Call for papers: “Writers’ Tongues: Shaping Literary Selves in Eighteenth-Century Multilingual Europe” (KU Leuven, deadline 15 September 2023)

22 MARCH 2024 | KU LEUVEN, BELGIUM

During the long eighteenth century, several changes in the conception of literary authorship took place. As previously underrepresented groups in Europe – such as women writers, migrant writers, and hack writers – increasingly found their way to pen, page and printing press, the perception and the actuality of the “Author” was no longer restricted to the classically-trained Man of leisure. Instead, the image of the author became more fluid: an enterprising, collaborating professional of any gender or background, whose eclectic oeuvre contained a variety of genres, forms, original works and translations (Griffin 2014; Havens 2019; Schellenberg 2019). While searching for a position in the literary field, these writers reflected on their intellectual, translational and authorial identities in their texts, often in dialogue with their readers and/or members from their broader networks. Their published and unpublished writings carry traces of this exploration, construction, fragmentation and (re)negotiation of their intellectual, authorial and authoritative self/ves (Meizoz 2007; Amossy 2010). These discursive self-representations reflect, moreover, the writers’ stance on multilingualism. Recent scholarship has already demonstrated that early modern writers lived at the crossroads of different languages, dialects, vernaculars and classical languages alike (Burke 2004; Burke 2005; Fidecaro et al. 2009; Hayes, J.C. 2009; Bloemendal 2015; Frijhoff and Rjéoutski 2018; Bennet and Cattaneo 2022). The modes and processes in which those languages informed the intellectual and authorial self-fashioning of eighteenth-century European writers remain, however, strikingly underexplored.

This conference will approach the intellectual and authorial self-fashioning of eighteenth-century European writers from a multilingual perspective: it seeks to understand the importance of the writers’ “tongues” to their self-representation and identity/ies. It inquires into the influence of language alternations (at the level of the (para)text or the oeuvre as a whole) and, more broadly, the influence of reflections on translation and multilingualism on processes of identity construction. How did early modern writers’ cultural, social, political… identity, their values, and relations affect their language decisions? To what extent did they utilize their “tongues” to comply with, contribute to, dissent from, subvertor manipulate behavioral patterns and power structures to forge their self-representation? As Burke (2004) highlights, an individual’s language use is an ‘act of identity’, a performance depending on the situation; multilingualism and translation can therefore also be understood as tools which underscore the mutability, discordance and heterogeneity in the creation and the representation of the literary self.

The objective of this conference is to welcome and facilitate interaction between different methodological perspectives and knowledge bases. Conference participants are encouraged to reflect upon the theoretical concepts used in authorship, translation and literary multilingualism studies. The aim is to stimulate awareness of the importance of literary multilingualism and translation to eighteenth-century conceptions and realities of authorship, as well as and to inform and encourage conversation, during and after the conference, between scholars of different disciplines.

The organisers welcome submissions on the following topics:

  • The role of language (literary multilingualism and translation) in the self-representation of eighteenth-century European writers;
  • The interplay between authority and literary languages (vernacular and classical languages alike);
  • The presence of multilingual authorship in the text, paratext, and/or translation;
  • Literary multilingualism and translation in the writer’s network;
  • Writers’ discourse, metadiscourse and debate on literary multilingualism/translation;
  • The multilingual writer and/or translator versus the emerging nationalist ideal of “one language, one people, one culture”;
  • Theoretical and methodological approaches to historical authorship, literary multilingualism and translation.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Professor Gillian Dow (University of Southampton) 

Interested speakers are invited to submit a title and an abstract of 300 words for 20-minute presentations in English by 15 September 2023.

Please send the abstracts, accompanied by a short bionote, to Amélie Jaques (amelie.jaques@kuleuven.be), Merel Waeyaert (merel.waeyaert@kuleuven.be) andBeatrijs Vanacker (beatrijs.vanacker@kuleuven.be). 

Notification of acceptance will be given by 1 November 2023.

Selected bibliography

Amossy, R. (2010). La presentation de soi: ethos et identité verbale. Presses universitaires de France.

Bennet, K. and Cattaneo, A. (2022). Language dynamics in the early modern period. Routledge.

Bloemendal, J. (2015). Bilingual Europe: Latin and vernacular cultures, examples of bilingualism and multilingualism c. 1300-1800. Brill.

Burke, P. (2004). Languages and communities in early modern Europe. Cambridge University Press.

Burke, P. (2005). Lost (and found) in translation: a cultural history of translators and translating in earlymodern Europe. NIAS.

Fidecaro, A., Partzsch, H., van Dijk, S. and Cossy, V. (2009). Femmes écrivains à la croisée des langues 1700-2000. Métis presses.

Frijhoff, W. and Rjéoutski, V. (2018). Language choice in Enlightenment Europe. Education, sociability, and governance. Amsterdam University Press.

Griffin, D. (2014). Authorship in the long eighteenth century. University of Delaware Press.

Havens, H. (2019). Revising the eighteenth-century novel: authorship from manuscript to print. Cambridge University Press.

Hayes, J. C. (2009). Translation, subjectivity, and culture in France and England 1600-1800. Stanford university Press.

Meizoz, J. (2007). Postures littéraires: mises en scene modernes de l’auteur: essai. Slatkine.

Schellenberg, B. (2019). “The eighteenth century: print, professionalization, and defining the author”. In Berensmeyer, Ingo; Buelens, Gert; Demoor Marysa (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Literary Authorship, pp. 133-146. Cambridge University Press.

Call for papers: ‘Translation and the Periodical’ international conference (Ghent University, deadline 20 April)

In recent years, periodicals have increasingly drawn the attention of Translation Studies (Fólica et al. 2020); reciprocally, Periodical Studies have been moving towards a transnational turn (Ernst 2022; Van Remoortel 2022). These disciplinary moves are (amongst others) informed by the development of digital methods and techniques, as well as vast digitization efforts of the archive, that have gathered speed over the past two decades (Bode 2018) and which enable the extraction, processing and analysis of the enormous amounts of information contained in periodicals. Translations constitute a significant tranche of the information periodicals publish, permitting uniquely detailed and quantitatively grounded insight into the dynamic processes that subtended transnational traffic between literatures and cultures. Notwithstanding the clear promise of research at the intersection of translation and periodical studies, and the burgeoning scholarly work that has begun to explore this middle ground, there remains a significant hiatus: there is yet strikingly little material that offers theories, methods, or instructively representative cases. On an empirical level, well-established high-brow periodicals have been the main focus of research, whereas the more popular low and middle-brow periodicals are yet to receive proper place on the research agenda.  More concretely, serial publishing practices (so-called feuilletons) and the interactions between translated and non-translated content within periodicals demand much closer attention.

The key question which this conference seeks to ponder is whether periodical translation can be argued to have particular qualities that differentiate the practice from other forms of translation, notably for print books, much as periodical writing can be distinguished from book writing. The discursive techniques of periodical translation, and its key role in the mediation of culture and the dynamic exploration of the present that has long been argued to be central to the specificity of the periodical, are likely to be key touchstones in responding to this question. The international conference ‘Translation and the Periodical’ aims to push forward decisively the developing conversations on cultural translation in periodicals. Its target is to bring scholars from various disciplines together and to activate and advance significantly on extant qualitative (cfr. Guzmán et al. 2019; Pym 2007) and quantitative work (cfr. Caristia 2020). The objective is to be a hub of knowledge and expertise in this field as it continues to grow, in particular in those periodicals that have so far largely remained out of the focus of scholarship.

The organizing committee aims to cover a broad scope of subjects and a variety of methodological perspectives in order to reflect current work on translation in periodicals, and both to inform and enhance conversations and debates to come.

Suggested topics for papers include (but are not limited to):

  • theoretical contributions, defining translation in periodicals as a praxis and sharpening terminology
  • methodological contributions, e.g. focusing on Digital Humanities tools for Translation Studies research
  • quantifying approaches (distant reading) that establish the ratio of translated content vs. non-translated content
  • transnational networks and periodicals
  • the limits of the transnational paradigm
  • translation as cultural mediation in periodicals
  • visual analyses of translation in periodicals
  • in/visibility of translation and translators in periodicals
  • migrant/diaspora periodicals and their orientation towards the hosting culture vis-à-vis preserving their domestic heritage
  • translation in children’s magazines
  • comparative approaches to translation in newspapers and periodical journals
  • archival examinations of editorial practices
  • sociology of translation, identifying the translators and other actors involved in periodical publishing
  • translators’ periodicals, and – in a wider frame – translation discourse in periodicals
  • translational and localization practices of comics
  • transnational periodicals and their role as furnishers of content for local or regional periodicals
  • syndicated fiction
  • readers’ responses to translation (readers’ letters etc.)

Submission guidelines
Abstract deadline: 20 April 2023
Provide a provisional title and abstract (max. 250 words, excluding references), as well as up to 5 keywords and a short bionote (max. 150 words)
e-mail: ghentconference2023@ugent.be
 
Submissions welcome for:
individual presentations (20 min.)
thematic panels (3 participants, 20 min. each)
 
Notification of acceptance: 1 May 2023
 
Info on the postgraduate workshop can be found here.

References

Ardis, A. (2013, January 1-4). Towards a Theory of Periodical Studies. MLA Convention, Boston.

Bettina R. Lerner. (2009). A French lazarillo: Translation and popular literature in nineteenth-century France. Nineteenth-Century French Studies38(1), 9–23. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncf.0.0113

Bode, K. (2018). A world of fiction: Digital Collections and the future of literary history. University of Michigan Press.

Caristia, S. (2020). At the intersection of quantitative and qualitative. Propositions for a weighted analysis of translations in periodicals. In: L. Fólica, D. Roig-Sanz & S. Caristia (eds.), Literary Translation in Periodicals (pp. 175-202). Benjamins.

Cronin, M. (2013). Translation in the Digital age. Routledge.

de Groote, B. (2022). Translation as Cultural Technique: Constructing a Translation History of Media. Targethttps://doi.org/10.1075/target.20180.deg

Ernst, J. & O. Scheiding (2022). Periodical Studies as a Transepistemic Field. In: J. Ernst, D. von Hoff & O. Scheiding (eds.), Periodical Studies Today. Multidisciplinary Analyses (pp. 1-24). Brill.

Fólica, L., Roig-Sanz, D. & Caristia, S. (eds.) (2020). Literary Translation in Periodicals: Methodological Challenges for a Transnational Approach. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Gambier, Y., & Van Doorslaer, L. (2016). Border crossings: Translation studies and other disciplines. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Guzmán, M. C. et al. (2019). Translation and/in Periodical Publications (special issue). Translation and Interpreting Studies14(2), 169–173. https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/18762700/14/2

Littau, K. (2011). First steps towards a media history of translation. Translation Studies4(3), 261–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2011.589651

Mus, F. (2020). Translation, monolingualism and multilingualism as symptoms of literary internationalisation after the First World War. In: L. Fólica, D. Roig-Sanz & S. Caristia (eds.), Literary Translation in Periodicals (pp. 47-67). Benjamins.

O’Connor, A. (2019). Translation in nineteenth-century periodicals. Materialities and modalities of communication. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 14(2), 243–264. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00040.oco

Özmen, C. (2019). Beyond the book: The periodical as an ‘excavation site’ for translation studies. TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies11(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.21992/tc29447

Pym, A. (2007). Cross-Cultural Networking: Translators in the French-german network of petites revues at the end of the nineteenth century. Meta. Translator’s Journal52(4), 744–762. https://doi.org/10.7202/017695ar

Schäffner, C. (2013). Rethinking transediting. Meta57(4), 866–883. https://doi.org/10.7202/1021222ar

Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (2019). Periodical Codes and Translation. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 14(2), 174–197. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00037.tah

van Doorslaer, L. (2011). The Relative Neglect of Newspapers in Translation Studies Research. In L. Chalvin, e.a. (Ed.), Between Cultures and Texts: Itineraries in Translation History (pp. 45–54). Peter Lang.

Van Remoortel, M. (2022). How to Avoid Making False Friends: Taking the Multilingual Turn in Periodical Studies. Journal of European Periodical Studies 7/1: 57-58. https://doi.org/10.21825/jeps.84969

Deadline approaching for Venice International University summer school

Linguistic Landscapes: Using Signs and Symbols to Translate Cities (June 26-30, 2023)

Call for applications: December 1, 2022 – February 28, 2023, via the VIU website

This course focuses on the growing interdisciplinary field of Linguistic Landscapes (LL), which traditionally analyses “language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings”, usually as they occur in urban spaces. More recently, LL research has evolved beyond studying only verbal signs into the realm of semiotics, thus extending the analytical scope into the multimodal domain of images, sounds, drawings, movements, visuals, graffiti, tattoos, colours, smells as well as people. The school will look at how these landscapes translate cities.

Students will be informed about multiple aspects of modern LL research including an overview of different types of signs, their formal features as well as their functions.

Faculty
Kurt Feyaerts, KU Leuven 
Claire Holleran, University of Exeter
Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter
Michela Maguolo, Iuav University of Venice
Luca Pes, Venice International University
Paul Sambre, KU Leuven
Richard Toye, University of Exeter

Who is it for?
Applications are welcome from current final year Undergraduates (finalists, BA3), MA and MPhil/PhD Students in Linguistics, Sociology, Classical Studies, (Business) Communication Studies, History, Cultural Studies, Political Studies, Translation Studies or any other related discipline.

Further details including fees and application form can be found here –https://www.univiu.org/study/summer-schools/linguistic-landscapes

Call for Papers: “Literary Self-Translation and its Metadiscourse: Power Relations in Postcolonial Contexts” 

26th and 27th October 2023, University of Liège, Belgium

Initially relegated to the margins of translation studies, literary self-translation has now become a research topic in its own right, both in the fields of translation studies and comparative literature. While translation studies typically concentrates on the variety of (sociological, ideological, aesthetic) reasons why authors would choose to translate their literary texts themselves and on comparisons between self-translations, translations and other types of transfer activities such as rewriting, the field of comparative literature addresses self-translation mainly as a cause of literary multilingualism, with a clear focus on so-called transnational literatures. Our conference aims to bring both approaches together by examining self-translation as a practice that prompts self-reflexive metadiscourses on literary and translation production and gives new insights into the motivations and literary language uses of multilingual writers. This metadiscourse is present in the literary text itself and in essays, speeches delivered during award ceremonies, interviews, blogs, social media posts, academic lectureships or activism statements for minority rights. 

Self-translations challenge binaries pertaining to the relationship between original and copy, author and translator, source and target language, which are inherent in the traditional understanding of translation itself. In a world marked by globalisation, transnational movements and the aftermath of colonialism, self-translation also unsettles power relations and forms of imbalance that are especially at play in contexts in which minority and majority languages come into contact. By taking a closer look at the metadiscourses of authors who use self-translation as a literary tool, we seek to analyse to what extent this practice counters linguistic hegemony and/or cultural oppression in contexts characterised by power differentials, but also to understand why and how self-translation might function as a source of inequalities. 

Contributions from different disciplines, linguistic traditions and on various historical periods are welcome. While we are particularly interested in forms of self-translation in postcolonial contexts, we also encourage participants to submit propositions highlighting power relations in other transnational contexts. Possible questions and topics include, but are not limited to, the following: 

– What are the factors influencing the choice to self-translate in all kinds of linguistic and cultural minority settings, such as those experienced by indigenous communities in various postcolonial areas or by migrant writers and writers in exile? 

– How is the practice of self-translation shaped, for instance, by collaborative writing projects involving asylum-seekers and/or refugees, or by writers self-translating into more than one language? 

– How is self-translation used, in postcolonial countries, as a way of escaping national censorship or as a weapon to denounce abusive situations? 

– What are the reasons prompting some authors’ refusal to self-translate in given postcolonial circumstances? 

– How can the practices of ‘canonical’ self-translators be reinterpreted in the light of postcolonial approaches? 

This literary and translation studies conference co-organised by the University of Liège (ULiège) and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) will be held in Liège on 26th and 27th October 2023, under the auspices of the local translation and postcolonial studies centres, namely CIRTI (Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Traduction et en Interprétation) and CEREP (Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherche en Études Postcoloniales). 

We welcome proposals in both English and French, providing a basis for 20-minute papers (which will be followed by 10-minute discussions). Please email abstracts of no more than 300 words and a 100-word bio note to postcolonialselftranslation@uliege.be by 15th February 2023. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 31st March 2023. 

The Convenors:

  • Marie Herbillon (ULiège) 
  • Myriam-Naomi Walburg (ULiège) 
  • Maud Gonne (ULiège) 
  • Núria Codina Solà (KU Leuven) 
  • Reine Meylaerts (KU Leuven) 

Final days to register for the ‘Undercurrents: Challenging the Mainstream’ international conference (ULiège)

The conference programme for an upcoming conference on ‘Undercurrents: Challenging the Mainstream’ is now available. The call is now closed but participants are welcome to register until 24 November 2022 by filling in this Google form.

The conference is being organised by the research units LilithCIRTI, and CEREP of the University of Liège on behalf of the Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education (BAAHE). The conference will take place at the University of Liège on 2 December 2022. Keynote speakers are Kristin Davidse (KU Leuven) and Douglas Robinson (Chinese University of Hong Kong).

Book of abstracts:

Programme:

Call for papers (now closed)

An “undercurrent” literally refers to a stream that runs beneath the surface of a body of water and, figuratively, the term has come to signify concealed tendencies and influences that defy dominant currents of thought. Whilst such subversiveness can be a welcome challenge to the intellectual and ideological status quo, the word “undercurrent” also regularly collocates with items that lend it a negative connotation – one thinks, for example, of “undercurrents of anxiety” or “undercurrents of concern,” phrases that both point to the suppressed nature of a hidden threat. These different associations – subsurface currents, movements that defy conventions, and concealed dangers – aptly capture how equally compelling and perilous it can be to “challenge the mainstream,” including in academia. This conference seeks to explore undercurrents in their different guises in the disciplines of English linguistics, literary criticism, and translation studies.

In the field of linguistics, we welcome submissions that challenge existing frameworks and propose case studies that deal with puzzling analytical, theoretical, or methodological issues. We are looking for innovative research and studies that deal with under-researched or neglected topics in English linguistics, both synchronic and diachronic.

In literary studies, we encourage proposals focusing on past and present challenges to mainstream literary and/or critical movements. Either through theoretical presentations or case studies, presentations may reflect on topics that include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

  • How do newly established or emerging critical movements – e.g., environmental studies or fat studies – challenge (or perpetuate) dominant modes of thought, and what are the epistemological and methodological implications of such paradigm shifts?
  • Is “going mainstream” a challenge in itself? In the past, to what extent did the institutionalization of artistic or critical movements lead to their decline? From a contemporary perspective, are (by now well-established) fields such as postcolonial studies or gender studies in danger of reproducing orthodoxies rather than advancing knowledge?
  • How does the new relate to the traditional in literary studies, and vice-versa? This question may be examined through the analysis of contemporary or older literary works that experiment with form, that explore novel or original topics, that offer fresh approaches to conventional themes or, conversely, that challenge fashionable trends and promote more traditional worldviews.

The field of translation studies has undergone a series of “turns” since its inclusion into academia in the 1970s: the pragmatic (linguistic) turn, the cultural turn, the postcolonial turn, the empirical turn, the globalization turn, etc. These various trends have channelled translation studies into a sort of braided stream and defined it as an autonomous and highly cross-disciplinary scholarly field away from the backwater in the academy it used to be. The latest “turns,” such as the technological turn or the ecological turn, reflect the main, all-encompassing trends to be found in most areas of research. But do these recent developments display particular salient features within translation studies? How do these and other emerging trends run counter to previous theoretical discourses? Do they represent branching streams in a continuous flow or are they epistemological undercurrents generating new and challenging conceptual reframing? How do translation or interpreting practice(s) and theories overlap to anticipate and stimulate new directions?

In order to explore and foresee emerging “turns” in translation studies, we encourage papers tackling any topics related to the latest technological and paradigmatic developments and shifts (new technologies and automated translation, big data and corpus as CAT tools, ecology and sustainable translation practices, interspecies translation, inclusive translation, new translation economies such as localization or fan translation, translation in a time of global shifts of power…)  or related to new, redefining contours of the discipline itself, or “metaturns” (translation studies, translatology, adaptation studies, mediation studies…). 

Recording of the 2022 CETRA/CERES Fall Lecture, “From the translator’s fingers to the reader’s eyes” by Olha Lehka-Paul

Dr. Lehka-Paul’s talk concentrates on how the effort invested by the translator to produce the translation affects the way in which a potential reader processes the output. Translation scholars unanimously agree that the translator’s decisions influence the sensemaking process on the reader’s end (Alves & Jakobsen 2020, Kotze et al. 2021), but there is little empirical research into the extent to which the translator’s effort eventually pays off. This talk presents preliminary findings of an empirical study conducted within the framework of the research project on “The Reading and Reception of Mediated (Translated) Text: The Read Me Project”. The project, which belongs to the field of cognitive translatology, offers an innovative approach to analysing the relationship between translators’ and readers’ effort by means of looking at the key-logging data received from the translation process and readers’ eye movements recorded with an eye-tracker. Some of the questions addressed in the talk include: (1) Does the translator’s effort pay off and the reader does not display difficulty when reading the final text as indicated by long fixations and re-fixations? (2) Do the easy stretches of text production correlate with the ease of reading? (3) How do translation and language errors affect the reading and reception of translated texts? (Rayner and Liversedge 2011). The talk may be interest to both translation studies scholars and reception studies scholars.

Olha Lehka-Paul is a senior lecturer at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and previously an assistant lecturer at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. She is also a freelance translator and interpreter with English, Polish and Ukrainian as working languages. Her research is concerned with establishing connections between translator’s personality characteristics and translation performance, translator’s self-efficacy, translator’s decisions and revision tactics, translation training and translation process research in general. She is a strong advocate of translation psychology as both a line of research and a new course to set in translator training curricula.

Call for submissions: Martha Cheung Award for Best English Article in Translation Studies by an Early Career Scholar (deadline 31 October)

The Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies is accepting submissions for this year’s Martha Cheung Award for Best English Article in Translation Studies by an Early Career Scholar up until 31 October 2022.

The Award is established in honour of the late Professor Martha Cheung (1953-2013), formerly Chair Professor of Translation at Hong Kong Baptist University. Professor Cheung was an internationally renowned scholar whose work on Chinese discourse on translation made a seminal contribution to the reconceptualization of translation from non-Western perspectives. For a brief biography and a list of her most important publications, see Professor Martha Pui Yiu Cheung’s Publications.

The Martha Cheung Award aims to recognize research excellence in the output of early career researchers, and to allow them, like Professor Cheung herself, to make their voices heard in the international arena and play a role in charting the future directions of research in the discipline. The restriction of the award to articles published in English is also intended to ensure consistency in the assessment process.

The Award

The award is conferred annually for the best paper published in English in the previous two-year period, and takes the form of a cash prize of 10,000 RMB (approximately 1,400 euros). A certificate from the SISU Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies will also be presented.

Eligibility

  • Applicants must have completed their PhD during the five-year period preceding the deadline for submission of applications, or be currently registered for a PhD.
  • Given the emphasis on early career scholars, the award is restricted to single-authored articles: co-authored articles will not be considered.
  • The scholarly article submitted must be already published. Work accepted for publication but in press will not be considered.
  • The term ‘published’ also covers online publication
  • The article must have been published in English, in a peer-reviewed journal of good standing. Book chapters and entries in reference works do not qualify.
  • The article does not have to have appeared in a journal of translation or interpreting. Journals of media, linguistics, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, etc. all qualify, as long as the article engages with translation/interpreting in a sustained manner.
  • Submissions will be assessed solely on their scholarly merit, as judged by a panel of established scholars; considerations such as formal journal ranking and impact factor will not form part of the judging criteria.
  • The article may present research relating to any area of translation, interpreting or intercultural studies, and may draw on any theoretical models or methodologies.
  • Applicants can only submit an article once. Resubmissions of articles already assessed in an earlier round will not be admitted. 

Submission

Applicants may apply directly themselves for the award, or their work may be nominated by other scholars. A full copy of the article should be submitted in e-copy, in pdf format, together with the completed application/nomination form, downloadable here. Completed, typed applications should be sent to the Award Committee at this address: ctn@hkbu.edu.hk. The Committee will not consider handwritten applications.

Timeframe

For the submission of articles published between 30 September 2020 and 30 September 2022:

Application closing date for the 2023 Award:           31 October 2022

Announcement of award winner:                                31 March 2023

Fall Lecture (October 20): “From the translator’s fingers to the reader’s eyes: Empirical research into how readers process translated texts” by Olha Lehka-Paul

This lecture is co-organised by CETRA and CERES – Centre for Reception Studies (KU Leuven).

Thursday, 20 October, 12:30pm to 2pm

Follow the lecture online (Microsoft Teams) or on-site (KU Leuven, Campus Antwerp – Sint-Jacob)

Entrance is free, but you are kindly asked to register by Tuesday, 18 October via email to jack.mcmartin@kuleuven.be. Note that on-site seating is limited to members of CETRA and CERES, and preference will be given to doctoral researchers.

Professor Lehka-Paul’s talk will concentrate on how the effort invested by the translator to produce the translation affects the way in which a potential reader processes the output. Translation scholars unanimously agree that the translator’s decisions influence the sense-making process on the reader’s end (Alves & Jakobsen 2020, Kotze et al. 2021), but there is little empirical research into the extent to which the translator’s effort eventually pays off. This talk will present preliminary findings of an empirical study conducted within the framework of the research project on “The Reading and Reception of Mediated (Translated) Text: The Read Me Project”. The project, which belongs to the field of cognitive translatology, offers an innovative approach to analysing the relationship between translators’ and readers’ effort by means of looking at the key-logging data received from the translation process and readers’ eye movements recorded with an eye-tracker. Some of the questions addressed in the talk include: (1) Does the translator’s effort pay off and the reader does not display difficulty when reading the final text as indicated by long fixations and re-fixations? (2) Do the easy stretches of text production correlate with the ease of reading? (3) How do translation and language errors affect the reading and reception of translated texts? (Rayner and Liversedge 2011). The talk should be of value to both translation studies scholars and reception studies scholars.

Olha Lehka-Paul is a senior lecturer at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and previously an assistant lecturer at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. She is also a freelance translator and interpreter with English, Polish and Ukrainian as working languages. Her research is concerned with establishing connections between translator’s personality characteristics and translation performance, translator’s self-efficacy, translator’s decisions and revision tactics, translation training and translation process research in general. She is a strong advocate of translation psychology as both a line of research and a new course to set in translator training curricula.

The University of Galway is recruiting a postdoc for the project ‘Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter’

Project: Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter (MISTE) School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

The National University of Ireland Galway is recruiting a full-time, fixed term Postdoctoral Researcher for the project Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter (MISTE). The project takes a ‘shared island’ approach to create an in-depth understanding of intercultural encounters in Ireland through the lens of language and translation, comparing settings in Galway and Belfast. The position is funded under the North-South Research Programme. The successful candidate will be expected to start on 1 January 2023.

Project Description

This project will measure multilingual practices to investigate the role of translation in bringing together migrants/refugees and local communities; and to explore the creative potential of translation to raise awareness of cultural diversity in Ireland. The project compares approaches to language and migrant/refugee integration in different sites with a view to informing policy and best practice. 

MISTE will work in Galway and Belfast to

  • Measure multilingual practices in sites of everyday encounters between migrants/refugees and local communities (religious sites, sports grounds, community centres, libraries);
  • Investigate the role of translation (including non-professional translation provided by religious figures, social workers etc.) in everyday encounters between migrants/refugees and local communities;
  • Explore the creative potential of translation to establish a dialogue between migrants and the community, and to provide a migrant perspective on the theme of Ireland as a ‘shared island’;
  • Compare how Northern and Southern approaches to migrant/refugee integration impact the practice of multilingualism.

The research team comprises researchers in University of Galway (Prof. Anne O’Connor; Dr. Andrea Ciribuco, Dr. Lorna Shaughnessy) and in QUB (Dr. Piotr Blumczynski). The researcher will be based in the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies, located in the Hardiman Research Building in University of Galway and will work on sites in Galway and in Belfast.

Contract duration:  1 January 2023 – 31 August 2024 (20 months)

Job Description

The Postdoctoral Researcher (PDR) will perform ethnographic observations of religious and sport sites in Galway and Belfast, coordinating with researchers from the QUB team. They will focus on multilingual interactions in the sites, taking informed annotations on language use, translation, objects and tools. Subsequently, in conjunction with the other team members, as appropriate, the PDR will conduct semi-structured interviews in each site. The PDR will also be involved in the organisation of translation workshops that engage with multilingual migrants in the area, liaising with civil society partners.

The PDR will be responsible for the transcription and pseudonymisation of interviews and session recordings and for qualitative coding of data through Nvivo to individuate common themes and enable a comparative North-South analysis.

The PDR will be involved in the dissemination of project findings and raise awareness on the potential of multilingual, migrant perspective for a ‘shared Ireland’. This will include co-authoring and presenting conferences papers; co-authoring peer-reviewed articles; co-ordinating social media communications, and co-creating and organising community outreach events.

Qualifications

Suitable candidates must meet the following criteria

  • PhD in Translation or Sociolinguistics or related area (submitted before interview date)
  • Excellent writing and communication skills
  • Ability to work well both collaboratively and independently
  • Highly motivated, with excellent organisational skills

Desirable criteria:

  • Experience of ethnographic research
  • Excellent IT skills / social media
  • Peer-reviewed publication record
  • Experience of community outreach and partnerships outside academia
  • Familiarity with contexts of migration and diversity
  • English proficiency plus a degree of expertise in at least two additional languages (preferably including one of the following: Polish, French, Romanian, Lithuanian, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Ukrainian).

To Apply

Applications should include a covering letter outlining the applicant’s suitability for the role, a CV, and the contact details of two referees. Applications should be sent as one pdf file via email to mooreinstitute@universityofgalway.ie 

Please put the relevant reference number University of Galway 240-22 in subject line of e-mail application.

Salary: €39,523 per annum (public sector pay policy rules pertaining to new entrants will apply)

Start: 1 January 2023

Further information on research and working at University of Galway is available on Research at University of Galway

For information on moving to Ireland please see www.euraxess.ie

Further informal enquiries concerning this position may be made by contacting Professor Anne O’Connor: anne.oconnor@universityofgalway.ie.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 5:00 pm, 7 October 2022. 

Interviews are planned to be held virtually, the week commencing 17 October 2022.

University of Galway reserves the right to readvertise or extend the closing date for this post.

University of Galway is an equal opportunities employer.

All positions are recruited in line with Open, Transparent, Merit (OTM) and Competency based recruitment.