As the world becomes smaller and more complex, the need for understanding people in other cultures, addressing their needs, and offering multilingual services and products continues to increase. It is incumbent upon those of us in the language services field to prepare individuals to enter and excel in this vital area of globalization.
In 2005, Drs. Pete Smith and Lana Rings started discussions on how to meet the ever-increasing need in the emerging language industry for individuals who speak world languages. The Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, and Translation (GILT) was created to provide students the opportunity to expand and enhance their knowledge and use of world languages to address these challenges both today and in the future. The program started offering in 2007 a certificate in Localization and Translation, and in 2016 launched an academic minor. In fall 2022 was approved as a major program of study. Early teaching faculty in the first Localization classes also included Drs. Israel-Pelletier and Harrison.
The GILT program’s signature mix of conceptual learning coupled with applied software platform use positions enrollees in and graduates from our program to understand and lead in emerging debates in the US and globally about critical issues such as global teamwork and facing truly international challenges together, as well as emerging issues around AI use in society and language automation. Ironically, the unofficial name of the new program began with an embedded linguistic joke, when sending email to UTA students in the Localization courses. Worldwide, the high-tech translation and language services industry is known as the “GILT” field. So, as a faculty member, Dr. Smith and his colleagues began addressing their communications to the class each semester with the salutation, “Dear GILTy students….” This greeting became one of many ways to bring community to students in this unique and growing program.
Students in the GILT track learn and prepare for future employment in the language services field. In addition to industry connections, speakers, and projects, faculty train students intensively for future industry participation through focused resumé writing for the field, and they intensively coach Localization learners in virtual and in-person interviewing skills.
The program also maintains a database of GILT students for future employment and entertains outreach from LSPs seeking student talent almost weekly. One of the greatest strengths of UTA’s program in Localization and Translation are not only the connections to industry, but also the inclusion of industry micro-credentials into our curriculum, preparing our graduates with the latest skills and ideas for the 21st Century language services industry.
Learners in UTA’s program in Localization and Translation study and learn about machine translation (MT) and other forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) using language data. Faculty frequently note to students in class: “AI is not only for students in Engineering and Science; students in the Liberal Arts are leading the way with MT and AI as well!” Assignments in machine translation and language model building put students in Modern Languages and the Liberal Arts squarely into the center of the “AI revolution,” as MT is itself a well-known early example of machine learning/artificial intelligence.
