The National Center for Interpretation (with financial support from the Graduate College) offers Graduate Fellowships to support graduate student research in translation and interpreting studies.
Priority is given to projects that are well aligned with the Center’s mission and current tpojects and that have potential for external funding. The fellowships consist of several cash awards (up to a total of $12,500) as well as tuition awards. The next call for proposals will be announced at the beginning of the Spring of 2019.
Past Awardees
Julio FC Ciller, Spanish & Portuguese
Awards
$6,250 cash; 3,000 tuition
Language proficiency in translation programs
By relying on current evaluation practices in both L2 and T&I programs, this project aims to explore how T&I programs in the U.S. address the language learning needs of their students. This project consists of two main components. The first component has two goals: 1) to explore the prerequisites that students need to fulfill in order to have access to T&I programs in the U.S.; and 2) to examine the role of language learning within the programs by means of: a) analyzing mission statements, objectives and outcomes; and b) conducting class observations, interviews, and surveys with program directors, teachers and students. The second component and final outcome of this project will consist on a series of guidelines designed to guide the practices for T&I programs in the assessment and preparation of students with regards to language learning and proficiency. This will potentially positively impact T&I programs in any educational system achieve excellence as it will enhance the learning of the language at the same time that T&I skills are developed.
Amanda Snell, German Studies and SLAT
Awards
$6,250 cash; 3,000 tuition
The proposed project will offer a series of hands-on translation and interpretation workshops for elementary-aged children at a local school with a high population of language minority families. The workshops will aim to increase language minority families’ language access in their public schools as well as other contexts. The workshops will be designed to 1) promote interpretation as a professional activity, 2) get children excited about the languages they speak and about languages in general, 3) teach children ethical considerations of translation and interpretation, including individual rights to interpreting services. This project aligns with NCI’s mission of promoting language access for language minority families by dialoguing about these themes with 3rd through 5th graders at a local public school.
Patrick Ploschnitzk
Awards
$5,229 tuition award
Better (Trans)late Than Never” – Re-Introducing Translation Into The Foreign Language Classroom
The objective of this project is to analyze the ways in which learners of German as a Foreign Language at a large state university already use translation, what their attitudes are towards it, and to make an attempt to find a way to include translation in lesson plans in a more overt and destigmatized way.
Feng Chen, East Asian Studies
Awards
$3,000 tuition
Translating Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium into Chinese
Feng Chen will translate Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium (McAllister and Rudgill, ed.s University of Alabama Press, 2011) into Chinese so that it may be published in China. This project will introduce the work UA faculty to the Chinese market and will also provide facilitate access for Chinese audiences to UA research
Huiqiao Yao, East Asian Studies
Awards
$3,000 tuition
Translating The Three Sui Quash the Demon's Revolt and Appropriating the History of Chinese Literature
This project is a comparison between Patrick Hanan’s and Lois Fusek’s English translations of a Chinese novel The Three Sui Quash the Demon’s Revolt (Sansui Pingyao zhuan). This project will raise awareness of the importance of translation and translation studies in the perception, reception and dissemination of world literature, in particular in the history of Chinese literature. NCI is charged with promoting intercultural communication and social justice for language minorities through cutting-edge research, training, and testing for interpreters and translators while advancing professionalism. The above projects contribute to this mission by expanding language access to LEP proficient audiences through translation/interpretation and through education in these fields.