Professor Damien Fan

Once upon a time, translators typed in silence and interpreters performed in booths. They were invisible, indispensable, and—mostly—unquestioned. Today, they are questioned constantly: by clients, by algorithms, by policymakers, by their own students. The era of quiet craft has given way to an age of constant negotiation—of role, value, allegiance, and voice.

Translation and interpreting only become meaningful when they interact with others. And by interaction, I don’t mean simple input and output. I mean utilization, appreciation, transformation, negotiation, and absorption. I mean conversations with clients, readers, audiences, AI platforms, colleagues, and accidental bystanders alike. Increasingly, artificial intelligence has entered the scene—posing, however convincingly, as a conversational equal. These interactions—messy, layered, often fraught—shape the very definitions of who we are and what we do.

We are no longer mere “conduits” or never were, really. We defend the status and richness of our native languages. We fight for working conditions that won’t destroy our hearing or mental clarity. We warn the public against the seduction of machine translation. We give voice to those whom history and policy often silence. Some roles shrink, others evolve. Some identities blur. Certain values sharpen.

As practitioners, researchers, and educators, it is our duty to examine these shifting landscapes with our students. This is why, beginning this fall, we’re replacing Sight Translation with a new required course: Contemporary Issues in Translation and Interpretation. In what follows, I’ll elaborate on this change and the broader realignment of our interpreting-track curriculum.

Together with DFLL’s Professor Nancy Tsai—a seasoned interpreter federally certified by Canada’s Translation Bureau and once aspiring literary translator—we will offer this course to all incoming T&I students. Drawing on texts (articles, novels, online posts) and media (films, TV, reels), we’ll use these cultural artifacts as catalysts to think critically and analytically about how technological, social, political, and economic forces shape the role of translators and interpreters today.

Consider the Taiwanese conscripts in Three Tears in Borneo: young men who, during WWII, served as Japanese military prison guards and wartime interpreters. Fluent in both Taiwanese and Japanese, they watched their identities collapse with Japan’s defeat—overnight becoming “Chinese” nationals, despite never having lived under Chinese rule. Their empire abandoned them. Some were executed for war crimes. What does it mean to interpret for a regime that erases you?

When students engage with stories like these, they aren’t just studying history. They are learning that language work is never neutral. Interpreters don’t merely cross linguistic borders. They traverse minefields—where every lexical choice may carry political consequences beyond their grasp or control.

Fast forward to the present: students turning to ChatGPT for “translation help” eventually realize they’re not just using tools—they’re surrendering agency to the opaque gods of Silicon Valley: Meta. Google. Amazon. Microsoft. OpenAI. Behind the frictionless interface lies a logic that privileges speed and dominance over nuance and care. We teach our students to ask: Who really benefits when we outsource our linguistic judgment to systems optimized for profit?

These are not abstract questions. They are frontline concerns. And they demand space in the curriculum.

This new course is not a theory seminar (and let’s be honest—many students dread anything labeled “theory” though Nancy claims to love it and has loved it since she was a student). Think of it instead as a sandbox: a space to test ideas against lived realities, to rehearse ethical dilemmas, and to build professional judgment. It’s where students learn not only what they might do—but who they might become.

For me, this is unfamiliar terrain. I’ve been teaching Sight Translation almost every year since 2013. I’m a practicing interpreter, not a theorist. And after more than sixteen years of full-time teaching, I don’t overestimate the average student’s appetite for philosophical reflection. But if we avoid equipping students to think critically—about their profession, their tools, their values—we are complicit in narrowing their futures. So yes, this change makes me uneasy. But pedagogical complacency would be worse.

Repositioning Sight Translation

So what happens to Sight Translation?

It’s not disappearing. But it is being repositioned. For decades, Sight Translation has been misunderstood in Taiwanese T&I programs. As I argued in 2021, simply transplanting Western European curricula into East Asian classrooms is neither defensible nor helpful. Our markets, students, and language pairings are radically different.

Worse, the course has often been miscast: as a “fundamentals” class in discourse structure, an “introductory” space for contrastive analysis, a “bridge” between translation and interpreting, or even a “prerequisite” for consecutive or simultaneous interpreting. It is none of these things. Not in our context. Not for our students.

Many students—especially those on the translation track—feel disoriented when asked to speak spontaneously in class. Some genuinely enjoy the challenge; others quietly wonder why they’re being asked to perform aloud in a translation course. Their stress is real. Their confusion is valid. For students who have never trained in public delivery or rapid processing, Sight Translation feels more like a diagnostic ambush than a pedagogical bridge.

And let’s retire the myth that having a printed text makes interpretation easier. Cognitively, it doesn’t. Anecdotally, it hasn’t. Pedagogically, it’s an illusion. Using Sight Translation as a litmus test for future interpreting potential is not only misleading but ethically lazy.

Since 2020, I’ve taught the course differently (see Fan 2021).[1] Beginning this year, Sight Translation will be re-integrated into two elective fourth-semester courses: Advanced Consecutive Interpreting and Advanced Simultaneous Interpreting. At that point, students will have had time to develop greater cognitive flexibility, linguistic fluency, and confidence in speaking aloud. Sight translation—or more precisely, sight interpreting—can be naturally embedded into these higher-level courses.

Structural Realignments

We’re also consolidating advanced interpreting courses by language direction. Instead of separate 3-credit courses for English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English interpreting, students can now take a merged 4-credit course in each mode: one for Advanced Consecutive Interpreting and one for Advanced Simultaneous Interpreting, both offered in the fourth semester. This change better reflects real-world market practice, where professional interpreters must operate bidirectionally. It also helps students internalize parallel phrasing, master bilingual register shifts, and develop a more intuitive command of both working languages.

These courses remain electives—but for those committed to the interpreting path, they form a bridge to our capstone course, Interpreting Seminar: Professional Examination, in the same semester.

Meanwhile, Interpreting as a Profession: Orientation and Workshop (II) will be offered in the third semester, freeing up time in the fourth for thesis work or other professional planning.

Translation-track students can still take advantage of GPTI’s flexible course structure to audit or enroll in interpreting courses across levels. This openness remains one of our program’s defining strengths.

See you in September.

[1] Fan, D. C. (2021). Interpreting in a high-stake political press conference: A technical report. Studies of Translation and Interpretation 24, 123-148. https://www.airitilibrary.com/Article/Detail?DocID=a0000024-202104-202105140005-202105140005-123-148 

(This article appears in GPTI Newsletter Issue No. 82.)