MNH-TT: a collaborative platform for translator training

Increasingly, both commercial and non-commercial translation rely on highly collaborative activity. Thus, we contend, students aiming for a career in translation gain from early exposure to such a working model. On analysing a range of commercial and not-for-profit translation platforms, we identified, from our social-constructivist pedagogical perspective, a major defect. By allowing neither for preserving a trace of interactions nor for relating these interactions to the intermediate products generated during the workflow, they deny participants the chance to later reflect on them. To scaffold the trainee experience, we therefore extended an existing platform – Minna no Hon’yaku (Translation of/by/for All) – with four functions. First, each participant is assigned one or more roles which map into various workflows. Second, communication between role-players is structured by a menu of dialogue acts, each act linked to an entity in the translation project. Third, a menu of revision categories is used to motivate individual edits. Fourth, these events are recorded using an extended TMX notation and can be visualised graphically via a dashboard to answer such questions as: Where within the workflow are the peaks in interaction? Do these correlate with significant modifications to the translation product?