Pavol Sveda

We are living in a turbulent world and the field of interpreting and consequently interpreter training is no exception as may be also evidenced by the appearance of new labels for various interpreting settings and scenarios such as humanitarian interpreting, or conflict and post-conflict interpreting (cf. Ruiz Rosenado and Todorova 2022). Some trends have been present for longer time such as the increasing use of scripted speeches, and the corresponding need to train interpreters for simultaneous with text, others have emerged relatively recently and have been triggered by events external to interpreting. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of remote meetings, and thus the need for remote interpreting, especially remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI), or the Russian aggression in Ukraine has created demand for interpreters in refugee settings with Ukrainian, which is a language not usually offered by the translation and interpreting programmes. In addition, new emerging challenges such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) are still not fully processed in the context of interpreting and interpreter training, which should be taken as an opportunity, rather than a threat. Against this changing landscape, this paper and other papers in this special issue will try to provide more or less tentative answers to the following questions: what to teach, how to teach, and where and when to teach, as well as the underlying question why.

Slovakia is one of the smaller countries in Europe, with a little over five million Slovak speakers. Nevertheless, there are four universities with fully fledged translation and interpreting (T&I) programmes for this rather small market. These universities and their graduates are transforming the market in Slovakia, most visibly in the generation of young professionals. The universities in this group operate in one regulatory setting, and they have to follow the same guidelines and objectives according to a central
accreditation standard. Each of them, however, achieves different results in student satisfaction and feedback on their studies. In order to better understand this phenomenon, the present author carried out a survey in 2019 among 102 students in the final year of their MA studies at these four universities. The survey was aimed at the students’ career plans and whether they planned to enter the translation profession. Students were also asked to assess their subjective readiness to enter the translation profession in different areas (technical translation, literary translation, simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting, CAT tools and overall preparation for the profession). Finally, students also assessed the development of their foreign- language skills, and their overall satisfaction with the training and education received at their university, and they proposed improvements for the training programmes. Despite a similar regulatory framework and comparable cohorts of students, the results for each university significantly differed. One university in particular (Comenius University in Bratislava) was a significant outlier in several categories. The most visible differences identified in the survey were linked to subjective student satisfaction with their preparation in various competencies. Another difference observed was in the satisfaction with T&I studies and career plans between respondents studying in language combinations without English and the rest of the group. This chapter will summarise the most relevant findings and will attempt to link them to some of the most visible differences in curriculum design. In this way, it is possible to identify the best practices and inspirational approaches which can be applied in other translator and interpreter training programmes.

The transition from consecutive to simultaneous interpretation is a very sensitive part in the training process of future interpreters. When looking at different educational schemes of four Slovak universities we have examined not only their organisational approaches, but also allocation of time and teaching staff to the two interpretation disciplines with a particular focus on the transition from consecutive to simultaneous. Through a questionnaire we have identified some discrepancies not only in the curriculums of some of the universities, but also at the level of Accreditation Committee’s Programme Description, which determines the content of higher educational programmes in the field of Translation and Interpretation studies which in the Slovak context prepare future translators and interpreters within one study programme. On the other hand our brief research identifies some positive and promising trends and outlines areas for future research.

The way in which PSIT services are provided to national government institutions in Slovakia, the opportunities for professionalisation, training and social recognition of translators and interpreters differ from the standards of quality set by theory (e.g. Giambruno, 2014, Valero-Garcés, Tipton, 2017). The coutry has significant problems in the availability of PSIT in minority language combinations and fluctuation in the quality of the services provided (Štefková, Bossaert, 2019). In the face of a major increase in demand for PSIT in the current crisis situation related to the transfer of a large number of displaced persons from Ukraine the paper (1) reports on an initial research on the state of PSIT provision in this crisis situation in Slovakia and (2) on the basis of the needs analysis, describes the basis for setting up a sustainable PSIT translation and interpreting model.

The unprecedented spread of English and its growing dominance in the translation and interpreting industry have implications on the market behaviour of translators and interpreters depending on the combination of their working languages. This paper investigates the extent to which market signals (e.g. average rates and workloads) can be reflected in the motivation of students to enter the translation profession in respect to the combination of their working languages and the inclusion of English within that combination. Two surveys were used to obtain data for our analysis: one focused on the market behaviour of professional translators, whereas the other assessed the plans and motivations of T&I students at the end of their studies. Respondents in both surveys were divided according to the role of English in their language combination. As this paper demonstrates, professionals working only with English (or with English and at least one other foreign language) had a better position ...

On February 24 2022, Russia started a war in Ukraine and in the first hours and days following the attack, a massive wave of refugees swept the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Slovakia, historically more adjusted to emigration than immigration (Tužinská 2019, Štefková 2020), had to adapt quickly and cope with unprecedented numbers of refugees and displaced persons. Given the inadequate processing capacities and lack of community interpreters, improvised and ad-hoc community interpreting schemes emerged (KCI 2022). In the situation of non-existent formal schemes for the training and recognition of PSIT in Slovakia, alternative, non-governmental schemes had to be designed to compensate for a missing institutional framework partially.

This article describes the chronology of the migration from Ukraine to Slovakia, briefly introduces the context of community interpreting in Slovakia and outlines a crash course designed for a mixed group of public service interpreters catering to the needs of a growing community of Ukrainian citizens in Slovakia. In order to understand the needs of the ad-hoc interpreters, a survey among the ad-hoc interpreters was carried out online to map the demographic, language profile and motivation of the volunteer interpreters for whom the training was to be designed. Similar schemes can serve as a basis for the development of future, more formal and institutionalised schemes of training and support. We believe that the current wave of refugees from Ukraine is an opportunity for countries in Central and Eastern Europe to develop institutionalised training schemes for PSIT. This paper discusses the possibilities and limits of such an endeavour.

In this brief paper the author tries to outline the basic approaches to preparation of interpreters, regardless of whether their assignment will be interpreted consecutively or simultaneously. The first part of the paper summarizes the situation in the European institutions; the terminological and documental background provided by the institutional framework and compares it with the situation on the Slovak market with freelance interpretation. As the author argues, the situation of freelance interpreters is considerably more difficult and interpreters need to adopt certain skills and strategies in order to acquire the necessary documentation in time for a quality preparation. The second part of the paper outlines the methods for the analysis of textual materials and offers practical recommendations for processing the documents and selecting the necessary vocabulary.

Chapter 1 proposes that public service interpreting and its diverse infrastructural support in the Central European states should be studied as a part of citizenship regimes in the broader context of monolingual and plurilingual standards. This framework is illustrated by the stance of the state institutions to minority languages in the context of communication on the side of the state administration as well as in the context of interpreter training.

Táto kapitola predstavuje nový, kontextuálny model tlmočenia. možno z pohľadu Settonovej klasifikácie zaradiť skôr medzi vzťahové modely, hoci kladie významný dôraz na informačné úvislosti tlmočeného textu. Neskúma a neopisuje kognitívne procesy prebiehajúce v mysli tlmočníka, túto úlohu mimoriadne dobre splnili spomínané modely
iných autorov (napr. Gerver, 1975; Černov, 2004; Gile, 2009) ale zdôrazňuje ako formovanie tlmočeného textu prebieha v neustálom zasadzovaní do kontextu v troch rovinách - rečníkovej, tlmočníkovej a poslucháčovej.

Kapitola ponúka pohľad na historické východiská a tradície výučby tlmočenia na Slovensku a ponúka nové pohľady na prípadný rozvoj a ďalšie smerovanie didaktiky tlmočenia na Slovensku. Definuje základné koncepty, vedomostné požiadavky a vzdelávacie ciele, pokúša sa stanoiviť základný rozsah minimálnej tlmočníckej prípravy a naznačuje aj nadstavbové modely vzdelávania.

Our paper compares the situation and approach to the instruction of translation and interpretation (T&I) studies at four major Slovak universities that offer this study programme in their curricula. Slovakia is a small country with only 5.5 million inhabitants and yet it has five universities offering T&I study programmes, with the total number of students enrolled steadily rising and the number of graduates reaching 200 every year. In our paper, we have taken a closer look at how the rising number of T&I graduates affects the market with language services in Slovakia. To what extent can these young language professionals succeed? What are their ambitions and how do they retrospectively assess their studies? What is the absorption of T&I graduates on the market? How do they influence the remuneration policy?

Using data from surveys among the students in the final year of the master’s programme and combing two unrelated market surveys we have mapped the situation and underlined the most visible trends. Students from all four universities have assessed their studies rather positively and a third expressed the ambition to become professional translators or interpreters, another third planned to work as translators semi-professionally. Even despite their high motivation and a high total number the penetration of T&I graduates remains within 45 – 65% of all language service professionals in the market surveys. T&I graduates are strong especially the youngest groups of professionals and they compete with slightly lower fees. As the Slovak universities rejuvenate the market which once was dominated by self-taught language professionals many interesting trends will be observed. It is already clear, that the university programmes will need to undergo major transformation in order to keep up with the development of the market.

The transition from consecutive to simultaneous interpretation is a very sensitive part in the training process of future interpreters. When looking at different educational schemes of four Slovak universities, we have examined not only their organisational approaches, but also allocation of time and teaching staff to the two interpretation disciplines with a particular focus on the transition from consecutive to simultaneous. Through a questionnaire we have identified some discrepancies not only in the curricula of some of the universities, but also at the level of Accreditation Committee’s Programme Description, which determines the content of higher educational programmes in the field of Translation and Interpretation studies which in the Slovak context prepare future translators and interpreters within one study programme. On the other hand, our brief research identifies some positive and promising trends and outlines areas for future research.

In this paper we have tried to verify to what extent accompanying visual presentations assist and help students of simultaneous interpretation, and how they influence their ear-voice span, anticipation and ability to cope with more condensed informational units. Our main aim was to determine whether such visual presentations should be used, and if so, how and when in the process of training. Based on the results of this experiment we can see a certain improvement in the quality of interpretation linked with the ability to predict and anticipate the argumentation of the discourse as well as with having the more demanding units of information, such as names and numbers, visible on the presentation slides. This improvement in performance was apparent when comparing students who had visual contact with the interpretation with those who did not, also when comparing the overall  performance of the whole group in two scenarios: one with a visual presentation and one without.

This short paper proposes nine practical exercises for students of interpretation which should develop their specific skills and capacities crucial for the complex process of consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. The first batch of exercises focuses on text analysis, a crucial pre-condition for any further processing of the text. Second trio proposes practical methods for the development of active vocabulary and the last set of exercises is aimed at practical skills which enable better acquisition of competences in consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. As the current form of university programmes in Slovakia provides only limited possibilities for practical consecutive and simultaneous interpretation classes, these exercises can be of interest for those students who would like to train more intensely on their own.

In this brief paper the author tries to outline the basic approaches to preparation of interpreters, regardless of whether their assignment will be interpreted consecutively or simultaneously. The first part of the paper summarizes the situation in the European institutions; the terminological and documental background provided by the institutional framework and compares it with the situation on the Slovak market with freelance interpretation. As the author argues, the situation of freelance interpreters is considerably more difficult and interpreters need to adopt certain skills and strategies in order to acquire the necessary documentation in time for a quality preparation. The second part of the paper outlines the methods for the analysis of textual materials and offers practical recommendations for processing the documents and selecting the necessary vocabulary.

Six years have passed since the publication of our last book, Myths and Facts about Translation and Interpreting in Slovakia. And they have been truly dynamic years. In some aspects, the translation and interpreting market has significantly changed. The work of translators and interpreters has been altered and influenced not only by sudden and quite unexpected factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by less obvious, yet nonetheless fundamental ones, such as the expanding role of machine translation. We can definitely say that it is not only the COVID-19 pandemic that has redefined our lives and work. Certainly, the pandemic took us off guard, and we now know that the changes it has brought about cannot be regarded as a short-term blip. However, we dare say that in many areas the pandemic has only hastened the inevitable. In the field of interpreting, for example, there has been an unprecedented boom in remote interpreting, and many interpreters today can no longer even imagine travelling to see their clients when they can interpret from the comfort of their home or an interpreting hub. Clients save costs, interpreters save time. (Though this isn’t as easy as it may seem at first glance.) The war in Ukraine is also an enormous challenge, and its massive impact extends to translation and interpreting as well. Apart from unspeakable human tragedy and misfortune, it has also revealed the great willingness and dedication of professional and volunteer lay interpreters and translators who have helped Ukrainians find refuge in Slovakia and overcome the language barrier. However, the sudden influx of refugees has also fully exposed systemic deficiencies in the provision of translation and interpreting services for third-country nationals. Among the war’s secondary impacts have been, and as of the writing of this book still are, inflation and economic uncertainty. Returning to less obvious, but still very significant trends, translation has moved towards automation, especially (but not only) in the sphere of commercial translation. The only thing that remains stably unchanged is the pitiful status and remuneration of literary translators. However, even here we have seen some fundamental changes in Slovakia, brought about in particular by the very active professional association DoSlov. Another issue which remains uncertain is the legal status of these professions in Slovakia. At the time of writing this book, interpreting and translating are still licenced trades, but we cannot ignore efforts to change this legal framework and open these trades up to anyone. The possible impact of such a step remains unknown, but in this book we venture to speculate about it. Naturally, changes in Slovakia’s market and society have also had an impact on translator and interpreter training. University programmes in translation and interpreting, along with many other language-related programmes, have been broadly rebranded as programmes in “philology”. We have also had to learn how to teach online, devise new ways to engage students, involve them in practice, and even design software to teach simultaneous interpreting, because such a thing did not exist when the pandemic began. Despite all the difficulties, we find this positive. It has given us a new impetus and forced us to think outside the box. To match the current market and social situation, we had to change the structure of the questionnaire, for example. All this has presented us with the opportunity, the means, and the imperative to look at translators and interpreters in new contexts. So what is this book about? In the introduction, we look at the developments in the field of translation and interpreting since 2015. We mention social and technological changes and try to describe their impact on our profession. We observe how the COVID-19 pandemic, especially its onset, has affected translators and interpreters and how they have coped with it. We analyse the influence it has had on training. And we also look at rapidly evolving remote interpreting and its impact on the work and status of interpreters. A separate chapter is devoted to the war in neighbouring Ukraine, and we briefly outline the impact it has had on the public service translation and interpreting sector in Slovakia. The core of the book is about the transformation of Slovakia’s translation and interpreting market from 2010 to the present, with an emphasis on describing the market in 2020. We use our previous research and conclusions as a basis of comparison, not forgetting who we consider to be a professional translator or interpreter and why. In this book, we do not go into abstract theoretical considerations, but get straight to the point, for we are confident that the theoretical foundations we set out in Myths and Facts are still valid. We formulate our findings and conclusions based on a sample of 351 respondents who completed our questionnaire at the end of 2020. As the reader will see, translators and interpreters with a university degree, especially those of Slovakia’s younger generation, are rapidly increasing in number and becoming a dominant market group. Therefore, it is also worth looking at how universities prepare graduates, how satisfied such graduates are with their education, and what they would like to see improved. Translation studies graduates are gaining an increasingly dominant position in the market, substantially raising training institutions’ level of responsibility along with it. Finally, we look at how and whether our latest findings bear out the predictions we made in 2017, and we speculate a bit about what lies ahead in the next five years. After all, it is not only the environment in which we translate and interpret and the technologies we use to do so, but also we ourselves that are changing. Both of this book’s authors know this all too well. Since writing Myths and Facts, we have found ourselves in roles that we had no previous experience with. Firstly, we have both become fathers, and secondly, we have suddenly been able to try out areas of translation and interpreting that we knew nothing about five years ago. We hope that our insights, analyses and findings will be useful to all of our readers, who will once again be able to make more informed decisions about their own practices.

The training and education of future interpreters in Slovakia has so far been organised according to a traditional and sequential model of training on both the macro and micro levels. This work is an attempt to shed new light on the training processes and look for possible improvements in the organisation and design of the training curriculum with a special focus on the training of simultaneous interpreting from its very early stages.