Identity formation and transformation of Chinese university translator trainers

ABSTRACT

While there has been increased scholarly interest in the translator trainer’s competence, the translator trainer’s professional identity, that is, how they conceptualise their work and roles in daily teaching practice, remains an unexplored area. This multiple-case study aims to fill this gap by examining four university translator trainers’ constructions of professional identities in the Chinese context. A purposeful sample of four translator trainers was recruited from three Chinese universities. Two rounds of in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted along with the collection of lecture slides, syllabi and observed teaching sessions. Subsequently, an inductive thematic analysis was applied to data, and three dimensions embedded in teachers’ accounts – temporality, sociality and place – were scrutinised. The analysis of the data revealed five key identity themes among the translator trainers: the curriculum maker, the praxis initiator, the learning facilitator, the advocate for translation technologies, and the broker between the translation market and training programmes. The study also identified changes in pedagogical roles and relationships with translation technologies within their identity discourse. This study is concluded with implications for translator trainers’ professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• translator trainers
• professional identity
• professional development
• translation pedagogy

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants for sharing their stories. Special thanks go to the reviewers and guest editors who offered valuable feedback and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statements

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Weifang University [approval number 20211230]. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Notes

1. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/xmpz3wv3vd/1 [doi: 10.17632/xmpz3wv3vd.1].

2. Helen, INT1-P2-5 ~ 8: INT1 stands for Interview 1; P2 is Page 2; 5 ~ 8 refers to Line 5-Line 8.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by Shandong Education Science Plan (the 14th Five-Year Plan 2021) ˗˗ English Teaching in Higher Education Special (Key) Project “Theoretical and Practical Research on the Reform of College English Reading Teaching in the Age of New Media” [grant number 2021WZD002]