TRANSLATION CHALLENGES: FROM TRAINING TO PROFESSION

Hammamet, Tunisia 28-29 November 2008

It shall include general plenary sessions and applied workshops. Participation is open to professionals, translators, journalists, and translation teachers. A selection of the papers to be accepted shall be published after the conference in the journal of the National Translation Center (NTC): Mizan Attarjamah. Translation is both a cultural and a linguistic phenomenon. More than a simple mechanism of transferring textual knowledge in independent discourses, it involves processes of the movement of people, ideas, technologies, and literatures between different places, cultures, languages, and even times. Therefore, it is crucial today to reconsider its paramount importance at the eve of the 21st century, mainly characterized by the unprecedented digital revolution. As a result of technological advances, translation as both a profession and a training has undergone considerable changes over the last decade. Nowadays, machine translation and computer-aided translation software are often used by professional translators in their daily work. Such changes have brought about both opportunities and challenges for translation and translator training alike. One key question today is how translator training should respond to these changes. While translation is gaining more and more academic attention in the 21st Century to respond to an increasing market demand it is also important to look at the issues raised in translation theory and the contribution of this discipline to cross-cultural communication. We are interested in, without being limited to, examining/discussing the following issues: I Translation and Education 1. Translation Theories: o Didactics o Translation methods o Translation and language for specific purposes o Translation and terminology o Corpus-based translation 2. Translation Types o Human translation o Machine translation o Interpreting o Specialized translation o Translation genres 3. Translation and Cross-cultural exchange: o Identity and modernity o Cultural background o The Other in translation II Translation and Employment 1. The business of translation and translation in business: o Translation and foreign investment o Translators’ employability o Translation and globalizing economy o Translation and tourism o Translation and business 2. Translation and ICT * Translation websites * Translation software * Terminology bases 3. Translation and corpora o Use of comparable and parallel corpora o The Internet as an online corpus o Benefits and drawbacks of corpora 4. The Translator o Professional codes for translators o Translation: a job, a faith or a hobby o Translation: rights and copyrights issues Paper Presentations: We invite speakers to give a 20-minute presentation. Abstracts: Please email the title of your paper and an abstract of 250–300 words (in MS Word format) by November 05, 2008 (extended deadline) to Ms. Manoubia Meski, (ISLAIN): manoubia.meski@islain.rnu.tn and Mr. Hammouda Salhi, (ISLAIN): hammouda_s@hotmail.com Please also state your name, affiliation and official title and indicate any special needs (AV equipment) for the presentation. Notification of Acceptance: November 10, 2008 via email Conference Languages: English, French and Arabic Accommodation: shall be provided by the organisers for all foreign participants for three days starting from November 27, 2008. Registration fees : a symbolic fee of about 20 € (to be paid upon arrival)