The rapid advancement of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shifted interpreting pedagogy towards a human-AI synergy, yet it has introduced unprecedented cognitive challenges, such as cognitive anchoring and correction overhead. Traditional instructional feedback often fails to address interpreting as a complex ill-structured problem. In response to this gap, we propose the Dynamic Synergy Model of Interpreting Coaching (DSMIC) as a cognitive stabiliser. The framework operationalises coaching through two synergistic sub-models: Interpreting Problem-Solving Coaching (IPSC) for tactical cognitive intervention and Student-Centered Interpreting Learning Process Coaching (SCILPC) for affective regulation. Through a six-week microgenetic case study of two novice interpreters, the research suggests that this heuristic approach effectively decouples learners from technological dependency. Findings, triangulated via the Interpreting Strategy and Resilience Grid (ISRG) and qualitative protocols, reveal a significant shift from passive algorithm followers to proactive cognitive commanders, evidenced by enhanced key information retention, strategic flexibility, and rapid cognitive recovery. Ultimately, the study reconceptualises interpreting competence as metacognitive orchestration, arguing that the interpreters' thinking premium - the capacity for adaptive expertise under uncertainty - is the core value that must be actively reconstructed through expert coaching in the AI era.
Translation and interpreting (T&I) have long been taught and assessed in higher education contexts worldwide. With the growing demand for grading student-generated T&I, researchers are focusing on automatic T&I assessment. In this article, we aim to initially investigate the utility of ChatGPT as an automatic evaluator for interpreting, by comparing ChatGPT-based scores with those of human raters. We recruited 45 raters from diverse backgrounds to assess 56 English-Chinese student interpretations. Twenty-four ChatGPT-based e-raters were also configured to assess the same interpretations, varying the reference rendition availability, scoring granularity, and model randomness. We conducted statisticalanalysis to examine the reliability, severity, validity, and accuracy of ChatGPT-based e-raters. Our findings reveal that: a) e-raters showed greater reliability and severity than human raters; b) e-raters generally matched human raters in concurrent validity; and c) e-raters outperformed some of their human counterparts in scoring accuracy for English-to-Chinese interpretations. Among the 24 e-raters, those scoring at the passage level exhibited lower reliability, severity and validity but, interestingly, achieved more accurate scores for English-to-Chinese interpretations. These results suggest that ChatGPT-based e-raters may be used as a secondary rater for cross-validation alongside human raters but should not be deployed as sole scorers.
Following in the footsteps of academic proponents of collaboration between spoken and signed language interpreters (SpLIs and SLIs), the authors of this study have bridged their respective areas of expertise to bring these two communities of practice together. This study presents data from a two-phase empirical investigation into the attitudes - understood as beliefs and perceptions - of SpLIs and SLIs towards the principles set out in various codes of ethics. The research design comprised an online questionnaire and three focus groups. The analysis was conducted from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, taking into account language modalities of the participants, as well as their professional experience. The findings confirmed substantial similarities and differences between SpLIs and (deaf and hearing) SLIs in defining and applying professional ethics. As a result, the authors advocate for close collaboration between the two groups of interpreters, which would enhance exchange of knowledge and experience and thus prepare them for the developments of the ever-evolving profession.
The training of signed language translators and interpreters (SLTI) have undergone a profound transformation in recent decades. Historically situated interpreting practices gradually evolved into organised systems of education, laying the groundwork for contemporary models of interpreter education. This special issue focuses on the content, theories, and practices of teaching SLTI and reviews how degree programs can be designed in such a way that they combine linguistic and professional competence with social responsibility. The assembled contributions show that it is not sufficient to structure curricula solely around technical competences. Rather, SLTI education must be understood as a field situated at the intersection of institutional requirements, social responsibility, and academic reflection.
The increasing prevalence of English as a lingua franca in Europe adds complexities in the field of signed language interpretation. This article delves into the challenges signed language interpreters (SLIs) face when working with English as a third language rather than as a native or second language. Unlike their counterparts in spoken language interpretation, SLIs often lack the educational and professional pathways to branch out to additional working languages. Consequently, the onus falls on individual interpreters to acquire English as a third language in their professional practice. This article presents longitudinal data on signed language interpreting training programmes and the experiences of professional national sign language (NSL) interpreters in Europe when working with English as a third language. Data suggest that qualified or not, many SLIs frequently use English as a working language. The results show the need to establish new educational routes that qualify NSL interpreters to add English as a working language.
This study investigates the unique challenges and strategies in translating from a signed to a spoken language, focusing on translation from French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) to French. While research on sign language interpreting is thriving, studies on translation are rather scarce, often centring on the translation of spoken to signed languages. To address this gap, we analyse student and expert translations within a newly compiled LSFB-to-French translation corpus, applying error analysis to student translations. Findings highlight the error-prone segments in student translations and the creative strategies employed by experts to translate these segments, informed by Pym's taxonomy of translation solutions. The study aims to provide empirical evidence to enhance translator training resources, supporting the development of curricula tailored to the specific needs of signed-to-spoken language translation.
This article examines the integration of Deaf Studies and ethics as core components of the bachelor's programme in Dutch Sign Language (NGT) /Dutch interpreting at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) in the Netherlands. Drawing on student evaluations, instructor feedback, and theoretical perspectives, it explores the curriculum redesign process aimed at fostering a holistic, student-centred approach to interpreter education. By embedding Deaf Studies and ethics as foundational elements, the programme challenges systemic inequities and prepares students to navigate the complexities of interpreting practice with cultural competence and critical engagement. The article discusses the challenges and opportunities of this integration, highlighting the broader implications for interpreter education across Europe. It concludes by advocating for structural changes, including a reconsideration of entry requirements and the Introduction of standalone Deaf Studies programmes.
Proposing and building an online undergraduate programme for Colombian Sign Language - Spanish Interpretation and Translation responds to the critical need for trained professionals to support Colombia's deaf community, particularly in academic, health, and legal contexts. A market study revealed a gap in formal education for interpreters and translators, specifically in translation, interpretation, linguistics, and Deaf culture. To address this, an online programme was developed to equip students with both linguistic and cultural competencies necessary for professional translation and interpretation. The resulting curriculum emphasises practical skills in interpretation and translation, while also fostering an understanding of Deaf identity and user needs. The online format expands accessibility to students nationwide, combining theoretical knowledge with real-time interactive sessions for skill development. However, key challenges include adapting didactic methods for an online environment, ensuring effective interaction, and managing the administrative complexities of virtual education.
Research in the Arts and Humanities, including Translation Studies, has tended to follow a lone researcher model. As the research landscape changes, however, co-authoring is coming more to the fore. This poses particular challenges when PhD students and their supervisors contemplate co-authorship, because of the power imbalance inherent in the supervisory relationship. This article reports on a research project that explores attitudes of PhD students and supervisors to co-authorship. The survey is cross-disciplinary, but we argue that the question is an important one, which has hitherto received very little attention from Translation Studies scholars and deserves both more focused research and inclusion in doctoral training curricula. Overall, participants reported a positive experience, yet identified underutilised opportunities for co-authorship, a lack of clear guidelines regarding roles and expectations, and no shared understanding that supervisors should be automatically included as first authors or co-authors in PhD publications.
The integration of AI-powered technologies into translator training in higher education has prompted significant academic and professional debate. As generative AI reshapes the language services industry, educators face the dual challenge of adapting curricula to meet evolving industry demands while addressing concerns around academic integrity and student engagement. This article therefore offers a reflective account of what we refer to as 'AI-in-the-loop' pedagogy, which centres human expertise and decision-making alongside a student-oriented, action research approach. Through a diachronic examination of authentic assessment data and student surveys, this project's most striking finding is the contrast between increased reported use of AI tools, particularly generative ones, and greater scepticism and lower reported use following our pedagogic interventions. Although seemingly contradictory, these results demonstrate the impact of our AI-in-the-loop approach, which enables students to understand how such tools can support their work and ensures they critically evaluate the technology's usefulness while ensuring that their own skills remain central. Meaningfully integrating AI into academic practice, therefore, provides an essential foundation for its responsible and effective use in future professional contexts.
In 2024, Portugal commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, marking the end of a 41-year dictatorship and colonial wars. In this context, a group from Portugal's oldest institution offering higher education for Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) interpreters - the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Set & uacute;bal - undertook a voluntary project to translate Am & iacute;lcar Cabral's final speech into LGP. The project aimed to create an accessible video with LGP, Portuguese subtitles, and Cabral's original audio to engage diverse audiences and provide educational content. Led by two professors with extensive interpreting experience, the project involved third-year students of a Translation and Interpretation of Portuguese Sign Language program (TILGP) and relied on collaboration with Deaf advisors to select appropriate signs. It sparked discussions within the Portuguese Deaf Community on decolonising LGP signs and examining racism in those signs from Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) perspectives. The project explored the challenges of interpreting a historically-significant speech, focusing on cultural and historical nuances of Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, and Portugal. This article examines ethical, cultural, and technical aspects, showing how such projects enhance interpreter competence and intercultural mediation, and highlights extracurricular activities' role in improving sign language translation skills.
This study adopts a cross-regional, task-based experimental design to explore interpreting students' technology readiness and their perceptions of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) feedback versus instructor feedback. Using the Technology Readiness Index 2.0 (TRI 2.0) alongside a six-item feedback-perception instrument covering clarity, accuracy, and actionability, it fills a critical empirical gap in digitally mediated feedback for interpreter education. Eighty-nine participants from four universities completed a simultaneous interpreting task via a self-developed LLM-powered web platform. They received immediate AI-generated feedback and subsequently evaluated it against the instructor feedback they typically received in interpreting classes. The findings from TRI 2.0 indicate participants generally have positive attitudes towards technology. However, the results from the feedback literacy scale show participants rated instructor feedback more favourably. In particular, instructor feedback was perceived as significantly clearer in articulating learning goals, more accurate in identifying specific errors, and more actionable in providing suggestions for improvement. Although technology readiness scores were generally high, they exhibited no correlation with students' evaluations of AI-generated feedback, indicating that general techno-optimism does not necessarily translate into greater acceptance of algorithmic feedback. These findings underscore the pedagogical value of human feedback in interpreter training and support the use of GenAI for improved efficiency.
This article reports findings from semi-structured and focus group interviews regarding deaf interpreter (DI) developmental experiences and perceived training and professional development needs. This research, part of a three-year study of sign language ideologies and DIs, takes place in the context of Canadian accessibility legislation requirements for sign language interpreter provision and a corresponding perceived need to train more interpreters. To date, in Canada there have been no specialised DI training programmes or certification processes. With reduced opportunities for deaf children in Canada to learn sign language and a decrease in deaf school populations, the aptitudes and competencies that underlie DI work, including familiarity with diverse deaf lives, are increasingly difficult to acquire. At the same time, there is an urgent need for DIs to facilitate diverse deaf people's participation in institutional processes and access to public services. Findings in this article show the need for DIs in Canada to achieve parity with hearing interpreters in terms of professional recognition and credentials, and point to the importance of continuous, specialised training and professional development for DIs.
Sign language interpreter training programmes have long been established in many countries, particularly in Western nations with extensive histories of sign language interpreting (SLI). These programmes often vary significantly in structure, are predominantly designed for hearing interpreter students, and leave gaps in addressing the evolving dynamics of the interpreting field. Such recent developments include the professionalisation of deaf interpreters and increasing critique of the lack of diversity in the SLI profession. These challenges are deeply intertwined with ideologies, biases, and power dynamics, and underscore the importance of reflexivity to foster meaningful change within the profession. This paper explores how concepts of positionality and reflexivity can be applied to training and continuous professional development (CPD) to facilitate both learning and unlearning. Drawing on my experiences as a sign language interpreter, trainer, and researcher, alongside insights from deaf professionals and interpreter colleagues, I propose visual methods, such as autophotography and egocentric sociograms, to support reflexive practices by stimulating creativity. These tools aim to deepen awareness of interpreters' positionality and its impact on their work. By integrating these methods into SLI training and CPD, the profession can foster growth, enabling sign language interpreters to approach interpreting work with deeper self-examination.
This study discusses the creation and implementation of the first university-level programme for training deaf interpreters and translators in French- and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland and French-speaking regions of Belgium. Developed by hearing researchers and interpreters/translators specialising in sign language interpreting and translation, this study reflects on the challenges encountered in establishing these programmes. Using an autoethnographic approach that connects personal experiences to broader cultural and social contexts, the authors analysed their roles as hearing professionals advocating for deaf-led translation and interpretation curricula. This autoethnographic analysis explored the complexities of navigating institutional barriers, fostering trust with the authorities and deaf stakeholders, and ensuring programme accessibility for diverse student cohorts. Ethical considerations and power dynamics related to the authors' hearing identities as educators are also addressed. To enrich this perspective, the authors conducted reciprocal interviews and compared their experiences of developing these programmes. These discussions revealed shared challenges such as limited educational resources, the need for specialised training in deaf interpretation and translation techniques, and issues related to the authors' own positionalities.
This study proposes and validates a new model termed Exploratory Talk-Driven Collaborative Learning (ETDCL), integrating structured exploratory talk into Collaborative Learning (CL) to enhance translation problem-solving behaviours. A 16-week quasi-experimental study compared an experimental group (EG) using ETDCL with a control group (CG) following traditional CL. Multimodal data were analysed through a mixed-methods approach. Key findings include: (1) Although both groups displayed similar proportions of uninterrupted problem-solving bundles, the EG exhibited a notable increase in the proportion of Collaborative Problem Recognition (CPR) behaviours, reflecting a greater proportional emphasis on problem identification within the collaborative process. (2) The EG showed enhanced individual problem-solving behaviours, characterised by a higher proportion of uninterrupted bundles and a hierarchical distribution of sub-behaviours: Problem Recognition (PR) >Solution Proposal (SP) >Solution Evaluation (SE). Notably, while the EG demonstrated significant within-group reductions in macro-level, syntactic, and lexical errors, its statistically superior performance over the CG was uniquely evident in the reduction of macro-level discourse errors and syntactic errors. (3) The EG showed higher levels of behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement. This research contributes to translation pedagogy by providing preliminary evidence for ETDCL as a promising model for fostering collaborative and individual problem-solving behaviours.
Intercultural competence is the ability to function effectively with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It is self-apparent that such an ability is axiomatic to the work of translators and interpreters. In Australia, applicants for a translation or interpreting credential need to show evidence of having acquired intercultural competence in their training pathway. Where they cannot do this, they may undertake a stand-alone, 20-hour, flexibly delivered intercultural competence module. This paper reports on the experiences of two cohorts of trainees who undertook training over a 2-year period. Results show that before training, most had either no clear understanding of intercultural competence or believed that it was about learning about 'the other culture'. Most express satisfaction with the module, but some miss learning materials that are situation-based or specific to their language pair. Most report that intercultural competence finds application in their current (translation/interpreting) work settings as well as outside these, with a substantial number expressing interest in further training. Trainees' experiences of a stand-alone module provide a learner-centred perspective that further informs the discussion about whether intercultural competence should occupy an overt or embedded place in training programmes.
Translator education graduates pursue careers across a wide range of professional contexts, including translation and language services as well as broader cultural and public-facing sectors such as museums, where communication must address diverse audiences, including visitors with disabilities. This study examines MA students' experiences in a museum translation course that engaged them with authentic professional practices. Specifically, it investigates how students applied disciplinary knowledge when tasked with designing, proposing, and delivering translation services for a real stakeholder: a university museum. The course was redesigned using the change-maker model, inspired by principles of entrepreneurship education, to more closely align disciplinary learning with real-world professional contexts. This pedagogical approach positions students as active agents who respond to concrete needs, rather than as recipients of simulated tasks. This study provides evidence of the potential of change-making as a framework for fostering transformative learning in translator education. The findings contribute to the field by proposing an approach that (i) offers students authentic professional experiences and (ii) supports their development as reflective, knowledgeable, and socially responsible translators through structured change-making activities within a safe educational environment.
Translation education typically emphasises transferrable skills needed for a career in the Language Services Industry. Writing, in conjunction with skills linked to creativity, has recently gained traction. This article builds upon previous work introducing a creative writing module for trainee translators. The objective here is to suggest a threshold concept or key idea with the potential to change how students perceive translation: writing promotes creativity skills that are useful for translation. To explore this, the research employs focus-group interviews with postgraduate translation students, interviews with tutors and close reading of assignment feedback. Combining these perspectives offers insights into how creativity may be defined by learners and teaching staff, and how it may be taught effectively. These are timely questions, given the recent development of generative artificial intelligence tools, which necessitates the exploration of new competences.
This paper focuses on a specific case study in which a project-based approach was implemented to teach medical translation to deaf students enrolled in a continuing education programme that started in 2022 at the Faculty of translation and interpreting, University of Geneva. The deaf participants had to translate a real corpus of 1179 medical sentences (yes/no questions and short affirmative sentences) that were developed by doctors for the emergency unit of the Geneva University Hospital. The broader aim of this project, called BabelDr, is to enable doctors to perform a preliminary medical examination of patients with whom they have no shared language. Translations in the form of videos in Swiss French Sign Language (LSF-CH) are shown to deaf patients, who are initially expected to respond non-verbally. Students worked on this translation project during two classes under the supervision of two deaf trainers. Using an ethnographic method, classroom interactions were recorded, observed, and analysed to identify the tasks and the competencies developed. Our findings suggest this approach enhances both medical translation-specific and general transferable competencies, informing potential content for specialised medical translator training.
