IMPACTS OF GLOBAL PANDEMIC ON TRANSLATOR’S CAREER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINING

Abstract

The translation market as well as many other businesses and activities have been affected by the lockdown of economies in the whole world since the beginning of 2019. Under the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, translator’s career has undergone some major and minor transformations. Some recent research papers have focused on crisis-related situations and emphasised the fact that translators need to be ready to ensure an effective communication between all stakeholders in disaster settings (Rodriguez Vazquez & Silvia Torres del Rey, 2020). Therefore, the methods and approaches in translation training have to be re- examined in order to provide language support in crises (Federici & O’Brien, 2019). This research was designed to examine and depict the effects of the global pandemic and the lockdown on the translator’s profession and translator training in graduate and postgraduate education. The paper analyses the insights and attitudes expressed in surveys by different players in the Lithuanian translation market, including freelance translators and interpreters, language service providers and translation students. The results highlight different opinions of reelance translators and translation students about the future of their career, trust of freelance translators towards the state support and translation agencies at which they are hired, and anxiety of language service providers towards the stability of the industry in crises situations. The results of the research further indicate the necessity to develop translation study programmes focussing on a wider skillset so that future translators would be well equipped to contribute to communication and well-being of different members of society in crisis settings. Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, translator training, translation industry, language service providers, LSPs.