From Training Skilled Conference Interpreters to Educating Reflective Citizens. A Case Study of the Marius Action Research Project

Abstract

This paper reflects on how to initiate transformative training practices that set out to enhance social awareness of the role of conference interpreting in an asymmetrical society. Adopting a narrative perspective, the authors focus on two successive teaching innovation projects run at the University of Granada - ‘Elaboration of Multimedia Didactic Material for Interpreting Classes’ and ‘Virtualization of Multimedia Didactic Material for Interpreting Classes’. The two projects together are referred to as ‘Marius’. Marius’s training research methodology based on emancipatory principles of participation and horizontality, is elaborated for and with students. Drawing on new technologies, the project accomodates a plurality of voices and cosmovisions, not only to ensure that future interpreters develop the ability to work with both dominant and resistant discourses in society, but also to encourage them to reflect on these discourses and on their own role as professionals and citizens. This case study is particularly helpful in exploring how a socio-critical pedagogy, particularly action research, allows for a shift from training practitioners for the market towards educating reflective citizens, at the same time as problematizing the ethics of training research methodologies.