The effects of fansubs on EFL education for Translation and Interpreting students: an empirical approach

This article reports on an empirical experiment conducted with Translation and Interpreting undergraduate students to gauge the effects of fansubbing on learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Experience has shown that young Spanish-speaking undergraduate students tend to watch free TV programmes online, and these programmes may be fansubbed in Spanish, which means that fansubbed videos are acting as a linguistic model to many students of English as a foreign language. This study aims to ascertain the potential benefits, as well as the main drawbacks, of using fansubbed products for foreign language learning purposes in translator training. This research targeted students in their second year of studies whose participation was twofold: firstly, they were invited to complete an online survey to collect data on their opinions about subtitling and fansubbing; secondly, the students were exposed to two short clips, one professionally subtitled and one fansubbed. This was followed by a blind experiment including a questionnaire with an assessment test and more personal questions. The survey was successfully completed by 46 students and throws light on their preferences for audiovisual consumption when learning a foreign language. The blind experiment was successfully completed by 59 students and provides evidence of the effects fansubbing may have on foreign language education

Lost in thought

What mechanisms exist for tracking what goes on in translators’ minds while they are at work? Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano looks for some answer

Social media platforms in translator training: Socialising or separating?

This article reports on an international online course on multimodality organised for a group of 28 postgraduate students of translation studies in 2016. The course was taught by 13 lecturers from eight different European universities. Lecturers and students joined a closed social media platform, where the students were required to complete translation-specific activities in virtual teams. This article aims to identify ways in which students interact with each other in e-learning environments. The data used for this article has been obtained from the students’ discussion in the online platform, their peer grading submissions, as well as the final course evaluation forms filled in by the students. The results suggest that working together in an online environment was the source of both learning challenges and opportunities. Some students reported feeling somewhat distanced by these e-learning environments. Further, many highlighted the difficulties posed by the peer assessment tasks. The article discusses the overall potential of social media platforms in translator training and reflects on how online courses can be designed so that the pedagogical benefits of e-learning tools are duly exploited