Training translators: challenges and reactions by a group of 13 students at a UK university

Training translators to use corpora hands-on: challenges and reactions by a group of 13 students at a UK university With the proliferation of online off-the-peg corpora over the past decade or so, the use of corpora is no longer restricted to a small community of researchers working on language description and natural language processing. Anyone with an internet connection is now able to access corpora to help them with everyday questions about language, including questions for which dictionaries, grammars and other language resources do not always have clear answers. Translators are among those who have much to gain from using corpora, as widely acknowledged in the literature (e.g. Zanettin 1998, Bowker and Pearson 2002, Zanettin et al 2003, Beeby et al 2009 and Gallego-Hernandez 2015). Yet most of the research at the crossroads of translation and corpora seems to focus on the use of corpora in Translation Studies, and there does not seem to be enough information on the use of corpora in actual translation training and practice. This paper discusses some of the challenges of training translators to use corpora and then describes how a group of 13 students studying for an MA in Translation at the University of Surrey reacted to a hands-on module on learning to use corpora in everyday translation. The latter is based on the students' responses to a questionnaire given at the end of the teaching period and on a corpus of self-reports containing authentic examples of using corpora in translation practice.