Respeaking in Translator Training Curricula

Abstract

Training in respeaking as a method to produce live subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing was originally designed and developed by the audiovisual industry. In recent years, however, academia has played a leading role in the expansion of respeaking through a growing range of specialized training courses run by European institutions. This article places respeaking within the wider context of audiovisual translation, outlining the most distinctive features of this form of audiovisual transfer and examining the main professional competences that respeaking companies demand. It then gauges the impact of early pedagogical proposals for respeaker training (Arumí and Romero 2008). Drawing on the author’s involvement in respeaking modules taught at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Roehampton and Universi-dade de Vigo, the article addresses a number questions pertaining to the role that respeaking plays within the wider translator and interpreter training scene; the feasibility of teaching respeak-ing online and/or to multilingual groups; the interface between respeaker, interpreter and subtitler training; students’ views on the relative difficulty of respeaking vis-à-vis other forms of linguistic mediation; and the role of applied student-led research in respeaking courses.