 2019/2020 academic years (two groups) were given the task to prepare a seminar presentation on a chosen sports injury. They were given instructions to individually review the materials they gathered from reliable sources in English and were invited to contribute to a joint termbase through the use of the CoLecTer KIN application during this process. The application was distributed via the Moodle e-classroom as an .apk file, which they were asked to download and install on their smartphones. As the application only works on the Android OS, those who did not have the option of using an Android-based device were also given the possibility to contribute the terms directly into the CoLecTer KIN termbase in Google Sheets via a link published in the e-classroom. 3.4 Student Survey At the end of the course, students were invited to complete an online survey, administered through the 1KA online platform (One Click Survey; www.1ka.si), the first one at the end of the 2018/2019 academic year (in May 2019), and the second at the end of the 2019/2020 academic year (in June 2020). Participation in the student survey was voluntary. The survey (consisting of closed questions with the option of adding comments and one open-ended question) was divided into four parts. In the first part, respondents were asked to state whether or not they had used the application, and if so, whether they had used it on their own device or on a borrowed device, and whether they had used it only for terminology collection, terminology revision or both. The second part consisted of two questionnaires in which students were asked to rank the degree to which they agreed with the given statements using a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree). The first questionnaire focused on usability and included seven statements loosely based on the System Usability Scale (SUS) developed by Brooke (1986), while the second questionnaire included five statements related to user experience and students’ reasons for using the application. The questionnaires consisted of positively as well as negatively worded items, whereby, in accordance with the scoring system proposed by Brooke (1986) and explained in more detail by Lewis and Sauro (2017), positively worded items were assigned scores ranging from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree) and the scores for negatively worded items were inverted (4 for Strongly Disagree and 0 for Strongly Agree). In the third part of the survey, students were asked to choose the statements which best described their perceptions of the positive (11 statements) and negative features (seven statements) of the application with the option of adding to the list (Item ‘Other. Please specify:’). In this part students were also asked an open-ended question asking them to list the functions they wished to see included in future versions of the application. In the fourth (final) part of the survey, students were asked to rate the application on a scale from 1 (Poor) to 5 (Excellent). This part of the survey also included an open-ended question asking for their overall opinion on the application. 4 Results 4.1 Collaboratively Built Bilingual Termbase – Terminological Glossary The bilingual termbase, collaboratively built by students during the preparation of their seminar presentations, consists of a total of 117 entries (term in English, its translation into Slovene and an example of its use in a sentence or phrase) in a Google Sheets spreadsheet (see Figure 6). Throughout the preparation of the glossary, the teacher regularly checked the entries for errors and to remove duplicates. 4.2 Results of the Survey Participation in the student survey was voluntary. Although the survey was distributed to two groups of students (in 2019 and in 2020), there were no significant changes made to the task of preparing the seminar paper, the instructions provided, or the application itself. Like the first group of students, the second was asked to build the glossary of terms starting from an empty spreadsheet without any pre-existing entries from the previous group. Due to the relatively low number of respondents, the results presented here have been combined to include responses from both groups of students. Out of the 35 students who completed the questionnaire, 25 students used the application on their own or borrowed (three students) smartphone. The remaining 10 did not use the application, but did contribute to the Google Sheets database. Of the students who used the application, 19 completed the entire survey, and 22 students only completed the first of the two questionnaires included in the second part of the survey (seven statements related to usability). Figures 7 and 8 show the results of the second part of the survey (two questionnaires related to usability and user experience, respectively), in which students were asked to rate each statement on a five-item scale from Strongly Disagree (0 points) to Strongly Agree (4 points) (only one answer possible for each statement). The scores for negatively worded statements were inverted (4 points for Strongly Disagree and 0 points for Strongly Agree) (see Lewis and Sauro 2017). The overall rating for the usability of the application and user experience was 79.2%, with the first questionnaire on usability yielding an average rating of 84.1% and the second an average rating of 72.3%. Figure 7. Results of the questionnaire rating the usability of the application (n=22).4 Figure 8. Results of the questionnaire rating the user experience with the application (n=19).4 The overall score from the first questionnaire was 84.1% (i.e., a cumulative point score of 84.1), which ranks the application as excellent in terms of usability according to the SUS grading scale (Lewis and Sauro 2017, 44). However, this questionnaire was only very loosely based on the SUS, with three of its original items not included. According to Lewis and Sauro (2017, 44), while omitting any item from the SUS questionnaire should not affect the overall reliability of the scale, necessary modifications need to be taken into account in the calculation of the score and interpretation of data.5 Given the small sample size, this usability score needs to be interpreted with caution (2017, 44). The aim of the third part of the survey was to obtain more specific feedback regarding students’ positive (Figure 9) and negative (Figure 10) perceptions and experiences of using the application. The percentages shown in Figures 9 and 10 reflect the percentage of respondents who selected each statement (multiple selection possible). As can be seen, the relevance of the collected terms in the termbase and the anywhere-anytime possibility of 4 The statements “I needed technical support…”, “I would not wish to…” (Figure 7), and “The only reason I used this application…” (Figure 8) are negatively worded statements and were therefore scored with inverted scores of 4 - Strongly Disagree to 0 - Strongly Agree (see Lewis and Sauro 2017). 5 According to Lewis and Sauro (2018, 160), several studies have used the SUS scale with various modifications (e.g., changing the wording, rewriting the items in a positive tone), which have not affected the reliability of the scale.using the application were perceived as its most positive traits, while the fact that it can only be installed on Android-based devices was perceived as its most negative feature, followed by its lack of attractiveness. Figure 9. Perceived positive qualities of the CoLecTer KIN application (n=19). In the second part of the survey, students were also asked what functions and features they would like to see in future versions of CoLecTer KIN. Five responses were given. Two students expressed a desire for the application to be adapted for the iOS operating system, while one student indicated that they would like the inclusion of visual media. Both of these suggestions can be taken into account in the development of updated versions of the application. One respondent stated that they would like the application to provide the translation of a term and place the word in context. Currently, this was only possible through the use of external platforms (corpora and dictionary) hyperlinked from the application. One student stated that they missed being able to browse through the entries, although this is actually possible with the application. This particular response indicated that there is a need to provide more detailed instructions to students or to use the application more frequently in class so that they become more familiar with its features. In the fifth and final part, students were asked to give an overall rating for this application. The average score was 4.27 with a SD of 0.75. This result corresponds to the perceived usability score, which was 84.1 (the first questionnaire), and reveals a very positive assessment of the application. Students’ responses to the final (open-ended) question, in which they were asked to provide additional comments and opinions, were also very meaningful: “I am grateful for the effort invested in this application, as it will surely benefit us in the future.” “Although I didn’t use it due to technical limitations, the idea behind it and its overall purpose seem excellent.” “It’s great as it keeps all data in one place.” “I really liked getting to know a new way of language learning.” “The app is excellent in the technical sense, but I prefer learning a language using a textbook.” “Although the idea is good, students were not motivated enough to use the application.” 5 Discussion According to the results of the student survey, CoLecTer KIN was rated very positively. The application was given the highest scores for its usability. It was perceived as easy to use with little or no technical support required to operate it, and a clear, satisfactory structure. Most students felt confident using the application and would also use it in the future (see Figure 7). The benefits of the application for terminology acquisition were also noticed and rated positively, with almost three quarters of students perceiving it as beneficial for learning terminology (see Figure 8). This was also confirmed by over half of all participants citing easier collection and revision of terminology as one of its positive traits (see Figure 9), as well as their comments praising the purpose, benefits and advantages of the application keeping topic-specific terms in a single database. Students’ perceptions related to user experience and enjoyment of using this application were also generally positive, with fun and enjoyment reported by approximately two thirds of the students who used it (Figure 8), and almost 60% of students perceiving the fun of using the application as one of its positive traits (Figure 9). This is consistent with the findings of a study by Poláková and Klímová (2019), who report that students found using a mobile application more enjoyable than traditional methods of language learning. It should be noted, however, that just under a third of all respondents reported using CoLecTer KIN only at the request of the teacher and did not see this form of language learning as fun or enjoyable, although they did not perceive it as overly complicated (see Figure 8). According to other results of the survey, particularly the students’ comments on the perceived negative features of the application (Figure 10), this could be due to its lack of visual appeal. Overall, the contributing aspect of collaboration in language learning was viewed positively, with more than half of all respondents stating that they liked the fact that the terminology was entered by students. This corresponds to the findings by Wang et al. (2020, 26), who state that “students’ sense of contribution was most statistically significantly correlated with their L2 motivation”, as well as the assertion by Collis and Moonen (2006, 53) that “participation is not enough: the participant must also contribute in order to make a difference”. Student motivation may also be reflected in students’ intention to use the application in the future, where the results showed significant differences between individual students. While the majority of students (62.5%) indicated that they intended to continue using this application, there were also students who did not feel motivated to use it in the future. The results of the survey show that not all students enjoyed using the application, as students’ opinions about the use of smartphones in language learning seem to be divided. While it has often been stated in the literature that the use of MALL and the associated ability of students to use smartphones for accessing educational materials at any time and place also increases students’ motivation to learn (e.g., Hao et al. 2019, 209; Sung, Chang and Yang 2015, 3–6), the degree of students’ acceptance and attitudes towards this learning approach may vary. As reported by Garcia Botero et al. (2018), students’ acceptance of smartphone use in language learning depends on various social and technical conditions, and is mainly motivated by their belief that this approach will enhance their academic performance. Students would therefore potentially benefit from additional motivation in the form of specific classroom activities involving the use of the application, which would show exactly how to take advantage of the functions it offers. In this study, students were given instructions on how to install and use the application, but were not provided with specific in-class exercises which focused on its various features, and thus would increase their motivation to use it. Moreover, there are certain time constraints to be considered here, as the time spent with students in this particular ESP class is limited to just one semester throughout the course of study, and so the teacher needs to plan the syllabus as efficiently as possible to not leave out any essential elements of language learning. Despite this, and considering the generally positive attitude of students towards the use of this mobile application for collaborative terminology collection and revision, it would definitely be worthwhile to devote some time to such activities in the future. According to student feedback, the CoLecTer KIN application shows ample room for improvement, with a particular focus on making it available for all OS platforms and increasing its visual appeal (e.g., by including multimedia files). A step towards making the application easier to install, which was one of the perceived negative features (Figure 10), has already been taken by publishing it on the Google Play store. Overall, the task of collaborative bilingual topic-specific terminological glossary building through the CoLecTer KIN application was found to serve several functions of language learning. One of them was bilingual terminology acquisition through extensive reading and independent use of resources, which has been reported in similar studies focusing on terminology acquisition through glossary building (e.g., Gajšt 2011). Another goal achieved through this activity was students’ autonomous use of language reference materials, i.e., monolingual and bilingual corpora and dictionaries in their search for the translation of each term into Slovene and an example of its use in a sentence or phrase. Furthermore, in addition to autonomous individual learning, this activity also incorporated student collaboration, thus effectively combining the two aspects of learning which have been shown to lead to greater effectiveness of instruction (e.g., Slavin 2011, 26). 6 Conclusion With the proliferation of smartphone technology and declining trends in personal computer use among young people, the application of MALL activities in the ESP and translation classrooms seems to be a logical step forward. However, this step has not yet been taken by all ESP and translation teachers, probably due to their perceived lack of technical skills. As demonstrated by the present study, teachers do not need to rely on freely available applications, which may include hidden costs and advertising material, but can take advantage of freely accessible and viable options which allow virtually any teacher to design a mobile application tailored to the specific needs of their students and the subject matter taught. The CoLecTer KIN application, which was designed by the author with only a basic knowledge of computer algorithms and no knowledge of programming languages, has proven to be a useful tool for students to collaboratively create a bilingual terminological glossary which they can consult during their studies, in translation, as well as in their future professional careers. Although this study has certain limitations, such as the small sample size and the modifications made to the SUS scale, its results provide useful feedback on the perceived usability, benefits, enjoyment of using and ways to improve the application in the future. Overall, the design and features of the CoLecTer KIN application were rated very positively. As can be seen from the results, most students enjoy using smartphones in language learning and feel encouraged by the benefits such approaches offer. However, there are also students who do not feel motivated simply by the existence of mobile technology and suitable mobile applications, but would perhaps benefit from a more focused effort to familiarize them with the advantages such approaches may offer in the achievement of their academic goals. 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CoLecTer KIN: Mobile Application for Collaborative Bilingual Glossary Compilation ... M. Paradiž Figure 1. Screenshot of MIT App Inventor’s Designer. Figure 2. Screenshot of MIT App Inventor’s Blocks Editor. Figure 4. Screen 2 of CoLecTer KIN. Figure 10. Perceived negative traits of the CoLecTer KIN application (n=19). Csilla Szabó BME Centre for Modern Languages, Hungary 2021, Vol. 18 (1), 107-124(222) revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.18.1.107-124 UDC: 81'253 Revisiting Consecutive Note-Taking: What to Note, How to Note, and in What Language? ABSTRACT Note-taking is taught across the board at interpreter training institutions, but opinions as to ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘in what language’ one should take notes often tend to be curiously mixed. This paper revisits the three main areas where there seems to be no strong consensus, namely: 1) What and how much should interpreters note down? 2) How should they take notes: by taking down full words, abbreviations or symbols? 3) In what language should they prepare their notes: in the source or target language, in A or B language or, irrespective of the direction, in an economical language such as English? This study explores these three questions by first revisiting prescriptive views put forward by practitioners over the past few decades; it then highlights some of the empirical studies conducted in these areas; and finally it proposes recommendations for trainers, based on the author’s experience as a trainer of consecutive interpreting. Keywords: consecutive capacities, choice of form, choice of language, empirical research, note-taking Ponoven premislek o zapiskih pri konsekutivnem tolmacenju: Kaj zapisati, kako zapisati in v katerem jeziku zapisati? IZVLECEK Tehnika zapisovanja se poucuje v vseh institucijah, ki izobražujejo tolmace, a mnenja o tem, kaj, kako in v katerem jeziku zapisovati, so pogosto nenavadno razlicna. V prispevku je predstavljen ponoven razmislek o treh glavnih temah, za katere se zdi, da glede njih ni mocnega konsenza, in sicer: 1) Kaj in koliko naj bi tolmaci zapisali? 2) Kako si delati zapiske: pisati celotne besede, krajšave ali simbole? 3) V katerem jeziku naj bi bili zapiski: v izvirniku ali v ciljnem jeziku, v jeziku A ali B, ali, ne glede na smer, v ekonomicnem jeziku, kakršna je anglešcina? Pricujoca študija se osredinja na omenjena tri vprašanja. Uvodoma so predstavljeni preskriptivni pogledi, ki so jih v zadnjih nekaj desetletjih zagovarjali tolmaci-praktiki, nato pa izbrane empiricne raziskave s tega podrocja. Avtorica na podlagi svojih izkušenj s poucevanjem konsekutivnega tolmacenja prispevek sklene s priporocili za ucitelje. Kljucne besede: zmožnost konsekutivnega tolmacenja, izbira oblike, izbira jezika, empiricne raziskave, zapiski 1 Introduction Consecutive interpreting is one of the modes of conference interpreting which “may involve the rendering of source-language utterances lasting anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes or more” (e.g., González, Vásquez, and Mikkelson 1991). Literature on consecutive interpreting tends to be dominated by note-taking (Russell and Takeda 2015, 105), as this activity is central to rendering a speech, or any segment of a speech, into the target language. According to data recorded in the CIRIN Bibliography1 between 2010 and 2020 (CIRIN 2021), 42 papers were devoted to consecutive note-taking, out of which seven were master’s theses and two doctoral dissertations.2 Note-taking is an essential and integrated part of consecutive interpreting, during which the interpreter takes down the structure and logic of the speech, with a focus on keywords and numbers, but, as has been highlighted before, notes are not necessarily prepared to register the details of a speech, but rather to jog the interpreter’s memory (AIIC 20193). Today, long consecutive interpreting is on the decline in the market, but training institutions still insist on testing this skill at their final examinations, claiming that the interpretation of a six- to eight-minute speech may be an appropriate indicator of a candidate’s suitability for the profession. In most training programmes, EMCI4 and others, candidates are required to render a one- to three-minute speech at their entrance examination, while they must also interpret a six- to eight-minute speech (both A