Translations Conference (Cardiff)
Call for Papers
Translations: Exchange of Ideas
An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference
June 27th – 28th 2013
Cardiff University, Wales UK
Keynote Speakers
Dr Eileen Brennan (St Patrick's College Drumcondra)
Dr Elizabeth Wren-Owens (Cardiff University)
"Indeed, it seems to me that translation sets us not only intellectual
work, theoretical or practical, but also an ethical problem. Bringing the
reader to the author, bringing the author to the reader, at the risk of
serving and of betraying two masters: this is to practise what I like to
call linguistic hospitality. It is this which serves as a model for other
forms of hospitality that I think resemble it: confessions, religions, are
they not like languages that are foreign to one another, with their
lexicon, their grammar, their rhetoric, their stylistics which we must
learn in order to make our way into them? And is eucharistic hospitality
not to be taken up with the same risks of translation-betrayal, but also
with the same renunciation of the perfect translation?"
(Paul Ricoeur, On Translation)
For Paul Ricoeur, there are two paradigms of translation: linguistic
translation, or the relation between words and meanings, and ontological
translation, which refers to how translation happens between one human
being and another. Whilst we can separate these two approaches to
translation in an abstract sense, they are in reality inseparable since
issues of translation always have a social context and consequences for our
shared, public world. The multiplicity of languages, media, and forms of
expression and representation, creates the on-going and never-ending task
of translation. One might even say that the space of creativity,
exploration, interaction, and even life itself, is a space of translation,
where things, people, and ideas meet.
Considering translation as both a linguistic and ontological phenomenon,
this conference centres on the exchange of ideas across the humanities and
social sciences. For this two-day conference we are looking for doctoral
students from a variety of disciplines to consider how the theme of
translation relates to their own research and how their work relates to
other researchers both within their subject area and in different
disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. Some of the most
important intellectual ideas have emerged in the crossing of disciplinary
boundaries and this conference would like to consider how this
interdisciplinary exchange and translation of ideas functions today.
We can begin thinking of translation as a linguistic process and
interrogate the formal relationship between two texts: an original or
source text, and a translated text. When we consider the formal
relationship between these two texts we might employ terms such as
accuracy, fidelity, identity, equivalence, correspondence, and correctness.
When we conceive of translation in this way we focus on concepts of
similarity and difference, as well as open up questions such as 'what is a
translation?', 'what makes a good or accurate translation?' and 'could
there be an ideal or perfect translation?'
On the other hand, we can think of translation as an ontological process
and focus on the social effects released from the act of translation.
Communication of information might seem the most important and obvious
effect. But equally significant are the effects of translation used or
exploited for social ends: religious movements/institutions, commercial
enterprises, colonial projects, national languages and literatures, and
literary movements. Therefore, how texts are translated and what terms we
use to describe the relationship between source and destination, original
and translation, must be conceived in relation to the social effects of
translation.
Related to this linguistic/ontological distinction is the contrast between
instrumental and hermeneutic approaches to language. The instrumental
approach sees language as communication based on reference to an empirical
reality, whilst the hermeneutic approach sees language as interpretation
and holds that reality is shaped by meanings that are cultural and hence
contingent. Clearly, whether one privileges the instrumental or the
hermeneutic has important social, political and cultural implications
beyond the merely formal concerns of linguistics.
For this conference, we encourage submitters of abstracts to keep the
multiplicity of the concept of translation in mind. How does your own work
relate to the topic of translation? How do you translate ideas, concepts,
practices, and so on, from other disciplines for your own specific field?
How do you work with and/or alongside researchers in different humanities
disciplines? What is gained and what is lost in the translation of ideas
from one discipline to another? The range of possible topics is broad and
includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Translation across disciplines – interdisciplinary studies
Translating a message for a larger group
Translation as adaptation
Translation as public engagement – translating academic work for a
wider audience
Translating between cultures, across time and space
Translation and technology – translating between different formats
(books, TV, computers, mobile devices, the internet, etc.)
The ethics of translation – how does translation affect people, what
is left out, who is privileged, and who is silenced/marginalised?
Translation methodologies.
The aesthetics of translation – how do we translate the affective,
the materiality of language, the sonority as well as the sense?
Translation theory – what is translation? How does it work? For what
ends?
Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to
TranslationsConference@cf.ac.uk by 5 May. Please include a brief
biographical note. If accepted, papers should be no more than 20 minutes
long. An abstract submission form and further information can be found
here: www.cardiff.ac.uk/ugc/go/translationsconference
Translations: Exchange of Ideas
An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference
June 27th – 28th 2013
Cardiff University, Wales UK
Keynote Speakers
Dr Eileen Brennan (St Patrick's College Drumcondra)
Dr Elizabeth Wren-Owens (Cardiff University)
"Indeed, it seems to me that translation sets us not only intellectual
work, theoretical or practical, but also an ethical problem. Bringing the
reader to the author, bringing the author to the reader, at the risk of
serving and of betraying two masters: this is to practise what I like to
call linguistic hospitality. It is this which serves as a model for other
forms of hospitality that I think resemble it: confessions, religions, are
they not like languages that are foreign to one another, with their
lexicon, their grammar, their rhetoric, their stylistics which we must
learn in order to make our way into them? And is eucharistic hospitality
not to be taken up with the same risks of translation-betrayal, but also
with the same renunciation of the perfect translation?"
(Paul Ricoeur, On Translation)
For Paul Ricoeur, there are two paradigms of translation: linguistic
translation, or the relation between words and meanings, and ontological
translation, which refers to how translation happens between one human
being and another. Whilst we can separate these two approaches to
translation in an abstract sense, they are in reality inseparable since
issues of translation always have a social context and consequences for our
shared, public world. The multiplicity of languages, media, and forms of
expression and representation, creates the on-going and never-ending task
of translation. One might even say that the space of creativity,
exploration, interaction, and even life itself, is a space of translation,
where things, people, and ideas meet.
Considering translation as both a linguistic and ontological phenomenon,
this conference centres on the exchange of ideas across the humanities and
social sciences. For this two-day conference we are looking for doctoral
students from a variety of disciplines to consider how the theme of
translation relates to their own research and how their work relates to
other researchers both within their subject area and in different
disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. Some of the most
important intellectual ideas have emerged in the crossing of disciplinary
boundaries and this conference would like to consider how this
interdisciplinary exchange and translation of ideas functions today.
We can begin thinking of translation as a linguistic process and
interrogate the formal relationship between two texts: an original or
source text, and a translated text. When we consider the formal
relationship between these two texts we might employ terms such as
accuracy, fidelity, identity, equivalence, correspondence, and correctness.
When we conceive of translation in this way we focus on concepts of
similarity and difference, as well as open up questions such as 'what is a
translation?', 'what makes a good or accurate translation?' and 'could
there be an ideal or perfect translation?'
On the other hand, we can think of translation as an ontological process
and focus on the social effects released from the act of translation.
Communication of information might seem the most important and obvious
effect. But equally significant are the effects of translation used or
exploited for social ends: religious movements/institutions, commercial
enterprises, colonial projects, national languages and literatures, and
literary movements. Therefore, how texts are translated and what terms we
use to describe the relationship between source and destination, original
and translation, must be conceived in relation to the social effects of
translation.
Related to this linguistic/ontological distinction is the contrast between
instrumental and hermeneutic approaches to language. The instrumental
approach sees language as communication based on reference to an empirical
reality, whilst the hermeneutic approach sees language as interpretation
and holds that reality is shaped by meanings that are cultural and hence
contingent. Clearly, whether one privileges the instrumental or the
hermeneutic has important social, political and cultural implications
beyond the merely formal concerns of linguistics.
For this conference, we encourage submitters of abstracts to keep the
multiplicity of the concept of translation in mind. How does your own work
relate to the topic of translation? How do you translate ideas, concepts,
practices, and so on, from other disciplines for your own specific field?
How do you work with and/or alongside researchers in different humanities
disciplines? What is gained and what is lost in the translation of ideas
from one discipline to another? The range of possible topics is broad and
includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Translation across disciplines – interdisciplinary studies
Translating a message for a larger group
Translation as adaptation
Translation as public engagement – translating academic work for a
wider audience
Translating between cultures, across time and space
Translation and technology – translating between different formats
(books, TV, computers, mobile devices, the internet, etc.)
The ethics of translation – how does translation affect people, what
is left out, who is privileged, and who is silenced/marginalised?
Translation methodologies.
The aesthetics of translation – how do we translate the affective,
the materiality of language, the sonority as well as the sense?
Translation theory – what is translation? How does it work? For what
ends?
Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to
TranslationsConference@cf.ac.uk by 5 May. Please include a brief
biographical note. If accepted, papers should be no more than 20 minutes
long. An abstract submission form and further information can be found
here: www.cardiff.ac.uk/ugc/go/translationsconference
Comments
Post a Comment