Analysis of the Correlation between Translation Graduation Projects and the Market Demand

Problem Statement. This study contains a statistical analysis of the translation market by translation type and domain and the distribution of translation student graduation project subjects.

The purpose of this study is to improve the translation teaching quality through a better match between the graduation project subjects and the translation market demand.

Materials and Methods. The authors reviewed the demand statistics for the Russian, EU, and US translation markets. We also collected a large database of translation graduation projects defended in Russian universities in 2018–2020. The series contains 245 projects. It covers 8 % of the relevant universities, which makes it representative with a 20 % confidence interval and 85 % confidence probability. The subjects of the graduation projects were divided into the following domains: audiovisual translation; theoretical linguistics; game and software localization; medical translation; research and technical translation; political journalism; advertising; interpretation; fiction; legal translation.

Results and Discussion. It was found that the university-level translator training does not match the actual market demand. The maximum discrepancies were found in the following categories: “fiction” (21.66 % excess), “research and technical translation” (20.08 % deficiency), and “political journalism” (16.32 % excess). In addition, we analyzed the subjects of 138 graduation papers submitted to the Translator Creativity and Education International Contest in 2022. The lack of positive dynamics was found: the share of fiction reached 34.06% while the research and technical translation category reduced to just 11.59 %.

Conclusions. The following corrective measures are proposed: harmonization of the graduation paper subjects with the market demand, engaging practicing translators as instructors, internships with LSPs, personalized learning paths, and interdepartmental projects.

1. Petrova O.V., Rodionova M.Y., Sdobnikov V.V. (2022). The Role of Graduation Papers in Professional Formation of Translators and Interpreters. Proceedings of International Forum “Freedom and responsibility in pivotal times”, vol. 125, pp. 488-499. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2022.03.59, https://elibrary.ru/naxhpc

2. Porshneva E.R., Alekseeva I.S., Zinovyeva I.Yu., Piven (Nikitina) I.V. (2021). Graduation Paper as a Tool of Assessing Professional Aptitude of a Translator (Bachelor’s Degree). Proceedings of 7th International Forum on Teacher Education, pp. 1339-1349. https://doi.org/10.3897/ap.5.e1339

3. Nikulicheva D.B. (2018). Graduation thesis as a reflection of a translator’s professional competence: on the results of roundtable discussion. Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo lingvisticheskogo universiteta. Gumanitarnye nauki = Vestnik of Moscow State Linguistic University. Humanities, no. 1 (789), pp. 138-145. (In Russ.) https://elibrary.ru/xqropj

4. Bobăilă I., Mihăescu M., Pelea A. (2018). The Graduation Paper in Translation Studies: Nuances of Critical Thinking. English Studies at NBU, vol. 4, issue 2, pp. 86-100. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.18.2.1

5. Wang Lin. (2017). On the Strategies of Graduation Thesis Writing Teaching of Translation Major Undergraduates Based on Eco-Translatology. English Language Teaching, vol. 10, no. 8, pp. 63-68. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v10n8p63c

6. Altikriti S. (2022). Challenges Facing Jordanian Undergraduates in Writing Graduation Research Paper. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 58-67. Available at: https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/3110/953

7. Hou Y. (2013). Combination of Thesis-Writing of Translation Degree Program with Translation Market. Foreign Language and Literature, no. 1, pp. 161-162. Available at: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Combination-of-Thesis-Writing-of-Translation-Degree-Yi-qia/3199d6defc57be6bbbf39c0b7cd3b65cb6e7a6dc

8. Beibei Ren, Wei Zhu. A (2023). Chinese EFL Student's Strategies in Graduation Thesis Writing: An Activity Theory Perspective. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, vol. 61, pp. 1475-1585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2022.101202

9. Novikova E.Yu., Makhortova T.Yu. (2015). Master’s thesis: a new generation research project. Izvestiya Saratovskogo universiteta. Novaya seriya. Seriya: Filologiya. Zhurnalistika = Izvestiya of Saratov University. New Series. Series: Philology. Journalism, no. 3, pp. 111-115. (In Russ.) https://elibrary.ru/uzcbrt

10. Molnár O. (2013). Source Text Quality in the Translation Process. Tradition and Trends in Trans-Language Communication. Olomouc, Univerzita Palackého Publ., pp. 59-86. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/12248525/Source_Text_Quality_in_the_Translation_Process