The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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34 The Linguist Vol/59 No/5 2020 thelinguist.uberflip.com INSTITUTE MATTERS Meet our members WHY AUSTRALIAN-BASED TRANSLATOR EMILY PLANK DECIDED TO JOIN CIOL Tell us a bit about your work… I have been working full-time as a self-employed translator for 14 years and have also dabbled in journalism. I translate from French, German and Spanish into English in a variety of non-technical fields. Literary texts on anything to do with travel, culture and history are my preference, but I also get quite a lot of work in the fields of HR, marketing, education and environmental matters, as well as basic legal texts. Why did you decide to join CIOL? I gradually came to realise that, as a 'solopreneur', it would be beneficial to be part of something greater, and to be able to demonstrate that I met a certain professional standard. I was already a member of a couple of other associations, and CIOL had long been on my list to join because of its excellent global reputation in the language industry. Being able to list CIOL membership can be a good selling point for securing new contracts. It has further validated my professional skills and standards, and given me more confidence in approaching clients. I am based in Australia, so I can't always attend events, but I enjoy receiving The Linguist and networking with other members on social media platforms. What are your career aspirations? One of my main career goals would be to translate a novel in one of my three language combinations. I have translated and co-translated around 25 non-fiction publications but am yet to branch into literary fiction. I attended the London Book Fair a few years ago to find out more and, as an avid reader, it would be a dream to achieve this. It's not an easy field to break into and I have found some of CIOL's literary translation webinars to be very insightful. They certainly provide food for thought. What advice would you give to fellow linguists? To know your worth, be authentic and not undersell yourself. Have confidence in your abilities, but also be willing to keep improving, learning and adapting. Joanna Biernat-Sowka Dr Joanna Biernat-Sowka MCIL is a German tutor at Basingstoke College of Technology and Strategic Client Advisor at Qlik. She has worked in various service manager and sales roles. See p.24 Valentina Carbonara Dr Valentina Carbonara has a PhD in Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, and has taught Italian as a second language in various schools in Italy and abroad. Her research interests include early language education, CLIL and translanguaging. See p.20 Bernadette Clinton Bernadette Clinton is currently working as the MFL Consultant with Hackney Education, and on the primary teacher education courses at Middlesex University. She is a British Council Schools Ambassador. See p.10 Beverley Costa Dr Beverley Costa is a counsellor, supervisor and psychotherapist, and founder of the multi-ethnic counselling service Mothertongue (2000-2018), the Mental Health Interpreting Service, the Pásalo Project and Colleagues Across Borders. See p.16 Jean-Marc Dewaele Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele teaches Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely on individual differences in second language acquisition and multilingualism. See p.16 Rachel Mairs Rachel Mairs is Professor of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Reading. Her research on multilingualism covers the ancient and modern Middle East. She recently received a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for her project 'Teach Yourself Arabic: Foreigners learning colloquial Arabic, 1798-1945'. See p.22 Beatrice Murail Beatrice Murail has worked in radio and online journalism for the BBC, trained journalists for Internews, and now works as a freelancer. She specialises in media translation (ITN, Swissinfo, Open Source Enterprise) but has also done work for the UN. She has experience as an interpreter and foreign language teacher. See p.18 Vasiliki Prestidge Founder of Greek to Me Translations Ltd, Vasiliki Prestidge MCIL CL is a translator and interpreter working in English, Greek and French. She specialises in legal, creative and psychometrics. A Steering Group member for CIOL's Translating and BPG divisions, she is also Associate Lecturer in Legal Translation at London Metropolitan University. See p.8 Andrea Scibetta Dr Andrea Scibetta is a post-doc fellow at the University for Foreigners of Siena and a Chinese language lecturer at the University of Florence. In 2017, he completed a PhD in Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. His research interests lie in Italian teaching to Chinese students, the promotion of Chinese in Italian schools and multilingual education. See p.20 CONTRIBUTORS