Volunteer subtitle translator organizations as a model for a social constructivist approach

Abstract

The starting point of this study is the assumption that volunteer organizations are examples of a social constructivist approach in training translators. This assumption is based on the idea that there is a community of volunteer translators that have been actively involved in the translation process and that some of them have even started to work as professionals for TV channels and agencies in Turkey. The basis of my research study primarily focuses on the collaborative side of the Social Constructivist Approach to teaching and the same collaborative feature in the forum of online volunteer subtitle organizations. By analyzing both platforms of volunteer subtitle translator organizations and also a Social Constructivist Approach in translator training, similar characteristics are extracted to see if volunteer translator organizations can be a model for a Social Constructivist Approach to translator training in subtitle translation. My corpus for this study consists of two different websites of online volunteer translator organizations (www.turkcealtyazi.org / https://www.planetdp.org/). Further, I define the main features of the Social Constructivist model in translator education and analyze its applications in classroom settings, then to be able to identify the practice of it in a real setting. The volunteer subtitling organizations’ forum sections are also analyzed and described. Common features of each platform allow cross-referencing from the viewpoint of both the subtitling work process and collaboration. Empirical data is collected through analyzing selected samples from both websites in the framework of the social constructivist approach and items of good subtitling practice were extracted from the forum section of the websites. Person-to-person relationships in the online volunteer community can be observed by analyzing the forum section and the data provided is compared and analyzed to reach an idea about the translation process and the improvement of the volunteer translators with regards to collaboration/cooperation in the online volunteer organization. After collecting data on the features of the online platform, it is compared with the model of the social constructivist approach in translator education to find out the similarities in terms of the relations between members, the process of subtitling, the distribution of tasks, and so on. It is expected that this data will map the ways in which the online volunteer organization is similar to a social constructivist model in translator training.

Date of Award	24 Mar 2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Laura Santamaria Guinot (Director)