Zhang Xiaohua, professor, master tutor, excellent teacher class tutor of Xijing College, member of the Teaching Steering Committee, member of the Degree Evaluation Committee. Xijing College "Famous Teacher", "Teaching Pacesetter", "Teacher Pacesetter", "Excellent Academic Tutor", "Excellent Communist Party Member", Shaanxi Provincial Education Working Committee "Hero". He mainly teaches courses such as "English-Chinese Interpretation", "Chinese-English Interpretation" and "English Speech". He has presided over and participated in 16 provincial longitudinal scientific research projects, 3 horizontal projects, published more than 30 academic papers, published 1 translated book, 1 monograph and 5 teaching materials. In 2020, he won the first prize of the Shaanxi Division of the National College Teacher Teaching Innovation Competition and the 5th Foreign Language Micro-course Competition, the third prize of the Higher Education and Liberal Arts Group of the National Multimedia Courseware Competition in 2015, and the third prize of the "Teaching Star" National Finals of the Foreign Research Institute in 2022.
Zhou Lin:
Hello Professor Zhang, I am Zhou Lin, an interview reporter on the translation technology education and research public account platform, and I am honored to invite you to do this interview. In the process of communicating with you, I learned that you have participated in a number of translation technology-related workshops this year (such as the 2023 Summer Translation Technology Practical Seminar, the AIGC era corpus construction and application special course, etc.), so what makes you so motivated to learn about translation technology and corpus? How has the acquisition of this content helped you personally in your teaching and research? Can you share your personal experience with these related trainings?
Professor Zhang Xiaohua:
With the development of information technology, translation technology has become something that translators in the new era of "understanding language, culture, technology and management" in the twenty-first century must learn and master, and it is also a tool that we must rely on in translation work, just like the paper, pen and dictionary used by our translators in the history of civilization exchanges in the past two thousand years. At present, machine translation has become very popular, although the accuracy of machine translation still needs to be checked, but the role of machine translation must not be ignored.
For any level of translation, from beginner to advanced, it is useful when machines do the work of translating certain genres. Therefore, to improve the quality of translation, in addition to the translator's sense of responsibility, it is also necessary to have corresponding technical support. For example, from the simplest spell check, to format checking, and even text fluency and translation semantic integrity combined with various natural language processing tools.
Mastering translation technology can really help translators improve the quality and efficiency of translation, which is the main reason why I have participated in many training and learning about translation technology this year. On the other hand, as a teacher, you must also keep pace with the times and constantly improve yourself. Learning translation technology, corpus construction and application in the AIGC era is also to facilitate their own teaching and research. For example, learning about corpus construction can help me obtain a large amount of language data, and discover language laws and phenomena by analyzing and comparing these data, and can use the corpus to conduct research on semantic analysis and cultural communication, thereby increasing the depth and breadth of my research.
Zhou Lin:
Professor Zhang, as a teacher, actively embrace technology, learn translation technology and corpus knowledge, then in the current AIGC era, the language service industry has also ushered in new opportunities and challenges, in the face of the rapid development of language service industry and translation technology in this context, what attitude do you think our students should better walk with the technological era? How can they use these technologies to empower their future careers?
Professor Zhang Xiaohua:
On "What attitude should students take to better navigate the technological age?" This point I think:
First, students should keep an open mind to new technologies and tools. We should take the initiative to understand and experiment with new translation technologies to adapt to the development of the technological era.
Second, students should be proactive in learning and updating their knowledge. They should pay attention to the development of the industry, participate in relevant training and seminars, and continuously improve their professional quality and technical level.
Third, students should have keen insight and innovative thinking. Insight means that students should understand the development trend of industry and technology, and adjust their learning and development direction in time to adapt to the needs of the technological era. Innovative thinking is about trying and exploring new translation methods and tools, improving and optimizing existing translation processes to adapt to the requirements of the technological era.
On "How can students use these technologies to empower their future careers?" "This I think:
First, students can take advantage of translation technology and related tools to improve productivity and translation quality. For example, machine translation software can quickly translate large amounts of text, computer-assisted translation tools can automatically identify and store terms, and corpus can find and compare related corpus, saving time and effort. The use of termbases and translation memories ensures consistency of terminology, and the use of corpus provides more linguistic references, improving the accuracy and consistency of translations.
Second, students can use technology to broaden their career fields. For example, learning and mastering multilingual machine translation technology can provide students with opportunities for cross-cultural communication and international cooperation, and learning and applying corpus technology can provide students with space for development in language research and language teaching.
Thirdly, and most importantly, this is also my personal experience. Learning translation technology can improve one's ability to continuously learn. Because technology is constantly developing and changing, this requires us to continue to learn, to keep up with the latest technological trends, in order to continuously improve their technical level to adapt to the needs of career development, from this point of view, translation technology is promoting the improvement of personal continuous learning ability.
Zhou Lin:
Based on your recent study and exploration of translation technologies, can you share what new methods and perspectives will the acquisition of these technologies provide for your future teaching practice and research?
Professor Zhang Xiaohua:
Actually, I haven't been learning translation technology for a long time, but I'm really interested in translation technology. At present, I have already felt that translation technology not only brings a lot of convenience to my work, but also provides a lot of new methods and new perspectives for teaching and research.
First, the expansion of cross-cultural teaching. Learning translation technology allows me to better deal with the linguistic and cultural differences in cross-cultural teaching. I can use translation technology to help students understand and translate language expressions in different cultural contexts, and promote cross-cultural communication and exchange.
Secondly, the research field continues to deepen. My previous research in translation only stayed at the classroom teaching level, after learning translation technology, such as corpus construction, I can use translation technology and related tools for translation analysis, corpus research, etc., so as to deeply study the translation process and translation phenomenon, so as to better feed back teaching.
Third, the assessment and feedback on students' learning also provided me with some innovative perspectives. For example, teachers can use translation technology tools to automatically evaluate and analyze students' translations, and provide targeted feedback and guidance, which greatly improves work efficiency and helps students continuously improve their translation skills.
Zhou Lin:
In the course of your conversation, you mentioned that many students one-sidedly believe that translation technology is only for the convenience of teachers, so what do you think teachers should do to let students subjectively understand and learn translation technology, and empower their translation practice and future career development?
Professor Zhang Xiaohua:
First of all, teachers can introduce the concept, application field and development trend of translation technology to students through classroom explanations and case studies, so that students can realize the importance and wide application of translation technology in the modern translation industry.
Secondly, teachers can provide students with actual translation cases and application scenarios, so that students can experience and understand the practical application of translation technology. For example, students can use machine translation software for translation practice, or students can use corpus for text analysis and alignment to help them understand.
Third, teachers can lead students to engage in scientific research together, so that students can truly understand the convenience and achievements brought by translation technology to their careers through scientific research.
Zhou Lin:
You have taught many courses at Xijing College, based on your rich teaching experience, what do you think teachers should strengthen their literacy on the basis of their original ability in the context of the AIGC era?
Professor Zhang Xiaohua:
In the context of the AIGC era, teachers should strengthen their following qualities on the basis of their original abilities:
(1) Digital literacy: Teachers need to be familiar with and master various digital tools and technologies, including e-education platforms, online learning resources, data analysis and visualization tools, etc. These tools should be able to be used effectively to improve teaching and learning, manage student data, and assess student performance.
(2) Interdisciplinary knowledge: Education in the era of AIGC pays more and more attention to interdisciplinary comprehensive knowledge and ability. Teachers should have a wide range of subject knowledge and be able to integrate knowledge from different subjects into teaching to cultivate students' comprehensive literacy and interdisciplinary thinking ability.
(3) Collaborative ability: In the AIGC era, teachers need to cooperate with people with different backgrounds and professional knowledge to jointly solve problems in teaching and jointly promote educational reform and innovation.
(4) Innovative thinking: Teachers need to actively embrace new technologies, explore new teaching methods, constantly innovate, and improve their teaching practices to improve students' learning outcomes and creativity.
(5) Information security literacy: With the wide application of artificial intelligence and digital technology, teachers use various educational technology tools and online platforms in the teaching process, which involve personal information and sensitive data. Teachers must protect themselves, their students, and the national information security, including privacy policies, data protection, and security measures. To prevent personal and national information leakage. In short, we must always keep in mind "strictly observe state secrets".
Editor: Pickey
Interview reporter: Zhou Lin