Items filtered by date: June 2020

The Centre for Legal and Institutional Translation Studies (Transius) will hold its next international conference from 30 June to 2 July 2021 in collaboration with IAMLADP’s Universities Contact Group (UCG). The conference will provide a forum for dialogue between scholars and practitioners with a common interest in legal translation and institutional translation settings more generally. It illustrates the Centre’s commitment to fostering international cooperation and advocating translation quality in the field.

The 2021 conference will combine keynote lectures, parallel paper presentations, a poster session and thematic roundtables, so that all participants, from high-level experts to translation trainees, can benefit from the exchange of experiences. Contributions on the following themes are welcome: 

1. Problems, methods and competence in legal translation, including comparative legal analysis for translation
2. Terminological issues in legal and institutional translation
3. The use of corpora and computer tools for legal and institutional translation practice, training and research
4. Sociological and ethical issues in legal and institutional translation
5. Developments and implications of institutional policies of translation and multilingual drafting
6. Thematic specialisation in institutional translation (technical, scientific, financial, etc.)
7. Translation quality control, quality assurance and management practices in institutional settings
8. Court translation and interpreting
9. Legal and institutional translator training

Deadline for submissions: 30 October 2020

For more information, click here

Editors: Margherita Dore and Giacinto Palmieri

The volume aims to explore the self-translation of humour. Generally speaking, self-translation is described as a type of translation in which the translators happen to be the same people as the authors of the source text. It represents an atypical case which, as such, was somewhat neglected by Translation Studies scholars. More recently, however, self-translation has attracted a good deal of attention, as demonstrated by Gentes’s (2020) 212-page bibliography on this topic. Notwithstanding this, the self-translation of humour appears to be a remarkable blind spot. A text search for the word “humour” in the aforementioned bibliography returns only one match (Noonan 2013), searching for “humor” returns one more (Palmieri 2017a), while “comedy” returns three (Palmieri 2017a; Palmieri 2017b; Sebellin 2009; Palmieri 2018) and “comic” returns only one (Cohn 1961). Another aspect that makes the research gap on humour self-translation so remarkable is that the translation of humour in general has also been the object of much attention, not least because it offers a wide range of challenges, spanning from dealing with wordplay to the importance of culturespecific references (Chiaro 1992, 2005; Zabalbeascoa 1996; Attardo 2002; Dore 2019). Moreover, the success or failure in humour translation is often constrained by the translation mode used (cf. for instance Zabalbascoa 1994; Dore 2019; Dore, forthcoming). Interestingly, many authors who have written on self-translation (e.g. Fitch 1988; Eco 2013) have stressed that self-translators enjoy a level of freedom greater than that allowed to allographic translators. Similarly, the challenging nature of humour translation makes the case of self-translation the more interesting and intriguing, as it often requires exercising great freedom in adapting the humours content to the target audience (as discussed, with reference to stand-up comedy, in Palmieri 2018). Therefore, observing specific cases of humour self-translation is likely to unveil specific characteristics of this process in different context (cf. e.g. Palmieri 2018) and of humour translation in general. It is envisaged that the exploration of this fascinating phenomenon will further contribute to enhance the ongoing debate on the (un)translatability of humour (Delabastita 1996; 1997; Chiaro 2000; Dore 2019). Since the self-translation of humour can potentially cover several fields of enquire and application, as well as genres, an edited book can become a particularly promising tool. With these premises in mind, we would like to launch a Call for Papers to encourage scholars to give a contribution to mapping this problem space, by identifying instances of humour self-translation in their specific areas of competence, both in terms of language(s) and medium/ text type.

Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2020

For more information, click here

Volume Editors

Peter J. Freeth, University of Leeds, UK

Rafael O. Treviño, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA

Correspondence: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

In The Translator’s Invisibility (1995), Lawrence Venuti argued literary translations are deemed most acceptable by Anglophone readers and critics when they appear to be transparent, original texts with an invisible translator. Focusing on the ethical implications of this illusion of transparency, Venuti calls for translators to become more visible in their work by adopting “foreignizing methods” that minimize the “ethnocentric violence of translation” and resist the hegemonic linguistic and cultural position of English (1995:20). The limitations of Venuti’s selectively Anglophone and literary focus, as well as the challenges that stem from his distilling of complex theoretical concepts into binary oppositions, have been criticized by several scholars (Pym 1996, Delabastita 2010). Nonetheless, the concept of the translator’s invisibility and its ethical implications have seen widespread migration across the discipline, proving fruitful for research into translator and interpreter (in)visibility in textual, paratextual and extratextual spaces (Koskinen 2000). For instance, research on the visibility of translators in non-Anglophone contexts (Corbett 1999, Bilodeau 2013) and in other historical periods (Coldiron 2012, 2018) has expanded on Venuti’s original work and demonstrated the relevance of translator (in)visibility across a variety of cultural and historical contexts. 

However, as we turn to sociologically informed and multimodal research contexts, and the scope of translation and interpreting studies as a discipline continues to broaden, the theoretical concept of translator (in)visibility has been increasingly applied in contexts far removed from Venuti’s original focus on literary translation. For example, Littau (1997) and Hassen (2012) highlight the relevance of the translator’s (in)visibility in digital contexts, while others have applied visibility to other translational practices, such as Bielsa and Bassnett (2008) focus on political and news translation and the visibility of translators within such organizations, and Baker’s (2010) and Ellcessor’s (2015) interpreting-based perspectives. As such, the issue of visibility has stretched beyond specific literary texts and individual translators, to the overall visibility of translation and interpreting within a variety of contexts, thereby creating new challenges for researching the notion of visibility within these spaces and requiring alternative approaches.  

This volume therefore seeks to critically reflect upon current theoretical understandings of visibility across translation and interpreting studies, as well as to highlight potential new directions and approaches for visibility focused research. Doing so will provide new insights into how we can continue to investigate the visibility of translation and interpreting outside the realms of Venuti’s original theoretical approach, such as in digital, multimodal or sociological research contexts. To achieve this, the volume understands translation and interpreting studies in the broadest sense by incorporating intralingual and intersemiotic translational practices, such as subtitling, sign-language interpreting, rewriting and adaptation, alongside a traditional understanding of translation and the translator’s (in)visibility. 

The editors welcome contributions of 6,000–8,000 words focusing on, but not limited to, the following issues:

• the adoption and spread of translator (in)visibility as a theoretical concept from literary translation studies to other subfields within translation and interpreting studies; 
• critical reflections on current theoretical understandings of (in)visibility within translation and interpreting studies; 
• the (in)visibility of translators and translation outside of Anglophone contexts and the impact of this on existing theoretical approaches; 
• the (in)visibility of translators and translation outside of literary contexts, for example audio-visual translation, spoken and sign-language interpreting, adaptation, and rewriting; 
• the impact of digital media and texts on the (in)visibility of translators and translation; and 
• the (in)visibility of translators and translation in relation to other textual producers and practices, such as authors and editors.

Deadline for submissions: 15 September

For more information, click here

“Translations do not take place in a vacuum” (Blakesley 2018). They cannot be seen as isolated textual entities, detached from the field in which they are produced and that provides for their signification (Sapiro 2008). It is indeed important to investigate translated literature as “part and parcel of the target literature’s literary corpus” (Sisto 2019), by conceiving translations as the actual selections (position-takings) by literary producers and mediators among all the possibilities (positions) in a target literary field (Bourdieu 1996). Although the notion of translated literature dates back to Even-Zohar’s seminal work, this approach has only recently been adopted by scholars working on the Italian literary field (Billiani 2007; La Penna 2008; Milani 2017; Baldini et al. 2018) and the translation of Italian literature within specific target fields (Bokobza 2008; Schwartz 2018).

The aim of the conference is to foster critical discussion on translated literature as part of the target literature, by focusing on literary institutions (publishing houses, book series, journals) and agents (translators, literary agents, editors), and the composite sociocultural factors driving the selection, production, and publication of literary translations. “Calling into question the politics of canonisation and moving resolutely away from ideas of universal literary greatness”(Bassnett and Trivedi 1999), we are particularly interested in social categories of writers who have been dismissed by literary critics who insisted on “the autonomy of the aesthetic” (Bloom 1994); in other words, writers who challenge the ‘Western canon’.

The conference aims to explore the mechanisms of reception, dissemination, recognition and popularisation in the Italian literary system of foreign literature. This could include literature by women authors in translation, by feminist translators, authors from non-hegemonic/non-central languages, non-white, minoritarian and marginalised authors/groups and collectives. We are also interested in similar mechanisms by which Italian literature is translated and received beyond Italy.

Keynote speakers at the conference will be Prof Susan Bassnett (Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow; President of the British Comparative Literature Association), Dr Jacob Blakesley (Associate Professor in Comparative Literature and Literary Translation at the University of Leeds) and Dr Cecilia Schwartz (Associate Professor in Italian at Stockholm University).

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• translation and reception of literature(s) in translation in Italy and of Italian literature abroad
• reception of literature by women in translation and feminist translation
• translation and reception of post-colonial literature and of authors from non-hegemonic/non-central languages, non-white, minoritarian and marginalised authors/groups and collectives in Italy/from Italy
• translation, reception and circulation of non-hegemonic literatures in Italy and Italian literature in non-hegemonic contexts
• microsociology and microhistory of cultural mediation
• socio-cultural constraints influencing modes of practice
• networks of intellectuals
• publishing houses
• book series and literary journals
• translators, editors, mediators and literary agents
• censorship and control

Deadline for submissions: 1 September 2020

For more information, click here

The envisaged book will describe, reflect on and evaluate the role of translation and interpreting (henceforth “T&I”) in crisis settings, including but not limited to pandemics, health emergencies, severe weather events, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, mass accidents etc. Empirical and theoretical contributions will be considered. We particularly want to encourage reflections on practice, implementation and recommendations for future action that would allow for more effective multilingual communication in the case of future crises across all stages - mitigation, preparation, response and recovery.

In addition to standard contributions from the academic community, shorter chapters from those operating in key international crisis response organisations will also be considered. Chapters written jointly by academic and response representatives are also encouraged.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 13 July 2020

For more information, click here

Deadline for applications: 4 August 2020

For more information, click here

Deadline for applications: 4 August

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The Institute of Translation Studies is looking for a

Project assistant without doctorate

(30 hours a week; expected employment until Sept. 30, 2022; position to be filled as of August 1^st 2020 )

Your duties

• The holder of the post will be expected to: Pursue a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in the area: „Representation, relevance and contextual frame of translation in multilingual societies“
• Participate in conferences and contribute papers to journals and other channels of knowledge transfer
• Contribute to the development of and participate in a structured doctoral programme
• Conduct research in the Department's fields of specialisation "Translation, Migration and Minorities" and "Translation from a cultural and sociological perspective"
• Act as mentor for Master students providing support during MA thesis preparation

Deadline for applications: 17 June 2020

For more information, click here