Our Department
Department of German Translation and Interpreting
The Department of German Translation and Interpreting was established in 1993 with the initiatives of Prof. Dr. Şara Sayın, Prof. Dr. Nilüfer Tapan and Prof. Dr. Turgay Kurultay and started education in the Dean's Office building of Hasan Âli Yücel Faculty of Education, which was then the Department of Foreign Languages Education under the Faculty of Letters.
In 1998, the Department of German Translation and Interpreting moved to the second floor of the Faculty of Letters.
In 2000, with the opening of the Departments of English and French Translation and Interpreting, education was continued under the umbrella of the Department of Western Languages and Literatures, and since 2007 as the Department of Translation and Interpreting. With the addition of the Arabic Translation and Interpreting Department in 2022, the Department of Translation and Interpreting continues to offer translation and interpreting education on a common ground and in cooperation. In addition to undergraduate education, there are master's and doctoral programmes carried out jointly with other Translation and Interpreting Departments. The staff of the Department consists of 3 lecturers, 1 lecturer and 1 research assistant; academicians and practitioners from other Translation and Interpreting Departments, other departments and faculties, and practice circles also contribute to our curriculum.
As of the 2022-2023 academic year, a German preparatory class has been opened at AMT and a compulsory preparatory programme has started. It is necessary to apply to the programme with a German language score in the university entrance exam. English or other language scores are not accepted. In order to be successful in this programme, students must have a good knowledge of German as well as a good knowledge of Turkish language. The language of instruction of the programme is German and Turkish.
In order to achieve a high level of success in the programme, students who wish to study at Department of German Translation and Interpreting must have a good command of Turkish and German, which they can use for communication purposes, as well as being sensitive to cultural issues. In addition, being open to research and self-development as a requirement of the translation profession is an important characteristic we expect from our students. Successful students can continue their translation education abroad for one semester in departments with which we have a contract through the Erasmus Programme. Students who wish to continue their graduate programmes must also have a high grade point average.
Our educational objectives have a broad perspective; students' close interest in current issues and cultural activities, and their versatile use and enrichment of their language skills are among the requirements for success in education. The graduate profile targeted by our education programme is a cultural and communication specialist who can translate at the level of expertise in a particular field and at a basic level in various fields, develop his/her knowledge by conducting research in new fields and reflect this knowledge on communication processes, take an active role in communication between languages and cultures, look analytically at language and communication problems in terms of translation and act with meta-knowledge.
The fields of work of our graduates are also broad in line with their educational goals. Our graduates can work as freelance or permanent translators, secretaries in charge of international relations in companies, patent and trademark translators, executive assistants, consular staff, translators in health tourism within the scope of community translation or in areas such as law (court), sports, etc. In addition, the cultural and scientific background of the programme enables our graduates to become managers and directors in their fields in a short period of time and to take on positions such as proofreaders, project managers, translation office managers and translation department managers. Some of our graduates also participate in undergraduate and graduate programmes in departments such as economics, business administration, communication, international relations, sociology and psychology in Turkey and abroad.
Our teaching staff consists of people who have experience in translation and text production and specialise in certain subjects. The existence of a proven academic staff working in the Department together with our Department constitutes the infrastructure for meeting the requirements of education and raising new generations in the field of science.
Structure of Education
Our programme includes courses that focus on theory and practice in the context of different languages, different translation practices and different areas of specialisation.
The aim of our programme is to train translators who are able to perform two-way translations in the German-Turkish language pair. English is also included as a compulsory third language (Additional Language). The Additional Language module continues in our programme for 8 semesters starting from the introductory level.
The courses are taught in both German and Turkish and the programme is bilingual depending on the characteristics of the courses. In this context, some of the Turkish courses on theory and methodology are taught in lecture theatres together with students from other departments.
Following the basic training in interlingual communication and translation, elective specialisation and translation courses are offered from the 5th semester onwards. In our education programme, which is practice-oriented and intertwined with practice, a six-week internship is foreseen at the end of the 6th semester.
At the end of the 8th semester, our students prepare a comprehensive two-way (A/T) Translation Project that demonstrates their capacity to demonstrate their translation skills and assume individual responsibility in a field of their choice. The Translation Project, together with other courses, constitutes a graduation programme.
The graduation requirement is a grade point average of 2 out of 4 in 8 semesters in the relative grading system and a total of at least 240 ECTS.
Double Major and Minor Programmes
In our faculty, successful students who fulfil certain conditions and apply within the framework of the regulations announced by our University are offered the opportunity to study double major or minor in another department. A student who successfully completes the double major programme receives a double diploma. Our department also offers double major and minor quota to students of other departments.
ERASMUS Exchange Programme
Our department currently has academic exchange agreements with the following universities at undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels within the scope of Erasmus+ Exchange Programme:
GERMANY: Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz
ITALY: Universita Degli Studi di Napoli Orientale
GREECE: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Aristoteleio Panepistimo
Thessalonikis)
AUSTRIA Karl Franzens Universitaet Graz
POLAND Nicolaus Copernicus University of Torun
GERMANY: Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Universitaet Bonn
BULGARIA South-West University NEOFIT RILSKI
GERMANY: Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences
Scholarships
Our students have the opportunity to receive scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Agency (DAAD) and other similar organisations.
Translation education at Istanbul University within the framework of the Department and Division was initiated in 1992/1993 with the efforts of Prof. Dr. Şara Sayın, Prof. Dr. Nilüfer Tapan and Prof. Dr. Turgay Kurultay, and students were admitted to the undergraduate programme in 1994-1995. During the founding stages and in the years that followed, the department worked closely with important theorists of the field such as Prof. Dr. Hans Hönig and Prof. Dr. Hans Vermeer. Our department, which brought together the translation studies departments in Turkey for the first time in 1996 to discuss the common denominators of academic translation education, attaches importance to being in contact with the increasing number of translation studies departments at the level of undergraduate and graduate programmes.
The translator's ability to be a cultural expert who provides communication between two cultures requires the ability to see phenomena holistically, to make cause and effect relationships transparent, to assume responsibility and to make appropriate decisions. In line with this aim, we aim to familiarise our students with translation studies written in different foreign languages and to enable them to look at translation studies from a broader perspective through some joint courses we offer with other departments within the Department of Translation and Interpreting.
In addition to our efforts in this direction, the events organised by many programmes within the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul University also make it a privileged opportunity to study in our programme. The events organised by İSÇEV (Istanbul University Translation Club) with well-known speakers in the field, the World Language Day events on 30 September and the Young Translators Competition organised by the Ministry for European Union Affairs are examples of these events that we attach importance to in order to strengthen our students' connections with the profession.
As the Department of German Translation and Interpreting, we wish success to our students, our young friends who will be our students in the future and all friends of translation and interpreting.
MISSION
The mission of the Department is to educate students who are capable of finding solutions to real needs, who have the initiative and who are able to raise the quality standard, and who have adopted translation as an intercultural communication specialisation in line with this goal, as well as to provide the basis of knowledge for the formation of a new professional profile, to carry out research studies and awareness-raising activities for the relevant public, to carry translation education to a distinctive place in Turkey as a country that is in rapid change and is at the centre of social development today as it was yesterday by providing information flow and cultural interaction to the outside world.
VISION
To ensure that translation is an interdisciplinary bridge by providing cooperation between the Departments of Translation and Interpreting and different disciplines, to be an educational institution that primarily produces scientific, theoretical and, accordingly, practical products by producing projects in this context and carrying out activities at national and international level.
What does the Department/Division teach? What does this area of knowledge aim to achieve?
The mission of the programme is to educate students who are capable of finding solutions to real needs, who have the initiative and who are able to raise the quality standards and, in line with this goal, who have adopted translation as an intercultural communication expertise, as well as to provide a knowledge base for the formation of a new professional profile, to carry out research studies and awareness-raising activities for the relevant public, and to carry translation education to a special place in Turkey as a country that is in rapid change and is at the centre of social development today as it was yesterday by providing information flow and cultural interaction to the outside world.
Our department aims to educate students who are qualified to operate in various fields of the translation profession in Turkey, in accordance with international standards, with the awareness and equipment to raise the quality of the profession.
In this context, in line with the emphasis on the interdisciplinarity of the field, ensuring cooperation with other departments and divisions of our University and Faculty in terms of knowledge courses for translation of specialised fields, improving the conditions for students to acquire the technical equipment and knowledge required in today's conditions in the field of translation, It is aimed to archive and translate theses and articles related to translation studies, to monitor new research areas, and since translation as a profession is not defined with clear and precise boundaries in "legal" platforms, it is aimed to express these problems urgently, to seek and propose solutions for our graduates to be able to fulfill their profession and to be rewarded for their efforts.
In this context, the graduate profile targeted by the education programme of the Department of German Translation and Interpreting is translators who can translate at a certain level in different fields of expertise in German-Turkish language pair; develop their knowledge by researching in new fields and reflect this knowledge to communication processes; take an active role in communication between languages and cultures; look analytically at translation, language and communication problems. We also offer English language courses as a third language (Additional Language module) for 8 semesters.
In our programme, German and Turkish resources related to different translation genres and areas of specialisation are taught in German and Turkish and the programme is bilingual depending on the characteristics of the courses. The courses in our programme, which can be conducted in Turkish, especially those on theory, methodology and background knowledge, are conducted as lecture courses together with students from the English and French Departments.
In our education programme, which exhibits an application-oriented and practice-oriented structure, a one-month compulsory internship is foreseen in the summer term at the end of the sixth semester. With the internship, students have the opportunity to have an idea about business life and prepare themselves accordingly by seeing what awaits them in the future.
At the end of the eighth semester, a comprehensive Translation Project is prepared as a graduation project to evaluate the students' translation skills in a specific field, individual responsibility and research capacity.
How to enter the department?
Students are admitted to our department with German Language score. Our department has a compulsory preparatory class and education starting from the 2022-2023 academic year. In addition, students who come with Inter-institutional and Intra-institutional Horizontal and Vertical Transfer, foreign students who pass the YÖS exam and complete the admission requirements are also accepted to the programme.
What do we offer you?
In addition to the education in our undergraduate programme, which is supported by 3 faculty members, 1 lecturer and 1 research assistant working in our department and many academicians and practitioners from other Translation and Interpreting Departments, other Departments and Faculties, and practice circles, there is also the opportunity to minor and double major in different faculties and programmes. In addition, with the bilateral agreements we have made with some universities abroad (such as Germany, Austria, Poland), we offer the opportunity to participate in Erasmus + and Farabi exchange programmes at undergraduate and graduate level.
Are academic and social activities organised?
Our department aims to provide students with the necessary knowledge, skills and competences to communicate between their mother tongue and foreign languages and to perform different translation applications in the sectors where they may work after graduation. To this end, academic and scientific events, meetings and colloquia are regularly organised in cooperation with other departments in our department and with our Translation Club, İSÇEV, which operates with the support of our students and relevant lecturers. Many researchers, translators and editors who are well-known in the sector are invited to our department to share their experiences with our students.
The students who participated in the Ministry for EU Affairs Young Translators Competition, in which the final year students of translation programmes in Turkey took part, also ranked first in their groups and had the opportunity to participate in a trip to Brussels as a prize of the competition.
In which fields can graduates of this programme work?
Our graduates are employed as translators, executive assistants, language specialists in governmental institutions such as ministries, undersecretariats, general directorates; in translation companies, foreign trade, advertising and marketing, tourism companies, sports clubs, media and various international and multinational organisations in the private sector; as educators, translators, researchers, communication specialists, teachers in academic institutions.
Do they have social media accounts?
Each class has an announcement group to communicate with our students about the courses and events during the semester.