Conference “International English and Translation” – 3-4 December 2014

The rise of English as an international world language has had a dramatic effect on the practice of translation in all domains. As Campbell (2005) has pointed out whenever English is involved in the process there can be no illusion of parity between source and target languages. As a consequence, translation into and from English cannot be approached in a neutral way, or as a purely technical matter; instead, it must necessarily be considered within a context of power relations, inextricably linked to questions of culture, history and ideology. This has naturally had repercussions on many aspects of Translation Studies, reigniting debates about (amongst other things) the translator’s ethical responsibility and capacity for intervention in situations of cultural inequality, not to mention the effect that constant calquing from English is having upon other languages.

There is, however, another school of thought which views International English as a de-cultured hybrid construction that has ceased to be the property of mother tongue speakers and is therefore no longer the covert vehicle of Anglo-Saxon values. This approach brings a whole new set of issues to the discussion: issues related to source-text hybridity and linguistic simplification; scale-shifting; translating in a cultural vacuum; implications for translation technologies and translator training; and the coexistence of global English with local varieties around the world.

More info at: http://www.etc.ulices.org/jet/welcome.html

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