Abstract:

In the last decades consumer demands in the field of food production has changed considerably. Consumers more and more believe that foods contribute directly to their health. Today foods are not intended to only satisfy hunger and to provide necessary nutrients for humans but also to prevent nutrition-related diseases and improve physical and mental well-being of the consumers. In this regard, functional foods play an outstanding role. The increasing demand on such foods can be explained by the increasing cost of healthcare, the steady increase in life expectancy, and the desire of older people for improved quality of their later years.
Because of that functional food have developed and they can be defined as food products fortified with special constituents that possess advantageous physiological effects.

The rapid development of the functional food area has given it a great economical importance worldwide and, therefore, the knowledge of the scientific language related to the functional food area is becoming of huge interest. Consequently, the area of functional foods as a new area of development in the fields of food science and nutrition is a privilege area to teach young translators and interpreters, that will become expertises in a specific issue and, surely, it will be widely useful in the near future for their professional careers.

In the context of the “Translation and Interpretation” Bachelor degree offered by the University of Granada, different subjects in scientific, technical and technological translations are taught. The purpose of this project is to develop the translation competences of the future translators and interpreters in the area of functional foods and nutraceuticals based on real translation assignments. This work will provide an alternative learning and evaluation system.

To achieve this aim, seminars related with the translation assignments will be carried out in Spanish by expert researchers in the field of functional food. Then, the students will have to work on these real cases that will let them to face real problems they can find in the real life. The learning process will take place in individual and a collective format. Multilingual, multicultural and multidisciplinary groups will be formed and different roles will be taken by the members of the groups: translator expert A, translator expert B documentarist, terminologist, reviewer, etc. Student will always have the help of the experts that have carried out the seminars.

This approach will be implemented to know what the students think about this pedagogical tool. Regarding results obtained, the quality of future courses will be implemented. This research is funded by the Teaching Innovation Project entitled "Methods of development of the translation competences in the specific area of functional foods and nutraceuticals” code 2012-51 funded by the University of Granada.

Keywords:

Translation competences, functional food, translation and Interpretation.