IATIS News

Registration is now open for the 9th Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies: Living Translation: People, Processes, Products. It will be hosted in South Africa, at Stellenbosch University, from 9 to 13 September 2019. For more information, visit https://www.est2019.com/ In the meantime, please direct questions and enquiries to the logistics and conference organisers, XL Millennium Conference & Event Management on info@est2019.com.

Translation and Tourism: Strategies for Effective Cross-Cultural Promotion by M. Zain Sulaiman and Rita Wilson   This book addresses one of the most central, yet criticised, solutions for international tourism promotion, namely translation. It brings together theory and practice, explores the various challenges involved in translating tourism promotional materials (TPMs), and puts forward a sustainable solution capable of achieving maximum impact in the industry and society. The solution, in the form of a Cultural-Conceptual Translation (CCT) model, identifies effective translation strategies and offers a platform for making TPM translation more streamlined, efficient and easily communicated. Using the English-Malay language combination as a case study, the book analyses tourism discourse and includes a road test of the CCT model on actual end-users of TPMs as well as tourism marketers in the industry. Guidelines for best practices in the industry round out the book, which offers valuable insights not only for researchers but also, and more importantly, various stakeholders in the translation, tourism and advertising industries.

Edited by Łucja Biel, Jan Engberg, Rosario Martín Ruano, Vilelmini Sosoni   The field of legal translation and interpreting has strongly expanded over recent years. As it has developed into an independent branch of Translation Studies, this book advocates fora substantiated discussion of methods and methodology, as well as knowledge about the variety of approaches actually applied in the field. It is argued that, complex and multifaceted as it is, legal translation calls for research that might cross boundaries across research approaches and disciplines in order to shed light on the many facets of this social practice. The volume addresses the challenge of methodological consolidation, triangulation and refinement. The work presents examples of the variety of theoretical approaches which have been developed in the discipline and of the methodological sophistication which is currently being called for. In this regard, by combining different perspectives, they expand our understanding of the roles played by legal translators and interpreters, who emerge as linguistic and intercultural mediators dealing with a rich variety of legal texts; as knowledge communicators and as builders of specialised knowledge; as social agents performing a socially situated activity; as decision-makers and agents subject to and redefining power relations, and as political actors shaping legal cultures and negotiating cultural identities, as well as their own professional identity.

UCL Press is delighted to announce the publication of a brand new open access book that is likely to be of interest to list subscribers: Reflexive Translation Studies by Silvia Kadiu. Download it free from: http://bit.ly/303wrSp   In the past decades, translation studies have increasingly focused on the ethical dimension of translational activity, with an emphasis on reflexivity to assert the role of the researcher in highlighting issues of visibility, creativity and ethics. In Reflexive Translation Studies, Silvia Kadiu investigates the viability of theories that seek to empower translation by making visible its transformative dimension; for example, by championing the visibility of the translating subject, the translator’s right to creativity, the supremacy of human translation or an autonomous study of translation. Inspired by Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, Kadiu presents practical ways of challenging theories that argue reflexivity is the only way of developing an ethical translation. She questions the capacity of reflexivity to counteract the power relations at play in translation (between minor and dominant languages, for example) and problematises affirmative claims about (self-)knowledge by using translation itself as a process of critical reflection. In exploring the interaction between form and content, Reflexive Translation Studies promotes the need for an experimental, multi-sensory and intuitive practice, which invites students, scholars and practitioners alike to engage with theory productively and creatively through translation.

Circulation of Academic Thought: Rethinking Translation in the Academic Field Edited By Rafael Y. Schögler Academic thought circulates on a time-space continuum: authors, ideas and methods are discovered, discussed, discarded, praised, rewritten, refracted, transformed, transposed and translated. The contributors of this anthology develop cross-disciplinary approaches to study and understand translation of academic thought. They critically engage with the relationship of translation and meaning formation, context and style, as well as with the social and discursive positioning of translators in academic fields and beyond. Furthermore, the agents negotiating intellectual exchange are placed in specific political and historical contexts as well as respective scholarly frameworks of economics, philosophy, sociology and related fields.

As part of our ongoing collaboration with Routledge, and following the huge success of our recent free-to-view collections, IATIS are launching a new 'Summer Reading' collection. Here’s how it works: This collection will consist of up to ten Translation Studies books chosen by you. Simply nominate any Routledge TS book that you’d like to be included in the collection by the end of April. Nominate titles by commenting on our FB post about the collection, via FB message, tweeting using the hashtag #IATISsummer, or sending an email to j.a.lambert@bham.ac.uk. All books nominated will then go to a Facebook Poll so members and followers can vote on which books they’d like to see in the collection. Followers can vote for more than one book and the poll will close on 24th May. Finally, the top ten books will be made into a free-to-view collection that will be available throughout June. Enjoy!

Current Issues and Challenges in Research, Methods and Applications Edited by Ingrid Simonnæs  and Marita Kristiansen   In this anthology renowned scholars working in the area of legal translation studies (LTS) focus on current issues and challenges in legal translation emerging from today’s globalisation and internationalisation. Considering both theoretical and practical points of view the contributions present interdisciplinary approaches to legal translation dealing with legal systems in national, EU and international settings, and include civil law and common law as well as supranational and private international law. In addition to the historical evolution of legal systems and of legal translation the papers discuss specific features of legal language and challenges in legal translation, as well as new didactic strategies to deal with the future profiles of legal translators. Find out more: http://www.frank-timme.de/verlag/verlagsprogramm/buch/verlagsprogramm/bd-149-ingrid-simonnaes-marita-kristiansen-eds-legal-translation/backPID/forum-fuer-fachsprachen-forschung.html

The Jiao Tong Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2019 Martha Cheung Award is Dr. Yasmin Moll of the University of Michigan, USA, for her article entitled ‘Subtitling Islam: Translation, Mediation, Critique’, published in Public Culture 29/2 (2017). Dr. Moll’s study examines subtitling practices at Iqraa, a satellite television channel designed to promote Islamic da’wa (‘outreach’ or ‘preaching’) within both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority societies. It argues that the subtitlers see their task as twofold: to act as ‘cultural mediators’ responsible for countering perceived Western stereotypes about Muslims on the one hand, and, on the other, to transmit as ‘preachers by proxy’ correct and relevant religious knowledge to viewers when, at times, the Arab preachers they subtitle fail to do so. These translators feel authorized to contest through subtitles both external representations of Islam and internal interpretations of divine intent. Their acts of translation, and their internal debate at Iqraa, exceed the familiar Euro-American antimony of fidelity and betrayal. The article is based on extensive fieldwork and draws on and contributes to scholarship in media studies, translation studies and cultural anthropology. It demonstrates a fine-grained attention both to the actual and contingent ways in which subtitles are created and to the different motivations behind their creation, showing how translation on Islamic television is entwined in multiple stakes at multiple scales, whether those are aspirations for professional excellence, desires for a more just geopolitical order, or longing for divine salvation. Runners up Two further submissions have been deemed by reviewers and the Award Committee to be of outstanding quality and therefore deserve mention as runners up. In alphabetical order, the runners up are Dr. Qian Menghan of Beijing International Studies University, China and Dr. Wine Tesseur of the University of Reading, UK. The article by Dr. Qian, entitled ‘Penguin Classics and the Canonization of Chinese Literature in English Translation’, appeared in Translation and Literature 26/3 (2017). It examines the process by which translated Chinese literature becomes canonical in the anglophone literary system. Adopting a notion of the ‘classic’ that takes into account both essentialist and historical stances, it examines Penguin Classics originally written in Chinese from the perspective of choice of texts, translations, publishing, and literary-critical reception. It addresses the questions: What is the current canon of Chinese literature in English translation? What are the forces that certify some Chinese works as deserving canonical status in anglophone culture? And what consequences might the politics of recognition have for the understanding of world literature at large? The author argues that translated texts are valorized by multiple mediators within institutional frameworks, and the status they are accorded reflects the structures of the global literary economy. Dr. Tesseur’s article, entitled ‘Incorporating Translation in Sociolinguistic Research: Translation Policy in an International Non-governmental Organisation’, was published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics 21/5 (2017). It explores aspects of translation, multilingualism and language policy in the field of transnational civil society. By focusing on translation policies at Amnesty International, an international non‐governmental organisation that performs a key role in global governance, the article seeks to contribute to a globalisation‐sensitive sociolinguistics. It argues that combining a sociolinguistic approach – more precisely linguistic ethnography – with translation studies leads to an increased understanding of the language practices under study. The article also calls for more interdisciplinary research, arguing that there is space for sociolinguistics and translation studies to contribute to research in international relations and development studies by highlighting the role of multilingualism and challenging the traditionally powerful position of English in transnational civil society. Dr. Yasmin Moll (The University of Michigan, USA) Moll, Yasmin (2017) ‘Subtitling Islam: Translation, Mediation, Critique’, Public Culture 29(2): 333-361. Abstract: Egyptian translators working at Iqraa—the world’s first Islamic television channel—use a variety of strategies in subtitling Arabic-language preaching programs into English. These translators see their task as twofold: to act as “cultural mediators” responsible for countering perceived Western stereotypes about Muslims, on the one hand, and, on the other, to transmit as “preachers by proxy” correct and relevant religious knowledge to viewers when, at times, the Arab preachers they subtitle fail to do so. Translators feel authorized to contest through subtitles both external representations of Islam and internal interpretations of divine intent. Far from being just exercises in interlingual equivalence, subtitling is a form of moral critique motivated by both postcolonial and theological imperatives. These acts of translation, and their internal debate at Iqraa, exceed the familiar Euro-American antimony of fidelity and betrayal. Available open access for one year at https://read.dukeupress.edu/public-culture/article/29/2%20(82)/333/31094/Subtitling-Islam-Translation-Mediation-Critique   Dr. Qian Menghan (Beijing International Studies University, China) Qian, Menghan (2017) ‘Penguin Classics and the Canonization of Chinese Literature in English Translation’, Translation and Literature 26(3): 295-316. Abstract: This article examines the process by which translated Chinese literature becomes ‘canonical’ in the anglophone literary system. Adopting a notion of the ‘classic’ that takes into account both essentialist and historical stances, it conducts a study of Penguin Classics originally written in Chinese under the aspects of choice of texts, translations, publishing, and literary-critical reception. It addresses the questions: What is the current canon of Chinese literature in English translation? What are the forces that certify some Chinese works as deserving canonical status in anglophone culture? And what consequences might the politics of recognition have for the understanding of world literature at large? It argues that translated texts are valorized by multiple mediators within institutional frameworks, and the status they are accorded reflects the structures of the global literary economy. Available at: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/tal.2017.0302   Dr. Wine Tesseur (The University of Reading, UK) Tesseur, Wine (2017) ‘Incorporating Translation in Sociolinguistic Research: Translation Policy in an International Non-governmental Organisation’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(5) Abstract: This article explores aspects of translation, multilingualism and language policy in the field of transnational civil society. By focusing on translation policies at Amnesty International, an international non‐governmental organisation that performs a key role in global governance, this article seeks to contribute to a globalisation‐sensitive sociolinguistics. It argues that combining a sociolinguistic approach – more precisely linguistic ethnography – with translation studies leads to an increased understanding of the language practices under study. Furthermore, the article calls for more interdisciplinary research, stating that there is space for sociolinguistics and translation studies to contribute to research in international relations and development studies by highlighting the role of multilingualism and challenging the traditionally powerful position of English in transnational civil society. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/josl.12245  

Academic thought circulates on a time-space continuum: authors, ideas and methods are discovered, discussed, discarded, praised, rewritten, refracted, transformed, transposed and translated. The contributors of this anthology develop cross-disciplinary approaches to study and understand translation of academic thought. They critically engage with the relationship of translation and meaning formation, context and style, as well as with the social and discursive positioning of translators in academic fields and beyond. Furthermore, the agents negotiating intellectual exchange are placed in specific political and historical contexts as well as respective scholarly frameworks of economics, philosophy, sociology and related fields https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/68853  

Applications are now open for three fully funded PhD studentships within the ERC-funded project, “The Dark Side of Translation: 20th and 21st Century Translation from Russian as a Political Phenomenon in the UK, Ireland, and the USA” (RusTrans), under the supervision of Dr Muireann Maguire and Dr Cathy McAteer at the University of Exeter, UK, starting in September 2019. The studentships are for 3.5 years and are open to students of any nationality. Each studentship will cover University tuition fees with a stipend equivalent to the Research Councils UK national minimum stipend (£14,777 in 2018/19). Candidates will be expected to have completed a Master’s degree by the time of starting the studentship; they should not yet have formally commenced a doctoral project. The closing date for applications is April 15, 2019. Each candidate is expected to develop their own research question within one of three areas of investigation linked to the project, while assisting the PI and Postdoctoral Fellow with project-related research and administration. One candidate will contribute to the research on the “Publishing Translations from Russian Today” case study, while developing a PhD dissertation on a related issue in the history or practice of contemporary (post-2000) Russian-to-English literary translation.The second candidate will work with the project’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr McAteer, on the “David Magarshack and Penguin Books” case study, while preparing a PhD dissertation on a topic relevant to the twentieth-century history or practice of Russian-to-English literary translation.The third candidate will be expected to develop a PhD topic addressing the literary translation of Russian into the language of a nation where Russian culture exerts or has exerted a strong influence (e.g. Poland, Finland, or Estonia) in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. This candidate will receive additional limited funding to carry out research in the nation of his or her research focus. These studentships are funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 802437). For more information and to apply, go here: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=3463 Please direct any queries by email to rustrans@exeter.ac.uk or on Twitter: @Rustransdark.

The Department of French at University College Cork welcomes applications for a new studentship open to students wishing to pursue doctoral research in any area of French and Francophone studies. The studentship will be awarded in the form of a fee-waiver, and will be tenable from the date of first registration for a maximum of three years full-time. The scholarship is open to EU and non-EU students. However, the funding will only cover the EU fee, so a successful non-EU applicant would be responsible for the balance. The successful applicant will be required to apply for supplementary funding through the Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme and through UCC's Research Excellence Scholarships (PhD) programme. UCC's French Department has research expertise across French and Francophone studies, including: Colonial and post-colonial history of the Francophone world. Colonial and post-colonial Francophone literature. Contemporary French theatre, film and poetry. French political thought since 1789. Translation studies. French language and linguistics. Details of individual staff research profiles can be found here: https://www.ucc.ie/en/french/people/ As part of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, we can offer co-supervision in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural projects in areas including conflict studies; memory studies; translation studies; creative practice; comparative literature and culture; film, photography and visual culture; and critical theory. The School’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Languages and Cultures (CASiLaC) supports interdisciplinary co-operation and provides a framework for researchers to collaborate across departmental divides. Our doctoral students are also supported in their graduate education, research training and career development by the Graduate School of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences. UCC Department of French will run an internal selection process to decide the allocation of this studentship. All applicants should read the Terms and Conditionsprior to application. Deadline for submission of completed applications: Friday, 26 April 2019. Informal enquiries about projects can be made in the first instance to the Head of Department, Dr Patrick Crowley (p.crowley@ucc.ie). Full details: https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/academic/french/PhDStudentshipFrench2019.pdf