Guest edited by Lintao Qi (Monash University) and Moss Roberts (New York University)
Classical Chinese novels play a unique and prominent role in the history of Chinese literature, particularly towards the end of the pre-modern period, when “xiaoshuo (for want of a better equivalent in English, novel)” matured and prospered as a genre in the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty. Due to multifarious factors such as the circulation pattern of novels, technical limitation of printing, and at times, literary censorship, practically all classical Chinese novels have more than one version. This plurality of texts, on the one hand, enriched the textual history of novels in China; while on the other hand, it significantly complicated the translation landscape when classical Chinese novels were introduced to the outside world.
Translation of a text across linguistic, cultural and geographical borders always bear the imprints of the ideology of the translator, the socio-cultural features of the target context, and most likely, the negotiation and compromise between the various agents and/or patrons involved such as the commissioner, the translator and the publisher, whose powers are, more often than not, imbalanced. And these can usually be best uncovered by scrutinising not the translated texts, but the paratexts of translations: prefaces, correspondence between the agents and/or patrons, interviews, reviews, and publisher’s public archives, etc.
Research on the translation of classical Chinese novels has been increasing in recent years, and is developing into a multi-disciplinary area. The editors of the proposed Special Issue of Translation Horizons would welcome proposals for essays that explore the following areas, and other related topics:
o Historical studies: At what historical moment was a classical Chinese novel translated into a particular language? And what are the socio-cultural motivations? Is the choice of such texts isolated cases or does it represent a historical trend? How has the plurality of source texts been dealt with and what are the implications of such choices?
o Translator studies: Who devised the translations? What are the habitus and capitals of the translators? How did the translators’ ethos affect their translated texts?
o Sociological studies: What are the translation strategies? How (or whether) have these strategies been conditioned by the socio-cultural contexts of the time, e.g. popular ideology, political policy, literary censorship, etc.? Are there any network of agents and/or patrons at work in the choice of translation strategies, or more broadly, in the publication of the translations?
o Comparative studies: If there are more than one translation of a novel into a particular language, in what ways are they similar to, or different from each other, in terms of textual and paratexutal features, translatorial orientations, and reception by readers?
o Retranslation studies: If multiple translations of a novel exist, are they synchronically or diachronically related to each other? Is one translation an active or passive retranslation of another?
o Contextual studies: Why have there been retranslations of the same novel? Are the reasons for retranslation temporal, historical, political, personal or commercial? Are the considerations of a translator of a retranslation mainly linguistic, cultural or even academic?
o Theoretical studies: Are there any patterns observable from the history of retranslations of classical Chinese novels? Are these in line with or in opposition to the retranslation hypothesis proposed by Antoine Berman?
o Adaptation studies: Are all the translations of the same novel complete translations? Is there any partial translation, or adaptation? If so, what have been transferred into the target text, and what have been left out? Why have these happened? Is the translator, the publisher, any other agent or patron, or the social milieu responsible for such adaptations? If so, in what manner?
o Paratextual studies: What are the roles of paratexts such as book covers, prefaces, interviews, book reviews, correspondence and archives in the study of translations, translators and/or the other agents?
o Methodological studies: How can the texts, paratexts and contexts of translations of classical Chinese novel be most effectively examined and studied?
o Ontological studies: The Chinese terms and their translations. In the case of xiaoshuo, does xiao suggest false modesty, meaning content of lesser consequence (even trivial) compared say to daxue, the study of important matters, i.e., state and social relations, the focus of the Lunyu? And shuo as casual informal conversational written story-telling? Yanyi, zhuan, jian (mirror), ji would be contrasting ways to describe a narration. The Hongloumeng itself has characters who question the value of reading such narrations. Do you think the title Hongloumeng has been correctly translated? Does hong modify lou or meng?
o Miscellaneous studies: e.g. interviews with the translators of classical Chinese novels.
Instructions for Authors
Submission instructions
Articles will be 6000–8000 words in length, in English (including notes and references); however, the translated texts on which the proposed papers are based could be in any language.
Abstracts of 400-500 words should be sent to the guest editors at lintao.qi@monash.edu and moss.roberts@nyu.edu.
Schedule
30 June 2018: deadline for submitting abstracts to the guest editors
31 August 2018: deadline for decisions on abstracts
30 April 2019: submission of papers
30 November 2019: submission of final version of papers
May 2020: Publication date
Contact: lintao.qi@monash.edu and moss.roberts@nyu.edu.
About Translation Horizons
Translation Horizons is biannual, peer-reviewed journal focused on disseminating scholarly research relevant to translation and interpreting. The inaugural issue of the journal was released in May 2016. It is edited by the Center for Translation Studies of the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. It is abstracted and indexed in Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB) and CNKI.
Translation Horizons publishes original theoretical and empirical research articles as well as translations of influential theoretical and methodological research articles written in languages other than Chinese. It also pays close attention to studies on translator and interpreter training and issues in the language industry.
The Journal publishes in every issue eight research articles, one book review and one interview. Articles should be submitted to bfsuwts@163.com. For more information, please visit http://translationhorizons.com/.
About the guest editors
Lintao Qi obtained his Doctoral degree in Translation Studies from Monash University, Australia in 2015. He is currently lecturing in the Master’s program of Translation and Interpreting at Monash University. His research interest is in the translation of canonical Chinese works.
Having completed his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D degrees at Columbia University, Moss Roberts has been a professor in NYU's Department of East Asian studies since 1968. He has released dozens of publications on Asian language and culture, including multiple books and translations. He currently teaches courses on East Asian civilization and serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Call for AbstractConference: the 19th International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (IPCITI)Venue: Dublin City UniversityDate: 3-4 December 2026Theme: Across Academia and Industry: (In)Visibility and Interdisciplinarity in Translation and InterpretingTopics include:Interdisciplinary engagement with translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, Sociology and Anthropology)Interdisciplinarity and knowledge exchange in translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Communication Studies, Information Science, Higher Education Studies)Visibility and invisibility of translation and interpreting research (e.g. Sociology of Knowledge, Media Studies)Translation and interpreting across academia, institutions and industry (e.g. International Relations, Public Policy)Translation and interpreting technologies and digital practices (Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Natural Language Processing (NLP))Translator and interpreter training and pedagogy (e.g. Curriculum Design, Cognitive Psychology, Applied Linguistics)Community and public service interpreting (e.g. Medical Humanities, Social Work)Specialised translation (e.g. terminology, literary translation, audiovisual translation, localisation)Professional identities, ethics, and labour conditions (e.g. Professional Ethics, Labour Economics, Human Resource Management)Translation, migration, multilingualism, human rights, and social justice (e.g. Human Rights Law, Migration Studies, Political Philosophy)Critical approaches to translation studies (e.g. Decolonisation of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Gender Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis, Deconstruction)Innovative, creative and interdisciplinary research methodologies in translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Digital Humanities, Corpus Linguistics, Ethnography, Mixed Methods Research)Translation and interpreting in crisis and conflict settings (e.g. Peace and Conflict Studies, Disaster Management, Risk and Crisis Communication)Deadline for abstract submission: 31 August 2026More details: https://www.dcu.ie/ctts/ipciti-2026
Call for Papers:Journal: Special Issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies (John Benjamins).The journal is inviting submissions for extended abstracts for a special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies (John Benjamins) on the topic of 'Knowledge Construction in Multilingual Research: Research Ethics Meets Translation Theory' Editors: Robert Gibb, Nadja Grbić, and Rafael Schögler.Submissions of extended abstracts (300-500 words) can be sent to the guest editors until 15 September 2026.More details: https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/gewi-institute/Translationswissenschaft/Bilder/2026/Special-issue_TiS_2029_gibb_grbic_schoegler.pdf
Call for Papers: Journal: BRIDGE: TRENDS AND TRADITIONS IN TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING STUDIESThemes: Audiovisual Translation at the Crossroads: Special Issue: Bridging Media Accessibility, AI, and EFL Education. Special Issue, Vol. 7(2), 2026.Editor: Angela SileoCovered Topics:AVT and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the technological dimension;AVT and Media Accessibility (MA), the social dimension; andAVT in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) education, the didactic dimension.Deadline for submission: 23 November 2026More details: https://www.bridge.ff.ukf.sk/index.php/bridge/callforpapers
International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies9th International ConferenceUniversity of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o WaitahaChristchurch, New Zealand7-10 December Interculturality and Hospitality in Times of Crisis Conference Theme Language, hospitality, and crisis are, and always have been, historically and globally intertwined concepts. The notion of hospitality is deeply rooted in complex and long-standing histories of encounters; of conflict and persecution; but also of travel and adventure. The specular relationship between alterity and subjectivity is at its core, and so too is the very fabric of sociability. The closest Te Reo Māori equivalent to hospitality, manaakitanga, echoes this dynamic, as it implies the collective nurturing of relationships in which the mana (dignity, prestige, and spiritual power) of all those involved is upheld and elevated. From these histories and terms, we are confronted with the (unwritten) rules, obligations, and laws related to hospitality which encapsulate examples on a micro- and macrostructural level: from welcoming guests into a nation—as immigrants or refugees—to providing shelter and support in the community in times of crisis, right down to individual acts of kindness and aid, such as welcoming a friend, family-member or stranger into one’s home. However, not all guests and hosts are created equal, and hospitality is not always synonymous with kindness and welcoming. The (de)colonial perspectives evident from Latin America to Oceania and beyond, where indigenous peoples were constructed as ‘unwelcome guests’ in their own land, offer fruitful examples of how historically, as well as in contemporary contexts, hospitality has often functioned as a lens through which asymmetrical power relations can be understood. Several linguists and philosophers have scrutinized the ambivalence inherent to hospitality, elucidating its semantic and pragmatic conceptions, as well as its etymological misunderstandings and polysemy. Paola Zaccaria summarizes this dynamic as follows: “In Latin, the guest, being a stranger, was called both hospes (whence the etymological root of hospitality) and hostis, which means “enemy.” [Émile] Benveniste argued that the notion of favorable stranger evolved into guest, while a hostile stranger was considered an enemy" (Zaccaria, 2022, p. 182). Such etymological linkage led Jacques Derrida to coin the neologism “hostipitality” (Derrida & Dufourmantelle, 2000), suggesting that welcoming the Other can lead to a host’s vulnerability, and that embedded within hospitality are the very seeds of its own potential destruction. Welcoming the guest—the Other, a frenemy, AI—can lead to the host’s sovereignty unravelling, where sovereignty can be understood in its broadest conceptual sense possible: one’s space (or home) as well as one’s identity and integrity. This intersubjective blending is even more apparent when we take into consideration that Derrida writes in French where the term hôte can denote, depending on the context, either guest or host. Interpretations and translations of hospitality continue today: whether it be as a pragmatic form or an abstract, philosophical construct, the concept will (and arguably should) never be laid to rest. While the very notion of hospitality, the givenness of its communal veracity is obviously enabling, we do not need to look too far in our current climate to witness how conceptually, at least, it has been called into crisis. ‘Crisis,’ at its very root, indicates a turning point and a decision. Not all crises are therefore inherently bad or negative, and yet the term is rarely shrouded in positivity. In a post-truth era; as we explore the use and limits of AI; as we further communicate through the semiotics of emojis; as teeter-tottering governments modify language policies, and as institutional settings regulate and enact the boundaries in which we work and live, we must ask: is language—and are languages—in crisis? And can the same be said of hospitality? Translation, Interpreting, and interculturality are at the very heart of both hospitality and crisis, as the latter inevitably creates contexts of language contact due to globalization, as well as chosen and forced migration. With this conference topic, there are two potential thematic avenues for presenters to explore in relation to Translation, Interpreting, as well as Intercultural Studies: one more aligned with the multifaceted notion and voices of ‘hospitality’ and the other with ‘crisis.’ This conference therefore calls on scholars, educators, and practitioners to reflect and present on these disciplines and their interaction with these themes as they play out in their professional, creative, and scholarly reflections and important work. Possible subthemes to explore include: · T&I and the guest-host dynamic· Violence in/and T&I· Language(s) in crisis· Hospitality and crisis· Regional and minority languages· Data Sovereignty and indigenous languages· AI and/in crisis – trust, machine translation, and language access in crisis situations· T&I in hospitality & tourism· T&I in regional conflicts· T&I in natural disasters· Hospitality and ethics in relation to volunteer translation, AI-assisted translation, and the sustainability of the profession· The translation/non-translation of literature as examples of hostipitality· Rethinking T&I and sovereignty through Indigenous Knowledges· The ethics and politics of translation and intercultural studies research, education, and practice: a turning point?· (Feminist) ethics of care· Disability Studies and the Politics of language(s) in translation and interpretation – who gets to speak?· Lost languages – linguistic preservation, hospitality, and ethics· Resisting the status quo – rethinking dissemination of translations as a question of the commonsLanguage Policy· All abstracts/proposals for individual papers (20 minutes each) and panels must be submitted in English or Te Reo Māori for peer-review by the Advisory Board, and all papers will be presented in English or Te Reo Māori. Interpreting will be provided contingent on available funds.· Workshop proposals must be submitted in English or Te Reo Māori for peer-review by the Scientific Committee; however, presentations during workshops in languages other than English or Te Reo Māori are welcome. A minimum of two presenters is required for workshops. Interpreting will be provided contingent on available funds.Key Deadlines· 5 November 2026: Deadline for potential convenors to submit panel, workshop, roundtable or artistic initiatives· 20 December 2026: Announcement of the accepted proposals (panels, workshops, roundtables and artistic initiatives) & call for papers and performances.· 20 March 2027: Individual abstract submission to accepted panels and general sessions· 5 June 2027: Notification of acceptance of proposals (all formats).· 5 June 2027: Registration opens · 1 August 2027: Closing date for early registrationRegistration· 5 June 2027: Registration opens· 1 August 2027: Early-bird registration closesLink to registration: to be provided soon. Solidarity Fund and Bursaries for Band 3 & 4 CountriesMore information to be provided soon. CALL FOR PANELSPanelsPanels will serve as the cornerstone for structuring the conference programme. Panels are thematic, integrated discussions for 6 to 12 sessions on a clearly identified theme or topic within the larger theme of the conference (“Interculturality and Hospitality in Times of Crisis”). They should provide attendees with an opportunity to hear presenters engage in dialogue amongst themselves as well as with attendees about cutting-edge research, practice, theory building, and/or policy development.Important: at this stage, you do not need to have a list of speakers or abstracts. Your panel proposal will be assessed by the Scientific Committee. If accepted, your panel will then be posted on the IATIS website and turned into a thematic call for papers open for anyone to submit. Panel convenors will be in charge of reviewing all abstracts submitted to their panel. The members of the scientific committee will review panel convenors’ selection before a notification of acceptance of abstracts can be issued. Timeline for Panels· Submission of panel proposals: 5 November 2026· Announcement of accepted panel proposals: 20 December 2026· Submission to accepted panels: 20 March 2027· Acceptance notification: 1 June 2027 Link to the submission platform: to be provided soon. The following information will be required:· Details about the convenor(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (approx..100 words) and contact address· Details about the proposal: abstract (approx. 500 words)· Optional: Tentative list of speakers and subtopics covered, if any. Please note that even if you have a list of possible speakers, all accepted panels remain open to submissions by interested IATIS delegates See examples of IATIS panels in previous conferences:· Oman Panels 2025· Barcelona Panels 2021· Hong Kong Panels 2018 CALL FOR WORKSHOPS Pre-conference workshops run for a day or half a day on Dec 6 (or Dec 7, subject to enrolment numbers). These workshops are designed to be training sessions on a topic of interest to conference attendees, such as teaching and professional development, with a special emphasis on learning or developing new skills.Timeline for Workshops· Submission of workshop proposals: 5 November 2026· Announcement of acceptance: 20 December 2026· Workshop Registration: 5 June 2027 CALL FOR ARTISTIC INITIATIVES These initiatives will reflect the cultures of the world. Artistic initiatives come from conference delegates and can be about or across cultures. They should address the topic of the conference (“Interculturality and Hospitality in Times of Crisis”). Timeline for Artistic Initiatives · Submission of artistic initiative proposals: 5 November 2026· Announcement of acceptance: 20 December 2026 CALL FOR PAPERS These are individual presentations that form the backbone of the conference's parallel sessions. Researchers can send abstracts to be presented as papers in thematic panels (accepted panels, see above) or independent of any panel in the conference. Papers are given the same amount of time given to panel session papers, and they may be added by the conference scientific committee to an established conference panel, if relevant, and in consultation with the convenor. Timeline for Papers· Call for individual papers: 20 December 2026· Deadline for potential presenters to submit abstracts for papers in and beyond thematic panels: 20 March 2027· Announcement of accepted papers: 1 June 2026 Link to the submission platform: to be provided soon. The following information will be required:· Details about the presenter(s): name, surname, affiliation, bionote (100 words approx.) and contact address· Abstract (250 words approx.) See examples of IATIS papers in previous conferences· Oman Papers 2025· Barcelona Papers 2021· Hong Kong Papers 2018
Call for Papers:Conference: Breaking Barriers in Creative Translation (BBCT).Venue: Mons, Belgium.Date: 18-20 Nov 2026.Themes and topics: Exploring fictional worldsApplication of new technologies to creative textsTransmedia analysesStylistic analysesAssessment of creativity in translation contextsRendering of humourRetranslationEthics and professional deontologyTranslation under constraintsCreativity and didacticsCognitive issues in creative translationKey dates: Submission: 07/09/2026Notification: 09/10/2026Registration: 01/11/2026Conference: 18-20/11/2026More details: https://bbct.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en
