Translation Futures
Virtual Session
Description
Translators and interpreters in the digital age face manifold opportunities and challenges that are only compounded as Artificial Intelligence in the form of Large Language Models moves into the public sphere. This seminar explores how new forms of technology and media shape the work of translation and prompt new forms of reading and engaging with archives or bringing the past into the present and future. We consider ethical and philosophical implications of emerging translation technologies. How do new translation technologies and literary ecosystems disrupt notions of authorship, textuality, and agency? What translation interventions are warranted to safeguard and lend visibility to minority languages and marginalized subjects? What are the particular perils and opportunities for translators in an era of globalization and our shared susceptibility to crises such as pandemics, the manipulation of information, and a changing climate? We ask what translators and translation theorists might offer a world coming to terms with new problems of language, communication, truth, and representation.
This seminar, organized by the ICLA Translation Studies Research Committee, invites abstracts interrogating digital translation encounters from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives—literary, historical, sociolinguistic, ethical—and considers themes including but not limited to the following:
Translation and AI
Translation and the Digital Archive
Translation and the Nonhuman
Translation and Globalization
Translation and Crisis
Translation Equity and Agency
Translation Justice in the Digital Era
Collaborative Translation
Translation and Affect
Translation and Intermediality
Schedule
Papers
Speaker Bio
CHAN Hiu Chi, Jayson is currently pursuing his Master of Philosophy in Translation (MPhil in Translation) degree in the Department of Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Translation degree from CUHK, with minors in Communication and Journalism, Music, and Linguistics. His research focuses on music and lyrics translation, particularly Cantonese pop music (Cantopop) in Hong Kong. As a singer-songwriter, arranger, lyricist and multi-instrumentalist, Jayson has been working in the Cantopop industry with professional music producers and renowned singers in Hong Kong, achieving success on major digital streaming platforms. Jayson's dual expertise in translation studies and active participation in the music industry positions him as an insider capable of conducting research from a broad perspective.
Speaker Bio
Hongyang Ji is a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta, specializing in translation studies. He holds a master’s degree in Translation Studies from Glendon College, York University, Canada. He has been a translation freelancer with various private companies for over four years. His current research focuses on the ecological approaches to translation. His research interests include translation theory, sociological translation studies, philosophy and translation, and biology and translation.
Speaker Bio
Vanesa Cañete Jurado is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the School of Languages and Cultures at Purdue University. Her research intersects translation studies and second language acquisition, with a focus on transmedia narratives, localization, digital multiliteracies, and multimodal pedagogy. Using an interdisciplinary lens, her recent projects have focused on transnational film and television, Hispanic climate fiction, cultural heritage preservation, crisis translation/interpreting, and localization strategies for healthcare.
Papers
Speaker Bio
Syed Salman Abbas
Assistant Professor (German), Department of Foreign Languages, Aligarh Muslim University.
Education:
MPhil in German Literature, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2013
MA in German Language and Literature, University of Delhi, 2010
Key Areas:
German as a Foreign Language
Translation Theories and Literary Translation
Notable Work:
Translations for Goethe Institut
Editor of Kafka’s Urdu translations
Translation of Sibylle Berg’s plays into Urdu.
Speaker Bio
He is a CATTI-certified, published, and professional translator, researcher, and writer based in Hainan, PRC. He is serving as a member of the Translation Committee at the International Comparative Literature Association and also an expert member of the Translators Association of China while being a member of the Writers’ Association of Hainan Province in PRC. He has published Chinese and English papers, translated articles, and essays in PRC and the US, along with the publication of two translated Chinese books in PRC in 2012 and 2013 , namely Eating Women Telling Tales, a collection of Indian English Short Stories by Bulbul Sharma, and the Lion Companion to Church Architecture by David Stancliffe (Co-translated, second translator). He is currently a part-time lecturer in English at Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology in the PRC.
Speaker Bio
Youngmin Kim is visiting professor at the Center for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies/Department of Film and Literature at Linnaeus University, Sweden; Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and Director of Digital Humanities Lab, Dongguk University. He is currently executive council member of ICLA and President of ICLA Translation Committee. His current book project, “Database and World Literature,” explores the convergence of comparative world literature and digital humanities.