29. April 2024 | tekom Türkiye

Are Human Linguistic Competencies Still A Thing?

Event information | Registration

14:00-14:10 (GMT+3)

Welcome speech

Prof. Dr. Ayşe Banu Karadağ

14:10-15:00 (GMT+3)

Are Human Linguistic Competencies Still A Thing?

Işın Öner & Z. Begüm Bengi

15:00-15:30 (GMT+3)

Q&A – Discussion

Moderator: Asst. Prof. Nilüfer Alimen

15:30-16:00 (GMT+3)

Tea & Talk

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Are Human Linguistic Competencies Still A Thing?

In the last decade, rapid developments in language technologies have induced fear among to-be translators, thinking that there would be no need for human translators. This fear can be traced back to the years typewriters were invented, or to the time they were supplanted by personal computers. Then came the era of machine translation, especially neural machine translation. Today, we witness the rise of artificial intelligence for both content creation and translation in the language services industry. Although it is not clear what the future holds, human content creators and translators are still fundamental in ensuring quality, and quality requires competence. In the digital age, technological skills are definitely a sine qua non. However, acquiring and internalizing, inter alia, linguistic competencies is still an integral part of college undergraduate programs. In this workshop, we’ll focus on information quality and principles for plain language with an eye on the creation and translation of user manuals.

Keywords: human content creators and translators, machine translation, artificial intelligence, competencies

Learning objectives:

• Understanding information quality
• Requirements of quality in information for use
• How to create content for user manuals
• Principles for plain language

About Speakers:

Işın Öner

Işın holds a B.A degree in English Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University, M.A degree in Linguistics from Boğaziçi University and PhD in Linguistics from Hacettepe University. She has worked as an academic in Translation Studies since 1983 and is now the head of the Translation Studies Department at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University. She is also the founding partner of Diye Global Communications, an LSP company focusing both on content creation and translation of technical documentation, as well as consultancy.

Z. Begüm Bengi

Begüm holds a B.A degree in English Language and Literature from Boğaziçi University. She holds Master of Fine Arts MFA in Media and Design from Bilkent University and a PhD (ABD) in Graphic Design from Bilkent University where she also worked as a graduate teaching assistant. She is a partner of Diye Global Communications, an LSP company focusing both on content creation and translation of technical documentation, as well as consultancy.