Biography

After completing my undergraduate studies, I decided to train as a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages. I subsequently taught in a secondary school for two years, before deciding to pursue further academic study. During my time as a teacher, it became evident that very few pupils now choose to study a foreign language post 16, and students often complete their secondary education with a very limited knowledge of another language. This is a problem for universities when recruiting students for undergraduate foreign language degree programmes, and in particular, when training students to use their languages in professional contexts, such as translation and interpreting. With this situation in mind, I applied for a studentship to conduct doctoral research in the area of undergraduate language learning and interpreter training, and was awarded the Gunilla Anderman Scholarship in 2010.

Research Interests

The aim of my research is to explore the use of corpus-based resources, in order to fulfil a dual purpose: to enhance undergraduate students’ knowledge of their foreign language(s), and to teach introductory interpreting skills. To investigate this, language comprehension and interpreting exercises have been designed, all of which are centred around video interviews from the Backbone corpus, an EU project in collaboration with partners in seven European countries. These exercises are being used with final year students in an optional interpreting module, as well as with level 2 students in the form of interpreting workshops. This enables a comparison of students’ abilities before and after the placement year abroad. To help develop my ideas, I have the support of my supervisors, Professor Margaret Rogers and Dr Sabine Braun.

Publications

Bale, Richard (forthcoming, 2013) 'Undergraduate Consecutive Interpreting and Lexical Knowledge: The Role of Spoken Corpora'. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 7(2).

Conferences

Conference: English and CTS PhD Training Days, 8 & 9 June 2011. Paper given: “Using Spoken Corpora to Support English and German Native Speakers in Undergraduate Consecutive Interpreter Training: Initial Findings from a Pilot Study.”

Paper given at International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting, University of Edinburgh, 28 - 30 October 2011: 'Undergraduate Consecutive Interpreting and Lexical Knowledge: The Role of Spoken Corpora'.

Paper given at University of Surrey PGR Conference, 31 January - 1 February 2012: 'Learner Autonomy in Interpreter Training: The Role of Spoken Corpora'.