In today’s globalized world, the socio-political and economic conditions in most societies are
closely linked to prevailing global trends. Within this context, neoliberalism – the idea of a free
market within a deregulated economy – has dominated the world through a combination of
willing acceptance and enforcement, bringing about many fundamental changes within
multiple contemporary societies, which have in turn given rise to a plethora of studies in
different fields.
In Applied Linguistics, Block, Gray and Holborow (2012) have made some initial attempts to
conceptualize the ways in which neoliberal ideology plays out in the areas of language teaching
and language teacher education. Since then, a growing number of researchers have further
explored interlinked concepts of neoliberalism, mainly within the English Language Teaching
industry, including the discourse of neoliberalism in ELT textbooks (e.g., Copley, 2018),
neoliberalism and teacher education (e.g., Furlong, 2013), linguistic imperialism (e.g.,
Phillipson, 2013) and the commodification of English language pedagogy (e.g., Soto & Pérez-
Milans, 2018), to mention but a few.
By contrast, the online Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB) records only a handful of
English-language publications worldwide that are related to globalization in general, and
hardly any on neoliberalism and translation in particular. In his book Translation and
Globalization (2003/2013) Michael Cronin looks at the changing geography of translation
practice and offers new ways of understanding the role of translators in globalized societies
and economies. The author focuses on the part played by translation and translators in
safeguarding linguistic and cultural diversity. From a different standpoint, Bielsa (2005) makes
an attempt to understand the significance of translation in the global context, conceptualising
its analytical place in globalisation theory and its key role in articulating the global and the
local.
Language and translation have an essential function in the production, circulation and reception
of neoliberalist texts. Not only do the socio-political and economic policies adopted in different
contexts influence the choice of texts to be translated (Richner & Olesen, 2019), but translation
practices have an impact on the communication of the discourses and narratives of
neoliberalism (Ban, 2011).
In response to the forces of globalization and also to ongoing technological advances,
translations of technology, electronics, financial and economic texts, subtitled and dubbed
versions of films, and other multimedia products have driven the transformation of values and
ways of thinking across linguistic and cultural borders (Tang & Gentzler, 2009). While this has
provided great opportunities for the translation market, employment conditions for translators
“have moved towards a model of freelance and contingent work, whereby they struggle with
speed and productivity demands, the unilateral imposition of technologies, and constant
downward pressure on price” (Moorkens, 2020, p.23).
To conclude, while translation studies is interdisciplinary in essence, the way in which the
political economy – and more specifically neoliberally socio-political and economically
informed factors – interact with translation has been downplayed. The aim of this volume is to
enhance our understanding of the evolving practices adopted by the translation industry and
the stakeholders in the neoliberal era and to exploit whatever concepts and methodologies can
be adopted for researching translation in the light of neoliberal tendencies existing in different
societies.
Recommended topics
Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
• Neoliberalism and translation policies
• Neoliberalism and translator training
• Neoliberalism and translation quality
• Neoliberal discourses and narratives in translation
• Neoliberalism, technology and translation
• Neoliberalism and the translation profession
For more information, click here
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2023
Call for PapersSpecial Issue of The Translator and Interpreter Trainer (2028)Theme: (Re)Conceptualising User Agency in Audiovisual Translation Education.Editors: Jorge Díaz-Cintas, Lisi Liang, Hui Wang and Serenella Massidda. Topics may include:the (re)conceptualisation of “user agency” in the context of non-professional and/or fanbased AVT training;online users’ motivations for exerting agency in AI-powered AVT and its impact on the theory and practice of AVT training;online users’ creativity in specific domains of AVT, such as danmu subtitling, fansubbing/fandubbing, game localisation, access services, and voice synthesis technologies for media localisation and its impact on the theory and practice of AVT training;empirical studies focusing on the activation of user agency through verbal and/or nonverbal channels in online and offline AVT training, supported by robust research methods and with high potential for innovation in AVT pedagogy;the negotiation of agency between AI platform developers, users and educators in AVT training;the extent to which the exercise of user agency bridges or extends the boundaries between professional and non-professional, human and AI translation in AVT training;pedagogical, technological, and ethical implications of user agency for AVT training;the impact of AI-based AVT paradigm and user agency on the established translation training paradigm in AVTSubmission informationSubmission of proposals: 1 July 2026 (title and abstract of approx. 500 words, references included)Acceptance of submitted abstracts: 1 August 2026.Submission of full manuscripts: 1 February 2027 (up to 8,000 words, including references and notes).Acceptance of papers: October 2027Publication: Late Autumn/Winter 2028.More details: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/reconceptualising-user-agency-in-audiovisual-translation-education/
Call for Papers:Symposium: Translating Conflict: Language, Power, and the City.Location: Utrecht University — Languages in the City Series.Date: 22–23 April 2027Topics: Political and institutional translation: invisibility, neutrality, strategic mistranslation, asymmetrical communication.Conflict, post-conflict, humanitarian settings: diplomacy, peace negotiations, legal processes, ethics and positionality of translators, reconciliation.Resistance and public space: translation as activism, urban linguistic landscapes, social-media wars of meaning.Limits and exclusions: untranslatability, silencing, exclusion.Technology: AI-assisted translation in high-stakes settings.Exile and migration: translation, memory, and cultural continuity.Key dates:Submission deadline: 30/06/2026Notification: ~30/09/2026Symposium: 22–23 April 2027More details: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7451657930900361216-SP6Q?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAADAHFiwBi8jC4KbsaPPxHxBkCAx_UoukeoQ
Call for PapersEvent: the 16th International Symposium on Bilingualism.Place and date: University of Saskatchewan, Canada, June 14-18, 2027. Thems and topics:Bi-multilingual speech and communicationCognitive, neuro- and psycholinguisticsChild and adolescent bi-multilingual developmentAdult bi-multilingual developmentEducation and pedagogy HJHeritage, immigrant, regional and other minority languagesIndigenous languagesTranslation and InterpretingSociolinguistics and Sociology of languageSpeech-language pathology; Health CommunicationAbstract submission deadline: 1 October 2026. More details: https://conferences.usask.ca/isb16/
Call for Abstracts This is a call for an edited volume on 'Translators at Work in Periodicals: Agency, Mediation, and Cultural Power'. Edited by Ivana Hostová and Eva SpišiakováSuggested topics:• periodicals as infrastructures of literary, cultural, and intellectual mediation• translators, editors, reviewers, and other mediators shaping periodical cultures• translators’ multiple roles, including editing, curating, annotating, and framing• distributed, relational, or contested agency in periodical cultures• translator agency, editorial strategy, and activism• translation in peripheral, semi-peripheral, or politically unstable ecologies• periodicals as spaces of cultural resistance, ideological struggle, or symbolic negotiation• paratextual framing, editorial positioning, and the politics of selection• material and medial conditions of translation, including format, layout, page space, seriality, and multimodality• circulation of minoritized, marginalized, or non-canonical literatures• periodicals and the transfer of theory, philosophy, science, or political ideas• translation in periodicals and the making of national, regional, or transnational cultures• microhistorical or biographical studies of translators and editors• actor-network, social-network, bibliographic, or database-driven approaches• methodological reflections on blending close reading with large-scale or digitally assisted analysisDeadline for abstracts: 31 December 2026Deadline for full chapters: 31 July 2028Expected publication: 2029Full info: https://ktr.ff.ukf.sk/en/research/call-for-abstracts-translators-at-work-in-periodicals-agency-mediation-and-cultural-power/
Call for Papers:Conference: Global North and Global South Perspectives on Literature, Linguistics, and Translation.Organised by the Research Centre for Irish Studies (RCIS).Date: 7-8 June 2026. Main themes: Literature;Irish Studies;Linguistics;Translation, Power and Knowledge Circulation. Submission deadline: 30 April 2026More info: https://old.bue.edu.eg/global-north-and-global-south-perspectives-on-literature-linguistics-and-translation-conference-7-8-june-2026/
