Formally established in October, 2004, Department of Translation and Interpretation (DTI) is the youngest academic constituent of the School of Foreign Languages and Literatures. It is scheduled to enroll in the coming autumn its first batch of undergraduates that will specialize in interlingual translation and interpretation between English and Chinese.

      Translation Studies is today recognized as an emerging discipline. And our undergraduate program of cultivating translators and interpreters synchronizes with the growing demand for translating talents in China, with a view particularly to serving the renaissance of Shanghai, which, in its endeavor to build itself into a modern metropolis, is in urgent need of huge number of vigorously trained translation professionals.

      Our program of cultivating translators and interpreters are practical proficiency oriented, and the students, in the four years of study, will be systematically trained both bilingually and biculturally, so that they will, upon graduation, be generally equal to the oral and written translation tasks not only in diplomatic and foreign trade services, but also in various agencies, institutions and corporations that have either global connections or foreign business exchanges. The syllabus designing of DTI is geared to the requirement of contemporary translation profession at home and abroad. Apart from the skill courses that are compulsory, the students will, in the eight semesters, have two dozens of content courses to choose from electively. A number of innovative courses, such as “Thinking through Translation” and “Encyclopedic Reading”, are specially tailored to the making of scholarly translators and interpreters.

      Since DTI is under the general scheme of School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, its tradition of nurturing literary translators remains strong, and young students cut out for literary translation will find DTI a special place to achieve better. Actually, the school has long been noted for its literary teaching and research as well as for its literary translation achievements and translation studies. Browsing the annals of the school, one can find a constellation of scholars that have left marks on the literary field of modern China: Mr. Liang Shiqiu with his Complete Translation of Shakespeare, Mr. Hong Shen with his translation of Oscar Wilde’s dramas, Professor Sun Dayu with his creative renditions of Shakespeare Plays, Professor Wu Lifu with his translation of literary master pieces from the West, Mr. Gu Zhongyi who translated works by Thomas Hardy and John Galsworthy, Professor Dong Wenqiao with his translation of Goethe’s Faust, to name just a few.

      DTI now boasts a team of professors who are versed in translation studies and experienced in teaching translation and interpretation (including sight interpretation, consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation).Their research and pedagogical achievements have been crystallized in a number of scholarly publications. While following the developing trend in translation theories, these professors have long been actively engaged in some high-brow translating projects. For example, the translators of Disgrace (by 2003 Nobel prize winner John M. Coetzee) and Der Tod und das Mädchen (by 2004 Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek) are from DTI. Apart from doing academic work on campus, quite a few teachers of DTI have been regularly invited by some departments of Shanghai Municipality to take up the translating and interpreting tasks for or on important occasions.

      As the School of Foreign Languages and Literatures has a post-doctorial research station and two doctoral programs, PhD candidates with translation studies as their research orientation are enrolled each year. Seminars and symposia, including those on and related to translation studies, have been initiated or sponsored by the school. Noted translators and translation scholars in and outside China have come to give special presentations on topics of translation, which has greatly enhanced the academic atmosphere of the school as a whole.