'Translate in the Catskills' workshop (EN>FR, FR>EN)

For readers within reach of New York State, I understand there are still a few places left for the translation seminar 'Translate in the Catskills'.The main language pairs are English-French and French-English. The emphasis is on target-language writing skills.

This looks like a very stimulating event (I have no first-hand experience of it, but I'm a big fan of the intensive summer-school type seminar). I understand that there is some financial aid available in the form of a waived registration fee for qualified candidates. Such candidates may include university lecturers. For more information, see the registration form downloadable on the website, or contact translateinthecatskills at gmail.com. Travel and accommodation are not covered.

Japanese technical translation post

An Australian company is advertising for:

Native Japanese speakers with native English scientific writing skills needed. Completely familiar with scientific terminology of clinical trials and one or more of the following: proteomics, genomics, structural genomics, molecular biology and biochemistry, computers, NMR, X-ray crystallography, medicine. Engineering and Chemistry background a bonus but not absolutely necessary. $10-20 per page. A test translation will be required. 

More details here. 

Webinar on developments in Machine Translation

A colleague just pointed this webinar out to me - might be of interest to some readers? If any of you do attend, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Building Strategic Advantage and Revenue from Machine Translation

Tuesday July 26, 4pm, UK time (for other time zones see below)

Many translators and LSPs have been curious about Machine Translation (MT), but have yet to fully understand how they are able to build strategic advantage and increase revenues. Recent advances in MT have changed the landscape from being able to get the meaning (gist) of text in another language using MT to being able to publish the output with very few human edits. Industrial-strength customized MT now offers near-human quality and greatly improved translation throughput. With this increased productivity come new market opportunities for LSPs. During this webinar, we will explore the following:

Part 1: Understanding MT Technology and Data

● Overview of Machine Translation
    - Different machine translation approaches
    - Where MT makes the most sense
    - Where humans and MT meet

● Requirements for Building a High Quality Near-Human Quality Translation Engine
    - Understanding the data
    - MT and human translation are more similar than you think

● Incremental Improvement of Translation Quality
    - The importance of corrective feedback
    - Focused correction
    - Building terminology
    - Adding the right kind of data

Part 2: Business Models For Strategic Advantage and Long Term Revenue

● The Long-Term Benefits of a Good MT engine
    - Lower cost, greater productivity and speed
    - Business opportunities
    - TM or MT – should they be treated any different?

● Sustainable Revenue Models for LSPs
    - The importance of focus when selecting and leveraging a domain
    - Generating recurring revenues
    - Targeting multiple clients in the same domain

● Expanding the scope of translation – Strategic Advantage
    - Extending beyond the traditional human translation limitations
    - Customer support & conversations
    - Moving closer to real time

Times:
EDT 11:00 / 11AM (UTC – 4) Boston, New York
PDT 08:00 / 8AM (UTC - 7) Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle
BST 16:00 / 4PM (UTC + 1) London, Dublin
CEST 17:00 / 5PM (UTC + 2) Amsterdam, Prague
EEST 18:00 / 6PM (UTC + 3) Bucharest

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/645356736

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Summer Programme in Portuguese and guest lecture, Dartmouth, MA

Here's an event that may interest readers in Massachusetts (Google says we have some...!):

UMass Dartmouth Summer Program in Portuguese

Prof. Christopher Larkosh, director

Lecture in Translation Studies 

by Prof. Moira Inghilleri, University College London

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
DION 106, 12:00 p.m.

The UMass Dartmouth Summer Program in Portuguese is now in its 18th year of offering intensive courses in Portuguese language, Portuguese-English translation, and Lusophone literatures and cultures at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. With the aim of encouraging our international group of students to consider careers in translation, the Program has invited a number of scholars in the field of translation studies over the past few years to meet with students and present their research; past guests have included Prof. Edwin Gentzler, well-known specialist on theories of translation, and Prof. Donaldo Macedo, English translator of the works of Paulo Freire, seminal figure in Brazilian liberation pedagogy. 

This year we are honored to be able to welcome Prof. Moira Inghilleri from University College London, who will give a talk on the following topic:

Communicative ethics, translator visibility and linguistic/cultural borders

Translators of spoken and written language operate in contexts which can foster ambiguity, contradiction and misunderstanding, all of which are resolvable only in relation to the different communicative objectives at play amongst the participants involved. The notion of the impartial and neutral translator has long been a crucial guiding ethical principle of the profession. However, particularly in contexts where communicative objectives are tied to specific social, political or economic agendas, maintaining impartiality can work against the goal of mutual understanding. In this seminar, I present an alternative view of ethical communication which, instead of encouraging translators to remain interactively invisible, calls for a greater recognition of the crucial link between ethical practice, translator visibility, and more mutually-effective dialogue amongst linguistically and culturally diverse speakers and texts.

Bio: Moira Inghilleri is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Intercultural Studies, University College London. She is the author of Interpreting Justice: Ethics, Politics and Language (Routledge, available November 2011) and the forthcoming Sociological Approaches to Translation and Interpreting (St. Jerome Publishing). She is co-editor of The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication. 

Prior to joining the journal as co-editor in 2011, she guest-edited two special issues: Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translating (2005) and Translation and Violent Conflict (2010, with Sue-Ann Harding). Her research has appeared in Translation Studies, The Translator, Target and a number of edited collections. 

PhD studentship in translation/interpreting, Swansea

Just seen this advertisement for a PhD studentship in translation or intepreting at Swansea which may be of interest to some readers.

Places at translation summer school still available for Russian and Spanish

Hi all, 

A message just came round from the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies to say that there are places left for translators from Russian and Arabic at the Use your Language, Use your English Summer School which will take place from July 18 to 23 July. Contact the IGRS regarding late applications. Please see http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate/use-your-language-use-your-english.html for further details.