CPD Roundup: April 2024
Welcome to April’s CPD round-up! This is where I share a quick summary of the continuing profession development (CPD) I’ve completed during the month.
The Institute of Translation and Interpreting recommends that all members, including Qualified Members (MITIs) like me, do at least 30 hours of CPD per year. I normally end up doing rather more than that, and I normally only include subject-knowledge CPD (and sometimes some translation skills CPD) in this public summary. You can find out about the other types of CPD that the ITI recommends here and my previous summaries here.
Subject knowledge
World Circular Economy Forum 2024
Recording: not yet available
As usual with these sorts of multi-day events, I will summarise what I learnt from these talks together rather than trying to provide a detailed description of each individual session.
For reference, the sessions I attended live were:
Turning circular visions into actions
Shaping a global vision for circular finance
Circular business solutions for nature
European and global perspectives on policy, investment and innovation
Food systems in the circular bioeconomy: Lessons from Latin America
Unveiling bio-based solutions from the Global South
Rethinking our futures
Key takeaways:
The circular economy may seem like a new concept, but it is really returning to a much older way of thinking, where humans once again take priority over economic output.
We must reject the idea that meeting human needs is an inherently resource-intensive process.
The time has come to shift from ‘what’ needs to be done to ‘how’ it can be done.
There are policy gaps in how start-ups are financed that promote linear growth rather than circular growth.
Working together in a way that acknowledges and integrates all of the complexity is essential.
We need to find ways to finance projects that cannot be financed through our current systems.
We know that circular economy solutions work, but we need to work out how to scale them up.
It doesn’t really matter what reporting framework you pick or terminology you use, as they are all aligned towards the same goals and converging.
Some systems cannot be optimised in order to make them compliant with circular economy thinking, they need to be simply replaced.
It’s as important to disincentivise the linear economy (e.g. by pricing waste more accurately) as it is to incentivise the circular economy.
This must be a global process and one that takes a holistic approach.
Food Nutrition and Farming – What’s the Connection? (Soil Association)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsSVUecaQIs
There was a lot of information packed into this webinar, and I’m sure I’ll need to go back to it in the future. But the overall message is that organic/regenerative/acroecological (etc.) farming produces food with a broader nutrient spectrum than intensive, chemical-based farming. This is turn produces better general health outcomes for the humans consuming those products, though the differences are so broad that it is difficult to isolate individual nutritional differences between the products to draw clear conclusions about correlation and causation. More research and evidence is required to support some of the claims made. We need to move way from siloed approaches to agriculture that focus purely on, e.g. rewilding and carbon sequestration, and instead consider the system as a whole, allowing us to move from “chemical intensity” to “knowledge intensity” in our agriculture.
The Answer Lies in the Soil (ITI SHEA network)
Recording: members only
I think we all know that soil is essential to the survival of our society, encapsulated in the famous line that we are dependent on “six inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” And farmers (and others) are becoming increasingly aware of the need to protect and feed our soils, rather than the way we currently treat them. This presentation from the Sustainability, Horticultural, Environment and Agriculture network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting really brought this home by focusing on the ‘big picture’, with some really stark statistics about the rates of soil creation vs soil erosion and how much agricultural land per person we will realistically have available as the Earth’s population grows.
Translation skills
Revision club
A revision club is a peer-learning exercise where a small group of translators get together to sharpen our translation skills. This normally involves one person translating a document as practice and the others reviewing it for potential improvements. It can also take the form of a ‘slam’, where everybody in the group translates the same text and then compares versions.
This month’s text was an introductory piece on the circular economy, and what it actually means. It was another one of those texts that seemed relatively simple on the surface, but actually presented some interesting challenges in terms of phrasing and terminology. Part of the reason we do revision clubs in our specialist areas is to keep up to date with terminology that evolves as the underlying concepts develop amongst experts, and this text was no exception!
Technology skills
AI and the future of translation. In search of evidence (Translators & Interpreters Australia)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rUOOmNlkA
I don’t normally post information about the training I do to keep up with developments in translation technology because, as you may have read, I don’t offer AI- or MT-based translation to clients that find me via this site. This isn’t because I think this technology is inherently a bad thing, but because it imposes a certain workflow that is incompatible with the kind of highly tailored and authentic service I strive to offer. I do, however, use it with some clients who buy translation services on a regular basis and who understand the risks and benefits involved (what some call “MT literacy”). These tend to be agency clients who are experts in determining when this kind of technology is appropriate. And deciding when it is appropriate means keeping up with the actual evidence and research into the technology, which is what this talk by Anthony Pym (a highly respected researcher) set out to provide.