Course of Professional Development: Forensic Linguistics and Translation

Dr. Luna Filipović


Q: Starting date?
A: 10th January 2013

Q: Number of hours of contact time?
A: 2 hours interactive seminar teaching per week + 1 hour availability for consultation (by appointment)

Q: Total number of sessions?
A: 12

Q: Teaching methodology?
A: Interactive instruction (open-plan lectures), inductive and deductive analysis of examples and sample texts, quantitative and qualitative data processing; individual and group practical work

Q: What languages you will accept on the course?
A: In principle, the course welcomes participants working on any language, all the language-specific material is easy to extend and apply to other languages, but the examples will be particularly chosen from following language families and languages: Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian), Romance (French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian), Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian languages), Mandarin Chinese, Turkish and Greek; I also tend to adjust my materials depending on the languages of the students in class so that everybody understands the points through examples they can follow easily

Q: Minimum and maximum number of students on the course?
A: min: 5, max: 15

Q: Fees?
A: £550

Q: How to enrol on the course and conditions?
A: Please email anna.russell@uea.ac.uk and she will email the details of the account number for payment.
Current deadline for enrolment: 7th January 2013. The only condition is interest in the subject matter. Knowledge of more than one language in addition to English is desirable but I also had only native speakers of English on the course in the past who spoke no other foreign language (they were in the class only for the forensic bit) so it is not a prerequisite but rather an advantage.

Q: Is the course taking place in the evening or during the day?
A: During the day in 2013

Q: Will the participants receive a certificate of completion/achievement? If so, please give details.
A: Yes, a certificate of attendance will be given

Q: Will there be an exam?
A: No, participants will gain a special certificate which will contain detailed information of what they have covered in the course, knowledge acquired and skills achieved

Q: Is this course integrated into a Masters degree or is it a stand-alone course? 
A: The course can be integrated into the MA in Forensic Linguistics and Translation. If the candidate wants to opt for the MA later, this CPD course will be recognised as one of the modules towards the degree; please see: http://www.uea.ac.uk/lcs/courses/ma-forensic-linguistics-and-translation

Q: Why should, in your opinion, qualified interpreters be encouraged to attend this training course?
A: three main reasons:
1) They will have hands-on experience with authentic materials that they may have not encountered in their practice before and it may be an area for them to branch into
2) They will have a chance to learn to recognise and pre-empt the points of conflict in translation process by focusing on the exact points of contrasts between English and other languages in terms of structure and use
3) They will learn how a language professional can become an expert witness - a new area of expertise to explore as a potential career
(The course concentrates on aspects of translation that are not really covered during the DPSI course and will help them become even better interpreters)

Q: What are the careers and work prospects?
A: Areas of professional translation, in particular the contexts of police and court interpreting, legal as well as corporate translation;  language analyst, international quality control manager in different industries; multilingual contract consultant; language professional as an expert witness, to name but a few.