The double-helix of creative writing and translation: postgraduate translation students and tutors reflect on creativity, AI assistance and translation

Translation education typically emphasises transferrable skills needed for a career in the Language Services Industry. Writing, in conjunction with skills linked to creativity, has recently gained traction. This article builds upon previous work introducing a creative writing module for trainee translators. The objective here is to suggest a threshold concept or key idea with the potential to change how students perceive translation: writing promotes creativity skills that are useful for translation. To explore this, the research employs focus-group interviews with postgraduate translation students, interviews with tutors and close reading of assignment feedback. Combining these perspectives offers insights into how creativity may be defined by learners and teaching staff, and how it may be taught effectively. These are timely questions, given the recent development of generative artificial intelligence tools, which necessitates the exploration of new competences.