A paradigm shift in academic translation teaching and its reflections on the localization industry in the digital age

Abstract

This paper aims at showing the advantages of a new translator training based on Kiraly’s social constructivism approach compared to a traditional transmission approach. It is already believed that themodern translator training must be conducted according to a social constructivist approach suggesting aparadigm shift in the academic translation teaching. So far historical translation theories (mostly literary)have generally overlooked needs and technology driven localization market and could not go beyond atheoretical point. Functional theories have succeeded in the practical field of translation but they must berevised with the immsense rise of communication and information technologies,which means an increasingamount of (real time) translation tasks in the field of ICT. In the light of this, the study tries to discover theunderlying reasons for the acceptence of a new paradigm in the translation teaching as well as questioning theso called new paradigm in the academic translation teaching to legitimate the localization paradigm in generaland evaluating this new field of translation in terms of its theoretization and its position under the TranslationStudies.