News

9 December: Seminar ‘Terra Translatologica’ on interpreting from Oriental languages

On 9 December SCIT held another seminar within the frame of the Terra Translatologica project. This time the seminar was devoted to translation and interpreting from Oriental languages.  SCIT director Irina Alexeeva opened the meeting and introduced the speakers. She said, “It is a forum for discussions. The seminar started as a quarterly  meeting, and there were a lot of people coming, because we invite people to discuss broad topics, not something specialized or theoretical. We invite the people who take translation and interpreting out of the box, who have their own  view on translation. This forum is called to outline the existing problems and offer solutions.” She pointed that the speakers  chose topics for their presentations themselves, and invited all participants to join in the discussion. The topics of the four key speakers varied from the ethnocultural training of interpreters to the special difficulties of the Filipino language. Answewring the question about the place taken by translation in the speakers’ lives they said, “Part of my profession”, “part of my self-identification”, “career launch”, “my life balance”. Despite the distant mode of the seminar the discussions proved to be warm, stimulating and productive. The two key takeaways from the meeting are the following:

1. It is time to provide a more intensive trainig to translators and interpreters from Oriental languages.
2. It is time to develop the theory of translation taking into account the expreience of translation and interpreting from /to Oriental languages

Introduction into Simultaneous

On 10 November SCIT held the traditional student conference on introduction into simultaneous interpreting. This is always a special occasion at the School: trainers put much effort in the preparation, carefully choose and discuss the teaching materials. The conference takes the whole day, as to ensure the success of the first simultaneous experience one needs a lot of preparation: discuss expectations and neutralize fears, activate the background knowledge and the necessary vocabulary. An additional challenge is that the  introduction into sim is held for both working languages of the students.

We are happy that this year all worked well for our students! Braving the November fatigue they pulled the five hour simultaneous marathon, did their best in the booths and are now looking forward to conquering new heights, even if only in the training environment!

(Русский) Виртуальная конференция с Европейской комиссией

On 6 October SCIT students had their first virtual conference with the European Commision. Predictably, the first virtual class was devoted to the issues of autonomous learning and preparation for interpretation. The class was conducted by Paolo Torrigiani, Senior Expert Multilingualism and Knowledge Development Unit DG Interpretation European Commission, developed a very intensive program for the conference, covering such aspects as basic principles of self-training and learning management, key factors of a successful training session, as well as practice in organizing a self-training session.  Each group of students presented their version of the self-training session, followed by the feedback session.  The conference gave the students a useful insight into the effectiveness of their autonomous learning techniques and showed the ways to improve it. We thank Paolo Torrigiani and Fernando Leitao, Head of the E-learning Unit, for organizing this useful activity!

SCIT team at EEF in Vladivostok

On 2-4 September Vladivostok hosted the Eastern Economic Forum, a major international event, that would not have taken place without interpreters. Among those who facilitated the communication among the participants was a big team of SCIT trainers and graduates – Zhanna Shuklina, Alexey Pago, Oxana Yakimenko, Anastasia Gavrilina, Elena Zheltova, Sofia Chantseva, Anna Sazonova.  Taking into account the topicality of the Far East and the Arctic for Russia’s foregin and home policy one can’t overestimate the importance of the plenaries and  discussions on the margins. Our interpreteers worked at the plenaries as well as at the international APEC conference on higher education and Sber’s interactive session on the ESG investment opportunities in Russia. We are sure that the SCIT team showed the highest professional standards and were among the best.

SCIT takes part in EMCI General Assembly

On 9 September SCIT took part in teh EMCI General Assembly. The school is proud to hold the place in this consortium of 16 prestigious European universities. The agenda included various issues: the report on the 2020-2021 QA EMCI project, planning the work of the consortium in 2021-2022, introducing changes in the consortium statutes allowing for the SISU to become an observer to EMCI, and voting for the platform to ensure the virtual interpreter training. Of the five options the choice was made in favour of Interprefy which can be efficiently used for the training purposes. The observers at the General Assambley were Javier Hernandez Saseta, Head of Multilingualism and Interpreter Training Support Unit, and Fernando Leitao, Head of the E-Learning Unit,  DG Interpretation (EC), and Cathie Pierson, Head of Multilingualism Unit in the European Parliament. SCIT was represented by Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director.