Beyond the Landscape “of Light”: A Review of Pedagogical Research Articles in Meta (2000–2014)

Abstract

Training has been an essential theme in applied translation and interpreting (T&I) studies. Along with the rapid increase of translator and interpreter training programs all over the world, research in this area has seen some robust development in the new millennium. This study, through a meta-review of pedagogical research published in the journal Meta: The Translators’ Journal in the last 15 years, provided an overview of the current research themes and methods applied in this field. A combination of research methods, which included publication counting, thematic analysis and title analysis, were employed in the study. Findings suggest that pedagogical research in Meta is featured by the theme of “teaching” (as compared to “learning” and “assessment”) and is dominated by empirical designs. Through a comparison with pedagogical research in a larger corpus of nine other T&I journals, the study indicates that Meta presents a similar general landscape. However, it was found that the journal has some particular subthemes that are significantly different from other T&I journals. Through this exercise of meta-review and comparison of Meta and other academic journals, the study sheds light on the features of pedagogical research in T&I and may provide implications on the future development in this field.