Abstract:

In the recent decade, globalization of the translation industry as well as continuous improvement of such machine translation services as Google Translate, Yandex Translate and DeepL Translator have redefined the profession. Some implications of these processes include lowering the barriers to entry and reduction of the gap between highly-skilled professionals and those who are able to deliver texts of an acceptable quality level to their customers.

This leads to an increased competition in the translation services market and causes professionals to seek new competitive advantage by pursuing postgraduate degrees and undergoing professional training in new areas. These circumstances emphasize the importance of introducing such specialists as MA Law students to the tools that are not widely accessible and require some training and technical expertise.

Computer-assisted translation tools (also known as CAT Tools) are becoming increasingly popular and serve as the industry standard for professional translators of legal, technical and other types of texts. The authors argue that the toolsets provided by such CAT Tools as SDL Trados require a variety of technical skills that are not generally taught within courses for lawyers and linguists.

The authors explore the challenges of introducing both theoretical and practical aspects of CAT Tools to university students, from disambiguation between computer-assisted translation and machine translation to mastering the workflow of a professional legal translator. The research covers various aspects, including the need for monthly revision of the course content, teacher-student technical support and mentoring, managing group projects, etc.

Keywords:

CAT tools, digital literacy, translation and interpreting, machine translation.