Welcome to July’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

Making sense of environmental problems: using systems thinking approaches (Institution of Environmental Studies)

Recording: https://www.the-ies.org/analysis/making-sense-environmental

This was a really interesting talk on systems thinking, demonstrated using the example of the impact of chicken farming on the River Wye. I’ve never studied systems thinking formally, but one thing that particularly attracts me about it is how visual it is, and the speaker Bryan Hopkins really leant into this, showing some of the diagrams he would use to elaborate and elucidate the systems in place impacting the River Wye and how it has reached the state it is in. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to start making my own diagrams, but it’s definitely something I want to look into more.

Ecocide Law for Sustainability Professionals: what is it and how does it impact your business? (Stop Ecocide International)

Recording: not yet available

I have to confess, I wasn’t familiar with this organisation previously, though I have of course heard of the concept of ecocide. But this is one of several campaign groups that are trying to make use of the existing legal systems to create both new legal standards and also legal precedence to ensure that regulations are actually enforced (see also The Good Law Project, Client Earth, etc.), One of the real takeaways from this session for me was being reminded that we should reframe regulation not as simply stopping companies from doing the things they want (though one speaker did argue that the default position should be not to do something if you’re not sure what the consequences will be), but rather as a driver of innovation and research – something that spurs companies and countries on to do something that they would have previously considered impossible.

ITI Coffee House: Environmental sustainability in translation and interpreting (Institute of Translation and Interpreting)

Recording: not recorded

This was one of a series of discussions on various topics put on by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. The focus was on the environmental impact of AI and the increasing role it is playing in the translation profession. It was only open to member, so we got to have some really interesting and honest conversations about who is responsible for that harm and for educating users, including our clients, about it. These aren’t really questions that have any firm answers, but it was a welcome opportunity to share our views and reassure ourselves that we don’t have to deal with these issues in isolation.

Stress biomarker identification in Arctic ungulates (Institution of Environmental Studies, ALDER Network)

Recording: not recorded

One of the reasons I joined the Institution of Environmental Sciences was to keep up with developments at the forefront of environmental science, and this was a great example of that. Dr Chris Fohringer talked about their work tracking stress markers in various animal populations, especially, but not only, Arctic ungulates. The science itself is really interesting, of course, but perhaps the most fascinating thing about it is its potential use for large-scale monitoring of wildlife populations – something that we are going to need as we face increasingly data-based decisions about where to deploy our resources to aid nature recovery. It also opens really fascinating questions like how long the impact of a particular stress – e,g, lack of nutrition – lingers in the biology of these populations.

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 a section taken from the ESG/CSR section of an investment firm’s website. These texts require quite a lot of skill to handle for two reasons: firstly, because investment companies – wrongly or rightly – have a reputation for only being interested in the bottom line, which means getting the tone right can be tricky. It must be sincere without sounding preachy, and it’s important to make adjustments for cultural differences, like how often the translation addresses the reader directly. And secondly, it’s important to avoid sounding too cliche. I’ve said before that it’s difficult to stand out from the competition in this field at the moment, so when translating, we have to make sure that the message comes through loud and clear and in as fresh a way as possible. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely something a good translator will keep at the top of their priority list.