Vaičiūnienė, Vilhelmina

The article presents the course ESP and translation for the second and third- year students of Translation and Editing bachelor study programme at Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania), which is discussed from different perspectives. The aim of the paper is twofold: 1) to test the course on ESP and Translation in the humanities (main parameters, their relevance, efficiency of the tasks) against the ESP scholars’ main assumptions about the ESP per se, and 2) to discuss students’ experience and reflections on the course after its delivery. The course goals and objectives, as well as the scope of the course are analysed to determine the correspondence of the course according to the ESP sub-areas presented by Williams (2014, 2-3). Reflecting scholarly insights into ESP exponential growth for academic purposes over the last 20 years and the idea that hybridity is a constitutive part of specialized genres, the paper focuses on the composition of the ESP course aiming at the acquisition of certain specialized language skills focused on the field of humanities and practical translation skills. The duality of the course composition and training of specialized skills reflects the complexity of the discussed course. Web 2.0 environment and tools constitute a part of the multimodal resources of this course as well as tools for translation training. Finally, the relevance of such course, desired results and students and teacher’s satisfaction are also addressed. The qualitative research perspective is applied for the collection and analysis of the data.

The paper discusses the translator’s role(s) in the globalized translation market and translator training issues in relation to knowledge and skills (linguistic, cultural, field-specific, etc.), necessary for young translators. Among the questions discussed in the paper are translation process involving linguistic elements, as well as translation as a cognitive process, interrelation between language and culture, dichotomy of literal vs free translation. The article engages with the challenges posed by a complex and responsible task of being a translator in a diversified world. Seeking to identify students’ experiences of training and perceptions of the role they are going to play as professional translators an interview with students-trainees was conducted. The interview was focused on the question whether knowledge of translation theory aids in performing practical translation tasks. The data collected from the students’ responses allowed identifying their learning patterns, most challenging areas in translator training, the (mis)match between theory and practice. The research was based on a qualitative research paradigm assuming students’ experiences being of great importance in the process of assessing the value and quality of the translator training and interaction between theoretical insights of translator’s roles and practical experience.

Research on gamified language learning often involves the use of digital games. Little is known about the use of non-technology games in promoting language learning despite their accessibility. This paper aims to fill in this lacuna by providing insights into international students’ engagement in non-technology gamified English language learning in the context of a Lithuanian university. The research, which used a case study approach as its methodology, involved a total of 30 international students at a Lithuanian university together with their two instructors. They were observed for two weeks, and then interviewed by the researchers. An inductive thematic analysis approach proposed by Braun and Clark was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that the students’ engagement with the non-technology gamified lessons have impacted them positively as they believe that they have improved English language proficiency and better mastery of the 21-st century learning skills. However, the participants raised several issues related to cultural sensitivity and blurred learning outcomes. This study concluded that non-technology games serve as a useful tool in promoting language learning in the 21st century if it is carefully designed to attract learners’ interests and at the same to time meet the learning outcomes. This study is hoped to encourage practitioners to experiment with non-technology gamified lessons and provide guidelines for them in conducting effective non-technology gamified lessons.

Media perform a fundamental role in contemporary society: being intermediaries between users and the real world, they replace physical experience, construct views and knowledge, and shape attitudes, beliefs, and opinions that lead to the specific decisions and actions of individuals and groups. This article gives an overview of developments in the composite concept of media and information literacy and the premises of systemic functional linguistics that are relevant under the conditions of the current infodemic. The authors of this paper propose an approach that combines functional and social-cognitive elements, aiming to explain how we become susceptible to mis- and disinformation and to raise awareness of how certain discursive practices become embedded in societal life. For media and information literacy to be a fully-fledged concept, it is vital to consider the ability to discern subjectivity and emotion in post-truth narratives. The notion of narrative as a cognitive structure is also fundamental because disinformation and misinformation spread as granular digital formations encompassing fragments of information from a multiplicity of fields.

ICT terms and neologisms are a rapidly expanding semantic field to which new terms are constantly being added. Currently, neologisms that have been recently included in English in many cases do not have their equivalents in Lithuanian as the process of inclusion of newly coined words or neologisms into the Lithuanian language is much slower mostly due to institutionally regulated language policy and normative guidelines. As a result, Lithuanian translators face a lot of challenges when they have to find equivalents for English neologisms. As regards ESP classroom, translation-based activities are not widely-used but, if applied in a balanced way, they can significantly improve comprehension of new terminology and neologisms in specific fields. The portal of TED talks is an immense resource of materials related to newest technological developments and is a valuable source for teaching/learning ESP in such a way that is engaging for contemporary learner. Moreover, TED talks provide valuable material for teaching translation as they represent real language in use, and the portal makes comparison of the content in different languages available through translations of the talks into multiple languages. The aim of this paper is to research the ways TED translators from English into Lithuanian deal with neologisms in the context of language policy implications and rapidness of societal technological development. Comparative approach to learning materials facilitates the acquisition of specific terminology. For this particular paper, six talks from the TED portal have been analysed for the occurrences of neologisms. The neologisms have been grouped into three structural groups: (1) single-root terms, (2) compounds, and (3) collocations. The total number of analysed terms is 120. Modern-day neologisms that have been integrated into English in many cases do not have their equivalents in Lithuanian. Hence, the semantic gap in the technical vocabulary of the Lithuanian language which is frequently filled up by loan words or by adapting English terms. Analysis of new coinages revealed the substantial difficulties for translators due to objective factors. The majority of the analysed words are not included into the Modern Lithuanian dictionary. Out of 120 selected items only 4 are included into the Database of Lithuanian neologisms.