Programme description for Translation and Professional Communication, Master's programme (2025–2027)

Knowledge

The candidate

• has advanced knowledge of linguistics, specialised communication and translation studies and specific knowledge of specialised communication within selected genres and discourse communities.
• Has in-depth knowledge of modern theories of language and specialised communication, of newer theories of translation and of relevant research methods.
• has advanced knowledge of how globalization and technological development affects professional communication and translation.
• has advanced knowledge of language resources and digital tools such as term bases, translation tools, machine translation engines, corpora, data bases, etc.

Skills

The candidate

• can carry out advanced specialised communication tasks in the languages they master, as well as specialised translation across these languages.
• can utilise the main digital tools for tasks pertaining to language and communication and for collaboration.
• can analyse and critically approach existing research within the relevant disciplines.
• can develop their own research questions and select the relevant design and methods of research.
• can complete an independent, delimited research project.

General competence

The candidate

• can analyse and discuss important ethical issues related to scientific research and professional practice.
• can communicate the content of an extended independent work and master the main terminology and concepts of the subject area.
• can utilise knowledge about translation and professional communication in new areas to carry out advanced tasks and projects, both individually and as part of a group.

Admission requirements

The general admission requirement is a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent education of a minimum of three years’ duration (180 ECTS credits).

The following must be included:

1. Either

a) a bachelor’s degree in language, linguistics, translation or interpreting

or

b) a bachelor’s degree in another subject area and 30 ECTS credits in courses containing linguistic analysis (e.g., translation, interpreting, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic, pragmatics, text or discourse analysis), either as part of the bachelor’s degree or in addition to it.

A weighted average grade of C or better is a requirement. The requirement is calculated on the basis of the bachelor’s degree as a whole.

Professional communication is essential to the world of business, organisations and the public sector. Large scale production of text of a varied nature, from technical documentation to annual and official reports, produced and translated both for internal and external use, calls for a particular set of linguistic and communicative skills. The increased use of technology leads to more multilingual content being created, which again leads to an increased need for skilled language workers.

As more content is created and the current arena of communication is becoming more and more global, communication often has to take place across different languages. This means that the language workers of today must be in possession of a unique, multilingual skill set for transferring meaning from one language to another. This programme educates language workers for high level specialised communication, and translation is an integral part of this.

Crosslinguistic communication is also a vital part of communicative processes within national boundaries in multilingual societies. Translation activity supports democracy and inclusion, making it an important tool in work towards achieving UN Sustainable Development goal no. 10, more specifically 16.10: Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.

Communication work is increasingly impacted by new technologies and digital tools. At the same time, machine translation has long been an integrated part of the translation profession, and the development of new translation tools has led to important changes in professional practices. The same is true of the increasing use of AI-based tools. In spite of the rapid rate of change, there will be a continued need for human involvement in communication work, including translation. Enhancing translator competences prepares graduates for new tasks and changing responsibilities.

Students have to show high levels of understanding and insight in the relevant fields of research, i. e. translation studies, linguistics and specialised communication, to achieve the learning outcomes established for the programme. The students will study relevant traditions, theories and research methods. Through working on their master’s thesis, they will be trained in critical and independent thinking on issues related to specialised communication and translation. Working with ethical issues relating to research and professional practice will be an integral part of this work.

The master’s programme in Translation and Professional Communication ensures that the students are qualified for a host of different jobs within the field of specialized text production. Language service providers often offer services like text creation, proofreading and editing, in addition to bilingual services like translation, subtitling, localization, multilingual webpages, etc.

The master’s programme provides a foundation for further studies at doctoral level. Students may apply to admission to, for example, the PhD programme for linguistics at UiA’s Faculty of Humanities and Education.