The Inaugural Meeting of WITTA (World Interpreter and Translator Training Association) by School of Interpreting & Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (hereinafter referred to as “GDUFS”) and the “International Symposium on Translation Education” was held from November 18 to 20, 2016 in Guangzhou. Hundreds of interpreting and translation experts and scholars from the U.K., Canada, Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as other countries and regions attended the ceremony, witnessing the establishment of WITTA. Zhang Jingjing, Deputy General Manager of China Translation Corporation (hereinafter referred to as “CTC”) and Yu Yang, CEO of Global Tone Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “GTCOM”) were invited to attend the meeting, exchanged ideas with experts and scholars from all walks of life and shared opinions on future development of translation education.
At the launch ceremony of WITTA
The inaugural meeting of WITTA was held in the afternoon of November 18, attracting over 40 representatives and experts from world famous universities, academic journals, and technology-based companies including University of Ottawa, GDUFS, and GTCOM. Together, the participants discussed and approved the WITTA Guangzhou Declaration, WITTA Charter and Framework, etc. At the dinner party, Ms. Zhang Jingjing, delivered a speech. She noted that, China’s translation cause is now embracing an unprecedented development period, and translation education is of vital importance to the cultivation of talents, the development of universities, and the improvement of industry. To develop translation education, in addition to the traditional talents cultivation pattern, the influence of technology development should also be taken into consideration. For instance, scientific and technological achievements from machine translation and other fields can be used to improve the efficiency and convenience of future translation education. To this end, Ms. Zhang introduced the achievements made by GTCOM, a holding subsidiary of CTC, in terms of machine translation, big data analyzing and processing, as well as artificial intelligence cognition, etc. She also expressed her intention to share the research results with member units of WITTA to create a better future.
As one of the main founding members and a council member of WITTA, Yu Yang, CEO of GTCOM, pointed out at the meeting that, language competence, big data analytical ability and cognitive ability of artificial intelligence shall all be included in the translation education, so as to promote the development of industry from the perspective of science and technology. GTCOM will play its role through resource sharing and close exchange with member units of WITTA.
Themed with “Translation in Education and Education in Translation”, the meeting set multiple topics including “New Approaches to Translation Education and Research”, “Corpus, Computer Technology and Translation Education”, aiming to discuss new ideas, new thoughts, and new methods for the future development of translation education. CTC and GTCOM fully participated in the discussion and put forward a great number of constructive development initiatives.
In the future, GTCOM will provide the global platform of WITTA with resources including hundreds of millions of corpus, assisting the development of WITTA. In the meantime, it will support global member units of WITTA in terms of data information, management experience, cutting-edge technologies through its big data analytical platform- YeeSight, language service platform- YeeCloud, and professional translation toolkit- YeeKit.
Participants attending the meeting