Special Thematic Section for Translation, Cognition and & Behaviour (Issue 4:2 2021): Consolidating experimental research in audiovisual translation, guest edited by Stephen Doherty.

Deadline for proposals: 30 November 2020

For more information, click here

We are inviting chapter proposals for a volume entitled The Human Translator in the 2020s, to be  edited by Gary Massey, David Katan and Elsa Huertas Barros. The advance of machine translation  (MT) into the routine cognitive work hitherto done by translators creates an increasing demand for  

post-editing and related technology-led skills, but it is also opening spaces for adaptive experts able to  identify, deliver and advise on the added value of human translation and language service provision  beyond the scope of automation. Driven by evolving digital resources and socio-ethical demands, the  roles and responsibilities associated with the new and emerging profiles in the language industry are  rapidly and comprehensively transcending the traditional bounds of core activities and competences  prototypically associated with translation and interpreting. This volume will bring together a selection  of research-based and practice-oriented perspectives on the subject, shedding light on the new and  evolving roles, responsibilities and competences of the human translator in the 2020s. 

A preliminary proposal for the volume has been reviewed internally and conditionally accepted  for publication in the IATIS Yearbook series (Routledge) in 2022. The book will comprise eight to ten  chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. Each main chapter will contain approx. 6,000 words,  including references. Chapter proposals will be reviewed by the editors. All chapters submitted at their invitation will be subject to a double-blind peer review. 

Background 

Digital transformation and demographic change are profoundly affecting the way our societies and  economies function, confronting the translation profession with challenges, but also with  opportunities. Accelerating technological developments, especially artificial intelligence, are  reshaping the way translators work, changing processes, tasking and demand structures in the  language industry. The advance of machine translation (MT) into the routine cognitive work hitherto  done by human translators has been creating an increasing demand for MT post-editing and related  technology-led skills, but it is also opening spaces for adaptive experts (Holyoak, 1991)1 able to  identify, deliver and advise on the added value of human translation and language service provision  beyond the scope of automation. Moreover, demographic developments and socio-ethical  requirements to provide inclusive, user-centred access to information and services are extending the  mediatory roles and responsibilities expected of human translators, supported by assistive  technologies, in a growing variety of contexts.  

A review of current job positions in the language industry demonstrates the proliferation of job  titles and responsibilities (Bond, 2018)2. Powered by evolving digital resources and socio-ethical  demands, the roles and responsibilities associated with these new and emerging profiles are rapidly  and comprehensively transcending the traditional bounds of core activities and competences  associated with translation and interpreting, the two key prototypes of language mediation. The  diversity of activities, roles and responsibilities is also reflected in two handbooks published this year,  the Bloomsbury Companion to Language Industry Studies (Angelone, Ehrensberger-Dow, and Massey  2020)3 and the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology (O’Hagan 2020)4. Localization,  transcreation, multimodal and audiovisual translation, user-centred translation, accessible barrier-free  communication, revision, pre-editing, post-editing, terminological services, linguistic intercultural  mediation, public service translation, language and communication consultancy are just some of the  areas in which the professional group (still) called translators and interpreters work. As translation and  related language mediation professions diversify, they are also increasingly converging with  professions such as organisational, technical and accessible communication, yielding new  interprofessional forms and fields of work oriented towards strategic trust- and reputation-building,  user experience and social inclusion. Yet, research on translators’ status and self-concept indicates that   

1 Holyoak, K. J. (1991) Symbolic connectionism: Toward third-generation theories of expertise. In K. A.  Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.) Toward a General Theory of Expertise: Prospects and Limits, 301-335. Cambridge,  UK: Cambridge University Press. 

2 Bond, E. (2018) The Stunning Variety of Job Titles in the Language Industry. Slator News. Available online: undefined [accessed 20 April 2020]. 3 Angelone, E., Ehrensberger-Dow, M., and Massey, G. (Eds.) (2020) The Bloomsbury Companion to Language  Industry Studies. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 

4 O‘Hagan, M. (Ed.) (2020) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology. London: Routledge.

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they may be underequipped to embrace the changes, suggesting that competence profiles, role  awareness and the education that shapes them should better accommodate the added value of adaptive  human translation expertise to serve the broadening needs of a transitioning industry. 

Target audience 

The volume is intended to combine perspectives from research and practice, and should therefore  appeal to actors from both spheres. Addressing an international readership, its primary audience  consists of international translation studies scholars, intermediate to advance students of language  mediation, and language mediator educators and their institutions, all of whom/which are identifiably  affected by the increasingly rapid and widespread shifts taking place in the language industry in  general, and the translation profession in particular. The secondary audience comprises professional  practitioners and language managers working across the transitioning global language industry.  

Proposals 

Chapter proposals are invited on relevant research, practice, theory and/or pedagogy related, but not  limited, to 

- Modes and forms of value-added human translation (e.g. inclusive/accessible and/or  multilingual text design and production, transcreation, co-creation, intercultural mediation) - (Re-)Positioning the human translator in complex sociotechnical environments and/or at the  interface with assistive technologies 

- Evolving translator roles and responsibilities 

- New translator competences, profiles and/or their development 

- New approaches to human translation in translator education 

- New practices, workflows and/or (quality) processes centred on human translation  - Value-adding interprofessional convergence and interfaces (e.g. with organisational  communication, strategic communication, corporate communications, usability, technical  communication, inclusive/accessible communication) 

Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 October 2020

For more information, click here

The 10th International Conference of the Iberian Association for Translation and Interpreting Studies (AIETI), which is being hosted by the University of Minho’s School of Arts and Humanities (ILCH) and Center for Humanistic Studies (CEHUM), will take place on 17, 18 and 19 June, 2021 in Braga at the University of Minho’s Gualtar campus.

This is the first time that the biennial AIETI conference is to be held in Portugal. It is, therefore, a unique opportunity to promote and enrich transdisciplinary dialogue and research practice in Translation and Interpreting Studies not only in the Iberian Peninsula but also more widely in the Lusophone space.

In accordance with the 3rd article of the AIETI’s Statutes, the aim of this conference is to encourage thinking, study, research, teaching and scientific exchange around the different areas of translation and interpreting, as well as promoting awareness of its socio-cultural value and impact.

Under the broad organising themes of journeys and crossings, as well as hospitality and dialogue, the conference aims to inspire discussion around the dynamics of language, culture and knowledge transmission in the context of globalization through the circulation of texts and ideas in translation.

The organising committee welcomes all academics, researchers, professionals and students on this journey through texts and languages. To reclaim a Camonian dictum, you are invited to re-cross “waters previously navigated,” to map and write new cartographies for a “bright wide world.”

Both individual paper proposals and panel proposals will be considered. Conference papers may address but need not be limited to the following topics:

• History of Translation
• Theory of Translation
• Didactics of Translation
• Interpreting
• Sociology of Translation
• Translation Process Studies
• Applied Linguistics and Translation
• Activism, Immigration and Conflict
• Tools and technology
• Literary Translation
• Specialized Translation
• Audiovisual Translation and Multimodality in Translation and Interpreting Studies

Deadline for submissions: 30 November 2020

For more information, click here

Cognitive approaches to studying interpreting have been one of the main streams of research in Interpreting Studies since the 1970s. Recently, as new perspectives continue to form and new methodologies continue to be adopted and as a result of increasing inter-disciplinary cross-pollination, the field of Interpreting Studies has seen a resurgence of cognition-related research, not only in spoken language interpreting, but also in signed language interpreting. Riding on this exciting new wave and continuing our tradition of having a targeted theme, we aspire to use this platform to bring together top and promising scholars in both spoken language interpreting and signed language interpreting to Hong Kong.

We welcome oral presentations and posters on both basic and applied research that fit the sub-themes of the conference or that are related to the conference theme in a broader sense.

Sub-themes:

• bimodal and unimodal bilingualism and their implications in interpreting studies
• modality (bimodal or unimodal) effects in interpreting
• cognitive processes and constructs in different modalities and modes of interpreting
• neurological substrates of interpreting
• attention and memory in interpreting
• cognitive workload in different modes of interpreting
• cognitive considerations in machine-aided interpreting
• cognitive abilities as interpreting aptitude
• cognition-informed training of interpreters
• skill acquisition and attrition in interpreters
• interpreter's cognition throughout the life span

Deadline for submissions: 15 November

For more information, click here

Just before the turn of the 21st century, Mikhail Epstein called for a return of the human into the humanities, proposing a Bakhtinian turn from the paradigms of the 20th century, which ascribed “the source of our activity to some non-human, impersonal structures speaking through us” (1999; 113), to a rehumanisation which would help us reappropriate the “alienated sources of our activity and understand them as an indispensable otherness inherent in the nature of human self-awareness” (113). The vision of such humanity-centred research would incorporate the knowledge gained from such systems of thought as psychoanalysis, semiotics and (post)structuralism, while also attempting to transgress the structural determination of action. The kind of rehumanisation translation and interpreting studies now seeks is not a return to a self-endorsing anthropocentrism, but an approach which would make the human agency in translation and interpreting visible as an active force with the potential to shape the social and natural world.

The challenges of globalisation cannot be reduced to debates about the future of translation and interpreting, but this unprecedented movement of people and ideas requires an urgent response from our community, and our particular ability to connect cultures and carry over thoughts and ideas.

The conference strives to bring together scholars from various fields of translation and interpreting studies to share their perspectives on the human factor in their studies. We believe that the human factor in translation technology, literary translation, audiovisual translation, technical translation, conference interpreting, community interpreting and in the education of future translators and interpreters is fundamental. That is why we are asking scholars from around the world to share their experiences. We will pay particular attention to the sociological factors of these professions and the role of “theory” in improving translators’ visibility and social standing. When talking about translators, we refer to “people with flesh-and-blood bodies. If you prick them, they bleed” (Pym, 2014, p. 161). We want to talk about translators and interpreters not as if they were “linguistic machines”, but as they are: human beings. We are also interested in the effects of non-translation, such as the lack of (mainly) community interpreters and the problems it poses for the integration of people seeking refuge. We would like to hear well-structured, data-based presentations, but also sound case and qualitative studies. Together, we will take a closer look at how the human factor (institutional or personal) affects translation and interpreting.

Perspectives from which to address the conference topic may include, but are not limited to:

• community interpreting
• sociology of translation and interpreting
• returning names to anonymous translators
• (de)humanising media and audiovisual translation
• consumers and consumerism in media and translation context
• the human factor in machine translation and post-editing
• effects of non-translation in (trans)cultural and ecological relations
• literary translators between determinism and agency
• translation of literature as a litmus test of cultural priorities
• teaching translators and interpreters: between education and training
• agency in translation history

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2020

For more information, click here

Guest Editors: Jinsil CHOI, Jonathan EVANS and Kyung Hye KIM 

This special issue will investigate the role of translation in the rapidly changing and developing environment of global media streaming. While there have been calls to ‘recenter globalization’ since the early 2000s (e.g. Iwabuchi 2002), since the late 2000s the development of streaming media has effectively disrupted older linear flow patterns of film and media distribution and consumption. There is now globally more access in translation to what had been marginalised cultures in the global media ecology, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Nigeria. In turn, these so-called marginalised cultures in the global media ecology, which had been previously largely dominated by Hollywood, now enjoy wider access in translation to media cultures which had been much less explored or ignored in their home cultures: Korean audiences having a greater access to Danish, German, and Spanish media, for instance. Streaming service platforms turned content creators such as Amazon, Netflix and Rakuten Viki are in the process of overturning previous understandings of the global mediasphere and accelerating the dynamics of the media landscape, enabling contraflow of media content and de/recentering understandings of global media production. Increasingly invested in international services, streaming companies’ practices fragment, deconstruct and reconfigure media space.

Video streaming sites such as Youtube, where original content is also distributed, contribute to this refashioning of media distribution and reception and further complicate the relationship between translator, content provider and creator.  Yet the process is not limited to disruptive new companies: established multinational media and technology companies such as Disney and Apple have recently launched new streaming services, suggesting that the field is in a constant process of reconfiguration as different agents emerge, rise to power or struggle to hold market share. The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic has yet to be fully understood, but streaming has been a significant part of people’s media consumption during lockdown, and is expected to precipitate pronounced reconfiguration of the contemporary global media ecosystem. While there is a growing body of work on streaming from media studies (Dixon 2013; Smith and Telang 2016; Johnson 2018; Lobato 2019; Pallister 2019), there has been considerably less research on the relationship between translation and streaming (with the exceptions of Dwyer 2017; Pedersen 2018).

Translation is central to these recent disruptions of the media field, as streaming providers offer most media content in translated versions, be it dubbed or subtitled, propelling the cultural mobility of media content across national and linguistic borders. Netflix, for example, functions as a particularly disruptive force by offering an ever wider range of genres and non-English language series tailored to specific groups of people around the world (Barker and Wiatrowski 2017), to the extent that it supported more than 20 languages by 2017 and approached “an inflection point where English won’t be the primary viewing experience on Netflix” (Netflix 2017). Not all translations on streaming platforms are official, and there continue to be thriving fan translation cultures on streaming platforms such as Youtube and Viki which offer access to media between what Casanova (1999) calls ‘dominated’ cultures, as well as between ‘dominating’ and ‘dominated’ cultures. This increasing fluidity is having a significant effect on Anglosphere understandings of world media, which had previously seen ‘foreign’ film and TV as elite, highbrow productions but now, especially through streaming platforms and fansubbing, more popular media such as Korean soap operas or Chinese teenage TV dramas are becoming widely available. As such, Eurocentric notions of popular media (Shohat and Stam 1994) need rethinking to take into account the increasing circulation of media products from around the world and the shifting balances of soft power (Nye 2004) related to the streaming of media content. How, for instance, does access to Chinese soap operas in translation affect the image of China in the world and its soft power? How does streaming invert and alter previous hierarchies? At the same time, the massive abundance of available media around the globe is creating a scarcity of attention and affecting a new attention ecology (Citton 2017) which risks ‘dominated’ languages and cultures being overlooked in the sheer quantity of ‘dominating’ language production. How then do streaming and translation filter media for consumers? Are streaming services and video sites reinforcing, or challenging, existing inequalities of access and distribution through curation and selection of languages to translate into? What effect is this having on the dominance of ‘global’ English? Importantly, how does the curation of media content through translation and streaming promote or silence communities such as the LGBT community, the Deaf or ethnic minorities? It is not a given that access to media from many different nations will be representative of the diversity within those nations. How do notions of alterity change in globalised media?

The topic of translation and streaming, then, has significant relationships not only with language and contemporary media consumption, but also soft power and global understandings of alterity. This special issue aims to explore the role of translation in the streaming epoch, especially in relation to the shifting definition of ‘peripheral/dominated’ and ‘central/dominating’ media producing cultures. We welcome contributions critically addressing translation (understood broadly) in the global media environment that has been created in relation to streaming and on demand services. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
•       Video streaming giants (e.g. Netflix, Amazon) and translation
•       Transnational and translational co-productions for international streaming
•       Shifting notions of centre/dominant and periphery/dominated and ways of retheorising the position of cultures in the current media ecology
•       Streaming, translation and the asymmetrical media environment
•       Minoritised groups in translation and streaming media
•       Translation as a form of curation of media
•       Economies of attention, digital distribution and translation
•       Shadow economies of media translation and their effects on global circulation
•       South-South or other ‘dominated-dominated’ translation practices (i.e. that do not pass through ‘dominant’ languages) for popular media

Please send any queries to the special issue editors, Jinsil CHOI (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Jonathan EVANS (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Kyung Hye KIM (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The deadline for abstracts (400-500 words) is 1 February 2021, to be submitted to the special issue editors.

Submission of abstracts: 1 February 2021

For more information, click here

The Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) is an internationally recognised centre for research, scholarship and teaching in translation and interpreting, and has recently been awarded a £3.56m Expanding Excellence in England grant to launch an ambitious new research programme. This programme will bring together human-based research practices with cutting-edge advances in machine learning and AI, focusing on the convergence of human and automated approaches to different modalities of translation and interpreting in order to initiate a step-change in the broader translation research agenda.

To support the expansion programme, we seek to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with expertise in applying natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) approaches to problems in translation or interpreting studies. The successful candidate will undertake research relevant to current and future projects in CTS, with a specific focus on designing, creating, and applying NLP-based methods within translation/interpreting research. S/he will contribute to the development of this area within CTS. The success of the research programme requires multidisciplinary collaborations. Good communication, presentation and project management skills are therefore essential as is a strong interest in combining human and automated approaches to translation/interpreting. Experience in the development of research proposals and in securing external research funding would be a plus.

Deadline for applications: 18 September 2020

For more information, click here

The Institute of Translation Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities is looking for a is looking for a

University Assistant with doctorate

(40 hours a week; fixed-term employment for the period of 6 years; position to be filled as of October 12^th 2020 )

Your duties

• Independent research and scientific collaboration in the research area "Translation and cooperation in times of technocapitalism"
• Possibility to write an empirically based postdoctoral thesis (habilitation) with a focus on translation technology and (digital) translation didactics
• Preparation of a structured overview of new developments and innovations in translation technology and digital translation didactics
• Publications in scientific journals and/or other forms of knowledge transfer (dissemination of knowledge)
• Assistance in the acquisition of external funding
• Contribution to existing and new research projects
• Participation in and co-organisation of workshops, symposia and conferences
• Teaching of courses, among others in the field of translation technology
• Student support
• Administration related to research and teaching

Your profile

• Doctorate in translation science with a reference to translation technology and/or (digital) translation didactics
• Excellent knowledge of the theories and methods of translation studies
• Comprehensive theoretical and practical knowledge of (new) translation technologies
• Familiarity with didactic approaches and methods in translation studies, preferably in relation to (new) translation technologies
• International experience and (preferably international) publications
• Experience in applying for external funding is desired
• Experience in organising academic events
• Experience in teaching translation studies courses
• Openness to tread new paths in (digital) translation didactics
• Very good computer skills, preferably with a background in language technology, computational linguistics or computer science
• Very good knowledge of German and English and good knowledge of at least one other language taught at the institute
• Taking pleasure in research, teaching and student support
• Intercultural competence
• Communication, organisational and above all teamwork skills
• Commitment, personal initiative and proactive action
• Reliability, resilience and flexibility

Application deadline: 9 September 2020

For more information, click here

Professor/Research Professor, El Colegio de México. French-Spanish Translation Teaching, Expertise, and Research.

Application deadline: 30 September

For more information, click here

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for the following position

Postdoctoral Researcher in Statistical Machine Translation (Two Posts)

ADAPT Centre, Centre for Digital Content Platform Research

Level on the Career Framework: Level 1

FTC up to 2 years

Overview
As part of this role the researcher will be required to participate in the DCU Research Career Framework. This framework is designed to provide significant professional development opportunities to Researchers and offer the best opportunities in terms of a wider career path. The role may include teaching duties to assist with module delivery.

Background
Dublin City University (www.dcu.ie) is a research-intensive, globally-engaged, dynamic institution that is distinguished by both the quality and impact of its graduates and its focus on the translation of knowledge into societal and economic benefit. DCU prepares its students well for success in life, and in the workplace, by providing a high-quality, rounded education appropriate to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. As Ireland’s University of Enterprise and Transformation, DCU is characterised by a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship and a track-record of effective engagement with the enterprise sector, including commercial, social and cultural enterprises. Excellence in its education and research activities has led to DCU’s consistent position in the rankings of the world’s top young universities.

The ADAPT Centre for digital content platform technology seeks to appoint two postdoctoral researchers in Neural Machine Translation (NMT) on the targeted research programme which addresses the research and development interests of ADAPT industry partners. It is envisaged that the first of the two posts will commence in September 2020, and the second in January 2021. ADAPT is Ireland’s global centre of excellence for digital content technology. Led by TCD, it combines the expertise of researchers at four universities (Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University College Dublin, and Dublin Institute of Technology) with that of its industry partners to produce ground-breaking digital content innovations. ADAPT brings together more than 150 researchers who collectively have won more than €100m in funding and have a strong track record of transferring world-leading research and innovations to more than 140 companies. With €50M in new research funding from Science Foundation Ireland and industry, ADAPT is seeking talented individuals to join its growing research team. Our research and technologies will continue to help businesses in all sectors and drive back the frontiers of future Web engagement.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities
The successful candidates will work within a large group of post-doctoral researchers, PhD students and software developers. The work of these post-doctoral researchers will be fundamental in applying ADAPT research breakthroughs in NMT to application areas identified by our commercial
partners, with whom the researcher will work closely. Reporting to the Principal Investigator, the Postdoctoral Researcher will:

• Research solutions to problems identified by industry partners in the application of MT in their translation pipelines. This may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• • data selection in NMT,
  • the utility of synthetic data in MT models,
  • MT for social media content,
  • MT and post-editing,
  • MT for literary content,
  • MT in indirect translation workflows,
  • MT for low-resource scenarios,
  • integration of terminology in MT models,
  • hybrid MT systems,
  • multimodal MT,
  • dialogue MT,
  • cross-lingual search.

• Produce top-quality journal and conference publications, in partnership with the PI, and, where appropriate, industry partners.
• Identify and write proposals for research funding.
• Participate in ADAPT Centre activities, such as industry showcases and annual reviews.
• Provide assistance and advice to any PhD students working on the same project.
• Contribute to teaching and supervision in the School of Computing.
• Report on progress at meetings and in writing to ADAPT Centre Management.
• Assist in identifying and developing future research and funding initiatives.
• Engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which he/she is engaged with the assistance of and under the supervision of the Principal Investigator.
• Engage in appropriate training and development opportunities as required by the Principal Investigator, the School or Research Centre, or the University.
• Liaise with both internal and external stakeholders including industry and academic partners/collaborators.
• Carry out administrative work associated with the programme of research as necessary.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience Required
The ideal candidate will have PhD in Machine Translation or a related discipline. In addition, it is desirable that the candidate has:

• Demonstrable experience in the translation and/or localisation industry.
• A strong background in statistical machine translation and translation technology, with a particular emphasis on neural models of MT
• Excellent machine-learning skills.
• Excellent programming skills.
• Excellent research skills, with experience, ideally, in the following:
  • NMT system-building and deployment expertise,
  • MT in low-resource situations (domains, or language pairs),
  • Up-to-date knowledge of the main areas of application for NMT in industry and academia.

Mandatory Training
The post holder will be required to undertake the following mandatory compliance training: Orientation, Health and Safety and Intellectual Property and Data Protection training. Other training may need to be undertaken when required.

Candidates will be assessed on the following competencies:
Discipline knowledge and Research skills – Demonstrates knowledge of a research discipline and the ability to conduct a specific programme of research within that discipline.

Understanding the Research Environment – Demonstrates an awareness of the research environment (for example funding bodies) and the ability to contribute to grant applications.

Communicating Research – Demonstrates the ability to convey their research with their peers and the wider research community (for example presenting at conferences and publishing research in relevant journals) and the potential to teach and tutor students.

Managing & Leadership skills – Demonstrates the potential to manage a research project including the supervision of undergraduate students.

For more information, click here