The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick encourages outstanding postdoctoral scholars to apply to The Leverhulme Trust’s Early Career Fellowships scheme, for Fellowships starting in the 2021/22 academic year.
The three-year Fellowship contributes 100% of the Fellow’s salary in the first year, and thereafter 50% of the salary, with the balance being paid by the University. Appointments at the University of Warwick are dependent on the award of the Fellowship.

About Warwick SMLC

Members of Warwick’s SMLC (covering French Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, Italian Studies, as well as Translation and Transcultural Studies) have recognized research strengths across a wide chronological period, including the late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment. The School strongly promotes innovative research in several interdisciplinary fields such as film history and aesthetics, postcolonial and transnational studies, translation studies, war, trauma and memory studies, and representations of disability, gender, sexuality, and cultural identity. It raises issues of linguistic, cultural, regional, national, and ethnic diversity in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and North, Central and South America, explores the significance and impact of many different types of aesthetic expression and conceptualization, philosophical, political and cultural thinking, and pays particular attention to the reception and reshaping of philosophical, intellectual, or literary traditions, cultural hybridity and transnationalization, encounters and translations between cultures, literal and intellectual mobility, and reconceptualizations of art. In particular, staff working in Translation and Transcultural Studies have expertise in a wide range of research areas, including cultural translation and transculturalism, memory and transcultural studies, literary translation, sociolinguistics, self-translation in multilingual contexts, gender and feminist translation studies, sociology of translation, and history of publishing. For staff profiles and an outline of specific research interests, see our staff research interests page. 

The host institution provides an environment supporting the career development of a research fellow seeking a permanent academic position in the UK. Warwick’s SMLC is in an ideal position to do so, as it has strong expertise and experience in hosting and nurturing research fellows. The SMLC currently hosts around 10 postdoctoral research fellows, funded by bodies such as the Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, ERC, MHRA and Marie Curie schemes. It also includes a community of around 27 doctoral students. 

How to Apply

SMLC will carry out an internal selection stage to identify the candidates that it wishes to put forward. We strongly advise potential candidates to make initial contact with the relevant contact in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. Suitably qualified candidates should therefore send their initial expressions of interest to the relevant sectional Director of Research as soon as possible:

• French Studies: Prof. Jeremy Ahearne (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• German Studies: Prof. Elisabeth Herrmann (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Hispanic Studies: Dr Tom Whittaker (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Italian Studies: Prof. David Lines (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Translation and Transcultural Studies: Dr Mila Milani (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) 

For the internal selection round run by the Faculty of Arts, prospective applicants will need to submit a finalised Expression of Interest containing the following information to Jeremy Ahearne (see email above) by 12 noon on Thursday 10 December 2020:  

• A short description of their project (maximum 2 A4 pages)
• A copy of their CV (maximum 2 A4 pages)
• The name of an academic in their proposed host Department whose research is relevant to their project and who would be willing to endorse their application. Although the Leverhulme Trust do not insist upon a formal mentoring arrangement, this is a requirement for the University of Warwick. Candidates should contact this member of staff at the earliest opportunity, and in advance of submitting the Expression of Interest.
• The names of three referees. Please note that referees will not be asked to provide a statement at this stage.

Eligibility

Candidates should consult the guidance on the Leverhulme Trust’s website prior to submitting an Expression of Interest.In particular, they should note that applicants must:

• hold a doctoral degree or equivalent research experience by the time they take up the Fellowship. If currently registered for a doctorate, they must have submitted their thesis by 4pm on 25 February 2021;
• have not yet have held a permanent academic appointment whose duties include research;
• not have existing funding in place for a duration equivalent to or greater than the duration of the Early Career Fellowship;
• be within four years of the award of their doctorate. Those who submitted their thesis for viva voce examination before 25 February 2017 are not eligible to apply, unless they have since had a career break;
• either hold a degree from a UK higher education institution at the time of taking up the Fellowship or at the time of the application deadline hold a non-permanent academic position in the UK (e.g. fixed-term lectureship, fellowship) which commenced no less than 4 months prior to 25 February 2021.

The University will support successful candidates in the development of full applications, the deadline for which is 25 February 2021.  

Please note that in our experience, early contact with the School is key to developing a competitive application.

For more information, click here

33rd Conference of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies in collaboration with ESIT, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 (France)

Keynote speaker: Maria Tymoczko, University of Massachusetts Amherst

In political science, subversion is generally negatively connotated, because it implies a form of destruction. From the Latin subversion, or to “overturn, overthrow” (Mahoney, 2002–2019) and ruin, subversion is the “process of trying to destroy the authority of a political, religious, etc. system by attacking it secretly or indirectly” (Oxford, 2019) and “[t]he undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution” (Oxford, n.d.), by encouraging citizens to question the existing order in the aim of overthrowing it. The Termium record for the term classifies it under the fields of “psychological warfare” and “political theories and doctrines,” and its definition provided by NATO is similar to the one we just saw: “Action or a coordinated set of actions of any nature intended to weaken the military, economic or political strength of an established authority by undermining the morale, loyalty or reliability of its members.” (Termium, 2015) in the ultimate aim of destroying it. These definitions include the words “destroy,” “attacking,” “undermining” and “weaken,” which all suggest some degree of violence. To sum up, subversion generally aims to undermine and destabilize the established, more often than not political or religious, order by insidiously demoralizing citizens, who will then overturn or destroy it.

However, subversion can also play a positive role through the healthy questioning of the values of a socio-political or religious system. For example, subversively translated poems were produced by early 19th century Decembrists, who wished to renew the Tsarist system in place. Certain poems illustrated the injustices of the system, while others promoted a liberal constitution (Baer 2010). The Russian translators of these poems were not neutral; they were actively engaged in a fight that called upon their resourceful creativity. Their subversive translations opened up alternative avenues to the dominant system and instigated a revolution in the way people thought. This more positive understanding of the term as a catalyst for positive change is that one that tends to have currency in translation studies research that focuses on the relation between translation and power.

The issue of subversion has been broached in studies that examine relations between translation and power (see, for example, Tymoczko et Gentzler, 2002), and in those that examine the links between translation and resistance (see, for example, Tymoczko, 2010). Moreover, in 2013, the University of Porto organized a conference on the theme of version and subversion in literature (“Version, Subversion: translation, the canon and its discontents”), and, in 1991, literary translator Suzanne Jill Levine published The Subversive Scribe, in which she explores her collaboration with revolutionary Latin American writers who confront the sexual 2 and cultural taboos of their respective cultures, by treating translation as a creative act that is a form of “(sub) version” (Levine, 1984, p. 84). Nevertheless, the theme has not yet been the object of focussed, yet broad, and in-depth discussion. In fact, translation studies research that touches on subversion is not limited to politics and literature, but rather includes more generally any discipline that involves culture (Alvarez et Vidal, 1996) and that requires creativity. Research findings tend to share the view that one cannot understand translation without taking into account the subjectivity of translators and their translations, and that translations can be manipulated with a subversive aim in view (see, for example, Lefevere, 1992).

In contradiction with the myth of the neutral, submissive and docile translator, translating subjects, like all humans, are imprinted with a subjectivity that is inscribed in their history and culture (Fournier-Guillemette, 2011). Researchers have studied subversive translation in the former Soviet Union or in Fascist Italy (Delisle, 2003), in Victorian Great Britain (Merkle, 2010; O’Sullivan, 2010), in Latin America (Bastin, Echeverri and Campo, 2010) and in the French classical era (Ballard and D’hulst, 1996), to name but a few examples. The interest of TS in subversion has thus been manifest at least since the beginning of the 1990s and has taken numerous forms. The time is now ripe to undertake a comprehensive reflection on the place of subversion in translation and interpreting, and the relationship that translators and interpreters have with the subversive practices of their profession.

Below we suggest several lines of enquiry to guide critical discussion; however, the list is not intended to be exhaustive.

Translation studies (TS) approach centered on:

 the product (translation, interpreted discourse; case studies of negative and positive subversion);

 the process of subversion (including manipulation); subversive measures;

 the agent (translating subject, including interpreters, multilingual writers-translators);

 norms (translator/interpreter positioning in relation to norms, whether they be linguistic or institutional; relationship between subversion and transgression).

Interdisciplinary TS approaches, considered from the perspective of:

 politics and policy;

 social psychology;

 ideology;

 creativity (e.g. literary, semiotic)

Critical approaches, looking at in particular:

 the relationship between activism and subversion;

 the relationship between resistance and subversion;

 definitions and limits of the concept subversion and its derivative forms (subversif/ve);

 translator and interpreter neutrality.

Deadline for proposals: 15 January 2021

For more information, click here

The School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol seeks to appoint a Lecturer (Grade J, Level B) in Chinese translation and interpreting. The role is in the first instance for a fixed term of 8 months from February to September 2021. This is a 0.15 Full Time Equivalent position on Pathway 3 (primary responsibility for teaching, rather than research).

What will you be doing?

The successful candidate will supervise dissertations and contribute to two taught units on the MA in Chinese-English Translation, ‘Introduction to Specialised Translation’ and ‘Liaison Interpreting for Business’. The successful candidate’s contribution will focus on translation and interpreting from English into Chinese, including marking and marking moderation. The teaching and supervision will include both online and campus-based activities in a blended learning environment.

You should apply if

We welcome applications from candidates with a range of experience in translation and translation teaching.  You should have a degree in translation, languages, or other relevant discipline; experience with UK higher education; professional translation experience; and native or near-native language abilities in Mandarin Chinese and English. Candidates should have the right to work in the UK.

The role descriptor for Lecturer (Grade J, Level B, Pathway 3) can be found here.

The appointment start date is 1 February 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Deadline for applications: 14 December 2020

For more information, click here

The Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough invites applications for a full-time tenure stream position in the area of English and Chinese Translation (machine or human). The appointment will be at the rank of Assistant Professor, with an expected start date of July 1, 2021, or shortly thereafter.

Applicants must have earned a PhD degree in English and Chinese Translation or a related area by the time of appointment, or shortly thereafter, with a demonstrated record of excellence in research and teaching. We seek candidates whose research and teaching interests complement and enhance our existing departmental strengths.

The successful candidate will be expected to pursue innovative and independent research at the highest international level and to establish an outstanding, competitive, and externally funded research program. They also will become a member of the Tri-campus graduate department best suited to their area of scholarly focus, and will teach and supervise graduate students in that department.

Candidates must provide evidence of research excellence as demonstrated by a record of publications in top-ranked and field relevant journals or forthcoming publications meeting high international standards, the submitted research statement, presentations at significant conferences, awards and accolades, and strong endorsements from referees of high standing.

Evidence of excellence in teaching will be provided through teaching accomplishments, the teaching dossier including a teaching statement, sample course materials, and teaching evaluations submitted as part of the application, as well as strong letters of reference. Candidates must also show evidence of a commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and the promotion of a respectful and collegial learning and working environment demonstrated through the application materials.

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

All qualified candidates are invited to apply online by clicking the link below. Applicants must submit a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, a research statement outlining current and future research interests, a recent writing sample, and a teaching dossier to include a teaching statement, sample course materials, and teaching evaluations.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. We seek candidates who value diversity and whose research, teaching and service bear out our commitment to equity. Candidates are therefore asked to submit a 1-2 page statement of contributions to equity and diversity, which might cover topics such as (but not limited to): research or teaching that incorporates a focus on underrepresented communities, the development of inclusive pedagogies, or the mentoring of students from underrepresented groups.

Applicants must also provide the name and contact information of three references. The University of Toronto’s recruiting tool will automatically solicit and collect letters of references from each once an application is submitted. Applicants however remain responsible for ensuring that references submit letters (on letterhead, dated and signed) by the closing date.

Submission guidelines can be found at http://uoft.me/how-to-apply. We recommend combining attached documents into one or two files in PDF/MS Word format. If you have any questions about this position, please contact Professor Juvénal Ndayiragije at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

All application materials, including reference letters, must be received by December 21, 2020.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Diversity Statement
The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

As part of your application, you will be asked to complete a brief Diversity Survey. This survey is voluntary. Any information directly related to you is confidential and cannot be accessed by search committees or human resources staff. Results will be aggregated for institutional planning purposes. For more information, please see http://uoft.me/UP.

Accessibility Statement
The University strives to be an equitable and inclusive community, and proactively seeks to increase diversity among its community members. Our values regarding equity and diversity are linked with our unwavering commitment to excellence in the pursuit of our academic mission.

The University is committed to the principles of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). As such, we strive to make our recruitment, assessment and selection processes as accessible as possible and provide accommodations as required for applicants with disabilities.

If you require any accommodations at any point during the application and hiring process, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Deadline for applications: 21 December 2020

For more information, click here

Edited by Cornelia Zwischenberger (University of Vienna, Austria) and Alexa Alfer (University of Westminster, UK), contracted with Frank & Timme, Berlin

Translaboration, as an essentially ‘blended concept” (Fauconnier & Turner 2002), responds to the confluence of ‘translation’ and ‘collaboration’ that is increasingly widespread not only in Translation Studies but also in a range of neighbouring disciplines. Translaboration’s central aim is to bring ‘translation’ and ‘collaboration’, as well as the often highly heterogeneous practices associated with these two notions, into dialogue with one another. This edited volume builds on exchanges first aired at our successful ‘Living Translation as Translaboration’ panel at the 2019 EST-conference at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and will focus on the ‘translation as collaboration’ vector of the translaboration concept (cf. Alfer & Zwischenberger 2020; Zwischenberger 2020).

Deadline for proposals: 15th of December 2020

For more information, click here

2^nd Call for Papers

(Deadline for abstract submission extended to 15 December 2020)

The Second HKBU International Conference on Interpreting will now be held in mixed modes on 8-9 April 2021. It will take place on the campus of Hong Kong Baptist University and online via Zoom Webinar.

Following on the great success of the conference on “History of Interpreting” in 2017, we will dedicate this second conference to the theme of “Cognitive Approaches” in interpreting.

This broad theme will allow us to take stock of the multifaceted research conducted from this perspective, present the state of the art, and pave the way for future research adopting cognitive approaches.

We also recognize the increasing convergence of research on both spoken language interpreting and signed language interpreting and will attempt to connect the two fields under the common theme of this conference. As keynote speakers for this year’s conference, we will have two of the most highly regarded scholars who study spoken language interpreting and signed language interpreting taking cognitive approaches.

We welcome oral presentations and posters on both basic and applied research that fit the sub-themes of the conference or that are related to the conference theme in a broader sense.

Sub-themes:

• bimodal and unimodal bilingualism and their implications in interpreting studies
• modality (bimodal or unimodal) effects in interpreting
• cognitive processes and constructs in different modalities and modes of interpreting
• neurological substrates of interpreting
• attention and memory in interpreting
• cognitive workload in different modes of interpreting
• cognitive considerations in machine-aided interpreting
• cognitive abilities as interpreting aptitude
• cognition-informed training of interpreters
• skill acquisition and attrition in interpreters
• interpreter’s cognition throughout the life span

For more information, click here

The research group TRALIMA/ITZULIK GIC IT 1209-19 of the University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU) is pleased to organise the III International Symposium on Parallel Corpora, PaCor 2021. This conference will take place on 24-25 June 2021 at the Micaela Portilla Research Institute in Vitoria-Gasteiz (University’s Campus of Álava).

PaCor 2021 aims to contribute to the scientific dissemination initiated by the research group SpatiAlEs, from the University of Santiago de Compostela, in 2016, later reinforced by the Instituto Universitario de Lenguas Modernas y Traductores (ULMYT), at the University Complutense of Madrid, in 2018. TRALIMA/ITZULIK together with the abovementioned research groups, and many others, take part in CORPUSNET. The goal of this network is the development of (parallel or comparable) corpus-based tools, applications and resources to satisfy needs in the realms of research, teaching and/or intercultural communication (http://corpusnet.unileon.es/).

Parallel corpora creation and exploitation are possible thanks to the collaboration of linguists, (computational) engineers, statisticians and a variety of language users (researchers, learners, translators, among others). While the latter report their needs for language use, as well as, problems or challenges in cross-cultural communication, the former describe languages, at different levels, to observe what should be done to meet each ultimate purpose, thus defining a possible solution. It is the engineers and statisticians who give it shape by developing tools whose usefulness and usability be guaranteed. This interdisciplinary collaboration is as necessary as complex and fraught with challenges. This is indeed the case given the increasing range of language applications, not only among various languages but also in a variety of domains.

Originally, the aim of PaCor is twofold: first, to identify challenges, from a variety of perspectives including contrastive linguistics and translation, to name a few, with the intention of extending applications to solve them; and 2) to provide a platform for presentation of projects on parallel corpora where Spanish is the pivot language. We hope this third edition adds on to the knowledge gained in previous editions, not only by giving awaiting answers but also by raising new questions that, altogether, enhance corpus linguistics in general and parallel corpora in particular. To this end, we would like PaCor 2021 to pay special attention to parallel corpora that feature, at least, one minority language.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 January 2021

For more information, click here

Guest Editors

Dr Hannah Silvester
University College Cork

Dr Tiina Tuominen
YLE

 In the past two decades, we have seen a huge growth in research on audiovisual translation and accessibility. However, the findings of these research projects are often published in academic journals and books that are not always easily accessible to practitioners, or are not designed to address the practical implications of the research. With this special issue, we would like to offer an opportunity for practitioners to benefit from the flourishing research in the field, and for researchers to make their cutting edge AVT and accessibility research available and accessible to practitioners. The open-access Journal of Audiovisual Translation presents the perfect forum for this exchange.

As Jorge Díaz-Cintas (2020: 216) has pointed out, “Striking a happy balance between [the industry and academia] is of paramount importance to safeguard the well-being of the discipline and the profession.” Indeed, Díaz-Cintas (2020: 216-217) mentions that a great deal of AVT research is informed by the industry, but there has been less activity in the opposite direction. We propose to address that shortcoming in this special issue. We invite audiovisual translation and accessibility researchers to highlight the practical significance of their work by publishing pieces that seek to answer crucial questions related to the work of audiovisual translation and accessibility professionals. We envision this special issue to demonstrate how research is useful to practitioners, how it can improve working practices and stakeholders’ experiences in the industry, and what the academic community can do to better communicate their discoveries to the professional audience. Our goal is to facilitate a dialogue between researchers and practitioners that will enrich the industry and academia alike. Through this dialogue, we hope that further avenues for collaboration and community-building can be explored.

Authors should consider AVT and accessibility practitioners as their primary audience when writing their article. This will be an academic, peer-reviewed publication, but we would like the texts to be accessible to non-academics and applicable to their professional experience. We welcome contributions from all areas of AVT and accessibility studies, including, but not limited to, interlingual translation (subtitling, dubbing, surtitling, interpreting, voice over, video game localisation) and media accessibility (SDH, audio description, respeaking).

The range of potentially relevant themes is broad, and could include, for example:

• the reception and use/usability of audiovisual translations and access services.;
• translation and production processes;
• the potential value of other disciplines (e.g. media studies, psychology, sociology, ethnography) in AVT and accessibility;
• AVT and accessibility policy;
• technological tools, including machine translation;
• AVT and accessibility professionals’ workflow, working contexts and conditions;
• analyses of different textual, cultural, linguistic and communicative aspects of audiovisual translations and access services;
• collaborative practices;
• studies of norms and guidelines;
• quality in AVT and accessibility.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 16 November 2020

For more information, click here

“Language is (not) a barrier”: Towards effective translation policies and practices for official communication with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Melbourne

This joint PhD project will be based at The University of Melbourne with a minimum 12 month stay at KU Leuven

Metropolises like Brussels or Melbourne are sites of unprecedented cultural and linguistic diversity. This creates pressing challenges for multilingual official communication with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, as seen in the Covid-19 pandemic. Addressing those challenges will require change in translation policies and practices, with close attention to their real-world effects.

Project description
The doctoral project that is to be carried out with the University of Melbourne as the host institution will analyze the policies, practices and effects of official translations carried out for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Melbourne.

It will ascertain the provision of translation in public services in terms of numbers of translations, types of translations, target languages and types of administrations involved. It will identify the levels at which translation policies, both overt and covert, are formulated and enacted, how translations reach the various language communities, and the role of volunteer translation practices from NGOs and grassroots citizens’ initiatives in public services, particularly with respect to the reworking, re-narration and interpreting of information.

The candidate will select one or two language communities for detailed analysis of the reception processes, with particular attention to instances of trust and distrust in official behavior-change communication. The nature and topic of the communication will correspond to the issues of importance at the time of the study.

The research should lead to an evaluation of the way translation policies are formulated and enacted, with an assessment of their success in achieving trust relationships and influencing changes in behavior. At each stage of the research, comparison will be made with the same policies and practices in the city of Brussels, with one year of the research being carried out at KU Leuven.

For more information, click here

Translation and interpreting have played and will continue to play important roles in various aspects of UK-China relations and people-to-people exchanges. In addition to the translation and interpreting activities in various forms linking bilateral relations and bridging peoples’ hearts and minds, the English/Chinese stream has been established and developed in dozens of translation and interpreting programmes in the UK and in over two hundred T&I programmes in China.

Against this background the UK-China Symposium on Translation Studies is designed to be a biannual event co-organised by a UK university and a China university in order to promote exchanges among T&I scholars from both countries and to explore various aspects of Translation Studies with a focus on English/Chinese translation & interpreting and their education.

The 1st UK-China Symposium on Translation Studies will be held on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Centre for Translation Studies in the University of Leeds. We welcome submission of abstracts on the following themes. Quality submissions might be considered for special issues to
be proposed for international journals.

Themes:

• Translation and interpreting studies in China and UK: Unity and diversity
• Chinese discourse on translation and interpreting
• Studies on T&I master and doctoral education in China and UK
• Studies on language-pair specificity in English/Chinese translation and interpreting
• Digital humanities in translation and interpreting studies
• Corpus studies in translation and interpreting studies
• Cross-frontier translation and interpreting studies

Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2021

For more information, click here