More than nine decades have passed since the first professional translation and interpreting (T&I) programme was set up in Moscow in 1930 (Sawyer & Roy, 2015). Before that, earlier forms of translator training had long existed. However, trainers at that time had “no classroom and essentially no students they could address: their pronouncements [were] musings based on their own work” (Dollerup, 1996, p. 19). As the institutionalisation process started in the university setting in the Soviet Union, Germany, Switzerland, France, the United States and, later on, other places across the world, including in China, T&I training has since been witnessing paradigm shifts. As will be discussed in the following chapters, T&I training is more suit able to be categorised as an act in higher education. Most, if not all, T&I teaching faculties are inclined to subscribe to the “two prominent goals of schooling: raising academic achievement and deepening the social/ moral fabric” (Ellis, 2014, p. xiv). T&I scholars have also been using frameworks and tools in educational science in their research. Most occur at an instruc tional level. Yet, more recently, enriching discussions have also taken place at a more macro- level in the attempt to answer some of the fundamental questions in education. The primary problem that T&I education faces is not what to add to the curriculum, but rather what to prioritise and what to reduce. Answering these questions requires curriculum- level thinking, which is urgently needed. A mechanism to reconcile the educational and profes sional nature of T&I training can better prepare graduates as members of society and the profession. The following is a historical account of professional T&I training, with par ticular relevance to interpreter training. It shows that the first launch of profes sional T&I programmes was prompted by urgent but stable exterior demand after the Second World War. With the diversification of the demand, T&I edu cation has since become increasingly complex. Many programmes nowadays consult with a number of stakeholders whose participation is necessitated by the nature of the profession and institutionalised education. The Beginning of Interpreter Training Scholars with a historical perspective have presented important proof of earlier training efforts (see Pym, 2011; Baigorri- Jalón, 2015). What these teaching activities share in common with modern forms of T&I education is that they are demand- oriented. Earlier forms of training were mainly linked with empire expansion and the diplomatic, cultural and technical exchange and commu nication that emerged out of it. One can also see a long history of inter preter training institutionalised as part of government operations, predating institutionalised training in the university setting. The top- down government arrangement was mainly intended to ensure quality, allegiance and loyalty (Pym, 2011). However, institutionalisation did not automatically guarantee quality or loyalty. As Baigorri- Jalón notes on the training of French- Ottoman interpreters by the French government: The strategic value of having their own interpreters was based on France’s distrust of local eastern Mediterranean interpreters. Both initiatives (at Paris and Pera) failed, mostly due to “pedagogical improvisation” (Balliu, 2005, p. 56). The training methods proved unsuitable for France’s intended purpose of securing a corps of faithful civil servants: not all candidates succeeded and some of those who did ended up working for the “enemy”.
