Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Geneva

Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI)
Faculté de traduction et d'interprétation (FTI)
Former name
 School of Translation and Interpreting (ETI)
Type public
Established 1941
Founder Antoine Velleman
Parent institution
 University of Geneva in Switzerland
Location Switzerland/Geneva/Republic and Canton of Geneva/World
46°11′41″N 6°08′25″E / 46.19472°N 6.14028°E / 46.19472; 6.14028Coordinates: 46°11′41″N 6°08′25″E / 46.19472°N 6.14028°E / 46.19472; 6.14028
Language Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian
Colours      Orange
Website http://www.unige.ch/fti
Geneva
Geographical location of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI)

The Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI) is a faculty of the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Introduction

The FTI is located on the sixth floor of the University of Geneva’s Uni Mail building.

The Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI) is one of the oldest translation and interpreting education and research institutions in the world.[1][2][3][4] It was founded in 1941[1][5][6][7][8] by Antoine Velleman[6][9] as the Ecole d’interprètes de Genève[10] (EIG). When a translation degree was introduced in 1972,[11][12] it became the École de traduction et d’interprétation (School of Translation and Interpreting - ETI), before adopting its current title – Faculty of Translation and Interpreting – in 2011.

"Mr. Velleman was more than qualified to set up and direct the school, which he predicted would expand rapidly as Switzerland prepared itself for post-war recovery. Furthermore, Geneva, with its tradition of international collaboration, offered plenty of advantages to successfully bring about such a project. Before the Second World War, only one other school of its kind existed – a school that was founded in 1930 in Mannheim by Swiss professor Dr. Charles Glauser and was attached to the University of Heidelberg in 1936."
— S. Stelling-Michaud, L’École d’interprètes de 1941 à 1956.[1]

Initially a part of the Faculty of Humanities, the EIG broke away from the Faculty between 1953-1955 and eventually became an independent institution of the University.[13][14] Today, the FTI has over a hundred teachers and researchers.[15]

Location

Up until 1946, the school’s administrative offices were located in Antoine Velleman’s office at 5 Avenue Marc-Monnier,[16] then in an apartment at 4 Rue Saint-Victor. Three rooms and the hallway were used for the school, while three other rooms were reserved for administrative purposes.[17] From 1952-1953, the University was renovated and the school’s administrative offices were set up on the former premises of the Physics institute (ground floor).[17] In 1978, the school moved to the Cours Commerciaux de Genève building at 19 Place des Augustins.[16] It then moved to the new Uni Mail building at 40 Boulevard du Pont-d'Arve[16] in 1992.

Resources and services

Students have access to IT and audiovisual resources, as well as a library specialized in translation studies, translation (theory, history, education, etc.), consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, sign language interpreting, computational linguistics, terminology and lexicology.

Library

The FTI library is located on the second floor of Uni-Mail. Students can consult and take out books on subjects taught at the FTI, specialized and language dictionaries, and journals.[18] Since 1984, the library has been a part of RERO, a network of libraries in Western Switzerland.[19] It uses the Dewey Decimal System.[18]

The first FTI library was made up of Antoine Velleman’s own personal collection of works, which he kept in his office on Avenue Marc-Monnier and would lend out to students.

"Antoine Velleman made his library available to the first students, who – with much emotion – recall learning things from dictionaries, books and journals annotated in Velleman’s own hand. For years, there was no one there in that room… We had the key to the library (several of us were almost always gathered around the table), no one monitored us. And I don’t think many of those books disappeared…"
— Gérard Ilg, cited in Duret.[20]

In 1953,[21] a room in the basement of the Bastions building[22] on Rue de Candolle was converted into a library. The library truly became specialized, providing access to a collection of dictionaries (monolingual, bilingual, technical) and documents on the International Organizations.[21] When the school moved to the Cours Commerciaux de Genève building in 1978, the library was equipped with computers, cassette tapes containing interpreting exercises and CD-ROMs.[19]

Simultaneous interpreting

Antoine Velleman was not in favour of simultaneous interpreting and so initially, only consecutive interpreting classes were offered by the school. Graduates of the programme took it upon themselves to organize simultaneous interpreting training sessions in the evenings. The school’s alumni association (AAEDEI) contacted IBM to set up an interpreting booth. The training sessions took place in a room rented on the ground floor of a Methodist church at 12 Rue Calvin. Sessions took place regularly from 1947 onwards. Each participant had to pay three francs per session in order to cover the cost of constructing the booth and renting the room. It was not until 1950 that the first simultaneous interpreting classes were officially offered at the school by Serge Gloor.[23]

In 1952, the school acquired simultaneous interpreting equipment, thanks to a donation from IBM. On 4 February 1953, a new simultaneous interpreting training room was inaugurated in the basement of Uni Bastions.[24] The room was equipped with ten booths and a control box, which was integrated into the teacher’s desk, allowing the teacher to monitor each booth.

Today, the Faculty has a virtual teaching platform that allows simultaneous interpreting to be taught at a distance. The application gives users access to digitized speeches, a forum, a chat system and a space for teachers to give feedback to students. Students can listen back to the original speech as well as their interpretation of it.[25]

FTI Programmes

The Faculty offers the following programmes: Bachelor of Arts in Multilingual Communication, Master of Arts in Translation, Master of Arts in Conference Interpreting,[26] Complementary Certificate in Translation.[27] Students make up their language combination based on the languages offered by the Faculty, which are German, English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian.

Besides translation and conference interpreting, the programmes offered by the Faculty can also lead to careers in multilingual communication, public relations, the media, public administration, tourism, the court system, language mediation services, education and research.

Exchange programmes

The FTI has agreements with 70 universities in over 20 countries.[28]

Research

In the first few years of its existence, the school was mostly geared towards professional training,[29] but today, it carries out research in a variety of different fields.

Research groups

FTI’s research groups are currently leading projects financed by the European Union and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The Centre for Legal and Institutional Translation Studies (Transius) specializes in legal and institutional translation.

The "Economics, Languages and Education" research group (Observatoire élf) looks into linguistic diversity management.

The Department of Translation Technology (TIM) works with translation technology, speech recognition in language learning, terminology and lexicology.

The Interpreting Department carries out projects on interpreting, cognition and humanitarian aspects of interpreting.

PhD Programme

The FTI has a PhD programme with specializations in:

Local and international relations

Continuing education

The FTI offers continuing education degree and certificate programmes in translation studies, translation methodology, translation (financial, legal, technical and literary), writing (active and passive languages), technical writing, computer-assisted translation, terminology and interpreting.

European and international networks

The FTI is a member of a number of European and international networks, including:

Technological innovation

The FTI collaborates with the city of Geneva on technologically innovative projects. BabelDr, a collaboration between the FTI and Geneva's University Hospitals, won the Innogap prize in 2015.

See also

University of Geneva

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 3 Stelling-Michaud, S. (1959), "L'École d'interprètes de 1941 à 1956", Histoire de l’Université de Genève (book) (in French), Georg, p. 317
  2. ↑ Namy, Claude (1973), "La réforme de l'École d'interprètes de Genève", L’interprète (article) (in French), 28 (2-3): 4
  3. ↑ Stelling-Michaud, S. (1975), "15 mai 1875 - 16 mai 1975. Antoine Velleman. Fondateur de l'École d'interprètes", L’interprète (article) (in French), 30 (4): 4
  4. ↑ "Traductions", Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (chapter) (in French), retrieved March 19, 2016
  5. ↑ Velleman, Antoine (1943), "L'École d'interprètes de l'Université de Genève", Die Friedens-Warte (article) (in French), 43 (3-4): 167
  6. 1 2 Kaiser, Walter (2004), "L'interprétation de conférence en tant que profession et les précurseurs de l'Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (AIIC) 1918-1953", Meta: journal des traducteurs (article) (in French), 49 (3 [L’histoire de la traduction et la traduction de l’histoire]): 579
  7. ↑ Gaiba, Francesca (1998), The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation: The Nuremberg Trial (book), University of Ottawa Press, p. 28
  8. ↑ van Hoof, Henri (1991), Histoire de la traduction en Occident: France, Grande-Bretagne, Allemagne, Russie, Pays-Bas (book) (in French), Duculot, p. 116
  9. ↑ Millán, Carmen; Bartrina, Francesca (1998), The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies (book), Routledge, p. 365
  10. ↑ "Traduction", La Grande Encyclopédie Larousse (chapter) (in French), 19, 1971–1976, retrieved March 18, 2016
  11. ↑ Namy, Claude (1973), "La réforme de l'École d'interprètes de Genève", L’interprète (article) (in French), 28 (2-3): 5
  12. ↑ Louis Truffaut (April–May 1991), "L'ETI va souffler ses cinquante bougies", Campus (Magazine de l’Université de Genève) (article) (in French) (9), pp. 32–33
  13. ↑ Geisendorf, Paul-Frédéric (1959), L'Université de Genève: 1559-1959 (book) (in French), Genève, p. 294
  14. ↑ Martin 1958, p. 296.
  15. ↑ "Faculté de traduction et d'interprétation - Corps académique". unige.ch (in French). Retrieved March 19, 2016.
  16. 1 2 3 Capel Esteve & Chazal 2010.
  17. 1 2 Stelling-Michaud, S. (1959), "L'École d'interprètes de 1941 à 1956", Histoire de l’Université de Genève (chapter) (in French), Georg, p. 318
  18. 1 2 Duret 1998a, p. 4.
  19. 1 2 Duret 1998b, p. 34.
  20. ↑ Duret 1998b, pp. 11-12.
  21. 1 2 Duret 1998b, p. 21.
  22. ↑ Duret 1998b, p. 11.
  23. ↑ Rumprecht 2008.
  24. ↑ Duret 1998b, p. 15.
  25. ↑ Moussadek 2007.
  26. ↑ Graduates of the FTI are among the best interpreters in the world, according to an article in The Monocle Forecast, Ed Stocker (2016), "Strong Language", The Monocle Forecast (43), pp. 38–43
  27. ↑ "Faculty of Translation and Interpreting - Programmes on offer". unige.ch. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  28. ↑ "Faculté de traduction et d'interprétation - Universités partenaires". unige.ch (in French). Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  29. ↑ Marcacci, Marco (1987), "La vie des facultés et des instituts: permanences, changements, protagonistes", Histoire de l'Université de Genève: 1559-1986 (in French), Université de Genève, p. 215
  30. ↑ "European Masters in Conference Interpreting". emcinterpreting.org. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  31. ↑ "Universities and programmes in the EMT network" (in French). Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission. November 26, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Members". Conférence internationale permanente d'instituts universitaires de traducteurs et interprètes. Retrieved March 20, 2016.


Bibliography

Books

Articles

External links

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