Promoting and Assessing Creativity for the Training of Transcreators: Some Inspiring Training Resources

With the consolidation of machine translation models, creativity has emerged as an outstanding element of human translation and an instrument for employability (Katan, Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 24(3), 365–381, 2016). Today’s challenge for trainers is to approach creativity as a learning objective in translation training. There are few examples to inspire the design of novel instruments, other than some outstanding research by the likes of Kussmaul (Translation Studies: The State of the Art. Proceedings of the 1st James S. Holmes Symposium in Translation Studies, Rodopi, 1991, Translation in Context: Selected papers from the EST Congress, Granada 1998, John Benjamins, 2000a, Intercultural faultlines. Research Models in Translation Studies I: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, St. Jerome, 2000b, Meta, 50(2), 378–391, 2005), Rojo (2019; also Rojo & Meseguer, Quaderns, 22, 255–271, 2015), and Bayer-Hohenwarter (Behind the Mind: Methods, Models and Results in Translation Process Research, Samfundslitteratur, 2009, New Approaches in Translation Process Research, Samfundslitteratur, 2010), who view creativity as an essential, generic skill for translators to develop. This chapter will present some didactic practices in order to incorporate creativity in translation training. It will focus on transcreation, a language service that illustrates human creative translation (Pedersen, Cultus Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication, 7, 57–71, 2014; Fernández, Estudios de Literatura, 10, 223–250, 2019; Morón, Nuevas tendencias en Traducción e Interpretación, Comares, 2020a, Hermes, 60, 125–139, 2020b). Creativity will be considered both as a generic, intrinsic feature of translation and as a specific skill defining the “added value” of transcreation. Additionally, this chapter will explore the challenges of importing practices developed in other creative industries that are a good fit for translation studies (Hewson, Linguaculture, 7(2), 9–25, 2016, p. 12) and transcreation training. These experiences that embed creativity in translators’ training allow for the promotion of interdisciplinary, innovative training, fostering students’ motivation and willingness to open up to new roles and professional profiles.