The Politics of Chaucer's Boece
By focusing on the historicity and politics of translation, I discuss in this paper the political motive and functions of The Boece, Chaucer's translation from Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae. After examining the political implications of Boethius's work, I argue that the Latin source provides an insight into the nature of royal power, especially its perversion into tyranny. From the investigation of the history and politics in the early 1380s when the young Richard began to establish his sovereignty firmly, I suggest an educational motive of Chaucer's Boece for the king: the translation might have been aimed at giving the young king lessons about what constitutes a tyrant, thus warning him of the vices and dangers of aggregating excessive governing power. I also suggest that, during the period from the mid-1380s to 1399 when the king became more and more tyrannical, The Boece may have had potential resonance with the concerns of the king's opponents, his magnates, about the misuse of royal power. I conclude with the observation that, contrary to Chaucer's expectations of diverting the king from the dangerous road of excessive power, his Boece could have served as one of the tools of attack for the magnates to confront, and eventually depose, Richard Ⅱ.
Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381
Rodney Hilton's account of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 remains the classic authoritative text on the 'English Rising'. Hilton views the revolt in the context of a genral European pattern of class conflict. He demonstrates that the peasant movements that disturbed the Middle Ages were not mere unrelated outbreaks of violence but had their roots in common economic and political conditions and in a recurring conflict of interest between peasants and landowners. Now with a new introduction by Christopher Dyer, this survey is still a leading source for students of medieval English peasantry.
MT and the Swiss language service providers: an analysis and training perspective
Switzerland is perceived as a highly multilingual country, with four national languages and a solid translation tradition in official, administrative and corporate settings, now even extended to include English. A research case study was set up to investigate the understanding and use of translation and language technologies by Swiss language service providers. This paper highlights some findings, particularly focusing upon the issue of translation automation processes in multilingual documentation production, with a view not only to spot preconceptions or knowledge gaps about MT, but also to 
suggest some training principles. We will argue that training activities ought to present MT systems as 
key aiding components of translator workbenches and, their output, as a valid linguistic resource for further human refining, if necessary. Moreover, in line with the idea that MT can be part and parcel of multilingual content production cycles, we will look at the interaction of MT with controlled language, CAT tools and terminology work. In sum, we will make explicit the usefulness of MT against the 
widespread prejudice that investing in MT does not return any benefits given the ‘low and hilarious quality of its output’, as quoted by most of the interviewees of our case study.