Subtitling and Intercultural Communication.

European Languages and beyond

Invited speakers:
Jorge Díaz-Cintas (Imperial College London)
Yves Gambier (University of Turku)
Henrik Gottlieb (University of Copenhagen)
David Katan (Università del Salento)

Scientific and Organising Committee:
Michela Baldo, Claudia Buffagni, Pierangela Diadori, Beatrice
Garzelli, Stefania Semplici, Donatella Troncarelli, Andrea Villarini

Contacts: baldo@unistrasi.it, buffagni@unistrasi.it

Organized by the Università per Stranieri di Siena, this one day conference aims to bring together - under the umbrella of Intercultural Communication Studies and Audiovisual Translation Studies - researchers who are particularly sensitive to cross-cultural issues in subtitling. The conference aims to explore key concerns associated with subtitling and intercultural communication with a particular focus on European languages such as English, German, Italian and Spanish, in order to promote the cross-fertilization of practices, ideas and theoretical approaches. The idea to investigate subtitling from an intercultural perspective, and also with reference to language teaching, is due to the fact that the Università per Stranieri di Siena, the promoter of this initiative, has been actively engaged for many years in these areas of research. In addition to this, recent studies have correlated the relevance of new technologies (of which subtitling is an example) with language learning, creating new scenarios which involve an increasing number of people with different languages and cultures. Other subject areas have developed an interest in subtitling: from translation studies to linguistics to studies on communication for the deaf and hard of hearing. The purpose of the conference is therefore to gather scholars of various disciplines who share a common interest for the phenomena under analysis, in order to discuss these specific research topics:

1) subtitles for language learners;
2) subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing;
3) fansubbing and/or/versus professional subtitling.

We are inviting presentations on how these three forms of subtitling relate to intercultural communication in the languages mentioned above within the scope of the themes listed below (but not limited to them):

1) socio-political, ethic and cultural aspects;
2) self-representation and representation of the other;
3) stereotyping and deconstruction of stereotypes;
4) miscommunication;
5) teaching and/or learning intercultural competence;
6) language as a cultural marker (e.g. English, dialects, other languages).

The conference will address key questions which have been raised by audiovisual translation, language teaching and intercultural communication studies, with the aim of enlarging borders and enriching past representations.

Official languages of the conference: Italian and English.

Proposals:
Papers are allotted 20-minute slots to be followed by a short discussion. Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to: baldo@unistrasi.it and buffagni@unistrasi.it by the 15th October 2013.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by the 15th November 2013.

Abstracts should be accompanied by the presenter's name, affiliation and short biography (3-5 lines).

Publication:
Papers accepted for the conference will be considered for publication, following a peer-review process, in an edited collection appearing in the new series “InterLinguistica. Studi contrastivi tra lingue e culture” by the publishing house ETS (Pisa). The deadline for submission of final articles for this publication is the 27th February (the day of the conference).

Important Dates:
Deadline for sending abstracts: October 15th, 2013
Notification of acceptance: November 15th, 2013
Deadline for sending full articles: February 27th, 2014.