Translation Technology and Ethical Competence: An Analysis and Proposal for Translators’ Training

Abstract

The practice of translation today is inextricably linked to the use of technology, and this is reflected in how translator training is conceptualized, with technologies present in every area of such training. More and more authors have begun to voice their concerns about the ethical issues posed by the use of technology and artificial intelligence systems, and our focus here is to ask whether such concerns are being reflected in pedagogical models and teaching programs in the field of translation. To this end, we analyze a variety of translation and translation technology (TT) competence models, together with a review of the literature on ethics, and a corpus analysis of TT syllabi to explore the different sub-competences addressed in these. The analysis reveals that ethical competence is not specifically addressed in TT classes, or at least it is not reflected in our corpus. The literature review also illustrates a dearth of specific competence models for TT classes, as well as a lack of pedagogical interventions to develop ethical sub-competence, something we aim to address by developing a series of new models and tools. We conclude that the inclusion of ethical issues in the TT classroom is still far from widespread, despite it being a necessary step towards enabling new generations to act critically and professionally.