Master Program “Theory of Translation & Interpretation: Intercultural / Interlingual Communication” by the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting & Translation

The master program “Theory of Translation & Interpretation: Intercultural / Interlingual Communication” is delivered by the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting & Translation, which is a joint project of the European Commission, the European Parliament, UN Secretariat, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and Astrakhan State University with the support of the Government of the Astrakhan Region.

Students attending the master program in interpreting can undertake traineeships in our partner institutions and after graduation they can become staff or free-lance interpreters for the EU and the UN, multinational corporations and joint enterprises located in Russia, countries of the Caspian Sea region and in Central Asia.

Astrakhan is one of the two sites in Russia (together with St.-Petersburg), where such a program is provided; this is a crucial region for Russia to train qualified interpreters and implement joint international programs. Astrakhan State University is an educational institution with profound experience in training of competitive, highly-qualified interpreters and translators with different European and Eastern language combinations. Our graduates are of high demand at the labor market.

The curriculum of the master program has been created in such a way that staff interpreters and officials of the interpreting/translation units of the Ministry of Foreign affairs of the Russian Federation, the European Commission and the European Parliament come to our University to examine our students and to give them master classes on a regular basis. Besides, its curriculum includes regular virtual classes and training video conferences which are held by professional interpreters working in the EU institutions. Thus, students attending this master program get education of international level. Upon their graduation, they are awarded a master diploma; they are also eligible to take accreditation tests that entitle them to work for an EU institution, for the UN language services or the MFA of the RF.

The curriculum of the program “Theory of Translation & Interpretation: Intercultural / Interlingual Communication” is concordant with the ones of the most prestigious schools - in Geneva, London, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Monterrey and Beijing.

To be admitted to this program the candidate must have a diploma in any speciality, not limited to translation/interpreting or languages; the main requirements towards candidates are excellent command of their mother tongue, full understanding and accuracy of a foreign language, good analytical skills and good overall knowledge of international affairs, as well as economic, social and cultural background of the countries in which their working languages are used.

Classes in interpretation are held in the state-of-the-art conference interpreting classroom at the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation of Astrakhan State University. The equipment for our classes is the same as the world’s top schools of interpreting and professionals in the European and the UN institutions use for their work. It has been purchased, installed and adjusted under close supervision of our partners from DG Interpretation of the European Commission and DG Interpretation and Conferences of the European Parliament.

The classroom has three booths (for two interpreters each) and 25 seats for delegates. Besides, the school has premises for real-mode conference interpreting; those premises include an assembly hall, rooms for conference interpreters (for four interpreters each), and 300 infra-red receivers. Thus, our students can see real everyday work of a conference interpreter. To master translation skills, several classrooms are available; students can learn various translation techniques, create translation memory databases and operate various software.

This is a list of activities successfully performed in 2011 – the first year of master program “Theory of Translation & Interpretation: Intercultural / Interlingual Communication”:

1. Master program “Theory of Translation & Interpretation: Intercultural / Interlingual Communication” was launched. This is one of the two master programs in Russia supervised by the European Commission and by the European Parliament. The first group of students included 13 persons – citizens of Russia and Kazakhstan. The entrance competition rate was three people per position available, and only the best candidates were admitted. The language range included English, German, Italian, French, Farsi, Azerbaijani and Kazakh. The progress of the educational process is constantly supervised by our MFA and EU partners (by means of video conferences, virtual classes, visits to examine and to give lectures, etc.).

2. In July 2011, the Directorate-General for Interpreting of the European Commission exchanged letters of cooperation with Astrakhan State University. The goal of this cooperation is to train qualified interpreters for the European Commission.

3. In October 2011, the Directorate-General for Interpretation & Conferences of the European Parliament signed a cooperation agreement with Astrakhan State University, which also aimed to train qualified interpreters. Our University became Russia’s first university to sign such an agreement with the European Parliament, thus being the first non-EU university that established such kind of partnership with the European Parliament. Even within the EU only 15 universities have similar agreements with the European Parliament.

4. In October 2011, Astrakhan State University reached an agreement with the United Nations (the UN Department for General Assembly & Conference Management (DGACM)) to cooperate in training interpreters for the United Nations.

5. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation represented by First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs submitted an official message to Governor of the Astrakhan Region stating that the Ministry is ready to continuously support the Caspian Higher School in training future interpreters and translators.

6. Top-level conference interpreting equipment was purchased; it was supplied by the same company that works with all the international institutions – from the United Nations to the European Union. The purchased equipment is now applied to implement the educational process and hold master classes by our national and international partners.

7. The School implemented bilateral and multilateral educational projects in cooperation with partners at EU universities (including the University of Paris School of Interpreters and Translators (ESIT) and the University of Geneva) as well as in countries whose languages have been included into our syllabus (from Turkey to Kazakhstan).

8. Our faculty staff won a number of grants provided by the European Commission and by the European Parliament to cover a professional training program at international institutions – the European Commission, the European Parliament, the World Intellectual Property Organization etc.

15 foreign languages are now offered at the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting & Translation: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Dari, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Tajik, and Uzbek. Our language range includes all the six official languages of the United Nations; it offers most languages used by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; it includes main languages of the European Union.

Additional Information

Center for Translation Studies & Conference Interpretation operates at Astrakhan State University. This Center houses the Astrakhan Branch of the Union of Translators of Russia. It arranges and delivers an intensive course of conference interpreting on a regular basis, which makes it possible for any interpreter to enhance his/her professional skills. ASU also has its own center that trains guides for foreign visitors and a school of technical translation, whose main goal is to train professionals in those areas and languages that are in particular demand at the market.

After signing the University Declaration with the Organizing Committee “Sochi-2014”, ASU joined the program to train qualified interpreters for the 22nd Sochi Olympics.

Astrakhan State University is one of Russia’s 16 universities that participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The Astrakhan Region in general and Astrakhan State University in particular hold numerous events related to the United Nations activities. Our University houses the UNESCO Chair “Learning Society & Social Sustainable Development” that has a whole chain of branches (7 of them are in Russia and 2 others are in Kazakhstan). We cooperate with the Astrakhan Branch of the United Nations Development Program and with the Global Environment Facility by carrying out our joint project “Preservation of Biological Diversity of Water Moor Lands in Lower Volga Region”; some of our graduates participate in this project as translators and interpreters. We cooperate with the UNESCO on a regular basis: our two latest projects are promotion of the Astrakhan Kremlin to be included into the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites and holding the National Conference of UNESCO Chairs and Associated Schools.

For the recent years, UN representatives have been frequent guests at our University. We have close contacts with the staff of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations World Tourism Organization. ASU has provided interpreters for most of our meetings with representatives of these organizations.

The number of language combinations available at ASU is changing every year, depending on the demands of the labor market and on the candidates' competence level. The obligatory requirement to anyone wishing to join our master course is the advanced level of a foreign language. However, knowledge of a second foreign language is definitely a competitive advantage of the candidate. These can be EU languages (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish) and Eastern ones (Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Azerbaijani, Kazakh etc).

Our University has gained profound experience in virtual exchange of resources with our foreign partners as well as with partners from other Russian cities. We hold video and web conferences, virtual classes by means of a telepresence system and webinars, thus facilitating our cooperation in foundation of distance-education centers. Such distance-education centers will be available for both students and instructors of translation and interpreting academic programs.

As for geographical aspects, we would like to underline the key geopolitical position of our University in Eurasia – from the Caspian Sea in the west to China and Mongolia in the east, from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. ASU has done a lot to develop training in interpreting and translation in universities of the Caspian Region and Central Asia. Our faculty staff retrains their colleagues involved in teaching of translation and interpreting; we also provide classes for students from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, etc.

The Astrakhan Region is closely located to regions and communities where translators and interpreters are in extremely high demand. The only way to resolve the situation is to develop our University as a center of excellence that trains top-level translators and interpreters by applying distance-education technologies, as the central link of the chain of educational facilities that participate in training of interpreters/translators in Central Asia, the Caspian Sea Region, and the Black Sea Region.