Call for papers: Translation, Encounter and Global Semiotics
Round Table nos. 27

Panel organizers:

Pirjo Kukkonen  (University of Helsinki, Finland)

Susan Petrilli (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy)

Zhiting Zhang (College of Foreign Languages, Nankai University)

Zhijun Yan (School of Foreign Languages & Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, China)

The question of translation concerns the relation among texts in different languages, interlingual translation. A particularly interesting issue from this point of view is the question of the relation established between the original text and the target translation, or "translatant". These texts are similar and yet different. The paradox of translation is that the text must remain the same, while becoming other insofar as it is reorganized into the expressive modalities of another language. The translation is simultaneously identical and different, the same/other. This relation among texts is also reflected in the relation between author and translator.

But translational processes cannot be reduced to interlingual translation alone. The question of translation is far broader. Every time there is a sign process there is translation. Translation concerns the relation among signs, which are intersign and transign relations, and extend in the direction of both intralingual and intersemiotic translative processes.

To extend the notion of translation to the point that translation and semiosis converge means to look at the relation among signs from a special angle. This relation viewed in terms of translative processes is dominated by similarity. The question of translation is connected with the typology of signs, where the sign that prevails is the iconic as distinguished from the indexical and the symbolic. But to posit that translation and semiosis coincide also means to view translation from the point of view of global semiotics and its role in the great semiotic web that is our biosphere.

As intersign and transign activity, the question of translation is also the question of the relation among different fields of knowledge and experience, among different disciplines, different cultures and ideologies, among different philosophies and worldviews. From this point of view, the question of translation is connected to the question of dialogue, otherness and responsibility, therefore to the proposal of a new form of humanism, that is, the humanism of otherness.
Translation is inherent in all communication, understanding and interpretive processes, in language and culture at large. From a global semiotic perspective, if we accept the axiom posited by Thomas A. Sebeok that life and semiosis converge, then translation is the condition for signs to flourish, the condition for life throughout the entire biosphere, the global semiosphere. With specific reference to the anthroposemiosphere and to the theme of our conference "Global Semiotics: Bridging Different Civilizations," encounter and dialogue among cultures and civilizations is only possible thanks to ongoing translational processes.

Papers are invited to address these problems and others still related to the topic of the relation between translational processes and sign processes, therefore between translation theory and sign theory.

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words in Rich Text Format or Word doc attached to an email and addressed to the panel organizers by 30 June 2012.

A maximum of 15 to 20 minutes will be allowed for each presentation.

For further information concerning abstract submission, see attachment nos. 3.