AV短视频

Creation of the 脡cole d鈥橧nterpr猫tes de Gen猫ve

Antoine Velleman

The Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI) was born out of the vision of an extraordinary man by the name of Antoine Velleman. Born in Vienna in 1875, Velleman was a philologist and lexicographer. Of the twelve languages he had acquired, he spoke eight fluently, working as an interpreter for the League of Nations. He was admired for his generosity, perseverance and pedagogical skills. Sensing that the world would soon need the services of what he called “trained linguistic intermediaries”, he founded the École d’interprètes de Genève (EIG) in 1941 and served as the school’s administrator for a decade.

Geneva’s long tradition of international collaboration made it the perfect setting for him to make his dream reality. Based on his proposal, the Geneva Council of State issued a decree on 13 May 1941 for the creation of the École d’interprètes, an institute to be attached to the Faculty of Humanities of the AV短视频. It specified that EIG should not incur any added costs for the State, so the school was essentially financed by student registration fees. Velleman was so devoted to his project that he was even willing to make personal sacrifices, setting up the administrative offices of the school in his own office at 5 Avenue Marc-Monnier. At times, the teaching staff was willing to go without pay. Nonetheless, this small group of pioneers was not going to be deterred by financial challenges, logistical problems or a lack of direct association with the AV短视频.

“It was quite natural for me to decide to become an interpreter, because even if a war was going on at the time, we were hopeful that peace would come soon, and along with peace, comes negotiations. It seemed like an interesting profession. We had heard about some interpreters in the League of Nations, like Jean Herbert, who were so impressive. We hoped to be able to follow in their footsteps. We ended up being completely swept away in a whirlwind that transported us to a new and fascinating world – but sometimes we also kind of felt like guinea pigs.” (extract from Iris Vonow Dübler’s interview)

Launched against the backdrop of all the major post-war multilingual conferences in Europe, including the Nuremberg trials in 1946, EIG became an immediate success. The numbers speak for themselves. In the first year, there were four teachers and 20 students working in five languages (English, German, Italian, Spanish and French). By the end of the second year, there were 30 teachers and 200 aspiring interpreters working in 19 languages. At the beginning of the 1944-1945 academic year, there were 486 students and 25 languages. In order to accommodate its rapid growth, the school moved to an apartment at 4 Rue Saint-Victor in 1947. Students could choose between three different degrees: translator, interpreter-translator and parliamentary interpreter.

After spending a decade developing his school, Velleman retired, handing over the reins to Sven Stelling-Michaud, a historian and linguist who shared Velleman’s vision of making interpreting indispensable to international relations. Stelling-Michaud spent the next seventeen years reinforcing EIG’s reputation. While Velleman took a practical approach to teaching and only offered training in consecutive interpreting, Stelling-Michaud further developed the pedagogical side of EIG. In 1953, he got permission to set up a simultaneous interpreting room. Thanks to a generous donation from IBM, the room was outfitted with ten cabins and all the equipment necessary to teach simultaneous interpreting, an activity that had grown out of the Nuremberg trials.

The EIG simultaneous interpreting room

Around the same time, a specialised library was set up in the basement of the Bastions building of the AV短视频. It was initially made up of Velleman’s own collection of books (monolingual, multilingual and technical dictionaries and documentation on the major international agencies), but grew little by little, thanks to donations.

The EIG library

Building upon its success, EIG separated from the Faculty of Humanities in 1955 and became one of four independent institutes of the AV短视频.

Stelling-Michaud also worked on establishing ties abroad, helping to set up an annual conference for the directors of interpreting schools in Geneva, Heidelberg, Mayence-Germersheim, Sarrebruck, Vienna, Paris, Trieste and Washington (Conférence annuelle des directeurs des Écoles d’Interprètes Universitaires), thereby facilitating pedagogical, technical and professional exchanges. EIG also supported the creation of CIUTI (Conférence internationale permanente d’instituts universitaires pour la formation de traducteurs et d’interprètes) in 1960 to promote the academic value of these new fields, serving as the network’s General Secretariat for many years.

In 1968, Norbert Hugedé took over the management of EIG, just as institutional reforms were about to be implemented. Hugedé was a philologist who held a PhD in ancient history from the AV短视频. As protests broke out in May 1968, he consulted with teaching staff and students to determine how to restructure classes and redesign the programme. He wanted to maintain the quality of education and reinforce the professional reputation of EIG by limiting the number of languages and standardising the approach to training students. Hélène Pfaendler, an interpreter at the World Health Organization, was one of the first members of EIG’s teaching staff. She first taught translation, then interpreting, working closely with Hugedé to implement his reforms. Thanks to the legacy of her mother, Rosa Pfaendler, the “Hélène et Rosa Pfandler” fund was set up and still provides financial aid to students of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting today.

A classroom at the EIG

From EIG to ETI

After several years of hard work, the reforms were approved by the Geneva State Council in 1972, bringing about three major changes. The school was renamed École de traduction et d’interprétation (ETI), a change that distinguished the profession of translation from that of interpreting, and highlighted the academic, not strictly professional, quality of the institution by adopting the wording “translation and interpreting”, as opposed to “translators and interpreters”. Only seven languages were to be offered – French, German, Italian, English, Spanish, Arabic and Russian – all of which are still taught today. Finally, the translation programme was separated from the interpreting programme. Three different departments were set up: Germanic and Slavic Languages (translation), Mediterranean Languages (translation) and Interpreting.

“My first-year classes seemed very broad to me so I was happy that in my second year, after the reforms, there was more focus on specific fields and classes were more directly related to the reality of professional translation. […] Two specific specialisations were added: economics and law. The degree of specialisation was therefore greater in terms of subject matter and working methods: in the beginning, we only had lectures, aside from the translation classes, but later on, seminars on economics and law were also introduced in our active languages.” (excerpt from Suzanne Ballansat-Aebi’s interview)

In 1973, a new law governing the AV短视频 provided for the creation of the position of president, which then became the position of dean in 2011 when the school became a faculty (see table below). Those who have held this prestigious position have sought to maintain the balance between academics and professional training. In the 1970s, there were fervent debates on the status of teaching staff and how to negotiate between their academic activities and careers as professional translators and conference interpreters.

ISSCO joins ETI

The Dalle Molle Institute for Semantic and Cognitive Sciences (ISSCO) was created in 1972 by the Fondation Dalle Molle, taking part in early research on language processing and participating in all the major European projects and programmes in the field, including machine translation. ISSCO moved from Lugano to Geneva in 1976 and began collaborating with the AV短视频, and ETI in particular, to train students. It remained independent until 1998, when it officially joined ETI as the Unit of Multilingual Information Processing (TIM).

“In 1979, ISSCO participated in a major project on computer-assisted translation organized by the European Community. I believe that is when we began collaborating with ETI […] I remember teaching students how to use computers to analyze languages – natural languages – and being the first to do so. At the time, ETI was the only place where you could find such activities […] It really was a pioneer.” (excerpt from Margaret King’s interview)

ETI moved into the modern buildings of the Cours Commerciaux de Genève at 19 Place des Augustins in 1978. The ETI library was the first of the AV短视频 to be equipped with computers and 1984, it joined the Library Network of Western Switzerland (RERO), which featured a computarised catalogue that could be consulted from anywhere in Switzerland.

The ETI library, Place des Augustins

In 1992, ETI moved again, settling in its current location in Uni Mail at 40 Boulevard du Pont-d’Arve, a building that offered even more modern facilities and space.

The school continued be a hub for international exchanges throughout the 1990s, thanks to conferences, symposiums, research projects, international relations and study abroad programmes. In 1996, ETI once again proved to be a trailblazer, developing a course to train conference interpreting instructors. The school also became a leader in the field of legal translation, founding the Groupe de recherche en jurilinguistique et traduction (GREJUT) in 1998. Legal translation was one of several specialisations introduced in the 1999-2000 academic year, as part of the new translation degree and advanced studies diplomas (DEA).

At the turn of the millennium, ETI significantly boosted its expertise in new technology, thanks to the determination of Margaret King and Bruno de Bessé. During the latter’s back-to-back mandates as president (1999-2005), he set up two new innovative degrees: a post-graduate specialised diploma (DESS) and a diploma of advanced studies (DEA) in terminology and computer-assisted translation. The Terminology Unit was founded in 1987 and fused with the TIM Unit in 2003 to form the TIM Department. As training for conference interpreters evolved in the digital era, ETI also launched an online learning platform for interpreting in 2005, carrying out initial tests on remote training in 2007.

From ETI to FTI

The 2005 academic year marked the transition to the Bologna system, which aimed to harmonise the higher education system in Europe. The agreement was signed by over 40 countries, including Switzerland, giving rise to a system made up of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and facilitating student exchanges between universities in different countries. The Bologna reforms were adopted under the direction of Lance Hewson, who served as president then dean from 2005 to 2008, and 2010 to 2014. The school now offered a BA in Multilingual Communication, MA in Translation, MA in Conference Interpreting and PhD, awarding its first doctoral degree in 2006. Other complementary certificates and continuing education programmes were also added. Thanks to these developments, the school’s status changed once again, becoming the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI) in 2011.

The FTI at Uni Mail

“Already, there had been the changeover to the Bologna system, which some people saw as unfortunate because the number of hours in teaching pure translation actually went down […] It can also be argued […] that when you're giving somebody a university education, you do need to have a broader base and to go into more detail on other subjects – other obviously relevant subjects. The fact that we actually organised different types of Masters programmes meant that they could either be more hands-on and go very clearly towards a translation profession, or they could become interested in translation as a subject of academic debate, and then go on to do a PhD, et cetera, which I think has worked very well because we got a very reasonable numbers of PhDs after quite a short time. So that, I think, is a big success.” (excerpt from Lance Hewson’s interview)

Under the direction of Fernando Prieto Ramos (2014 to 2018), the FTI responded to the rise of new language professions, introducing new pedagogical and technological innovations. The BA and MA curriculums were revised and several new specialisations were introduced in 2017: Specialised Translation (MATS, with four possible concentrations), Translation and Technology (MATT, with three possible concentrations), and Translation and Specialised Multilingual Communication (MATCOM). An entirely new MA in Multilingual Communication Technology (MATIM) was also introduced, as well as an online doctoral school. During this period, the FTI also became a founding member of the International Doctorate in Translation Studies (ID-TS).

The development of these new specialisations mirrors the evolution of the Faculty’s lines of research, which have grown significantly, boosted by new fields of expertise that have led to large-scale projects, both in Switzerland and on a European level. These include the (TIM Department), (Economics, Language and Education Research Group, Translation Department), (), and , a machine translation system designed for medical discourse that resulted from a collaboration between the TIM Department and the Geneva AV短视频 Hospitals, which have integrated the system in their emergency services. An online BA in Multilingual Communication for the Arabic-French-English language combination was launched in 2019. Sign language also made its debut at FTI in 2021, with a new BA language combination and Certificate in Multilingual Communication, developed as part of the .

As a pioneer institution located in Geneva, an international hub for translation and interpreting, FTI stands out for the quality of its academic activities. While it was originally intended for professional training, Antoine Velleman’s little school has become a leader in research and innovation in translation and interpreting. The Faculty is a member of the most reputed networks in its field and attracts students from all over the world, as a result of the high quality of its programmes, the number of language combinations, and the variety of career opportunities for graduates. Thanks to the knowledge and experience of its teaching staff members, many of whom work in Geneva-based international organisations, FTI is constantly adapting to meet the needs of the professional world and keep up with the latest technical developments.

Eighty years after its creation, FTI is still buoyed by the vision of its founder, always striving for excellency as it continues to serve the local and international community.