Mediterranean Editors and Translators

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Mediterranean Editors and Translators (MET) is a non-profit, interdisciplinary association for language professionals who work mainly with or into English within the Mediterranean area. The association's members include translators, authors' editors, copy editors, writing and presentation coaches, teachers of academic writing, applied linguists, interpreters, professional writers and more. MET offers training workshops, an annual conference, networking and other opportunities of continuing professional development for its members. The activities of the association are guided by six objectives, summarized as follows:

Contents

  1. Maintain a stable network and means to hold events for English language consultants
  2. Communicate knowledge that can contribute to improving the quality of language support services available in the Mediterranean
  3. Be a conduit for exchanging information between language consultants in our geographic area and those in other parts of Europe and the world
  4. Stimulate research in Mediterranean communities on the needs of academics, scientists and others and on promising practices that meet their needs well
  5. Identify local expertise in language support and help our experts share their knowledge with a wider audience
  6. Help users of language support services locate appropriate solutions to their needs and promote mutual understanding between suppliers and users of these services[ citation needed ]

History and organization

MET was founded in Barcelona, Spain, in the spring of 2006 after an initial, exploratory meeting the preceding autumn. It is registered in the Generalitat de Catalunya and has a legally binding charter (written in Catalan but translated into English). Its activities are directed by a Governing Council. The council, elected every two years, is composed of council chair and vice-chair, secretary, treasurer, officers for membership, continuing professional development and promotion, and a webmaster.

MET is a member of the Spanish Network of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialog Between Cultures. It also maintains relationships with: Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti (AITI),

Associació Professional de Traductors i Intèrprets de Catalunya (APTIC), Associação Portuguesa de Tradutores e Intérpretes (APTRAD),

Asociación Española de Traductores, Correctores e Intérpretes (ASETRAD), European Association of Science Editors (EASE), Eastern Mediterranean Association of Medical Editors (EMAME), Nordic Editors and Translators (NEaT), SENSE (based in the Netherlands), and Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP). The founding of NEaT was inspired by, and based on information from, MET. [1] MET and all these "sister associations" support each other to further the development of the language profession.

Members and membership

MET's members are mostly based in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere in Europe, but some members from further away join because of their shared interests. MET has both individual and institutional members.

MET's approximately 400 individual members hail from over 30 countries, mostly in Europe but also in North America, South America, Asia and Africa (data of April 2019). They are employed in freelance, entrepreneurial and institutional settings and work in a wide range of subject areas including science, technology, engineering, medicine, business, commerce, finance, law, politics, art and other cultural areas. Because of the association's focus on communication in the English language, many members originate from countries where English is the vernacular.

MET’s institutional membership is a way for institutions and companies to access continuing professional development activities for their staff and to support the association’s mission. Currently there are about 10 institutional members.

Conferences

MET holds a conference every year, usually in early autumn. This is also the occasion for the general assembly of the members. Conferences tend to last 1.5 days and are preceded by two half-days of training workshops. Each “MET meeting” is named with the acronym of METM followed by the last two digits of the year. For example, METM20 was the name given to the 2020 meeting, which was scheduled for October 2020 but cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Previous METMs and their themes are:

Workshop program

MET organizes one or more workshop days during the spring and summer. A full day of workshops is also offered prior to the annual conference. The workshops are usually developed and delivered by MET members and offer continuing professional development for editors and translators. [14] The topics dealt with include knowledge updates in specialized fields, language issues, tools for language professionals, and business development.

Publications

MET members have written a guide entitled "The English-Language Consultant: MET’s guidelines for choosing an editor, translator, interpreter or other language service provider"; the second, revised edition is available on the association's website.

Discussions at two MET conferences have led to the publication of multiauthor, edited volumes about academic writing. In 2013, a limited group of MET members and their colleagues published the edited volume Supporting Research Writing: Roles and challenges in multilingual settings [15] (based on a panel discussion at METM09). In 2017, another group of members, invited speakers and colleagues published the edited volume Publishing Research in English as an Additional Language: Practices, pathways and potentials [16] (based on talks presented at METM15; free e-book).

Additional publications by MET members related to the annual conferences, including reviews of the meetings and papers based on the presentations, are listed on the association's website.

Related Research Articles

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Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is a United States professional organization dedicated to "improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. Since 1911, NCTE has provided a forum for the profession, an array of opportunities for teachers to continue their professional growth throughout their careers, and a framework for cooperation to deal with issues that affect the teaching of English." In addition, the NCTE describes its mission as follows:

The Council promotes the development of literacy, the use of language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society, through the learning and teaching of English and the related arts and sciences of language.

The Conference on College Composition and Communication is a national professional association of college and university writing instructors in the United States. The CCCC formed in 1949 as an organization within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). CCCC is the largest organization dedicated to writing research, theory, and teaching worldwide.

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The American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership association, established in 1950 as a forum for the exchange of information and expertise in the care and use of laboratory animals. Membership consists of approximately 12,000 individual, institutional, commercial and affiliate members. The national office is located in Memphis, TN.

Language assessment or language testing is a field of study under the umbrella of applied linguistics. Its main focus is the assessment of first, second or other language in the school, college, or university context; assessment of language use in the workplace; and assessment of language in the immigration, citizenship, and asylum contexts. The assessment may include listening, speaking, reading, writing, an integration of two or more of these skills, or other constructs of language ability. Equal weight may be placed on knowledge and proficiency, or greater weight may be given to one aspect or the other.

AuthorAID is the name given to a number of initiatives that provide support to researchers from developing countries in preparing academic articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Phyllis Freeman and Anthony Robbins, co-editors of the Journal of Public Health Policy (JPHP), first suggested the name and concept in 2004 and published "Closing the ‘publishing gap’ between rich and poor" about AuthorAID on the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), in 2005.

The Science Communication Observatory is a Special Research Centre attached to the Department of Communication of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, set up in 1994. This centre is specialized in the study and analysis of the transmission of scientific, medical, environmental and technological knowledge to society. The journalist Vladimir de Semir, associated professor of Science Journalism at the Pompeu Fabra University, was the founder and is the current director of the centre. A multidisciplinary team of researchers coming from different backgrounds is working on various lines of research: science communication; popularization of sciences, risk and crisis communication; science communication and knowledge representation; journalism specialized in science and technology; scientific discourse analysis; health and medicine in the daily press; relationships between science journals and mass media; history of science communication; public understanding of science; gender and science in the mass media, promotion of scientific vocations, science museology, etc.

The European Association of Science Editors is a non-profit membership organisation for people interested in science communication and editing. Founded in 1982, in France, EASE has an international membership.

<i>European Science Editing</i> Academic journal

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Post-editing is the process whereby humans amend machine-generated translation to achieve an acceptable final product. A person who post-edits is called a post-editor. The concept of post-editing is linked to that of pre-editing. In the process of translating a text via machine translation, best results may be gained by pre-editing the source text – for example by applying the principles of controlled language – and then post-editing the machine output. It is distinct from editing, which refers to the process of improving human generated text. Post-edited text may afterwards be revised to ensure the quality of the language choices are proofread to correct simple mistakes.

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An authors' editor is a language professional who works "with authors to make draft texts fit for purpose". They edit manuscripts that have been drafted by the author but have not yet been submitted to a publisher for publication. This type of editing is called author editing, to distinguish it from other types of editing done for publishers on documents already accepted for publication: an authors' editor works "with an author rather than for a publisher". A term sometimes used synonymously with authors' editor is "manuscript editor" which, however, is less precise as it also refers to editors employed by scholarly journals to edit manuscripts after acceptance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Developmental editing</span> Writing support during manuscript production

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The Japanese Network of the Institute of Translation & Interpreting (J-Net) is a professional network of translators and interpreters, a division of the Institute of Translation & Interpreting (ITI) in the United Kingdom.

Miriam Balaban is a publisher, editor and scientist, recognized for her work in science communication and desalination. She has founded international organizations, conferences and journals and has edited numerous journals, conference proceedings and books. She also publishes the Desalination Directory, an international online database.

References

  1. ↑ Juhola, Virve; Uusinarkaus, Julie. "Nordic Editors and Translators: founding a new networking and peer-training association (with thanks to MET)". www.metmeetings.org. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  2. ↑ Bennett, Laura (January–February 2017). "Pedant's corner" (PDF). ITI Bulletin: 29. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  3. ↑ Consonni, Mary (2016). "METM15 Conference". The Linguist. 55 (1): 27. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  4. ↑ Matteoda, Francesca (2015). "An all-round success" (PDF). ITI Bulletin: 34–35. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  5. ↑ Bennett, Laura (2013). "A Venetian adventure" (PDF). ITI Bulletin: 32–33. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  6. ↑ Hurtado de Mendoza, Isabel (2012). "Something for everyone" (PDF). ITI Bulletin: 34–35. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Griffin-Mason, Sarah (2011). "METM10 – a jamboree for editors and translators" (PDF). European Science Editing. 37 (1): 10–11. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Berghammer, Gabi (2010). "METM—An abbreviation translators should know" (PDF). The Write Stuff. 19 (3): 234. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  9. ↑ Patten, Iain (June 30, 2010). "Mediterranean Editors and Translators Meeting (METM) 2009: Broadening the Scope and Setting Limits". Science Editor. 33 (3). Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  10. ↑ De Jager, Marije (2009). "Communication support across the disciplines. METM 2008" (PDF). European Science Editing. 35: 15. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  11. ↑ De Jager, Marije (2008). "Building bridges, constructing networks: METM07" (PDF). European Science Editing. 34: 17–18. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Burrough-Boenisch, Joy; Burgess, Sally (2007). "Mediterranean Editors and Translators Holds Second Meeting" (PDF). Science Editor. 30 (3): 83–84. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  13. ↑ Kerans, Mary Ellen (2006). "Mediterranean Editors and Translators launch regional association at METM 05" (PDF). Science Editor. 29: 87–88. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  14. ↑ Coveney, Kymm (16 November 2016). "Mediterranean Editors and Translators: All About Editing". CIEP blog. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  15. ↑ Matarese, Valerie, ed. (2013). Supporting Research Writing: Roles and challenges in multilingual settings. Oxford: Chandos. ISBN   978-1-84334-666-1.
  16. ↑ Cargill, Margaret; Burgess, Sally, eds. (2017). Publishing Research in English as an Additional Language: Practices, pathways and potentials. University of Adelaide Press. ISBN   978-1-925261-52-3 . Retrieved 12 March 2018.
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