The Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project
How can instructors of writing give their students experience in preparing texts for translation and localization and working with translators? Similarly, how can instructors of translation give their students experience at working with source texts and their authors, most of whom are subject matter experts but not experts in writing? The network of partners participating in the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project establishes links between students in different countries so that each learns from the other. In so doing, students become aware of the diversity of the world community in which their documents travel.
Launched in the 1999-2000 academic year by Bruce Maylath and Sonia Vandepitte, the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project (TAPP) has developed into a complex educational network of bilateral writing-translation projects, bilateral translation-editing projects (since 2001), and multilateral projects (since 2010). By 2014, the TAPP network had over time connected classes in writing, usability testing, and/or translation at three universities in the U.S., three in Italy, two each in Belgium and Portugal, and one each in Austria, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Kenya, Russia, and Spain, involving scores of instructors and thousands of students. TAPP’s main aim is to share insights into collaborative writing across borders and cultures, and, in the course of this work, to gain knowledge of others’ cultural bases.
Current Network of Participating Instructors and Institutions
Writing/Editing Faculty
Aristotle University, Greece
Marina Tzoannopoulou
Minnesota State University—Moorhead, USA
Dorian Harvey
North Dakota State University, USA
Ibtissem Belmihoub
Brady Bergeson
Traci Gaumond
Louise Hanson-Dittmer
Dorian Harvey
Cody Kaser
Bruce Maylath
Mary Pull
Julie Sandland
Heather Slomski
Massimo Verzella
Matthew Warner
Rebecca West
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Barcelona Tech), Spain
Elisabet Arnó Macià
Joe Barr
University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, USA
Ann Hill Duin
Western New Mexico University, USA
Heather Steinmann
Usability Testing Faculty
North Dakota State University, USA
Andrew Mara
Bruce Maylath
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Barcelona Tech), Spain
Joe Barr
Vasa Universitet/Vaasan Yliopisto, Finland
Suvi Isohella
Translation Faculty
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
Birthe Mousten
Bashkir State University, Russia
Ruslan Saduov
Kenyatta University, Kenya
Joyce Wangia
State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland
Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
Instituto Politénico do Porto, Portugal
Manuel Fernando Moreira da Silva
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Susana Valdez
Maria Castel-Branco
Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Fernando Ferreira Alves
Università degli Studi del Molise, Italy
Laura Tommaso
Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Maria Teresa Musacchio
Università degli Studi del Salento, Italy
David Katan
Elena Manca
Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy
Giuseppe Palumbo
Federica Scarpa
Université de Mons, Belgium
Christine Michaux
Université Paris—Denis Diderot, France
Patricia Minacori
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Sonia Vandepitte
Joeri Van Liefferinge
University of Algiers 2, Algeria
Rachida Sadouni
Previously Participating Institutions
Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
Karl-Franzens-Universität, Austria
Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia
University of Wisconsin—Stout, USA
The typical bi-lateral writing project involves a writing class in the U.S. and a translation class in Europe. A technical writing student composes instructions for a particular activity, does user testing, and answers translators’ questions. The translation student may test the instructions, be it only mentally, asks questions of the technical writing student and may localize, by exploring cultural differences and system differences between the two text audiences involved.
The typical bi-lateral editing project requires a European translation student to translate a published article and ask questions of her or his “native editor,” a role which, to date, is taken up by a U.S.-based writing student: the editor edits the translations for idiomatic American English and asks questions of the translator.
A multilateral project can be either 1) a writing-translation project that involves co-authoring in Spain and the U.S., user-testing in English in the U.S. and Finland, translation to Dutch (Belgium), French (France) and Italian (Italy), or 2) a translation-editing project with translation from Danish to English (Denmark), from Dutch to English (Belgium) or from Italian to English (Italy), all followed by editing for idiomatic American English in the U.S.
NDSU’s Department of English serves as the hub of the TAPP network, with Prof. Bruce Maylath serving as its international coordinator. As TAPP projects spread throughout the courses and sections in NDSU’s vertical writing program, students’ experiences in international collaborative projects are becoming a distinctive hallmark of the program.
By fall 2013, NDSU instructors teaching the following courses had used some form of TAPP’s international collaborative projects:
- ENGL-120 College Composition II
- ENGL-320 Business & Professional Writing
- ENGL-321 Writing in the Technical Professions
- ENGL-322 Creative Writing I
- ENGL-324 Writing in the Sciences
- ENGL-325 Writing in the Health Professions
- ENGL-326 Writing in the Design Professions
- ENGL-358 Writing in the Humanities & Soc. Sciences
- ENGL-455/655 International Technical Writing
- ENGL-467 English Studies Capstone Experience
Publications about the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project
(arranged in reverse chronological order)
Verzella, Massimo, and Andrew Mara. "Translocal Pragmatics: Operationalizing Postnational Heuristics to Locate Salient Cultural Overlap.” Rhetoric, Professional Communication and Globalization 7.1 (2015): 12-28.
Sorensen, Karen, Steven Hammer, and Bruce Maylath. "Synchronous and Asynchronous Online International Collaboration: The Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project." Connexions: International Professional Communication Journal 3.1 (2015): 153-177.
Vandepitte, Sonia, Birthe Mousten, Bruce Maylath, Suvi Isohella, Maria Teresa Musacchio, and Giuseppe Palumbo. "Translation Competence Research Data in Multilateral International and Interprofessional Collaborative Learning." Teaching Language Translation and Interpretation: Methods, Theories, and Trends. Ed. Ying Cui and Wei Zhao. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2015. 137-159
Mousten, Birthe, and Gunta Locele. "Knowledge Representation in Travelling Texts: From Mirroring to Missing the Point!" Journal of Organizational Knowledge Communication 1.1 (2014): 62-82.
Verzella, Massimo, and Laura Tommaso. "Learning to Write for an International Audience through Cross-cultural Collaboration and Text-negotiation." Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education 21 (2014): 310-321.
Hammer, Steven, and Bruce Maylath. "Global Collaborations, Face-to-Face Conversation: Social Media in Trans-Atlantic Translation Projects." Emerging Pedagogies in the Networked Knowledge Society: Practices Integrating Social Media and Globalization. Ed. Marohang Limbu and Binod Gurung. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2014. 144-161.
Maylath, Bruce, Tym King, and Elisabet Arnó Macià. "Linking Engineering Students in Spain and Technical Writing Students in the US as Coauthors: The Challenge and Outcomes of Subject-Matter Experts and Language Specialists Collaborating Internationally." Connexions: International Professional Communication Journal 1.2 (2013): 150-185.
Maylath, Bruce, Sonia Vandepitte, Patricia Minacori, Suvi Isohella, Birthe Mousten, and John Humbley. "Managing Complexity: A Technical Communication/Translation Case Study in Multilateral International Collaboration." Technical Communication Quarterly 22 (2013): 67-84.
Mousten, Birthe, John Humbley, Bruce Maylath, Sonia Vandepitte. "Communicating Pragmatics about Content and Culture in Virtually Mediated Educational Environments." Computer-Mediated Communication across Cultures: International Interactions in Online Environments. Ed. Kirk St. Amant and Sigrid Kelsey. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. 312-327.
Mousten, Birthe, Bruce Maylath, Sonia Vandepitte, and John Humbley. "Learning Localization through Trans-Atlantic Collaboration: Bridging the Gap between Professions." IEEE-Transactions on Professional Communication 53 (2010): 401-411.
Mousten, Birthe, Bruce Maylath, and John Humbley. "Pragmatic Features in the Language of Cross-Cultural Virtual Teams: A Roundtable Discussion of Student-to-Student Discourse in International Collaborative Project." Reconceptualizing LSP. Online proceedings of the XVII European Language for Specific Purposes Symposium 2009. Ed. Carmen Heine and Jan Engberg. Århus, Denmark: 2010. Web.
Maylath, Bruce, Sonia Vandepitte, and Birthe Mousten. "Growing Grassroots Partnerships: Trans-Atlantic Collaboration between American Instructors and Students of Technical Writing and European Instructors and Students of Translation," Ch. 4 in Designing Globally Networked Learning Environments: Visionary Partnerships, Policies, and Pedagogies. Eds. Doreen Stärke-Meyerring and Melanie Wilson. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008. 52-66.
Mousten, Birthe, Sonia Vandepitte, and Bruce Maylath. "Intercultural Collaboration in the Trans-Atlantic Project: Pedagogical Theories and Practices in Teaching Procedural Instructions across Cultural Contexts," Ch. 9 in Designing Globally Networked Learning Environments: Visionary Partnerships, Policies, and Pedagogies. Eds. Doreen Stärke-Meyerring and Melanie Wilson. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008. 129-144.
Humbley, John, Bruce Maylath, Birthe Mousten, Sonia Vandepitte, and Lucy Veisblat "Learning Localization through Trans-Atlantic Collaboration." Proceedings of the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference, 10-13 July 2005, U of Limerick, Ireland. Ed. George F. Hayhoe. New York: IEEE, 2005. 578-595.
For more information about the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project, please contact Bruce Maylath at Bruce.Maylath@ndsu.edu or Sonia Vandepitte at Sonia.Vandepitte@UGent.be.
