Your new secret weapon: How research can make you a better interpreter
Presenters: Aída Martínez Gómez, PhD and Melissa Wallace, PhD
Date: December 8, 2020
7 PM ET – 8:30 PM ET (4 AM PT – 5:30 PM PT): 90 Minutes
Cost:
FREE for NAJIT Members
$25 for Non-Members
Click here to register.
Overview:
Interpreting is a profession in which one never stops learning. Interpreters are often faced with aspects of the profession they would like to learn more about. But how to go about it? Where to even start looking? This interactive webinar will provide attendees with key resources and strategies to find answers to their questions by leveraging academic research. Attendees will learn about what studies can be useful, how to find them, how to assess their quality and applicability, and how to transfer the findings of those studies to their jobs. The presenters will illustrate all this through actual examples of research that have practical implications for and applications to daily interpreting practice.
Learning Objectives: Through a combination of presentation/demonstration and interactive discussion, participants will learn:
- what types of studies are available to help interpreters
- what topics have been explored most successfully
- how to find relevant studies
- how to keep up to date with new research
- how to assess the quality of a study
- how to translate research findings into action in our own interpreting and for our own professional development
- what action research is and why collaboration between academics and practitioners is important
*NOTE: There are 500 lines available for participants. Registration is available on a first come, first served basis. You must join the live webinar and attend the entire session to receive a certificate of attendance. Reserve your spot today!
Aída Martínez-Gómez, Assistant Professor of Legal Translation and Interpreting, holds a PhD in Translation and Interpreting Studies from the University of Alicante (Spain). Her main research interests focus on interpreting in prison settings, including both access to justice and treatment for foreign incarcerated offenders, and the particularities of bilingual prisoners acting as interpreters. In a similar light, she has also explored broader issues pertaining to non-professional interpreting and interpreting quality assessment. Her works have been published in international journals such as Interpreting and JosTrans, and in volumes edited by renowned scholars in the field.
Prof. Martínez-Gómez’s areas of teaching expertise are legal translation and court interpretation. She has taught at the University of Alicante and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is the Coordinator for the Certificate Programs in Legal Translation and Interpretation at John Jay College, and teaches introductory to advanced courses within these programs.
She is also a court-certified translator and interpreter accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has worked in this capacity for the Spanish Secretary General for Correctional Institutions, the British Ministry of Justice and several international law firms such as Ollé & Sesé (Madrid), Loeb & Loeb (Chicago), and Peters & Peters (London), among others.
Melissa Wallace received her Ph.D. in translation and interpreting studies from the Universidad de Alicante, Spain. A certified court interpreter and certified healthcare interpreter, Wallace served two terms as an appointed member of the state Supreme Court Committee to Improve Translation and Interpreting in Wisconsin Courts and has just begun a 5-year term on the Licensed Court Interpreter Advisory Board of the Judicial Branch Certification Commission for the Supreme Court of Texas. She is an active appointed member of the Standards and Training Committee of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), and is co-lead on the Webinars Work Group of the NCIHC’s Home for Trainers initiative. She is a former member of the Executive Board of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association and chair of the Advisory Council of Voice of Love, a U.S.-based nonprofit that develops training and resources to support interpreting for survivors of torture, war trauma and sexual violence.
Her research focuses on indicators of aptitude on court interpreter certification exams, interpreter and translator training, and policy innovations as language access activism. She has presented her research in the United States and abroad, including to the Qualitas research group, a project funded by the Department of Justice of the European Commission which aims at providing a roadmap for the development of valid and reliable certification procedures for judicial and police interpreters for all EU member states.
Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she directs the graduate certificate program in translation studies.
Wallace has been granted a Fulbright to teach and conduct research in court interpreting at the University of Tampere, Finland, beginning in January 2016.
Click here to register.
