Acquiring a truly holistic approach to translation: the use of LVS 2.5.2 freeware to enhance students' translational competence

According to a preliminary study conducted on students’ B.A. theses on AVT (audiovisual translation) of the degree course Linguistic and Cultural Mediation Studies at the Università di Padova (Italy), most students find it difficult to develop a holistic and dynamic approach to translation. The present paper aims at an initial investigation and testing of the concrete applications of LvS 2.5.2 (Learning via Subtitling) subtitling simulator to enhance student competence in translation from English to Italian. For this purpose a pilot study was conducted on a group of third-year volunteers, who were previously instructed on the basics of AVT, in order to test its user-friendliness and learning potential. The software presented here was developed within the framework of the European Socrates programme LINGUA 2 (Levis project) between 2006 and 2008 (http://levis.cti.gr/index.php?option=com_frontpage). It was specifically designed for engaging learners in active language learning tasks, mainly by creating and editing synchronised subtitles. Moreover, the programme raises no copyright issues, is available for free and requires very little ICT literacy, thus being accessible to most teachers and students.