The forthcoming International Conference ‘New Trends in Translation and Technology’ (NeTTT’2020) will take place on the island of Rhodes, Greece, 28-30 September 2020.

The objective of the conference is to bring together academics in linguistics, translation studies, machine translation and natural language processing, as well as developers, practitioners, language service providers and vendors who work on or are interested in different aspects of technology for translation. The conference will be a distinctive and interdisciplinary event for discussing the latest developments and practices in translation technology. NeTTT’2020 invites all professionals who would like to learn about recent trends, present their latest work, and/or share their experiences in the field. The conference will also be an ideal place to establish business and research contacts, collaborations and new ventures.

The conference will take the form of presentations (peer-reviewed research and user presentations, keynote speeches), demos (demos from sponsors) and posters; it will also feature panel discussions and tutorials/workshops. The presentations will be published as open-access conference e-proceedings.

Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2020

For more information, click here

It is widely accepted that translators and interpreters do not work in isolation but “in a wider social context, interacting with other agents and with information technology” (Shih 2017: 50; See also Wang & Wang 2019). As in any effective social interaction, three components underpin translators and interpreters’ daily activities. They are: affect, behaviour and cognition (Spooner 1989).

Cognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses’ (Oxford Dictionary 2019). In translation and interpreting, this often refers to the mental procedure of how translators and interpreters acquire and store information, and consequently plan and execute translation and interpreting activities, often under the constraints of limited resources and situational contexts. With an accumulation of these ongoing mental processing throughout translators and interpreters’ experience and career, perception, schemata and understanding are gradually developed, which consequently guide their behaviours. Whist often overlooked, affect, which refers to translators’ and interpreters’ emotion and feeling, is tightly interwoven into the fabrics of translation and interpreters’ cognition and behaviour.

To understand the entirety and complexity of translation and interpreting as social interaction, it is important to explore the interplay between translators’ and interpreters’ affect, behaviour and cognition, be it from the theoretical, empirical or methodological perspectives.
This symposium welcomes contributions related to the following themes (although not limited to):

Themes:

- Interdisciplinary studies in translation and interpreting
- Eye tracking in translation and interpreting studies
- Human and computer interaction for translators and interpreters
- Translation and the Web
- Emotions in Translation and interpreting
- Ideologies in translation and interpreting
- Technology in translation and interpreting
- Ecological approach to translation and interpreting
- Ergonomical approach to translation and interpreting
- Neurological approach to translation and interpreting
- Pedagogy for translation and interpreting
- Professional issues in translation and interpreting
- Innovation in research methodologies

Deadline for submissions: 31 March 2020

For more information, see here

Bernard Shaw was perhaps the first playwright who truly became an international figure. His plays have been performed in every country imaginable; his works, translated to dozens of languages. In addition, his ideas have influenced the most disparate authors on a global scale. To this attests his correspondence with some of the leading luminaries of the continent as well as the media attention he received from Amsterdam to Zagreb. Bernard Shaw, the man and the persona, knew no borders, and nowhere is this more so than in Europe. Some of his plays premiered in German translation years before they could be staged in the West End. At the peak of his career, Saint Joan, to cite but one example, was translated and produced in every major European capital within a year of its publication. The International Shaw Conference—“Shaw in Europe” is intended as a forum for scholars who study Shaw’s reception in Europe and the ramifications of his works and ideas on the continent.

The Organizing Committee welcomes papers on any of the following topics:

• Shaw productions in European countries

• Translations of Shaw plays and other works into European languages

• The reception of Shaw’s works and ideas in Europe

• Shaw’s influence on European authors

• Shaw and his views on European history and politics

• Shaw plays that have specific European connections: Bulgaria and Arms and the Man; France and Saint Joan; Spain and Man and Superman; Russia and Great Catherine / Annajanska; Ireland and John Bull’s Other Island, etc. Proposals for themed panels and roundtables are also welcome, especially those covering Shaw in specific countries and/or languages (in the case of translation).

Deadline for proposals: 17 February 2020

For more information, click here

The video game industry has become a worldwide phenomenon, generating millions in revenue every year. Video games are increasingly becoming more elaborate and sophisticated, with advanced graphics and intricate story lines, and developers and publishers need to reach the widest possible audience in order to maximise their return on investment. Translating games into other languages and designing games that can be played for a wide spectrum of players, regardless of their (dis)ability, are two obvious ways to contribute to increasing the audience for the game industry. In addition, games are increasingly being used for “serious” purposes beyond entertainment, such as education, and such games should also be designed inclusively, to facilitate access to them by all types of players.

Research on game translation and localization and accessibility has been gaining momentum in recent years. In particular, and the number of studies analysing game translation and localisation from different perspectives has increased dramatically, while game accessibility remains a relatively unexplored topic. The Fun for All: 6th International Conference on Game Translation and Accessibility aims to bring together professionals, scholars, practitioners and other interested parties to explore game localisation and accessibility in theory and practice, to discuss the linguistic and cultural dimensions of game localisation, to investigate the relevance and application of translation theory for this very specific and rapidly expanding translational genre, and to analyse the challenges game accessibility poses to the industry and how to overcome them.

The successful previous editions of the Fun for All: International Conference on Translation and Accessibility in Video Games, held at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 have become a meeting point for academic and professionals working in the game industry and the game localisation industry, as well as students and translators interested in this field

The sixth edition of the Fun for All Conference, in collaboration with the Researching Audio Description project, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PGC2018-096566-B-I00, MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), aims to continue fostering the interdisciplinary debate in these fields, to consolidate them as academic areas of research and to contribute to the development of best practices.

Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2019

For more information, click here

7th International Conference on Public Services Interpreting and Translation: The Human Factor in PSIT, 26 - 27 March 2020, University of Alcalá.

Proposals are encouraged to focus on PSIT and to specially apply to any of the following areas of study:

• PSIT and its relationship with the socio-political and economic environment

• Intercultural and interlinguistic mediation

• Multiculturalism and multilingualism

• Linguistic resources and migrant population in the European Union

• Technological advances in PSIT

• Curriculum design and training in PSIT in humanitarian settings

• T & I in/with indigenous language/lesser used languages

• Language policies in African communities

• PSIT as a tool/strategy/way to favor inclusion in society

Deadline for proposals: 17 December 2019

For more information, click here

Writing in a non-native language, essentially in English as a lingua franca, is a frequent and socially encouraged practice. The situation is different in the translation industry, where translation into L2 (i.e. the translator’s non-native language) is officially discouraged in some Western European countries. Despite this official standpoint, a European survey conducted in 2015 shows that over 50% of the respondents translate into their L2 (mainly English) on a regular basis. Because of its ambiguous status on the translation market, translation into L2, and more generally, the issue of translation directionality (similarities and differences between the L2 > L1 and L1 > L2 translation directions), has received relatively little attention in translation research to date. The aim of the present workshop is to make a contribution to filling this gap. To gain a comprehensive view of this complex issue, we adopt an interdisciplinary perspective. Assuming that translation creates a situation of bilingualism in which two languages are activated simultaneously, we will draw upon psycholinguistic experimental approaches to bilingualism to shed light on the processing of L1 and L2 as target languages. These insights will be compared with observations obtained in process- and product-oriented translation research as well as in research into L2 writing.

The workshop will take place on 12 December from 9am to 6pm.

Attendance is free but registration is compulsory by 1 November. To register, please write to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Covers all branches of computational linguistics and language engineering, wherever they incorporate a multilingual aspect. It features papers that cover the theoretical, descriptive or computational aspects of any of the following topics:

- compilation and use of bi- and multilingual corpora
- computer-aided language instruction and learning
- computational implications of non-Roman character sets
- connectionist approaches to translation
- contrastive linguistics
- corpus-based and statistical language modeling
- discourse phenomena and their treatment in (human or machine) translation
- history of machine translation
- human translation theory and practice
- knowledge engineering
- machine translation and machine-aided translation
- minority languages
- morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
- multilingual dialogue systems
- multilingual information retrieval
- multilingual information society (sociological and legal as well as linguistic aspects)
- multilingual message understanding systems
- multilingual natural language interfaces
- multilingual text composition and generation
- multilingual word-processing
- phonetics, phonology
- software localization and internationalization
- speech processing, especially for speech translation

For more information, click here

Your article in Machine Translation?
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The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures is seeking a well-rounded specialist who focuses on the theories, practice, and teaching of Translation & Interpreting Studies for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor.

Performs teaching, research and student advising duties in Spanish/English translation and interpreting. Shares responsibility for departmental and College committee work and other duties as assigned by the chair.

Required qualifications: Ph.D. in Translation and Interpreting Studies in Spanish or in a related discipline, such as Applied Linguistics in Spanish with a focus in translation and interpreting, from a regionally accredited U.S. institution or an equivalent non-U.S. institution by date of appointment. Native or near-native fluency in Spanish and English.

Ability to successfully teach Spanish to English and English to Spanish translation and interpreting courses at all levels of undergraduate instruction. Demonstrated scholarship or research achievement. Responsibilities will include working collaboratively with colleagues, the department, and the College. The successful candidate may also be expected to teach Spanish language courses at all levels of instruction.

Teaching, service and publication are required. Teaching duties include a 3/3 course load (six courses per year) of undergraduate courses, but beginning tenure-track appointments receive a significant course reduction while working toward tenure. Candidates are expected to bring enthusiasm and demonstrated commitment to teaching and to develop and maintain an active research and publication agenda. Service duties include actively recruiting, advising and mentoring Spanish majors and Certificate students.

Review of resumes to begin November 10, 2019.
Posting closes on December 1, 2019.

For more information, click here

KäTu2020: Translation and Interpreting: Focusing on Quality

University of Helsinki, 17–18 April 2020

The annual KäTu symposia offer researchers, teachers and practitioners of translation and interpreting a forum where they can discuss the diverse phenomena of the field, their ongoing research projects, and the state and development of Translation Studies in general. Doctoral students, in particular, are an important KäTu target group. They are offered the opportunity to present their work in its different stages of development, and receive valuable feedback.

For seventeen years, the KäTu symposia have brought together a wide array of participants interested in the field and its research: audience members and speakers, translators and interpreters of spoken as well as sign languages, researchers and teachers of translation and interpreting. The KäTu symposia are organised as a collaborative effort between the Teachers’ and Researchers’ Section of the Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters (SKTL), and the different Finnish universities which train future translators and interpreters. Hosting the symposium is rotated between these Finnish universities. The 2020 symposium will be held at the University of Helsinki, which is proud to be organising and hosting the event for the fourth time.

Proposals for workshops and thematic sessions should be submitted no later than Friday 15th November 2019. Suggestions for thematic sessions must include the titles of the presentations to be included as part of those sessions. Proposals for session presentations and posters must be submitted no later than Friday 17th January 2020.

For more information, click here

ATISA X: Translation, Interpreting and movement(s). Biennial Conference of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association University of California, Santa Barbara / April 24-26, 2020

Keynote Speakers: Moira Inghilleri (UMass - Amherst) and Douglas Robinson (Hong Kong Baptist University)

The idea of movement is embedded in the very word translation. Acts of translation and interpreting involve ontological, physical, exegetical and epistemological movements that define both process and product. Translators and interpreters are themselves bodies in movement, travelling across languages and cultures and physically enacting the translation and interpreting process. And so, as we move further into the cyber era, what effect might this have on the translator’s body and the movement of translated texts? At the same time, the physical movement of peoples – in 2017 there were more displaced persons (refugees, asylum seekers and the internally displaced persons) than ever in history (UNHCR, 2018) – has produced a sharp increase in demand for translation and interpreting services. How is our understanding of the role and ethics of translation and interpreting affected by the conditions behind this unprecedented movement of peoples: migration, war and conflict, along with the rise of autocratic regimes and illiberal democracies? Also relevant here is the role and nature of translation and interpreting in various political and social movements. Moreover, the field of Translation and Interpreting Studies itself has been full of movements – shifts in perspectives, theories, space and place, and power. A field whose flux has often been presented as unproblematically linear and diachronic is now being challenged within more heterogeneous, transnational and rhizomatic paradigms. In addition, translation and interpreting, once banished from the language learning classroom, have been repositioning themselves as potentially effective language learning activities and as a way to teach learners about the nature of language.

Call for papers deadline: 1 November 2019

For more information, click here