SUSS Translation & Interpretation Public Talks


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Celebrating Translation & Interpretation at SUSS Public Talks: 15 years at the T&I Forefront

SUSS has been at the forefront of Translation and Interpretation (T&I) education in Singapore. It has offered the first and only Bachelor’s programme in T&I since 2007. In 2022, it became the first university in the region to launch a postgraduate programme in Translation and Technology.  

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Bachelor of Arts in Translation and Interpretation programme and the launch of Graduate Diploma in Translation and Technology, we invite members of the public to join us at two public talks by overseas scholars who are also at the forefront of T&I industry. Participants will gain insights into the new dimensions of T&I such as machine learning while making sense of T&I  in a post-COVID world. 

Convergence of Human Translation and Machine Learning

Dr. Peng Wang

Date: 2 June 2022, Thursday

Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm

Location: via Zoom

 

Translation, first and foremost, is a human activity. It originates in practice, out of necessity of communication. Nowadays, machine learning (ML) has increasingly become involved in translation studies and practices. Compared with human’s intuitive reflections on language, machine perception is largely based on mathematical calculation and statistical inference. In this talk, the speaker will revisit the nature of translation with machine learning as a new dimension so that linguists, translators and localizers can better find their value in a ML-driven translation environment. The speaker will also point out how the new dimension of thinking can be applied in the language industry, now and in the future.

peng wangDr. Peng Wang has taught, researched and practiced translation/localization on three continents. She is the convenor of EDUinLOC, the chair of the automation/AI track for LocWorld, and a member of the Conference Interpretation Advisory Panel at the Translation Bureau of the Canadian government.

Dr. Wang started her academic career at Sun Yat-sen University as a lecturer. She has rich research experience on NLP (Natural Language Processing), having worked as a linguistic researcher at the Corpus Research Lab at Northern Arizona University, a domain expert for data mining projects at the University of Maryland and an honorary research fellow on automatic discourse analysis tools at the University of Liverpool.

“Making Sense” in Interpreting

Associate Professor Xiaoyan Shen

Date: 16 July 2022, Saturday

Time: 10:30am - 12:00pm

Location: via Zoom

 

T&I is the ultimate demonstration of the craftsmanship and art of languages, though the outcome of T&I is the result of an often-agonizing decision-making process. To “make sense” in interpreting is to connect the speaker with the audience meaningfully. Interpreters must understand the speaker’s cultural norms and contexts by going beyond “words”, adapting their own assumptions and reasoning accordingly. This talk aims to help participants develop a holistic and critical view of translation and interpretation that emphasizes more discourse than words. Principles and coping strategies of translation and interpretation are weaved into discussions of specific texts.

 

grace shenProfessor Xiaoyan Shen teaches both translation and interpretation (T&I) courses in the Chinese Translation and Interpretation Program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS), California, USA. Over the years, Professor Shen has worked extensively as a conference interpreter for government agencies, MNCs, NGOs and major events. She has also been invited to lecture at numerous T&I training programmes in China, Singapore and other parts of the world. Professor Shen is the recipient of the Middlebury Institute Faculty Excellence Award (2021-2022).

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