Resources for Translation Studies Scholars

Mediation and Conflict: Translation and Culture in a Global Context

Third Conference of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies
Hosted by the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, from 8th to 10th July, 2009

Call for Panel Proposals

We are inviting proposals for panels for the 2009 IATIS Conference. The deadline is Thursday, 31 January, 2008.

Panels are groups of papers organised around a particular theme. Proposals for panels should take the form of one or two paragraphs establishing the rationale for a panel, a succinct statement of the aims of the panel, and a list of specific issues that intending contributors might address. Click here for the panel proposal submission form.

The theme of the conference is: ‘Mediation and Conflict: Translation and Culture in a Global Context’. This embraces such topics as transnational media, globalisation, cultural translation and intercultural relations. Related thematic areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

* the role of translation in the reporting of conflict across linguistic and cultural divides;
* ‘cultural translation’ between mainlands and diasporas, as well as among diasporas;
* the translator / interpreter as cultural broker in a transnational world;
* intercultural relations and their political impact, including the need for ‘translating’ between old and new;
* interaction between the cultures of ‘large’ and ‘small’ nations;
* the role of literary translation in challenging or reinforcing cultural difference;
* covert censorship – mediated manipulations and the role of the translator / interpreter;
* high culture and popular culture as sites of contest over the extent of entry into new global contexts;
* transnational media and their role in facilitating, or discouraging, intercultural understanding;
* transnational and regional identities and their relationship to culture and processes of translation;
* the role of translators and other intercultural experts in helping individuals and groups to acquire cultural competence in cultures previously remote from them.

The Call for Papers will be issued in February 2008. Individuals will be able to submit abstracts either to the general conference or to an individual panel through its chair. Details will be posted on the web site.

IATIS Conference Committee

http://www.iatis.org/content/conferences/melbourne.php
http://www.foxevents.com.au/Current-Events/2009-Events/IATIS-Conference/Default.asp

Posted on Nov 25, 07 | 12:17 pm

Abstracts

Vega Martín, Miguel and Salvador Peña Martín. 2002. Adaptación por disparidad religiosa: un documento traducido por J. L. Álvarez de Linera (1984-1937) [Adaptation for Religious Reasons: A Document Translated by J. L. Álvarez de Linera (1854-1937)] Sendebar 13: 3-12.
The Spanish archivist and historian J. L. Álvarez de Linera had to deal with a British consular document as one of his primary sources in his writing of an unpublished history of death and desease in Malaga (Spain) from the perspective of Catholic welfare. The authors of the article transcribe the original English document and its translation into Spanish by Álvarez de Linera. The analysis of both draft and final translation provides them with a typification of the translator in terms of fidelity and leads them to formulate hypotheses about the patterns of behaviour followed by translators during the first decade of the twentieth century, especially in relation to cultural "manipulation" of texts for religious reasons.

Hermans, Theo (Translated by M. Rosario Martín Ruano and Jesús Torres del Rey). 2002. La traducción y la importancia de la autorreferencia [Translation and the Importance of Self-Reference]. In Álvarez (ed.) 119-139.
This paper discusses the relevance of self-reference for redefining translation as a social system, establishing its identity and consolidating its borders. By self-reference, the author means the constant dialogue among translators on how to translate a particular text as well as on the interrelation between different versions, on what should be considered as translation, its ruling norms, prescriptions, proscriptions, preferences and allowed features. This debate results from the fact that translations are distinct from their respective original texts, since they are open to later repetition and new interpretations, and cannot be expected to be definite readings of a text and exhaust all its meanings. Those proclaimed as equivalent, identical or totally faithful translations such as the Septuagint and the Book of Mormon, cease to function as translations and acquire the same authenticity, genuineness and authority of their original texts. Thus, equivalence is not an inherent characteristic to translations but assigned by external intervention in a given institutionalised context and can only be achieved with the annihilation of the translator. (CD)