The department, General and Applied Linguistics/ Translation Technology (ASTT), was established in 2015 as a subsidiary of the department of General and Applied Linguistics (AASW) headed by Prof. Dr. Dieter Huber. The department was renamed when Prof. Dr. Dieter Hubert retired after almost 20 years of successful management at the “Institute for General Linguistics and Culture Studies” (IASPK), later named, the department of General and Applied Linguistics. He appointed Prof. Dr. Christoph Rösener as chair of the department of Linguistics in Translation and Translation Technology. The new name given to the department represented its change of focus towards intensive research and teaching regarding technological developments and the digitization of the field of translation and interpreting.
You can find detailed information on the development and history of the former institute/ department in an article written by Prof. Dr. Dieter Huber and printed in the festschrift published on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the faculty, Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies, in Germersheim. („Einmal Schlafsaal und zurück: Allgemeine Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft in Germersheim”. In: Klaus-Peter Müller (publ.)): Festschrift zum 60-jährigen Bestehen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2007 [Text in German])
Future perspectives
Regarding future perspectives, the department ASTT focuses on research and further developments, respectively, on the optimization of translation processes. In particular, the transformation of the translation profession and the change of translation processes caused by the rapidly advancing digitization are paramount to the department’s research and teaching. Based upon the intensive cooperation with translation agencies, or rather the software industry, ASTT’s research results are to be incorporated prospectively into the implementation of software tools as well as into the conception of translation processes. For this purpose, the foundation of a “Translation Technology Competence Center” is planned. Within the frameworks of this center, eye tracking technology, translation process analyses and usability testing, among other things, are to be carried out. Further areas of planned research are terminology and knowledge data bases, language and translation technology for interpreting, training scenarios for machine translation systems and many more. Beyond the actual research, these activities also serve as means to provide students with support regarding new and currently emerging career options for translators and interpreters.