Course summary

Why choose this course?

• Teaching steeped in experience – this degree builds on the success of our MA Interpreting Chinese Pathway (established in 2011) and the distinguished history of our MA Translation programme, launched in 1986.

• The course is taught in collaboration with KL Communications Ltd, a UK-based company specialising in translation and interpreting, whose managing director, Dr Kevin Lin OBE, is the Lead Interpreter (Chinese) for the UK government’s Foreign Office, a successful business leader and experienced trainer.

• The course has a strong practical component and offers a clear focus on existing and emerging technologies, including neural machine translation and generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, and their integration with human practice.

• As a UK centre of excellence in translation studies, supported by the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI, all teaching in Surrey’s Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) is informed by our leading research in translation and technology.

• Focusing on recent global trends, with special emphasis on China’s emergence as a major global power, the course equips you to address the communication needs of this market.

• The course helps you develop problem-solving, analytical thinking, digital and language transfer skills, which are required in the rapidly evolving landscape of the Language Services Industries, working flexibly in both the English-into-Chinese and the Chinese-into-English direction.

• We support internships and professional development activities, enabling you to collaborate with language service providers and build a professional engagement portfolio that you can present to future employers.

• In our MA in Translation and AI (Chinese Pathway) you will study and develop professional translation skills under the co-ordinated guidance of a team of professional translators led by Dr Kevin Lin and experienced academics at Surrey’s Centre for Translation Studies (CTS).

• You will simulate real-life translation scenarios and cover a variety of specialisms, as you develop a solid grounding in the linguistic, cognitive, quality-related, social and ethical dimensions of translation.

• You will learn to use cutting-edge tools to enhance your practice, from computer-assisted translation tools and corpus linguistics software for translation to neural machine translation and generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT).

• You will customise your learning through optional modules on the creative, business, technological and research dimensions of translation, according to your own strengths, personal interests and career ambitions.

• You will gain experience of language services provision through work placements and industry collaborations.

• RWS Campus Top Student Award (two Trados Studio licenses)

• Project management training (one free-of-charge place in the Pro PM Training and Certification Programme)

• Professional Engagement Portfolio Prize

• Best Performance in Translation Prize.