Peter Humphrey’s Visit to Astrakhan State University
On November 16, 2015 Peter Humphrey, a business television consultant from the UK, arrived at Astrakhan State University. During his visit, he deliveredlectures on sports journalism for the 1st, 2nd and 3rdyear students from the Department of Philology and Journalism. Mr. Humphrey shared interesting and important from a professional point of view informationwith students. At the first lecture, he paid attention to sports journalism and explained why in his home country it is more profitable to work in this field. The students asked questions actively and Mr. Humphrey tried to answer them in the mostdetailed and intelligible way. Some teachers from the Department of Journalismwho were interested in the lectures no less than students alsoattended the lecture. Consecutive interpretation for the students and Mr. Humphrey was provided by the MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation Ekaterina Natkhina and Svetlana Zaytseva. It washardbutrewarding work.
Although he spoke grammatically correct andclearEnglish and it was not difficult to understand his speech, there were some difficulties concerning the language and ways to interpret specific technical terminology. However,the guest devoted time to talk to interpreters before the lecture and explained to them terminology that he was going to use, sothe interpreters were ready and coped properly with their task. On November 25, Mr. Humphrey held next lecturewhere hepaid attention not to sports but to news journalism. This lecture was as interesting and fruitfulas the previous one and theMA studentsdid their best to provide top-level communication.
On November 19, Mr. Humphrey took part in the mockconference, organized by the MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation. The MA students chose roles of interpreters, journalists and even representatives of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games in Russia. For example, the second year MA studentAlexandra Kherina acted as a representative of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and spoke about the political impact on the development of the Russian TV. Peter Humphrey made a short speech on ageneral situation in the US journalism, answered the students’ questions and asked questionsas well. Simultaneous interpretation was provided by the first year MA students. It was a kind of interpreting debut for them, so students were a bit nervous because they understood the importance of correct delivery of information to the invited guest. After the conference, Peter Humphrey mentioned good preparation of speakers and interpreters but stressed that students needed to work more on choice of words and expressionsin English, although the expert admitsit is not easy because it’s difficult to render some Russian expressions in a foreign language. At the end of the class, the guest thanked everyone for invitation and opportunity to participate in the lesson of such an unusual format which was new for him.
