SCIT – News

6 December 2017: Webinar ‘Russian Culture Through English’ (only in Russian)

28 November 2017|

6 декабря 2017 г. в 17.00 состоится вебинар «Английский язык как ключ к русской культуре (Russian Culture through English)». Ведущие: доктор филологических наук, профессор В.В. Кабакчи и заместитель директора Санкт-Петербургской высшей школы перевода РГПУ, кандидат филологических наук, доцент А.М. Антонова.

Вебинар также является открытием конкурса «Молодые Набоковы», целью и задачами которого являются привлечение внимания молодежи к оригинальному творчеству на иностранном языке как средству описания родной культуры, поощрение и поддержка иноязычного словесного творчества и выявление литературных талантов среди молодежи.

Регистрация на вебинар открыта по ссылке:

https://events.webinar.ru/2047543/732717

17 November: SCIT takes part in VI St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum

17 November 2017|

SCIT has traditionally taken part in organizing a festival as part of the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. We hope that this year’s festival, Russian Heteroglossia, enriched the Forum program with its round table discussion and a translation concert. The festival opened with the Living Word: Russian Heteroglossia round table discussion, where the issues of increasing translation from the national languages of the peoples of Russia, and the mediating role of the Russian language were brought to public attention. The round table was moderated by Sergey Filatov, a renowned political and cultural figure, member of the International Academy of Creative Endeavours, and President of the Socio-economic and Intellectual Programs Fund. Mr Filatov has paid a lot of attention recently to developing translation from the ethnic languages of Russia into Russian, and holds training seminars in Moscow. The participants discussed such issues as: Does translation play a part in preserving cultural heritage? What is to be done to help save indigenous languages? Do we need to translate literary masterpieces into Russia’s ethnic languages? What is the role of the Russian language in supporting Russia’s other languages?

Among the participants were such distinguished scholars as Nina. Zaitseva, who painstakingly collected the endangered Veps language in the book of the epic Virantanas. Yana Novikova from St. Petersburg State University spoke about the Izhor language, Farid Akhmadiev from Ufa posed the question of the future of the Bashkir language. SCIT director Irina Alexeeva reported on the Yakut Literature in Russian seminar she held in Yakutia.

The event continued with the translation concert, Amidst the Languages. This concert has become a tradition, and this time the ethnic languages of Russia became the focus of attention. Translators from Veps, Karelian, Bashkir, Yiddish, as well as from Slavic (Bulgarian, Czech, Polish) and Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch) presented their new work. The thematic variety was impressive: from the historic ship logbooks of Willem Barentsz, to the Swedish Academy of Magic Creatures.

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9 November: Introduction into Simultaneous Class

13 November 2017|

On 9 November a much looked forward to event took place at SCIT: the students did their first simultaneous interpretation. This is always a special event at SCIT: students and trainers get together, more experienced colleagues help the young ones to come through this important moment of professional development, and the SCIT teaching methods are developed to minimize the students’ possible fears and apprehensions about their performance in sim. They did it! Congratulations!

DGT Translating Europe Forum

13 November 2017|

The 4th edition of the Translating Europe Forum attracted to Brussels 500 professionals to discuss new skills, new markets and new profiles in the translation sector.

What skills are needed to thrive on today’s translation market? What does this mean for translator training and continuous professional development? How can public services and the private sector learn from each other? How can cooperation between academia and industry boost employability?

Commissioner Gunther Oettinger and DGT Director-General Rytis Martikonis opened the event with inspiring addresses on the importance of languages and translation as expression of diversity in Europe. SCIT Deputy Director Angelique Antonova attended the Forum and actively participated in the lively discussions.

UN Day at SCIT

24 October 2017|

The UN was officially founded on October 24, 1945, when the majority of signatories ratified the UN Charter. For SCIT the UN Day is not just a date in the calendar. SCIT and the UN have been long-time partners and the support of the Russian linguistic services played a key role in establishing a translation and interpreting school in St. Petersburg. Back in 2008 SCIT signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN on cooperation in training language specialists. Since early days institutional translation and interpreting with focus on the UN documentation have become a permanent part of the SCIT training program. At present 20 SCIT graduates are employed as regular staff in the Russian linguistic units of the UN, and an even bigger number are listed in the roster and have worked on temporary contracts. In 2015 Herzen University was honoured to host the IV MoU Universities-UN Conference, and we are proud to have organized this event to the highest standards.

This year the UN Day at SCIT coincided with the visit of Dmitri Bloshenko, Senior Reviser in the RTS, UNHQ in New York. A series of intensive master-classes was conducted for three weeks of studies, and as early as in October the new intake of students had an opportunity to acquire a feel for the UN specifics. Supervised by Dmitri Bloshenko the students thoroughly ploughed through the texts on a wide range of topics. Besides, on UN Day Dmitri Bloshenko and Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director, were invited to give a lecture on Multiligualism and Linguistic Mediation at the UN at the Department of International Relations in North-West Institute of Management – a branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

11-14 October: Master-classes of Liam Long, Senior Interpreter DG SCIC

17 October 2017|

On 11-14 October SCIT hosted Liam Long, Senior Interpreter from the DG SCIC, European Commission. The series of master-classes he gave were designed to introduce and practice note-taking. The program was very intensive: every day, Saturday included, the students prepared speeches, made presentations, received feedback from this experienced interpreter. There was also a separate series of master-classes for the students with French.

A Word Born: ZIL Cultural Center

13 October 2017|

On 10 October ZIL Cultural Center hosted another meeting of the series HowWords Are Born: Meetings with Translators. In a cosy atmosphere Irina Alexeeva, SCIT Director, shared with guests her ideas about translation, authors and their translators; read from some of her new translations. The audience included SCIT graduates presently employed at the Russian MFA. The hostess for the evening was Elena Kalashnikova, a journalist.

Successful conference: cases and reports

2 October 2017|

On 28 and 29 September the Department of Translation, Institute of Foreign Languages, Herzen University held a two-day conference, organized jointly with T-Systems Company. The event was timed with the World Translator’s Day. The first day saw the battles between the teams from different universities of St. Petersburg, where the participants discussed various translation situations from the viewpoint of professional ethics and competence. Each pair of teams analyzed and presented arguments for its case. The team of the Ustinov Baltic State Technical University “Voenmech” came as a winner. The SCIT team headed by Timofey Mineev was the first runner-up.

29 September was the day of most interesting reports. The one by Professor Achkasov from St. Petersburg State University, devoted to the future of translation, attracted general attention. SCIT was represented by Director Irina Alexeeva who made a presentation on Two-lateral translation workshops as an element of new educational design.

SCIT graduate Ekaterina Ageeva comes first in International Simultaneous Interpreters Competition!

2 October 2017|

Ekaterina Ageeva, SCIT alumna 2017, won the International Simultaneous Interpreters Competition Cosinus Pi 2017, held by Moscow State University, by a significant margin. Our congratulations to Katya on this remarkable achievement!

Translator’s Day with UN Flavour

2 October 2017|

The Translator’s Day was celebrated at SCIT with a lot of joy and drive, as usual. On 28 September SCIT graduates, trainers and this year students came together in the conference room. The new intake of students aimed high and interpreted the 72th UN General Assembly Session, where SCIT graduates and trainers had a chance to interpret…

Happy Translator’s Day, dear colleagues and friends!