Interpreting and translation are unregulated activities in most countries, yet interpreters and translators perform challenging work in sensitive domains, such as the law, medicine and social work. Other professionals working in these sectors must complete formal ethics training to qualify, then subscribe to Codes of Practice or Ethics. When they face ethical challenges in their work, they can access ongoing support. They must undertake regular refresher training in ethics. Interpreters and translators rarely have access to this sort of ethical infrastructure. This places the onus on interpreters and translators to reflect on ethical aspects of their practice, for reasons related to both professional performance and social responsibility. This contribution presents original UK-based research with one type of professional ‘clients’ who rely on interpreters and translators, social workers and social work students prior to their first work experience placement. Findings suggest that insufficient attention has been paid to such professional clients and that ethical aspects of professional communication can be compromised as a result. By framing ethics training and ongoing support in terms of social responsibility, we point to some ways in which the different professional groups might communicate and work more effectively with one another and with service users
‘Employability’ is now a key term in university strategies in the UK and increasingly across Europe. Pressure to implement such strategies can lead to bolted-on rather than embedded activities within academic curricula. This paper argues that employability should be an embedded ethos for translation and interpreting courses in particular. Employability can be addressed effectively by using real world applications of learning, to enrich the discipline but also to provide distinct types of intellectually stimulating content. The University of East Anglia has a long history of this approach. This paper outlines case studies of effective practice at Masters and undergraduate level, including modules where students collaborate on translations for real clients. Such an endeavour poses important challenges, both logistical and ethical: how can we expose students to real-world contexts without taking work away from professionals? This issue can be unwisely ignored or a source of academics’ reluctance to engage in such activities. Using original data from a recent alumni survey and semi-structured interviews, we map the outcomes of such an ethos. We ask whether engaging in real-world oriented activities as students affects the professional paths of alumni, both in the translation/interpreting industry and in other sectors
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