Trextuality – Interdisciplinary Approaches to Translated and Multilingual Texts, Turku, Finland, 7-9 September

Schematically, translation studies acknowledges that a text can be translated from one language into another but tends to see source and target texts as stable entities, while in textual scholarship, texts are understood to take many forms, but the different textual manifestations are usually studied only within one language.

In recent years, however, we have seen interdisciplinary approaches that go beyond the source text–target text pair in the case of translation studies and cross linguistic borders when it comes to textual scholarship. For example, thematic journal issues have explored multilingualism and translation from the point of view of textual scholarship (Dillen, Macé, and van Hulle eds. 2012), combined genetic criticism with translation (Durand-Bogaert ed. 2014), and laid out the foundations for genetic translation studies (Cordingley and Montini eds. 2015). Translation can also be seen as a means for bringing out different interpretations of a text and as an intertwined part of writing (Reynolds ed. 2019). Similarly, studies on closely related themes, such as multilingual writing, self-translation, collaborative translation, retranslation, indirect translation, pseudotranslation, backtranslation, and adaptation, may equally provide insights into the complex geneses and networks of dependence that lie behind texts that have manifestations in several languages (Gambier 1994; Bistué 2013). Studies on these kinds of themes often draw on archival resources, as archival material can provide information on translating, translations, and translators (Kujamäki 2018; Cordingley and Hersant eds. 2021).

Interdisciplinary studies that put translation studies and textual scholarship (as well as neighboring fields such as literary studies and book history) into dialogue bring to the fore questions of text, transmission and translation – that is, they address trextuality by discussing how texts take different forms through transmission and by highlighting the role of translation in it. To foster such interdisciplinary dialogue, this conference invites proposals on topics that engage with the concepts of text, transmission, and/or translation, as well as proposals that address the potential of archival resources in the study of these and related themes. Potential topics for proposals include but are not limited to:

• textual scholarship and scholarly editing of translated and multilingual texts, translations of critical editions;
• textual critics as translators, translators as textual critics;
• genetic translation studies;
• multilingual writing, self-translation, collaborative translation, editorial processes of translation;
• retranslation, indirect translation, pseudotranslation, backtranslation, adaptation;
• diachronic and synchronic perspectives on text, transmission, and/or translation;
• translator and author archives, manuscript studies;
• textual theory, questions of multimodality, materiality, digital texts;
• theoretical and methodological reflections on interdisciplinary studies relating to trextuality.

Deadline for submissions: 27 Feb 2023

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