Professor Emma Tyler

I was born and brought up in Peterborough in Cambridgeshire. I came to the University of Birmingham to study French at the end of the 1980s, graduating with a first class degree in 1991. I stayed on to do a PhD and began teaching almost straight away, becoming a full-time member of staff in 1996.

Translating (from French into English) is one of my passions. I hold the Institute of Linguists' Diploma in Translation (2001) and I am an Associate Member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. I have occasionally worked as a business interpreter at trade fairs, on behalf of the French Trade Commission, and as a translator in a variety of domains, from alarm systems to bathymetrics. In June 2010, I won the New Talent in Translation prize, organised by the French Book Office (Ambassade de France).

In August 2015, I was awarded a Senior Fellowship at the Higher Education Academy.

In 2021-22, I am not teaching, while I focus on an institutional project. Usually, my teaching is concentrated at postgraduate level on the MA in Translation Studies.

I am currently supervising the following postgraduates:

• Abrar Abdulrhman Abulnassr, Tracking problem solving strategies and time as indicators of translation competence acquisition across different proficiency levels.
• Ali Alqahtani, Assessing the relevance of Saudi undergraduates’ translation competence to the requirements of the Saudi translation market.
• Mohammed Aldosari, Understanding Linguistics features as emotional and sense of self stimulators in Tourism Promotion : A Corpus-Based Investigation of Translated Tourism Texts
• Ahmed Alharbi, A Comprehensive Approach to the Translation of Figures of Comparison in Contemporary Self –Help Genre
• Yaru Chen, English Translation of Traditional Chinese Medical Classic Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: A Corpus-based Pragmatic Study
• Sara Corpino, The translation of dialects: Atzeni’s language in English and French
• Lucia Antonia Dino-Guida, A synchronic screenshot of ‘in-tune’ cultures – investigating song translation in Italian dubbed Animated Musical Comedies

Students who have been awarded their PhD:

• Mohammed Saleh (awarded 2018): The Assessment of the Role of Interpreters in Influencing Narratives of the Libyan Conflict
• Mary Bardet (awarded 2020): Adapting, abridging and rewriting: The French translations of E. Nesbit’s work (1906- 2017)
• Xiaolong Tang (awarded 2020): Using Technology to Facilitate Students Learning Chinese Characters

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Find out more - our PhD French Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

With Andrew Watts, I have recently co-edited a new book to commemorate the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo. Fortunes of War: The West Midlands at the Time of Waterloo explores some of the little-known connections between our region and Waterloo, and was published by History West Midlands in the summer of 2015. The collection contains an article I wrote on Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, who was exiled to England in the period 1810-1814, and spent four years living in Worcestershire. The article is based in part on genealogical research that I carried out for the owner of the residence, while I was taking time away from my University career to look after my three children.

In September 2014, I delivered the keynote speech on The role of translation in MFL teaching and learning at the 2nd Language Learning and Teaching Workshop, a joint Newcastle-Durham venture at Durham University.