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, 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). NDSU joined the TAPP in 2007. Across two decades of operation, the TAPP network has over time connected classes in writing, usability testing, and/or translation at 41 universities in 19 countries across 5 continents. 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
Marina Tzoannopoulou
North Dakota State University, USA
Andrea Smith
Ibtissem Belmihoub
Brady Bergeson
Jo Cavins
Dan Kenzie
Bruce Maylath
Mary McCall
Yu "Vicki" Meng
Matthew Warner
Rebecca West
Pennsylvania State University at Erie, The Behrend College, USA
Massimo Verzella
Pittsburg State University, USA
Jessica Jorgenson Borchert
Prince of Songkla University at Phuket, Thailand
Nuwan Thapthiang
Tarleton State University, USA
Katrina Hinson
Texas Technological University, USA
Mary De Nora
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Samira Allani
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Barcelona Tech), Spain
Marta Aguilar
Elisabet Arnó-Macià
Joe Barr
Rachel Playfair
University of Colorado—Colorado Springs, USA
Baye Herald
Cody Kaser
Laura Gonzales
University of Houston-Downtown
Ashleigh Petts
University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, USA
Brandi Fuglsby
Ann Hill Duin
Chakrika Veeramoothoo
University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Isabel Baca
Victoria García
University of Washington—Tacoma, USA
Sushil Oswal
University of Wisconsin—Stout, USA
Joleen Hanson
Univerzitet u Beogradu (University of Belgrade), Serbia
Jelena Filipović
Greta Goetz
Ana Jovanović
Western New Mexico University, USA
Heather Steinmann
Usability Testing Faculty
North Dakota State University, USA
Bruce Maylath
Mary McCall
Vasa Universitet/Vaasan Yliopisto, Finland
Suvi Isohella
Translation Faculty
Birthe Mousten
Bashkir State University, Russia
Ruslan Saduov
Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Portugal
Graça Bigotte Chorão
Célìa Verónica Martins Tavares
Sandra Ribeiro
Jiangxi Normal University, China
North Dakota State University, USA
Gwen Stickney
State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland
Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
Marcin Trojszczak
María del Mar Sánchez Ramos
Raquel Lázaro Gutiérrez
Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina
María Isabel Pozzo
Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Belén López Arroyo
Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
Daniel Linder
Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Fernando Ferreira Alves
Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
Ana Cristina Biondo Salomão
Tamiris Destro Costa
Vívian de Moraes
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Maria da Conceição Castel-Branco
Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy
Laura Tommaso
Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Andrew Bailey
Maria Teresa Musacchio
Università degli Studi del Salento, Italy
David Katan
Elena Manca
Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy
Giuseppe Palumbo
Federica Scarpa
Université Paris—Denis Diderot, France
Patricia Minacori
Sonia Vandepitte
Joeri Van Liefferinge
Susana Valdez
University of Blida 2, Algeria
Rachida Sadouni
Literature Faculty
North Dakota State University, USA
Amy Gore
University of Arts and Human Sciences of Bamako, Mali
Fatoumata Keita
Previously Participating Institutions
Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
Karl-Franzens-Universität, Austria
Minnesota State University—Moorhead, USA
Missouri Western State University
Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia
Università degli Studi del Molise, Italy
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 spring 2019, 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-449/649 Usability and User Experience
ENGL-455/655 International Technical Writing
ENGL-459 Researching and Writing Grants and Proposals
- ENGL-467 English Studies Capstone Experience
- PHRM 324-Writing and Professionalization in Pharmacy
Publications about the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project
(arranged in reverse chronological order)
Suzana Noronha Cunha, Graça Bigotte Chorão, Manuel Moreira Silva, and Sandra Ribeiro. “Cultural Awareness and Distance Communication: A Project-Based Intervention in Higher Education Environments.” Developing Technology Mediation in Learning Environments, edited by Filomena Soares, Ana Paul Lopes, Ken, Brown, and Anne Uukkivi. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2020, pp. 117-128.
TAPP-related chapters:
Ch. 1, Tommaso, Laura, and Massimo Verzella. “Fostering Audience Awareness and Iterative Collaboration for the Creation of Texts: An Online Trans-Cultural Writing Project between Theory and Practice.”
Ch. 2, Steinmann, Heather, and Ruslan T. Saduov. “Co-Writing and Cross-Cultural Networking: An Experiential Learning Case Study.”
Ch. 4, Minacori, Patricia. “Meta-Knowledge on the TAPP and ORLIMPA Projects: Students and Their Blogs.”
Ch. 5, Palumbo, Giuseppe, and Ann Hill Duin. “Making Sense of Virtual Collaboration Through Personal Learning Networks.”
Ch. 13, Tzoannopoulou, Marina, and Bruce Maylath. “Virtual Networks in English-for-Specific-Purposes Education: A Translation-Reviewing/Editing Model.”
Ch. 14, Isohella, Suvi. “Incorporating International Collaboration and Usability Evaluation Into a Technical Communication Course.”
Ch. 15, Laursen, Anne Lisa, and Birthe Mousten. “Code Glossing as a Strategy for Writing and Translation: Exploration Through English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish.”
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.
AELFE‐TAPP 2020 Conference
CONFERENCE THEME:
“Multilingual academic and professional communication in a networked world"
Please click here for the AELFE-TAPP 2020 Conference Call for Papers.
2nd QUADRENNIAL
TAPP CONFERENCE
HOSTED BY BARCELONA TECH
VILANOVA I LA GELTRU, SPAIN
8-10 JULY 2020