Developing translation competence

This volume presents a comprehensive study of what constitutes Translation Competence, from the various sub-competences to the overall skill. Contributors combine experience as translation scholars with their experience as teachers of translation. The volume is organized into three sections: Defining, Building, and Assessing Translation Competence. The chapters offer insights into the nature of translation competence and its place in the translation training programme in an academic environment and show how theoretical considerations have contributed to defining, building and assessing translation competence, offering practical examples of how this can be achieved. The first section introduces major sub-competences, including linguistic, cultural, textual, subject, research, and transfer competence. The second section presents issues relating to course design, methodology and teaching practice. The third section reflects on criteria for quality assessment.

Distinctive manufacturing competence or core competence:which is more relevant in non-corporate organizations?

This paper addresses the issues of what core competencies mean in the light of the earlier existing concept of distinctive manufacturing competencies (or manufacturing competencies). The apparent parallels bel ween these two concepts are highlighted and considered. The results of empirical research comlucled via a survey of UK non-corporate organizations is presented and then analyzed. The results from the investigation lead directly to conclusions about the relevance of these competency concepts to non-corporate, non-multinational organizations.

Strategic planning as communicative process

This paper examines the construction of a strategic plan as a communicative process. Drawing on Ricoeur’s concepts of decontextualization and recontextualization, we conceptualize strategic planning activities as being constituted through the iterative and recursive relationship of talk and text. Based on an in-depth case study, our findings show how multiple actors engage in a formal strategic planning process which is manifested in a written strategy document. This document is thus central in the iterative talk to text cycles. As individuals express their interpretations of the current strategic plan in talk, they are able to make amendments to the text, which then shape future textual versions of the plan. This cycle is repeated in a recursive process, in which the meanings attributed to talk and text increasingly converge within a final agreed plan. We develop our findings into a process model of the communication process that explains how texts become more authoritative over time and, in doing so, how they inscribe power relationships and social order within organizations. These findings contribute to the literature on strategic planning and on organization as a communication process.

Journey towards cultural competence:developing university teachers

Purpose - This paper examines the importance of intercultural training for lecturers; describes innovative training to address this, based on a new theoretical framework; and evaluates training and framework. Background - UK HE is becoming increasing internationally diverse. The UK HEI population is also very multicultural. The proportion of lecturers who come from outside the UK has risen. It is, therefore, important that students develop intercultural awareness. One way of doing this is to work with students. A more sustainable approach focusses training on lecturers who will embed cultural awareness into their practice. Method - This paper sets out a theoretical framework which underpins training developed for lecturers as part of a Postgraduate Certificate. The paper describes the training and evaluates the effectiveness of this. Findings and results - Findings show that participants were apprehensive about the training. Afterwards they expressed surprise at the participative approach, but were pleased with outcomes. They enjoyed the exercises and the training appeared to have opened up their outlook. They praised the freedom to share thoughts with others. Conclusions - Findings show that participants learnt intercultural skills to use in class. This was due to the design. The nature of the training encouraged reflection on cultural diversity and participants attested to the effects this would have on their teaching. These results replicate other studies Implications - The implications are immediate in the design of intercultural training in different contexts. It has already been used to design innovative training for students and managers. In both cases the same far-reaching results were achieved.

Competence requirements for managing supply in interorganizational networks

The authors address the growing call for research into the management of supply networks serving the public sector. Building on prior action research, this empirical paper focuses on the management of supply in interorganizational, health sector networks identifying the competence requirements (skills, knowledge, traits, and behavioural indicators) associated with effective team performance. Drawing on empirical data, the authors present a competence framework that aims to capture a team’s tacit understanding of strategic supply management. Competence indicators are organized into six themes: network understanding; developing network position; relationship management; learning, knowledge and knowledge management; strategy formulation; strategy implementation. Finally, the relevance of the framework to boundary spanning personnel outside the purchasing function and to other organizations is considered.

Supply network strategy:role and competence requirements

This paper presents an argument that it is possible for an organisation to manage networks, but understanding this involves consideration of what is meant by "managing". Based on prior research and data from a major longitudinal action research study in the health sector, the paper describes six network management roles: network structuring agent; co-ordinator; advisor; information broker; relationship broker; innovation sponsor. The necessary "assets" for effective performance of these roles are identified, in particular those relating to team competence. The findings enrich and significantly develop previous work on network management roles and activities, and their influencing factors. It is concluded that, given the specific nature of the networks studied, further research is required to evaluate the generalisability of the findings, though initial indications are promising.

The blurring boundaries between synchronicity and asynchronicity:new communicative situations in work-related Instant Messaging

Instant messaging is one of the most popular communication technologies in virtual teams, enabling interactions to intertwine whole working days, thus creating the sense of copresence for team members who are geographically dispersed. Through close linguistic analyses of naturally occurring data from a virtual team, this article discusses the implications of two novel communicative situations enabled by instant messaging: presence information and the persistence of transcript. The preliminary findings of this study indicate that these new communicative situations require the flouting or rethinking of previously existing interactional norms and that communicative practices employed by the team members are not yet conventionalized/normalized, the expectations and interpretations of interactional rituals and timing vary highly, even within the same virtual team.

A European competence framework for industrial pharmacy practice in biotechnology

Project Report: The PHAR-IN ("Competences for industrial pharmacy practice in biotechnology") looked at whether there is a difference in how industrial employees and academics rank competences for practice in the biotechnological industry. A small expert panel consisting of the authors of this paper produced a biotechnology competence framework by drawing up an initial list of competences then ranking them in importance using a three-stage Delphi process. The framework was next evaluated and validated by a large expert panel of academics (n = 37) and industrial employees (n = 154). Results show that priorities for industrial employees and academics were similar. The competences for biotechnology practice that received the highest scores were mainly in: . "Research and Development", . "Upstream" and "Downstream" Processing', " . "Product development and formulation", " . "Aseptic processing", ."Analytical methodology", . "Product stability", and . "Regulation". The main area of disagreement was in the category "Ethics and drug safety" where academics ranked competences higher than did industrial employees.

Development of a work-based learning MSc course which incorporates the development and demonstration of professional engineering competence standards

UK engineering standards are regulated by the Engineering Council (EC) using a set of generic threshold competence standards which all professionally registered Chartered Engineers in the UK must demonstrate, underpinned by a separate academic qualification at Masters Level. As part of an EC-led national project for the development of work-based learning (WBL) courses leading to Chartered Engineer registration, Aston University has started an MSc Professional Engineering programme, a development of a model originally designed by Kingston University, and build around a set of generic modules which map onto the competence standards. The learning pedagogy of these modules conforms to a widely recognised experiential learning model, with refinements incorporated from a number of other learning models. In particular, the use of workplace mentoring to support the development of critical reflection and to overcome barriers to learning is being incorporated into the learning space. This discussion paper explains the work that was done in collaboration with the EC and a number of Professional Engineering Institutions, to design a course structure and curricular framework that optimises the engineering learning process for engineers already working across a wide range of industries, and to address issues of engineering sustainability. It also explains the thinking behind the work that has been started to provide an international version of the course, built around a set of globalised engineering competences. © 2010 W J Glew, E F Elsworth.

Cognitive processing in non-communicative patients:what can event-related potentials tell us?

Event-related potentials (ERP) have been proposed to improve the differential diagnosis of non-responsive patients. We investigated the potential of the P300 as a reliable marker of conscious processing in patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS). Eleven chronic LIS patients and 10 healthy subjects (HS) listened to a complex-tone auditory oddball paradigm, first in a passive condition (listen to the sounds) and then in an active condition (counting the deviant tones). Seven out of nine HS displayed a P300 waveform in the passive condition and all in the active condition. HS showed statistically significant changes in peak and area amplitude between conditions. Three out of seven LIS patients showed the P3 waveform in the passive condition and five of seven in the active condition. No changes in peak amplitude and only a significant difference at one electrode in area amplitude were observed in this group between conditions. We conclude that, in spite of keeping full consciousness and intact or nearly intact cortical functions, compared to HS, LIS patients present less reliable results when testing with ERP, specifically in the passive condition. We thus strongly recommend applying ERP paradigms in an active condition when evaluating consciousness in non-responsive patients.