Digital politeness in online translator and interpreter training: The lessons of the pandemic

Abstract

The paper focuses on the concept of digital politeness as a component of a language services provider competence framework aimed at preparing undergraduate and graduate students of Linguistics and Translation Studies for effective performance in a digital professional environment. The study attempts to define the concept of digital politeness as applied to translator and interpreter training, make an inventory of digital politeness skills relevant to translator and interpreter competence, monitor students’ progress in digital politeness during the online and hybrid training periods and assess the professional outcome of introducing relevant training into undergraduate and graduate programmes in Linguistics and Translation studies. Data for this study were collected using student surveys, the number of respondents totalling 80 individuals aged between 19 and 25. The respondents were offered questionnaires on their digital be- haviour covering three periods: the unplanned transition to distance learning in 2020, the pre-planned delivery of all courses in online mode in 2021, and the return to in-class training in 2022. The accumulated data were processed using a single analysis algorithm, which allowed identifying dominant trends in the dynamics of student perception of digital politeness over the three periods under consideration. The findings yield results suggestive of increased student awareness of the need to improve their online academic interaction experience and maintain best digital interaction practices when delivering university degree programmes in distance mode. The survey also demonstrated that students see the digital politeness competence as a way to benefit professionally in their future career.

Keywords

• covid-19
• distance learning
• digital politeness
• translator and interpreter training
• experiment