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The programme for the Translab4: Translation and Labour-symposium has been announced. The symposium is organized by Alexa Alfer and Cornelia Zwischenberger and will be held at the University of Westminster, London, UK, on July, 6-7. Interested participants are kindly asked to register until 23 June 2023. Further information: https://transcultcom.univie.ac.at/translab4/

This is the first handbook to focus on translation theory, based on an innovative and expanded definition of translation and on the newest perspectives in the field of Translation Studies. With an introductory overview explaining the rationale, a part on foundational issues and three further parts on object translation, representamen translation and interpretant translation, the handbook provides a critical overview of conceptual approaches to translation which can contribute to our understanding of translational phenomena in the broadest sense. Authored by leading international figures, the handbook covers a wide range of theories and approaches from ecological and biosemiotic approaches to philosophical and cultural approaches, and from computational sciences to anthropology. The Routledge Handbook of Translation Theory and Concepts is both an essential reference guide for advanced students, researchers and scholars in translation and interpreting studies, and it is an enlightening guide to future developments in the field. For more information, click here.

This innovative book takes the concept of translation beyond its traditional boundaries, adding to the growing body of literature which challenges the idea of translation as a primarily linguistic transfer. To gain a fresh perspective on the work of translation in the complex processes of meaning-making across physical, social and cultural domains (conceptualized as translationality), Piotr Blumczynski revisits one of the earliest and most fundamental senses of translation: corporeal transfer. His study of translated religious officials and translated relics reframes our understanding of translation as a process creating a sense of connection with another time, place, object or person. He argues that a promise of translationality animates a broad spectrum of cultural, artistic and commercial endeavours: it is invoked, for example, in museum exhibitions, art galleries, celebrity endorsements, and the manufacturing of musical instruments. Translationality offers a way to reimagine the dynamic entanglements of matter and meaning, space and time, past and present. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies as well as related disciplines such as the history of religion, anthropology of art, and material culture. For more information, click here.

The contributions in this volume are a reflection of the entire range of Interpreting Studies, from explorations of research methodology and interpreting quality research to public service interpreting today and in the past, risk management strategies in court interpreting, and the interdependencies of interpreters in project networks. They address questions such as who can be called an interpreter, present new approaches to interpreter education, and discuss advances in technology, both in terms of speech-to-text interpreting and the changes that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the lives of interpreters. The breadth of this volume’s topics reflects the oeuvre of Franz Pöchhacker, who has left his mark on Interpreting Studies over more than three decades. This tribute not only reflects the many strands of his work, but also offers new research and insights by established scholars and young researchers in the ever growing field of Interpreting Studies. For more information, click here

The registration to Translab4 is now open. The two-day symposium organized by Cornelia Zwischenberger and Alexa Alfer held at the University of Westminster, London, UK and will be focusing on the concept of ‘labour’ arising from Translab’s hallmark blending of ‘translation’ and ‘collaboration’. Register now and find more information under: https://transcultcom.univie.ac.at/translab4/

Two-day symposium organized by Alexa Alfer and Cornelia Zwischenberger, held 6-7th July 2023 in London, UK This symposium will be devoted to explorations of the concept of labour arising from Translab’s hallmark blending of ‘translation’ and ‘collaboration’. It posits that the concept of labour, as distinct from ‘work’ (Arendt 1958/1998; Narotzky 2018), warrants more sustained engagement on the part of both Translation Studies and the translation profession. While digital labour (Fuchs 2020), playbor (Kücklich 2005), fan labour (De Kosnik 2012), affective labour (Hardt 1999; Koskinen 2020), emotional labour (Hochschild 1993), or (im)material labour (Negri & Hardt 2004) may present themselves as particularly topical sites for such exploration, both labour and work are also important yet largely underarticulated dimensions in discussions about translation in a professional context and in debates about the distinction between professional and non-professional translation. Last but not least, we are keen to extend consideration of the labour concept to translation as such, and to interrogate its relevance to current debates about the translation concept. While the concept of work is perhaps more readily associated with translation in professional discourses at least, translation as labour, i.e. as an activity structurally embedded in capitalist chains of surplus-value production (Zwischenberger and Alfer 2022), features far less prominently in current debates. However, foregrounding labour as a fundamental dimension of translation (and, for that matter, interpreting) allows both researchers and practitioners to investigate translation and interpreting more closely from a socioeconomic perspective. This should, in turn, help develop impactful alternatives to the prevalent ‘professionalisation’ discourses intended to raise the socio-economic status of translators, and critique the ways in which many of these discourses create idealised narratives of translation and interpreting that tend to foreground the processes of work while masking the labour involved in producing outputs whose value is, quietly or overtly, appropriated by those with a stake in the means of their production. Shining a spotlight on the surplus-value inherent in translation as the commodifiable expansion of a source text thus also uncovers the translation concept itself as the site of an unarticulated and unresolved tension between two competing and converging cultural narratives that pivot on conceptions of value as, on the one hand, inextricably bound to and, on the other, posited firmly “outside of a profit-motivated relationship” (Fayard 2021, 216). Papers are to be submitted by 18 April 2023.  For more information, click here.

The South East European Research Centre invites applications for studying towards a PhD degree of the University of York, through the Doctoral Programme of SEERC. The deadline for applying is April 21, 2023.  Details concerning the available research topics and the application submission process can be found in the Call for Applications. A small number of fee waiver studentships will become available to qualifying candidates who will apply for full time studies only. For more information, click here

This book provides readers, students and teachers with a clear and concise guide to understanding the concepts of offensive and taboo language and how this type of language can be subtitled into Spanish used in Spain. It combines theoretical and practical approaches and covers technical matters, as well as those of censorship, (ideological) manipulation, translation strategies and techniques, the treatment of offensive and taboo language and how to conduct research in this field. It includes an array of examples from recent films and TV series to present the reader with real samples of subtitles broadcast on digital platforms today. In addition, each chapter includes exercises with which the reader can put theory into practice, as well as possible solutions in the form of answer keys. It will be of use not only to researchers and students, but also to future audiovisual translators seeking to acquire further knowledge in the transfer of offensive and taboo language. For more information, click here

The Routledge Handbook of Public Service Interpreting provides a comprehensive overview of research in public service, or community interpreting. It offers reflections and suggestions for improving public service communication in plurilingual settings and provides tools for dealing with public service communication in a global society. Written by leading and emerging scholars from across the world, this volume provides an editorial introduction setting the work of public service interpreting (PSI) in context and further reading suggestions. Divided into three parts, the first is dedicated to the main theoretical issues and debates which have shaped research on public service interpreting; the second discusses the characteristics of interpreting in the settings which have been most in need of public service interpreting services; the third provides reflections and suggestions on interpreter as well as provider training, with an aim to improve public service interpreting services. This Handbook is the essential guide for all students, researchers and practitioners of PSI within interpreting and translation studies, medicine and health studies, law, social services, multilingualism and multimodality. For more information, click here

Based on a thematic area that examines empirical approaches in law and language studies, the present special section assembles three exemplary contributions outlining the possible dimensions of how empirical work can contribute to language and law. Some authors of these contributions explore cross-linguistic empirical work on communication between police and victims, witnesses and suspects, and the impact that linguistic and cultural differences can have; other authors utilise a corpus-based approach, which is combined with terminology studies to gain robust empirical data on terminological variation both within one language and inter-lingually; and yet other authors do experimental research, testing the claims of different theories on legal interpretation as to whether legal interpretation fundamentally differs from the ordinary understanding processes of language. These contributions thus illustrate the various ways in which all of these lines of research are able to complement existing research, open up new lines of inquiry and question or confirm existing assumptions. For more information, click here

Translation and interpreting can be seen as two special sub-types of bilingual communication. The field of bilingualism—from developmental, cognitive, and neuroscientific perspectives—is highly relevant to Translation and Interpreting Studies. The Routledge Handbook of Translation, Interpreting and Bilingualism is the first handbook to bring together the related, yet disconnected, fields of bilingualism and translation and interpreting studies. Edited by leading scholars and authored by a wide range of established authorities from around the world, the Handbook is divided into six parts and encompasses theories and method, the development of translator and interpreter competence and cognitive, neuroscientific and social aspects. This is the essential guide to bilingualism for advanced students and researchers of Translation and Interpreting studies and key reading on translation and interpreting for those studying and researching bilingualism. For more information, click here