Conference theme

The scholar Roman Jakobson famously declared that there were three main types of translation: intralingual (translation within a language), interlingual (translation between different languages) and intersemiotic (translation between different sign systems). (Jakobson 1971). Jakobson's tripartite division shifts our focus away from traditional conceptions of translation as only being between given language pairs and opens up perspectives that reach beyond translation practice, strictly speaking. Rather than propagating and strengthening the cliché of language divides and barriers, Jakobson draws our attention to language as a continuum of human expression both in terms of codes and sign systems. In this way translation also becomes a metaphor for a variety of activities involving language use in its various forms. A non-exhaustive list of these activities would comprise adaptation, transformation, reformulation, (re-)entextualisation, quotation, commentary, response, intertextuality, interpreting and translatiing as such, etc.

[Reference: Jakobson, Roman 1971. On linguistic aspects of translation. In: Jakobson, R., Selected Writings. 2. Word and Language. The Hague: Mouton, 260–266.]

Keynote speaker

We are proud to announce that the keynote speaker at this year’s BAAHE conference will be Edwin Gentzler. Prof. Gentzler’s keynote speech will address key aspects of the first chapter of his recent book Translation and Identity in the Americas: New Directions in Translation Theory.

Call for papers

We invite papers in any of the four areas outlined below that address translation either as a metaphor or as practice.

English Language Teaching

Translation is and remains an important tool in language teaching both in the way it teaches students about differences in language structure and system but also with regard to other areas of language competence including register awareness, politeness, pragmatics, etc. Papers are invited that examine new developments in these and other related areas.

Linguistics

Translation is ever present in linguistics and is visible both as metaphor and practice in comparative linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse studies, multilingual studies, etc. Papers are invited that explore both systemic and situated phenomena in these areas.

Literature

Translation has played an important role in the transmission of important literary works as well as approaches to and views on poetic and literary theory across numerous languages and cultures in the world. Next to this, writers engage intertextually with their peers and those they emulate from the past, opening up a large field for literary scholarship as a result. We invite work that engages with any of these themes.

Translation Studies

The term Translation Studies is used here in its broadest sense and includes the growing field of Interpreting Studies. Papers are invited that engage with current developments in the field, particularly those involving more socially related or sociological approaches to the translation and interpreting practices.

Abstract submission

Please send abstracts for paper proposals (max. 500 words) to peter.flynnlessius.eu by the extended deadline of 8 October 2009.

Publication of selected papers

Presenters at the BAAHE conference will be encouraged to submit a written up version of their paper to BAAHE's journal English Text Construction, where it will be subject to external peer reviewing.

Organizing committee