Edited by: James Hadley, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov, Carlos S. C. Teixeira, and Antonio Toral

Many of the translation tools in use today were initially designed to cater for technical, repetitive texts. This is still their main niche 25 years after the first versions of these tools appeared. Computer-aided translation (CAT) and Machine translation (MT) were long regarded as unsuitable for the translation of creative texts, claimed to be the last bastion of human translation. Creative-text translation in this context refers to the translation of texts from one language to another where the texts themselves pivot broadly on the human creativity employed in their production. They rely heavily on aesthetics for their existence, more than texts that aim to bring about an outcome directly, as in the case of technical texts. Such creative texts include, but are not limited to:

fictional works, such as novels, short stories, poems, plays, and comics;

non-fictional texts, such as philosophical works, didactic books, and self-help books;

performative works, such as songs, speeches, films, TV shows, and computer games; and

promotional texts, such as commercials, advertisements, and propaganda. The end of the second decade of the twenty-first century appears pivotal to a shift in machine-assisted literary translation. MT has experienced a sea change over the last five years, thanks to the adoption of methods based on deep neural networks, to the point that there are now even claims of some MT systems reaching parity with human translators. In turn, human translators,including translators of creative texts, have benefited from advances in technology, through which internet search engines and online dictionaries and encyclopedias have made information mining significantly easier than in previous decades and centuries. While many translators of creative texts continue to shun translation technology or assume it is not relevant to them, others already make heavy use of CAT tools. These positive consequences of the technologization of translation in general are paving the way for a spread and development of technologies to support the translation of creative texts in particular. This book will embody the state of the art of translation technologies in the field of creative-text translation. At the same time, it will reflect on literary translators’ attitudes towards translation technology, and ethical aspects, as well as recent trends and technical developments in the field.

The book invites chapters of no more than 8,000 words (all inclusive) addressing key questions,that include, but are not limited to:

To what extent are translators of creative texts already making use of technology intheir work?

What are the specific issues pertaining to literature and other types of creative textsthat prove difficult for MT systems today?

What challenges do translators face when using technology for translating creativetexts?

What are the attitudes of translators to the use of technology in the translation ofcreative texts?

How do readers respond to literary works translated using machines?

Apart from MT, what other kinds of computer-based tools could be used by literarytranslators?

What are the ecological and ethical implications of increasing literary translators’

reliance on technology in their work?

How should copyright issues be taken into account in the use of MT in literarytranslation?

In the first instance, abstracts are sought from parties interested in contributing to the book.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 June 2020

For more information, click here

Translation, interpreting and specialised communication offer great potential for interdependence and innovation. Theories, methodologies, current research questions, pedagogy as well as the practice of interpreting, translation and specialised communication illustrate how the boundaries between these disciplines can be overcome. This, in turn, affords innovative perspectives on new phenomena, new technologies and new ways of teaching the necessary skills and competences.

The Editors:

Barbara Ahrens, Morven Beaton-Thome, Monika Krein-Kühle, Ralph Krüger, Lisa Link and Ursula Wienen are actively involved in teaching and research at the Institute of Translation and Multilingual Communication at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany.

For more information, click here

The IMLR is delighted to announce a new area on our website: Online Resources. We are pleased to able to continue promoting and facilitating research whilst our physical building remains closed.

We have a number of online events lined up, with more to follow:

12-19 May          Playing with Prose: Online Theatre Workshop

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22507

18 May               Samuel Beckett et la Guerre d’Algérie

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22498

3 June                 Digital Modern Languages

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22490

16-17 June         Disrupting Digital Monolingualism

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22492

The intention is to record these events and make them available online. Also in our Podcasts section are taster sessions for events which have had to be postponed, such as the session on ‘Decolonising Modern Languages – a preview, and recordings of virtual events such as A Virtual Encounter between Andrea Grill and Tess Lewis.

We welcome contributions from translators or scholars working in Translation Studies, Religious Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Studies, Literary and Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Anthropology, and other relevant disciplines, on women translators of texts from all religions. We are interested in women’s participation in the translation of holy texts but also other types of religious writings, such as liturgical texts, exegeses, commentaries, patristic texts, lives of religious figures, and popular pious literature. Some of the issues which could make the object of discussion are:

 reasons for women to translate or retranslate a religious text;

 retracing and rediscovering the history of women’s involvement in the translation of religious texts;

 women’s experiences of translating, editing and publishing sacred texts;

 feminist influences, relations, and impact on women’s translations of religious texts;

 marketing, publication, and reception of translation by women;

 challenges that women translators of sacred texts face: censorship, power dynamics, the question of authority;

 linguistic, textual, and translation strategies employed by women translators of sacred texts, including the question of gender-inclusive and neutral language;

 comparisons between the experiences of women translating texts from different religions and working in different parts of the world and periods;

 collaborative translation experiences (female-female teams, male-female teams of translators) and what they reveal;

 the body of the translator, the body in religious translation;

 women translators of religious texts and the advent of contemporary media.

Deadline for submissions: 15 November 2020

For more information, click here

Translators, when not getting any press tend to get bad press, and the translation profession itself appears to be suffering an existential crisis (low play, status and uncertain future). However, this is not the full picture. The proposed issue intends to bring together practical applications of “translation plus”, where the translator (interpreter) is an essential collaborator working with (as much as for) the author, commissioner or any other actor in the process.

We are looking for case studies, situations, where the translator (in the widest sense of the term) is not “just the translator”, and is listened to rather than simply ‘used’. For example, Romero Fresco (2013) introduced the idea of the audiovisual translator as an integral part of “universal design” in filmmaking and translation, while Jemielity talks of his experience as the translator becoming essential to corporate marketing strategy. In both cases, the translator’s particular skills add recognized value to the process and to the product.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 May

For more information, click here

This special issue aims to present the most up-to-date research and developing trends within Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS). The editors welcome contributions that explore cognitive theoretical models of translation/interpreting, empirically investigate cognitive aspects of translation or interpreting, or critically engage with the philosophical foundations of Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS). Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

 translation/interpreting production or reception

 cognitive aspects of translator/interpreter behavior

 human-machine interaction/collaboration in translation/interpreting

 translation competence and/or translation expertise

 situated translation/interpreting

 cognitive aspects of translator/interpreter training

Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 May 2020

For more information, click here 

The International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting (ICCRTI) started in 2014 at the Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition (CSTIC), University of Macau. Since then, six conferences have been held at the University of Macau (2014-2016), Beijing Foreign Studies University (2017), Renmin University of China (2018) and Southwest University (2019). The conference has become an international forum for the presentation and discussion of up-to-date cognitive research on translation and interpreting.

The 7th International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting will be held on 18-20 September 2020 at Durham University, UK. This conference will focus on Emerging Topics in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies. Papers presented at the conference will be selected through peer review process to be published in a special issue of Translation Quarterly or a book of Springer’s New Frontiers of Translation Studies series.

Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2020

For more information, click here

We are happy to announce that the Third WITTA (World Interpreter and Translator Training Association) Congress will be held at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore on October 2-5, 2020. The working languages for the Congress are English and Chinese.

Open to all, the Congress is intended to create a common space for reflection on issues related to translation and interpreting education. 

Topics

We invite papers related but not limited to the following areas:

• T&I development in relation to bilingual development

• T&I competence in relation to bilingual competence

• Translation education and bilingual policies

• Methods, approaches, and innovations in T&I and bilingual teaching

• Curriculum development of T&I degree and training programmes

• Curriculum and teaching material development

• Translation trainer education and development

• Quality assessment of translation and bilingual education

• Technologies in T&I and bilingual education

• Continuing education in T&I and institutional support

• Simultaneous machine interpreting

• Machine translation and machine-aided translation

• Reality-integrated translation education

• Low-resource construction of language corpora

Deadline for submissions: 31 May

For more information, click here

In this position you will have the opportunity to carry out high level research and to specialise in a particular field. You will hold your own lectures, tutor students and participate in administration. During the first year of employment it is possible to conclude a 'qualification agreement' which is the core part of a University career position. If the terms of the qualification agreement are fullfilled it will lead to a continuous career at the University, resulting in the position of a Associate Professor and a permanent employment.

Deadline for applications: 21 May 2020

For more information, click here

Deadline for position extended to 25 May

A half-day post-doctoral position (with the option to extend it to a full position) with a focus on online collaborative translation, limited to 6 years is advertised at the Centre for Translation studies (collaboration with Prof. Dr. Cornelia Zwischenberger). It is desirable that the successful candidate writes a habilitation dedicated to the issue of online collaborative translation (e.g. Translation Crowdsourcing, Fansubbing, Fandubbing, Translation hacking etc.) as a specific type of transcultural communication where both the translation product and process are characterised by particular hybridity. Therefore, relevant previous experience with the topic and respective publications should already be available.

The Centre for Translation Studies (ZTW) at the University of Vienna, Austria is one of 20 academic units (faculties and centres) of the University of Vienna. In addition to the area of teaching (transcultural communication, translation studies, translation and interpreting education in 14 languages, etc.), the Centre conducts research in several key research areas. Cutting-edge research is conducted by professors, habilitated staff members, predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers, senior lecturers and many more. More than 120 lecturers teach translation-related subjects to about 3,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Deadline for applications: 25 May 2020

For more information, click here