Department of English and American Studies

The Department of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Humanities (FH) of Matej Bel University (MBU) was founded in 1992. We offer programmes in cooperation with foreign instructors thanks to several educational programmes (e.g. British Council, Fulbright). The department has taken part in successful student and teacher exchanges with Penn State University, Pennsylvania, USA, and we look forward to further cooperation with Eastern Michigan University, USA.

Various events, discussions and workshops as well as academic and translation competitions for students are also a part of the department's activities. Our literary talks and translation soirées featuring literary translators as guests have become very popular.

One of our most notable achievements of the 2011/2012 academic year was the opening of a state-of-the-art interpreting classroom, equipped in accordance with European standards. Established under the operational programme Výskum a vývoj (Research and Development), the classroom is part of what makes us one of the most cutting-edge interpreting departments in Slovakia. Moreover, as part of a VEGA project, the Department of English and American Studies has bought the computer program SDL Trados Studio, making our faculty the first educational institution in Slovakia teaching students to work with SDL Trados – currently the most widely used CAT (computer-assisted translation) tool.

In the 2012/2013 academic year, the Faculty of Humanities of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica founded the FH MBU Translation and Interpreting Agency at the Department of English and American Studies. Offering translation and interpreting services in eight languages, the intermediary company was founded to meet market demands, bring the translation and interpreting curriculum closer to practice, and improve graduates' employment prospects immediately after finishing the university. Work experience with the Agency provides them with a competitive advantage over their peers from other similar educational institutions.

The Department of English and American Studies has its own library with a multimedia reading room, which offers students not only specialized books and periodicals from the fields of linguistics, literary science, literary history and didactics of English as a foreign language, but also numerous other books in English and many quality monolingual, bilingual and terminological dictionaries.

Research

Research activities of the department focus on linguistics, literary science, didactics and translation studies. Members of the department present the results of their research activities in various publications, while actively participating in domestic and foreign conferences and research projects, as well as publishing specialized anthologies. They are also members of editorial boards and academic councils of scholarly journals in Slovakia and abroad.

Study

The department offers two study programmes:

1. English Language and Literature (branch of study: Teaching of Academic Subjects)
2. English Language and Culture (branch of study: Translation and Interpreting)

Thanks to the bilateral treaties within the ERASMUS programme, our students study abroad at European universities every year. The department reciprocally hosts one-term stays for students and teachers from foreign universities.

The graduates of the Teaching branch of study acquire practical language skills, theoretical knowledge of English language, the literature, history and culture of English-speaking countries and didactics of teaching English as a foreign language.

The graduates of the Translation and Interpreting branch of study acquire knowledge of English linguistics, translation theory, history and development as well as the cultures of English-speaking countries. This enables them to effectively communicate in English and Slovak, in both written and oral forms. They master all the techniques, skills and strategies of literary and technical translation as well as consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, preparing them for any interpreting session. They gain a general knowledge of legal and economic disciplines to such extent that they can translate and interpret specialized texts and meet the demands placed on them by both modes of communication.