AOTEAROA - Land of the Long White Cloud

This thesis includes a virtual translation seminar involving general texts from German into English, all of them dealing with New Zealand, "The Land of the Long White Cloud". The first section of the thesis focuses on the large spectrum of electronic translation tools available. These represent an indispensable part of the modern translator's working life. The following section examines the extent to which e-learning can be an appropriate adjunct to the traditional curriculum. Recent projects at the University of Heidelberg are introduced. The second part of the thesis contains the virtual translation seminar. It consists of five complete instructional modules, each comprising assignments, a source text, parallel texts, abstract-writing, a collocation list, glossaries, linguistic text analyses, an alphabetic word list and a model translation. To broaden the students' knowledge of the cultural subject domain, two of the class units include a research item from a particular cultural sphere. Moreover, a media page is attached to each lesson, giving the students the opportunity to acquire more detailed knowledge of the corresponding subject matter. The main goals of this virtual seminar are to acquaint students with the essential workflow components of modern translation and to improve their technology skills. At the same time, students are introduced to the culture of "Kiwi Land", a fascinating country in the south-western Pacific Ocean that has much more to offer than just sheep.