The Development of Two E-Learning Platforms for Translation Pedagogical Purposes

Abstract

To showcase how information technologies could be instrumental to translation teaching, this presentation will be divided into two parts to introduce two recently developed e-learning platforms: a mobile phone application, and a bilingual corpus.

1. The mobile phone has become almost an indispensable gadget in daily life nowadays. Its application in the education sector, and particularly for language learning, has gained increasing attention. This study is set in Hong Kong, a Chinese city in Asia. According to Leung (2017), Hong Kong has among the highest mobile phone usage rates in Asia. This part aims to demonstrate how the mobile phone can assist in translation and interpretation training. It will record the development journey of a mobile phone application, its functions, its user experience, and the implications to future translation teaching studies.
2. Since the use of the corpus has become common, the corpus-based approach to translation studies, pioneered by Mona Baker (1993), has become a new paradigm in itself. The pedagogical use of corpus is becoming more popular, but the focuses are more on literary translation, at least in the English and Chinese language combination. Corpora for specialized translation are less common. Inspired by Li and Wang’s works (2010, 2011), this part discusses the launch and use of an English/Chinese bilingual parallel corpus of practical fields, including corporate communication, product literature, tourism, and advertising. I will demonstrate how a parallel corpus could help with the teaching of specialized translation. It will lay out how it was developed, the uses of the corpus, and the feedback from teachers and students, and recommendations.

Bio Law Wai-on is formerly a lecturer at the Department of Translation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include bilingual lexicography, translator studies, the translating process, translation policy, and translation pedagogy. He has two forthcoming articles:  ‘Roald Dahl’s voice in Chinese: A study of two of his translators and their translations’. SPECTRUM: Studies in Language, Literature, Translation, and Interpretation; and ‘Translation trainees’ self-censorship: A triangulated investigation in Hong Kong’. TTR: Traduction, terminologie, redaction.

ORCID account: Wai On Law (0000-0001-5887-573X) (orcid.org)