Calls for papers

Within a heritage context, interpretation is understood as ‘an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by first-hand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information’ (Tilden 1957, p.8). As such, heritage interpretation is geared towards engaging a diverse range of visitors on a cognitive and emotional level in ways that enhance their experience of a given site, whether built or natural. And yet, despite a shared interest in questions of meaning-making, multimodality, and communication across time and across different target groups, dialogue between Heritage Studies and Translation & Interpreting Studies has been surprisingly limited. Research into interlingual and intersemiotic museum translation has been burgeoning in recent years, alongside work on museum accessibility through sign language interpreting, audio description and subtitling. But there remains much potential to strengthen, expand and better coordinate these interdisciplinary points of contact. Similarly, there has been little opportunity for professionals and stakeholders working in and with heritage, translation, interpreting and accessibility to have a multilateral conversation about their respective challenges and visions for the future. The aim of this conference is thus to bring together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and other interested parties, and facilitate a meaningful exploration of heritage translation, in all its forms. In particular, we seek to gain a fuller understanding of how and to what (pedagogical, ideological etc.) effect heritage is mediated, where are the gaps in knowledge and practice around heritage translation commissioning and evaluation, and what are the priorities for future research and training.  We welcome 20 min papers that address issues of heritage translation (understood broadly) from theoretical, empirical, exploratory and/or practical perspectives.  Deadline for submissions: 27 March 2020 For more information, click here

In commercial contexts, mainstream localization decisions have traditionally targeted markets where a short-term return on investment will offset the localization costs (Exton et al. 2010, 81), whereas, in contexts where social, cultural, or political motivations are more important than the commercial return on investment, localization decisions may instead prioritize the dissemination of information as widely as possible, or specifically to those without access to the knowledge (Ibid; Anastasiou and Schäler 2010). More recently, the term localization has come into use by international aid organizations for their humanitarian practice to refer to the deployment of local resources such as local agents and local response models (Folaron 2019, 204). With such a wide range of contexts in which localization concepts are applied and decisions are made, it seems timely to call for papers examining localization practices around the world across different sectors.  This special issue of the Journal of Internationalization and Localization (JIAL) therefore aims to bring into cognisance previously less recognised locale-specific issues, emerging trends or research projects (including publicly funded research programmes and PhD research) as well as types of localization undertaken and localization tools used or under development. We are particularly interested in localization in linguistic, social and cultural contexts from regions that have been under-represented in the journal thus far, such as Africa, Middle East, South and South East Asia, Australasia, Eastern Europe, and South and Central America, encompassing minority and indigenous languages. The suggested topics include, but are not limited to: -Socio-political and ideological issues in localization decision-making -Localization strategies used by different industry groups or humanitarian organizations -Localization involving minority or indigenous languages -Emerging trends in shaping localization processes and tools -Machine learning and AI applications in localization -Non-professional translation in localization To help bridge the gap between localization practice and theory representing different regions of the world, we invite both industry professionals and scholars working in academia to submit unpublished, original 6,000-8,000-word articles. Given the quickly changing industry, the special issue will be published expediently, in late 2020, as a double issue: Volume 7, Issues 1 and 2.   Submission deadlines:  Abstracts (500 words): March 15, 2020 Notification to authors: March 31, 2020 Full papers: June 1, 2020 Revised papers due (following peer review): August 15, 2020 Publication: December 2020 Inquiries and abstracts should be addressed to the journal’s co-editors: Minako O’Hagan (University of Auckland, New Zealand) minako.ohagan@auckland.ac.nzJulie McDonough Dolmaya (York University, Canada) dolmaya@glendon.yorku.caReferences: Anastasiou, Dimitra, and Reinhard Schäler. n.d. “Translating Vital Information: Localisation, Internationalisation, Globalisation.” Syn-Thèses 3: 11–25. Exton, Chris, Asanka Wasala, Jim Buckley, and Reinhard Schäler. 2010. “Micro Crowdsourcing: A New Model for Software Localization.” Localisation Focus 8 (1): 81–89. Folaron, Debbie. 2019. “Technology, Technical Translation and Localization” in O’Hagan, M (ed) The  Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 203-219   https://benjamins.com/series/jial/callforpapers.pdf

The Graduate Student Conference on Translation Studies serves as a forum that exhibits the robust relationship between translation studies and other academic disciplines and professional fields. This conference brings together graduate students and early-career postdoctoral researchers united by a common interest in translation and interpreting. This year, we welcome abstracts and panel proposals related to the topics of ethics and justice, pertaining to any subfield of translation and interpreting studies, including literary, technical, and legal translation; theory and practice of interpretation; translation history; and translation and interpreting technology. Possible themes include (but are not limited to): interpretation and migrant justice; the ethics and ideological implications of translation choices (both in terms of what we translate and how we go about it); translation as activism; translators’ and interpreters’ agency; community interpretation, family interpretation, and other pro bono modes of interpreting; ethics of medical interpreting; ethical and economic impact of machine translation; corporate translation and accountability; considerations relating to subjectivity, cultural difference, and collective identity; translation pedagogy; access to translation and interpreting services; politics of literary translation; publishing and visibility; gendered disparities in the profession; and so forth. We welcome comparative studies, case studies, corpus studies, argumentative essays, and any other methodology relevant to translation and interpreting studies. Deadline for submissions: 1 February 2020 For more information, click here

The second edition of the UMAQ conference seeks to explore the ways in which the different stakeholders involved in the MA/AVT value chain (such as researchers, industry, policy-makers and organisations of end-users) tackle the pressing and complex issue of quality. The conference will be followed by a free multiplier event of the EASIT project on 18 September afternoon. Information about the multiplier event will be provided at a later stage. Possible topics of interestWithin the context of Media Accessibility and Audiovisual Translation, possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Theoretical issues and the theoretical foundation of quality Quality issues in specific modalities: dubbing, respeaking, subtitling, audio description, etc. Quality in standards, guidelines and regulations The human factor in the definition and assessment of quality Quality in/and technology: machine translation, automatic subtitles, automatic audio description, clean audio, technologies for access services, etc. The role of MA/AVT stakeholders (industry, end-users, regulators, etc.) in the definition and evaluation of quality Quality issues in live events, museums, videogames, immersive environments, etc. Quality and reception studies Metrics for measuring quality One-size-fits-all approaches versus context-dependent approaches to quality Interdisciplinary approaches to quality Intersectionality in the definition and assessment of quality Pedagogical issues: quality in education and training, the role of education and training in current and future accounts of quality, the need for and role of new professional profiles and their potential impact on quality issues in AVT/MA Quality issues in relation to different end users’ groups: children, younger adults, the elderly, migrants, persons with disabilities, etc. Deadline for submissions: 15 April 2020 For more information, click here

Language and law are two intertwined areas of study whose connections are still opening new windows across disciplines. With the objective of enhancing an interdisciplinary reflection among researchers and practitioners in these domains, Jurilinguistics III: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Language and Law will foreground the applications of jurilinguistic approaches to the analysis of law and language. This conference will gather professionals in both fields who are interested in discovering the linguistic nature of legal (including political and sociolegal) challenges, and the legal implications of (new) multilingualism(s). We will promote a closer understanding among professionals and researchers in legal disciplines of the work done by linguists and translators, against the background of the increased interest for their tools and insights into the scientific study of languages among lawyers. On the grounds of increasing collaborations between of language and law professionals and researchers, bilingual and multilingual programmes in international law are being implemented, linguists and translators increase their demands for specialized legal training, corpus linguistic tools are being used in the legal interpretation of jurisprudence, growing cooperation among societies triggers the creation of supranational structures, legal relationships become globalized… New fields for both language and law are emerging as societies develop new ties and needs across the globe, demanding cross-disciplinary research designs, new tenets and increasingly complex methods. The symposium Jurilinguistics III: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Language and Law aims to provide a meeting point for professionals and researchers interested in the intersection of language and law from different disciplines, including translation and interpreting studies, sociology, anthropology, criminology and, indeed, law and linguistics. The purpose is not only to identify progress and key insights into this hybrid field, but also to explore new areas of study and/or research.  Deadline for submissions: 1 March 2020 For more information, click here

We invite proposals for papers on the topic of the conference from the field of education and translation and representing a variety of contexts i.e. multilingual, first, second and foreign language contexts, library environments, professional settings or NGO contexts. We hope to attract proposals that contribute to our understanding of the following: ProposalsContributions to the conference are welcome in the form of:A) Oral presentations (20 min + 10 min discussion). Proposals should be prepared in a word document and should include:• Full name(s) of presenter(s) and affiliation(s)• A 250-word abstract with a maximum of three references. • Bio sketch of 100 words B) Panels for three or four presentations (60 min + 30 min discussion)• Full name and affiliation of the panel coordinator • Full names and affiliations of presenters• A 200-word introduction to the panel, together with the 250-word abstracts and a 100-word bio sketch from each presenter (see above). Please send submissions to the conference email: multimodalmediations@gmail.com Deadline for submissions: 28 February 2020Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2020  

We would like to invite you to the 8th international scientific conference for PhD students and young researches. This year’s title is Tradition and Innovation in Translation Studies Research VIII: Translation in Motion. The conference will be held on 13th February 2020 at the Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. The aim of the conference is, just as every year, to provide an opportunity for the participants to present their research from various fields of their scientific interests within translation studies. As this year’s main topic, Translation in Motion, reflects the unceasing developments in translation studies, we will focus on new, as yet unresearched areas from across the entire range of translation studies - from didactics of translation (and interpretation), through history and translation criticism, non-literary translation and terminology, to (as is now tradition in Nitra) audiovisual translation. Deadline for submission of abstracts: 13 January For more information, click here

FACING THE FUTURE – TRANSLATION AND TECHNOLOGY Glendon College, York University (Toronto) – March 14, 2020  Keynote speaker: Sharon O’Brien, Dublin City University Into the second decade of the 21st century, technology continues to play an increasing role in translation processes and translator environments. What is translatable or not translatable through the mediation of machines is a central question as we head into the era of neural translation and AI. At the same time other questions emerge: are the existing models of collaborative translation, crowdsourcing, machine translated corpora, and cloud-based CAT tools leading us towards a new era of multi-modal plurality or to a fragmented dystopia where quality becomes a casualty? Is the interaction of human and machine in present and future translation ecologies a harbinger of an enlightened posthumanism or a problematic process that favours disembodied networks, algorithmic decision-making, and unsustainable growth in a time of runaway climate change and environmental degradation? This year’s graduate student conference will address what Minako O’Hagan (2019) describes as a kind of quantum entanglement, the link between human and machine, a crucial issue for our century. Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2020 For more information, click here

The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) invites everyone interested in machine translation, and translation-related tools and resources ― developers, researchers, users, translation and localization professionals and managers ― to participate in this conference. If you envisage an information world in which language barriers become less visible to the information consumer, submit a paper on the topic that drives you and your work. Driven by the state of the art, the research community will demonstrate their cutting-edge research and results, and professional MT users in the language industry will provide insight into successful MT implementation in business scenarios. Translation studies scholars and translation practitioners are also invited to share their first-hand MT experience, which will be addressed during a special track. Deadline for submissions: 6 March 2020 For more information, click here

Decolonising university curricula has made international headlines in recent years. From the Rhodes Must Fall movement, to campaigns within universities to diversify reading lists, university departments have integrated new teaching practices that seek to both acknowledge and challenge the legacies of colonialism. Some UK universities have begun to recognise how they profited from the slave trade and have made (not uncontroversial) plans for restorative justice. Given its intrinsic relationship with the history of colonialism and its aftermath, Modern Languages – and the multilingualism upon which it relies – has been at the centre of debates about reforming research practices across universities. Scholars such as Alison Phipps, and research funded by the AHRC ‘Translating Cultures’ theme, have led the way in deploying creative and self-reflexive methods to acknowledge the uneven power relations that are implicit in the way we teach and learn languages.  While research agendas in the field have begun to embrace change, it is far less clear how the Modern Languages teaching landscape has been transformed in recent years. If scholars have questioned how imperial and colonial forms of knowledge-making impact upon their research, what opportunities and challenges have arisen when integrating de-colonial research into materials and methodologies for teaching?  The aim of this conference is to explore, examine and disseminate practices from within university language departments, sharing ideas about existing knowledge and practices of attempts to decolonize Modern Languages curricula in the UK and beyond.  Deadline for submissions: 31 January Please submit a title, 200-word abstract and short bio to joseph.ford@sas.ac.uk 

This year, the main focus of the conference is “Translation Studies in the Era of Digital Humanities”. We hope that the conference will bring together researchers and translators, academia and students, practitioners in language services and technologies and language policy makers and will become a forum for promoting dynamic and constructive debate, networking and research cooperation. The fourth international scientific conference “Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision” is aimed at exploring themes from the theoretical and practical perspectives covering a wide scope of topics: Terminology standardization and harmonization; Pragmatic, semantic and grammatical aspects of meaning in translation; Translation of sacred, legal, poetic, promotional and scientific and technical texts. Deadline for submissions: 31 January 2020 For more information, click here

Terminology as a research discipline has yet to achieve a well-grounded position among other disciplines. Nonetheless, the number of specialists dealing with it is constantly rising. Among them, besides terminologists sensu stricto, are theorists and educators of translation, researchers interested in language, translators etc. Moreover, tools used in terminological research are very diverse. We would like to open a multidisciplinary and a multilingual discussion on whether we can – and we should – talk about boundaries of and in terminology. Deadline for abstracts: 31 Jan 2020 For more information, click here