The first Low Countries conference ‘Translation and National Images’ was held in 2011, in cooperation with the University of Amsterdam. This second conference will be organized jointly by the University of Leuven (campus Antwerp) and Utrecht University.

Following the Translation and Interpreting Studies special issue (2011, 6:2) dedicated to ‘Eurocentrism in Translation Studies’ and the symposium ‘A North-South Encounter or Divide: Different Forms of Translation Scholarship in Europe?’ (Antwerp, 2012), it seems appropriate to expand on the themes discussed both in the special issue and at the symposium and look at them from a broader, if not to say global, perspective. In this respect, there have been many calls in the literature for an internationalisation of or for multilingualism in Translation Studies (TS).

The two topics that are central to the conference are:

• The various local and international traditions in TS and the extent to which the distribution and the transfer of TS knowledge is influenced by linguistic transfer and power relationships
• The source and target languages involved in the translation of TS knowledge, and the methodological traditions involved, etc.

We feel that it is time to re-examine the situation in order to see how the calls for internationalisation have been responded to in real terms and, given the paradoxical status of English as the lingua franca of TS, also to see in what ways TS is effectively developing within and across languages and cultures. In this respect, the concept of transfer in the conference title is understood in a broad multidirectional sense: it focuses on the transfer of TS knowledge as well as on the origins and views of TS scholars coming from often very different backgrounds and using different approaches. It goes without saying that this multidirectional transfer of ideas and works takes place largely, though not exclusively, through translation itself. Transferring TS, including its ideas, views and research methodologies, must necessarily be seen against the backdrop of translation and its various concerns or must at least run parallel to translation and its concerns in some way.

 

Next to exploring the two central questions, this conference will try to provide some form of tentative answer and hence invites contributions and case studies for the parallel sessions on any of the following topics:

• Shapes or forms that internationalisation and multilingualism are currently taking within TS
• The use of sources (and languages) determining the nature, the scope and the focus of the TS research
• The birth, growth and distribution of various traditions in translation and translation scholarship
• Likewise, the impact the TS research traditions have on the degree of distribution of sources used and the language(s) of publication involved
• How are various concepts used in different cultural contexts and scholarly traditions? (for instance different understandings of the term adequate  in Toury’s and Vermeer’s work)
• Trajectories of scholarly texts and concepts: do concepts take on new or different meanings when transferred across traditions and contexts?
• What can be considered as the seminal texts informing the various traditions and how are these texts being built on and refined or in fact re-evaluated or even rejected?
• To which extent are older concepts of ‘translation’ like the ones outlined in work by Cheung, Gentzler and others being harnessed for use in contemporary studies? What are the methodological and analytical consequences of and leverage to be gained from harnessing these concepts?

 

The conference organizers,

Luc van Doorslaer & Peter Flynn (CETRA, University of Leuven, campus Antwerp)

Ton Naaijkens & Cees Koster (Utrecht University)