Situated learning in translation research training: academic research as a reflection of practice

ABSTRACT

Situated learning has become a dominant goal in the translation classroom: translation didactics is being developed in a learner-, situation- and experience-based direction, following constructivist and participatory teaching philosophies. However, the explicit use of situated approaches has, so far, not been the centre of attention in translation theory teaching and research training. As a consequence, translation theory often remains unconnected to the skills learned and topics tackled in language-specific translation teaching and the challenges experienced in real-life translation practice. This article reports on the results of an exploratory action research project into the teaching of academic research skills in translation studies at Master’s level. The goal of the project is to develop and test possibilities for employing situated learning in translation research training. The situatedness perspective has a double relevance for the teaching project: the students are involved in an authentic, ongoing research project, and the object of the research project itself deals with authentic translation processes at the workplace. Thus, the project has the potential to improve the expertise of the students as both researchers and reflective practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• situated learning
• translation research training
• ethnographic translation research
• workplace studies
• research education

Acknowledgements

My thanks and appreciation go to my research assistants Barbara Meinx and Michael Tieber for their outstanding work and excellent support during the empirical study. I would also like to thank all the students in my summer 2013 MA seminar for the inspiring discussions and contributions to the development of the vision for the course as well as the students in my winter 2013/14 MA seminar who generously agreed to act as interview participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. The interviews were held after the seminar grades had been published and the seminar had been completed to exclude the possibility of exam conflicts.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under Grant P26332.