The symposium will take place after a three-day practical workshop run by director, actor and translator Catherine Hargreaves, professor at ENSATT, France. Speakers are invited to register for the workshop in addition to the symposium if they wish (see description below).
Call for Papers
While the domestication of cultural references is often seen as crucial in theatre translation, pursuing efficacy in speeches is just as important: the translator needs to have an ear for the potential performance of the text and its ‘speakability’. The demands of the stage tend to cut short the ethical debates on the positioning of translation between source and target text, and justify the choice for adaptation rather than translation. Over the past decades, translators and critics have defended the need to test translations on the stage, and the cooperation between the different agents of the theatrical project – in other words, the interdependence between translation, adaptation and interpretation. Collaborative translation benefits the actor by alleviating their verbal obstacles (Johnston 2004), and the director by assisting them in the interpretation of the text, as well as its reception, favouring the clarity and credibility of the text (Peghinelli 2012).
Sometimes collaborative translation also benefits the translators themselves, as it elevates their subaltern status and gives them visibility (Fernandes 2010); or benefits the source text, as it helps to retain the effects produced by the original (Zatlin 2005). This practice also benefits theatre translation as a discipline, as it can open up several avenues of research. For example, because the idiom generally aspires to embrace the target culture’s sociolect in a given time and to be as efficient as possible, studying the history of all available translations prepared for performance of a particular play could bring some insights into the evolution of language usage and the norms of theatrical efficacy. Just as the practice and the study of stage-oriented translations have entailed the emergence of theatre anthropology as an almost autonomous area of research, such historical study has the potential to open up to theatre sociolinguistics as a new subfield of the discipline.
This study day may also focus on the flaws of collaborative translation, and aims to foster debate on the practice. First, collaborative translation relies heavily on the notions of ‘speakability’ and ‘performability’, which are still under-conceptualised and sometimes controversial. Second, the necessity and the legitimacy of collaborative translation and naturalistic-driven theatrical writings can legitimately be criticised.
While case studies are welcome, we will favour proposals that particularly contribute to the theoretical reflection on collaborative translation. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes and suggested themes are as follows (although this list is not prescriptive):
- Mechanisms and purpose of collective translation
- Politics of rehearsals: power struggle and visibility of the translator
- Collective translation and commercial theatre
- Ethical considerations
- Social sciences: sociolinguistics, historiography, anthropology, rehearsal ethnography
- Defining, pursuing or rejecting ‘speakability’
Please send your abstract or any questions to cedric.ploix@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk by 15th October 2017. The committee will review the abstracts in the following week.
The symposium will end with an open workshop in which speakers will be given the opportunity to join for free or to attend (knowledge of French not essential for this workshop), followed by a round table.
Workshop
The workshop will explore the relationship between language and acting. How can the use of different languages influence an actor's presence, develop his practical skills and sensitivities and modify meaning? What happens on stage when a same scene is played in different languages? Or in several languages at the same time?
After a series of exercises, designed to reveal how the rhythm and sound of a given language carry the history and cultural background of a society, the participants (theatre practitioners and literature students) will work on performing English and French versions of the same scenes and on improvisations linked to multilingual devised theatre. Time will be spent on analyzing the different performances and figuring out together if the stage can and/or should influence the translation of a play. The authors and translators of the plays will be invited to join the workshop.
The scenes will be taken from English and French contemporary plays. Knowledge of French is required to participate, but no theatre experience is required.
Lunches will be provided.
Registration for the workshop (11th-13th January, 10am - 4pm): £30 (£15 for students).
Registration for the symposium: (13th January): £20 (£10 for students)
The international conference Translation Beyond Human Languages and Cultures in Times of Ecological Crises welcomes abstract submissions for the event taking place on 12–13 November 2026 at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, Türkiye. Researchers are invited to submit their proposals to beyondhumanconf@gmail.com. SUBMISSIONSEach paper presentation will be allotted 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion.Submissions for individual presentations should include:- An abstract of no more than 300 words,- A short bionote including name, affiliation, and email address,- Up to five keywords indicating the subject, methodology, and theoretical framework(s).Submissions are open until 01 April 2026.WORKING LANGUAGESAll proposals must be submitted in French or English for peer review by the Scientific Committee. Interpreting between French and English may be offered depending on available resources. Questions and discussions during the conference may take place in both languages.KEYNOTE SPEAKERSMichael Cronin (Trinity College, Dublin) Kobus Marais (University of the Free State, Bloemfontein) Şebnem Susam-Saraeva (University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh)CONFERENCE FEESConference fees will be split into two categories: € 120 regular fee € 90 reduced fee for postgraduate studentsDetails regarding the conference will be shared in due course via the following link: https://avesis.yildiz.edu.tr/researchteamsite/biodemocraticpractices
The Department of Translation, Terminology and Interpreting Studies of the University of Malta, the Graduate Institute of Interpreting and Translation of Shanghai International Studies University and the Department of Theory of Translation and Comparative Linguistics of the National University of Uzbekistan are organizing an international conference in ‘Indirect Translation: A Two-Arched Bridge Between Cultures’ in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on 15-17 April 2026. For further information see the call for papers at https://www.um.edu.mt/media/um/docs/faculties/arts/translation/CallforPapersTashkent2026_FinalUM.pdf
Association of Programmes in Translation and Interpreting UK and IrelandWe are delighted to announce that the 2026 APTIS conference will take place in Wales for the first time, being jointly hosted by Cardiff University and Swansea University. The conference will take place from 15-17 April 2026 in Cardiff, with an optional ‘cultural’ day in Swansea on Saturday 18 April. We welcome abstract submissions for traditional papers, book launches, workshops, and students’ flash talks. Please note that the deadline for proposal is 15th December 2025. For more information and to submit an abstract proposal, please go to our website: https://www.aptis-translation-interpreting.com/aptis-2026
Guest editors:Anna Strowe (University of Manchester)Richard Mansell (University of Exeter)Helle V. Dam (Aarhus University)This special issue focuses on the normative expectations around translators, including norms around translator identity, as well as around hiring or selection processes and understandings of competence or expertise. By applying the concept of norms to the area of translators and translatorship, we hope to connect conversations about the multiple intersecting systems of values that underpin those norms, often silently, ranging from beliefs about education, language skill, and qualification, to understandings of professionalism, economics, and translation itself, while continuing to explore the dimensions and qualities of translator identity and presentation. The norms themselves are at the centre of the topic, along with the values from which they emerge and with which they engage, but as with investigation of other types of norms, they must be extrapolated from available forms of data, for example texts by and about translators, or trends in hiring or training.As scholarship in translation studies has broadened, first from linguistic approaches to cultural and sociological approaches, and then to a focus on the translator, we have increasingly come to understand that we must view translation as a socially-situated practice or set of practices, carried out by agents whose behaviour and choices are influenced by a variety of external as well as internal factors. A large part of the focus has been on using this perspective to better understand the choices that are made in translating – that is, the specific textual decisions made by translators – but interest has also grown significantly in questions that move beyond textual choices and comparative textual analysis. There are significant threads of scholarship for example on the cultural or structural aspects of non-professional translation and interpreting (e.g. Antonini et al. 2017; Pérez-González and Susam-Saraeva 2012), the relationships between translation and activism (e.g. Boéri 2024; Gould and Tahmasebian 2020; Tymoczko 2010), and the impact of emerging technologies and digital spaces on perceptions of translatorship (e.g. Zhang et al. 2024), among many others.Norms have long been a productive tool for translation studies, but existing articulations and uses have focused on the translational norms that we understand as governing micro- and macro-level translation choices. Meylaerts (2008) discusses individual translators and their identities and profiles in relation to the norms of translation and the profession, following Simeoni (1998) in connecting these to Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. However, behaviour around translator identities and characteristics, such as hiring or self-presentation, can also be examined in terms of norms. In a recent article, Strowe (2024) suggests considering translator selection as norm-driven could help us better recognize the values and decisions around translator recruitment and deconstruct assumptions around translator choice and identity.These norms are reflected in patterns in hiring trends, the translation industry, job advertisements, and translators’ websites or blogs, for example, but they also inform a variety of aspects of how translatorship is constructed. The self-image and presentation or representation of translators is informed by beliefs about what responsibilities, tasks, and capacities are involved in being a translator, areas that intersect both with culturally constructed notions of what constitutes and delimits translation itself (see Tymoczko 2007) and with what forms of social, cultural, and legal understandings we have about various agents’ forms of responsibility for texts (see Bantinaki 2020; Pym 2011).The special issue will collect both empirical studies that explore areas related to translator norms, and articles exploring either the theorization of translator norms or the methodological possibilities of this kind of work. Potential questions to explore include (but are not limited to) the following:How might we theorize norms around translator identity, self-presentation, hiring etc.?What kinds of translator norms can be identified within the LSP industry or in other contexts in which translation is done?What differences are there in translator norms across different contexts or domains, and how do these differences affect practices of translation?How can we understand projections of translator image as a form of representation of translator norm? • How are translator norms changing in the face of developments in digital technology?What kinds of research methods facilitate the exploration of translator norms?This is an open call, and the editors particularly welcome proposals from researchers whose workintersects with translator identity or self-presentation;looks at industry expectations around translators and hiring practices;seeks to describe and delimit the spaces of human agency and identity around translation amidst the growing presence of AI.Submission Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted by November 24 to Anna Strowe by email (anna.strowe@manchester.ac.uk). Once invited to do so by the editors, selected authors will be asked to submit an article of between 7000 and 8000 words, including references, through the journal’s online portal no later than May 30, 2026.A full schedule of dates plus the bibliography is available here: https://benjamins.com/series/ts/callforpapers.pdf
Life Writing and Translation Thursday 18 – Friday 19 June 2026 University of Geneva Abstract of no more than 250 words (bibliography excluded) in English or French are now invited and should be submitted to lifewritingtranslation@unige.ch by 16 November 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be distributed at the beginning of February 2026. Please find more information on abstracts on the Conference website: https://www.humanmovement.cam.ac.uk/events/translating-conflict-and-refuge-language-displacement-and-politics-representation
