Language boundaries are not transparent; from translation to migration studies, we know that they cannot
be crossed without sacrifice and a complex negotiation of gains. Yet we routinely compare stylistic features
in different languages in fields such as comparative literature, translation, literary multilingualism and
translingualism, world and postcolonial literature, or the study of international literary movements.
Whenever a work is translated, or a writer is a user of multiple languages, or one writer is influenced by
reading another’s work in a foreign language (and sometimes, perhaps, in translation), and in several other
settings, questions of stylistic transfer become both relevant and essential.

Outside of translation studies, there has been little attempt to account for the nature, effects and limitations
of such stylistic osmosis. When do stylistic features developed in one language cross into another? What
happens when they do? To what extent do they remain the same in another linguistic context? What are the
limitations to recreating stylistic characteristics of a text in another language? How can this phenomenon be
studied systematically beyond translation studies and what existing theoretical approaches can help clarify
the processes involved? How will accounting for them affect the discipline?

This conference offers a venue to discuss cross-lingual stylistic transfer as an approach to understanding
crucial aspects of today’s globalised literary market. It will address the question of stylistic border crossings
in four sections: (1) translation, (2) influence, (3) multilingualism and (4) theoretical approaches.
We now invite papers on this theme. Papers may address (but are not limited to) such questions as:

• Case studies of attempts to recreate style across languages, or other situations of transfer of stylistic
characteristics from one language to another
• What is style and to what extent is it bound to a language?
• Do approaches to stylistic transfer developed in translation studies apply in other literary contexts,
and how?
• The (ir)relevance of cross-lingual stylistics, and of style as a concept, in today’s literary studies
• Possible transfer mechanisms and settings
• Linguistic and stylometrical approaches
• Transfer of style in and via translation
• Stylistic stereotypes as an influence on other cultures
• Bilateral transfer situations

Deadline for submissions: 31 Jan

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