Student profile
Yi Gu, PhD Translation and Interpreting student at the University of Surrey

Yi Gu

"It’s very exciting to work in this dynamic institution. I really enjoy the multilingual and multinational composition of our faculty."

Course

Translation and Interpreting PhD

Entry year

2018

"I graduated from Sun Yat-Sen University in China with a BSc in International Business. After that I worked for an international company for two years. During that time, I started to discover my interest in translation and interpreting. In 2016, I came to the University of Surrey to study MA Interpreting and graduated with distinction (best overall performance and best dissertation).

I have been always fascinated by languages and the interchange of texts and ideologies. I chose to study my PhD at the Centre for Translation Studies because it is a well-established specialist research centre with an international reputation. I benefit from excellent facilities here, including specialist software to support corpus-based analysis, subtitling, computer-assisted translation and state-of-the-art interpreting facilities with integrated videoconferencing.

Corpus-driven approaches are a relatively new subject in translation and interpreting theories, providing a more quantitative and technology-aided method to examine the product of translation: the text itself. I am passionate about this subject because it is multidisciplinary, combining many other topics such as psychology, second language learning, gender studies and discourse analysis.

It’s very exciting to work in this dynamic institution. I really enjoy the multilingual and multinational composition of our faculty. The PGRs and staff are all very friendly and helpful. I have been working with my supervisor since my MA dissertation. She has provided me with regular supervisor meetings, up-to-date suggestions on research and training resources to help me navigate through my study.

I have just started my PhD in this January, so nothing solid has come out yet. Although there is something I have been writing on, about the gendered discourse in translations of science fiction, which is an intersection of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.

"The Doctoral College and Researcher Development Programme are of great help during my PhD."

 

 

They provide training and development opportunities including workshops, tailored events, one-to-one coaching and other personal and professional development opportunities.

 

The location of Surrey is amazing, close to London and several airports. Travelling to London to enjoy wonderful plays in the West End is great experience for a theatre lover like me.

Coming to Surrey is one of the best choices I have ever made. In the future I would like to pursue an academic career but I understand it is extremely competitive, so I will keep other options open if opportunity arise."

 

Discover more about our language, communication and translation studies courses, including our PhD Translation and Interpreting.