Opening Remarks
Dr. Amal Al-Malki, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences , Hamad Bin Khalifa University

Auditorium 2

Sparking the Discussion

Auditorium 2

- Dichotomies in translation studies, Henri Awaiss

In translation studies, the attention is drawn to the vast number of dichotomies or pairs of concepts and vocabulary. These long lists should refer to either an act of separation, an attempt of delineation, or the declaration of a union within a clear or perhaps ambiguous autonomy. This paper contributes to thinking, from a translation point of view, about a series of these dichotomies such as translation and language, translation studies and linguistics, the industry of writing and the industry of translation, source and target authors, faithfulness and betrayal, the writer and the translator, the author and the translator, and the translator and the interpreter.  Undoubtedly, it is possible not to stop at these examples; however, the most important issue is to examine this phenomenon and try to explain it for the purpose of categorizing the areas of research as part of a policy that would contribute to the way of dealing with translation as a specialized course at the university, and with translation studies as an objective monitor of the translation act as well as its implications and outcome.

- Audiovisual Translation and Empowerment, Aline Remael

Audiovisual Translation, including Media Accessibility, is both a local and a global phenomenon that is closely linked to the rapidly evolving mediated world surrounding us. Ideally, it is also a tool which not only allows local and global communities to access information from the four corners of the world, but also to communicate their own messages, concerns and interests, and to use their own language, as their translated and accessible productions travel across continents.  Audiovisual Translation has diversified to such an extent that it now has features of translation as well as interpreting; that it is entering many new domains and taking on many new functions.  The possibilities for empowerment are virtually endless. The concrete form that these possibilities can take requires further research and careful management, as well as input from the end users.

Panel 1 The Eyes and Ears of Politics (AVT), Chair Josélia Neves

Meeting room 105

- Subtitles under and out of control in Turkey, Mehmet Şahin

Turkey has been one of the most successful countries in dubbing foreign audiovisual products which rendered subtitling mostly an uncommon practice. Yet, in the last two decades, the abundance of foreign movies and TV shows seems to have increased the demand for subtitling remarkably, involving both professional and non-professional translators in the media sector.  Although visual censorship has already been accepted by many Turkish citizens as a general practice, a new method of censorship is pervading the TV screen: strict control over and gross interference in the subtitles. The relatively limited accessibility to the original products in the past made it almost impossible to detect the degree of censorship both visually and aurally. Today, alternative ways of reaching information worldwide allow foreign language speakers to identify the extent of such intervention in the original texts. Supported by data from surveys and interviews with professional and non-professional subtitle translators, this talk will focus on the ways subtitles of TV shows and movies can be manipulated. Through examples from the translations of popular TV shows into Turkish, references to topics such as politics, religion, slang, puns, alcohol, sex, and commercial or proper names will be investigated. Differences between subtitles created by the fans, available freely in the internet, and the official subtitles, required to be used in TV screens and DVDs, the latter being under strict supervision by the Radio and Television Supreme Council, will be highlighted. The motivations behind translational interferences, strategies used to filter the original message, and the implications for freedom of speech will also be discussed in the talk. Finally, the drawbacks of the availability and circulation of uncontrolled subtitles for the reputation and supposed impartiality of the translation act will be addressed.

- AVT as a tool of political manipulation of masses: the curious case of Portugal, Graca Chorao

One may speculate why most European countries (Spain, France, Italy or Germany) have adopted dubbing as their main AVT mode while other nations, like Portugal or Greece, have chosen subtitling instead. Looking into the relations of politics and the audiovisual world, there are historical reasons attributed frequently to the option of an AVT mode over another. Some scholars (for instance, Ballester 1995, 2001 and Danan 1991) refer to nationalistic and political reasons lying behind the adoption of dubbing considering it is a much more expensive and time-consuming process. At the same time, others (Luyken et al 1991) attribute to economic reasons the justification for a different approach by smaller countries such as Portugal. As part of my PhD thesis on Dubbing presented in 2013 at the University of Vigo, I undertook some research of the historical background towards the audiovisual context in Portugal in order to understand and explain the choice of subtitling over dubbing, dated back to the 1940’s and 50’s. In this paper, I analyse and present evidence of the influence of the Portuguese censorship at the onset of Cinema and Television, leading to the prevalence of Subtitling, as an example of AVT used as a tool of political manipulation of masses.

- Translation Challenges in Online Advertising: The Case of English Arabic Translation, Karima Bouziane

Translation in advertising is growing every day with the increased globalization and international business. In recent years, there has been a great increase in the number of companies from different parts of the world penetrating the Arab markets leading to a high demand of translation. Most translations into Arabic underwent strategies ranging from complete transference of the source text into the target culture, the creation of new texts, to the use of “untranslated” retentions of the original language. These strategies raised challenges such as the miscommunication of a brand’s essence and promise. These issues were tackled by the past studies (e.g. Guidère, 2000; Al-Shehari, 2001; Al Agha 2006; Smith, 2006) in the translation of textual elements in printed adverts from magazines, newspapers and catalogues. However, to my knowledge, no study has ever investigated the challenges of translation strategies in both textual and visual elements in online adverts. The purpose of this study was to find out to what extent Venuti’s (2001) foreignization and domestication strategies affected the messages of online advertisements translated into Arabic. The study was based on a questionnaire where participants (translators) provided their responses about the impact of foreignization and domestication. Based on a quantitative and qualitative method of data analysis, the results revealed that foreignization strategies highly affected the connotations of transferred textual elements, while domestication strategies significantly affected the connotations of visual elements. Almost all adverts showed the existence of semiotic relationships between brand names and images of models’ bodies; the connotations transmitted by these adverts were lost when the images were censured in the Arabic version. This obscured important messages of the original version.

- Mapping Nigeria's audiovisual landscape: the case of Nollywood, Adrián Fuentes-Luque

Nollywood, Nigeria’s film industry, has surpassed Hollywood, producing 2,500 movies per year. It is the third most valuable film industry in the world and as the country’s second employer. Nollywood differs greatly from the neighbouring African Francophone film industry: the latter is mainly based on a celluloid art film tradition, the former is commercially-oriented, filmed on video, and based on English-speaking West African countries. Nollywood filmmakers have usually had little training, getting their inspiration from foreign imported movies and television series, which reveals a significant post-colonial influence. Nollywood deals with popular urban narratives of violence, religion, corruption, and romance. The commercial imperial influence is absorbed, then blended into the post-colony. This paper presents an approach to a form of audiovisual communication in Sub-Saharan Africa with its own unique production, distribution, translation and conceptual frames of reference. Nollywood talks about Nigeria and Africa, “[Nollywood] videos are so fundamental to Africa’s self-representation that it is impossible to understand contemporary Africa and its place in the world without taking them into account” (Haynes, 2010:21). Nollywood tries to tell a new history of Africa from intersemiotic translation. While colonial powers tried to impose their control through strong languages, Nollywood can be seen as an example of microhistory. Gayatri Spivak and Jeremy Munday understand that the act of translating can be an interesting way of telling ‘subaltern’ stories. Nollywood is one of such ways. Translating Nollywood involves being aware that the English language used entails understanding the history of the subaltern. Nollywood is a chorus presenting a variety of identities and voices, long heard in their context. Now they want to be heard on a more global stage. “Representation of these multiple voices is tantamount to translating a hybrid, linguistically multilayered text from the periphery to the global centre” (Bandia, 2009:16).

Panel 2 Translation and the Political, Chair Ovidi Carbonell

Meeting room 103​

- Analytical Reading of Translation Awards in GCC, Saeed bin Fayez Al-Saeed (in Arabic)

In the world today, where scientific progress and technical discoveries and inventions are faster than ever before, translation has become a strategic option, in order to keep abreast of scientific development and preserve the language and independent national identity, and to shift from the role of the recipient of scientific knowledge to partaking in its localization and production.
We are fully aware that our Arab world is living in and interacting with an era in which the movement of scientific and technological progress is rapidly increasing in all fields of life, while the Arab world is still playing the role of mere recipient of applied scientific knowledge. This has led to a noticeable deficiency in the texture of scientific culture and knowledge production, which requires mobilization of efforts and rapid action to devise future plans to revitalize the translation project into Arabic, in accordance with a refined approach that avoids drawbacks, develops benefits, and identifies priorities.
Therefore, initiatives emerged calling for the promotion of translation. Chief of these initiatives are translation awards in GCC countries. Such awards project a clear vision towards a translation-related paradigm shift in the future of the Arab world. There is no way to overcome the difficulties of the Arab world except through the translation of human science and thought and the effective guidance of such materials, and through balanced interaction with others, by taking based on informed choices, and giving based on a scientifically-competent vantage point.

- Power Relations in the English Translations of the Selected Works if Mao Tse-tung, Pingping Hou

China’s former supreme leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976) is universally regarded as China’s most powerful political figure and one of the world’s most influential political figures in the twentieth century. His thought has exerted huge influence on both the Chinese people and people in the world at large. The massive circulation of his works in China and in the world has played an indispensable part in the spreading of his thought and translation in turn has played a crucial role. This paper investigates the power relations involved in the English translation of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung and the consequent effects. The focus is on the two “official” English versions, which are the products of translational activities organized and supervised by relevant organs under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The paper studies the organization of the translational act, the selection of translators, the major translation strategy as well as the publication and distribution of the Selected Works. An analysis is made of the arrangement, the content and the wording of the publication notes, the introductory notes, the endnotes, and special complimentary markers. Moreover, it discusses the relationship between the Selected Works and Little Red Book—Quotations from Chairman Mao. The paper concludes that the English translation of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung was a highly political act and the impacts of power relations on the translation were profound at both the macro and micro levels.

- The Politics of Translating Modernity in the Arab-Muslim World, Salah Basalamah

Modernity has always been perceived as a specifically Western phenomenon that finds its roots in the Renaissance, its major developing phase in the Enlightenment and its peek with the unfolding of the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. In the Arab-Muslim sphere, modernity was claimed through the paradoxical relationships of attraction and resistance with the colonization process. During the Ottoman Empire, Mohammed Ali Basha has founded in Egypt the School of translation that sparked the rise of the second translation movement in the Arab-Muslim history (Salam-Carr, 2007). Since then, western products of modernity would be brought in the Arab world through translation. However, some critics have denied this phenomenon to be exclusively western and claimed that there is a difference between the principle and the actualizations of modernity. Taha Abderrahmane (2006), recognized as the greatest living Moroccan philosopher, suggests that Muslims should be able to have their own understanding and implementation of modernity, provided they would reconsider the nature of their relationship to the other (mainly the West), knowing that connecting to the latter would be in priority through translation. This means that translation is in a privileged position not only to recast modernity according to the Islamic imagination and culture, but also to reshape the Islamic philosophy as a whole so it would bring back the Muslim contribution to the world collective sphere of intelligence. Because knowledge cannot happen in a vacuum and has become globalized by definition, translation constitutes one of the most critical (and political) interfaces to the other. That being said, if translation aims at founding a genuine thought and science in the Arab-Muslim sphere, in which fashion and according to what criteria should it occur? How is translation going to redefine the political relationship with the West so that it would contribute to the creation of an original Muslim modernity? Thus, this paper aims first at drawing the broad lines of the civilizational stakes of translation in the Arab-Muslim world, then summing up Abderrahmane’s philosophical thoughts on translation, and finally elaborating the translational conditions of the advent of a Muslim modernity—or the representation thereof.

- Which translation policy does the Arab World adopt? Critical perspectives and methodological approaches, Fadoua El Heziti (in Arabic)

The role translation has played historically, by initiating a major turning point and opening new horizons for Arab thought, is a role that should be sought in any project that aspires to promote the contemporary translation movement in the Arab world. Taking into account the political, religious, economic and social position of our Arab countries, the role ascribed to translation is undoubtedly not only to bridge the communication gap with other nations, but also to serve as an essential actor in materializing specific political positioning and insights. This role has become extremely sophisticated and complicated. In this regard, the following questions are in order: what translation policy or policies in the Arab world in the era of revolutions, conflict, hegemony and foreign interventions? Is the ongoing mobilization and activation of translation practice, in the educational, research or professional fields, are just projects, or do they draw upon systematic and deliberate policies in line with the rapid developments in the Arab world?
In answering these questions, the study will analyze the nature of policies pursued in translation projects throughout the Arab world, and monitor the theoretical handicaps and intellectual impediments preventing the development of a clear and inclusive plan to activate translation in contemporary contexts and organize translation policies. Additionally, reaching the degree of effective mediation and the capacity to form other political views and new topics of authority require reviewing prevailing translation mechanisms and devising new ones in accordance with such view. Based on this critical reading, this paper methodologically draws on Latin America Decolonial Studies, as a theoretical and critical framework that allows the deconstruction of the traditional, rigid and accessory concept of the role of translation. This framework is also useful in considering how translation can penetrate politics and develop policies, with reference to the current position of the Arab world.

Panel 3 Literary Representations of Power, Chair Tarek Shamma

Meeting room 106 

- Is the identity of the author a determinant on how we react to her/his politically sensitive discourse?: A Critical Analysis of the Turkish Translation of Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard, Nesrin Conker

The issue of Armenian genocide has caused a lot of controversy in Turkey for several decades. It is still considered a crime in Turkey to openly define 1915 incidents as genocide. While this situation is seriously criticized by Turkish scholars as a violation of freedom of expression, writers and their translators continue to become subjects of insult lawsuits due to certain references to genocide in their works. In this case study, I focus on the question whether the ethnical identity of the author and/or translator makes any difference on the level and/or presence of reaction by Turkish audience to discourse including genocide references. When writers that face such legal cases are internationally recognized Turkish authors (such as Elif Shafak and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk), the lawsuits receive intense domestic and international visibility. On the other hand, tried authors and translators are blamed with betrayal to Turkish values by certain groups within the society that approach the issue through highly sensitive nationalistic perspectives. However, does the society react with the same sensitivity when the author is not Turkish? Is the translator in that case perceived as a sole conveyer of the author and the original work with no responsibility? My case study, in this context, includes an analysis of the Turkish translation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard along with an interview with the translator. My study investigates what might be the possible reasons behind the fact that the Turkish translation of this novel, which includes various references to genocide and national accusations through the discourse of its Armenian protagonist, was smoothly welcomed by Turkish audience while there is an evident sensitive stance towards certain Turkish authors and their translators as a result of nationalistic concerns.

- The Arabic novel in English and the Anglo-Arab novel: English translation, 'Translational literature', 'Cultural Translation', or new accommodations to Power?, Geoffrey Nash

In his analysis of the Anglophone Arab writing of the two Anglo-Egyptian/Sudanese writers Ahdaf Soueif and Leila Aboulela, Waïl Hassan has coined the term ‘translational literature’ which he applies to “those texts that straddle two languages, at once foregrounding, performing, and problematizing the act of translation.” (Hassan 2011: 32). Here Hassan – a comparative literature theorist and critic – can be said to have taken forward the concept of ‘foreignisation’ in the translation theory of Lawrence Venuti (1995), and built on the postcolonial translation theories of Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi (1999), Andre Lefevere (1992), Richard Jaquemond (1992), and Tejaswini Niranjana (1992). Referring to recent essays on the translation of Arabic literature into English by Marilyn Booth (2010) and on Anglophone Arab Writing by Sadia Abbas (2014) and Geoffrey Nash and Nath Aldalala’a (2015), the paper proceeds to problematise the notion that ‘translational literature’ offers a corrective to the semantic failings of the more conventional genre of Arabic literature in English translation. Challenging the proposition that the Anglophone Arab novel is a form of postcolonial writing back that circumvents translational bias and undermines colonial/Orientalist stereotyping of Arabs and Islam, it floats the argument that whether Arabs write novels in Arabic which are then translated into English, or attempt to incorporate Arab meanings directly by composing in the English language, their works will still invite the criticism that they are accommodations to the power of the western metropolis.

- Seminar TranslationQ and RevisionQ: How technology can help making translation evaluation more objective and more efficient, Dirk Verbek

Meeting room 103

TranslationQ and RevisionQ are two tools to evaluate and score translations. Translation evaluation is an important and labour intensive task in the training and in the selection of good translators. Mostly this work is done by human evaluators and has to be repeated for every single translation. The TranslationQ tool is designed to objectively and rapidly automate translation evaluations. The tool is based on the PIE Method (Segers, Cockaert & Steurs, KU Leuven) that, within a translation text, selects a limited number of keywords or key phrases. TranslationQ identifies these key elements (Preselected Items or PI’s) and scores them. Then the items are validated by two psychometrical values (p-value and d-index) allowing to eliminate invalid or non-discriminative items. The final result allows to rank the translations accurately and objectively: all answers are treated with the same criteria. The method has been tested with medical, legal and even literature texts. The advanced algorithms allow for complex key phrases to be recognized and handled.
The RevisionQ tool uses the same techniques to allow for full text revisions: errors can be flagged and feedback can be added. While correcting and revising the candidate’s answers, the system creates an error-and-feedback memory that can be reused in new translations. The tools are self-learning, showing the evaluators possible “issues” with translations and allowing to add and edit more keywords at any time. TranslationQ and RevisionQ then automatically applies all edits to all candidates, guaranteeing a fully equal and objective evaluation throughout the process. Our academic experiments have proven that both tools are as accurate and even more objective than a human evaluation. TranslationQ and RevisionQ are especially useful to evaluate large groups of candidates. Finally, the language correction algorithms have been developed to be language independent, making the tools useable for many language combinations.

Panel 4 Interpreting Conflicts, Chair Rashid Yahiaoui

Meeting room 105

Panel 5 The Politics of Gender in Translation, Chair Sue–Ann Harding

Meeting room 106

- The Need for Conflict Zones Interpreters Training Model: Empirical Evidence From AFC In Jordan, Anjad Mahasneh

The work of interpreters in conflict zones is crucial in the context of the turmoil which is sweeping different areas in the world nowadays such as, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq among others. The role of interpreters in such heated areas is essential in three main aspects; to help foreign troops and militaries in different aspects and issues (Military Linguists/ interpreters), to help journalists in negotiating and in arranging meeting with the fighting groups in a particular area (contract interpreters), to help international organizations and bodies in humanitarian aspects on the ground (humanitarian interpreters). Hence, there is a growing academic and professional interest in studies related to interpreters in conflict zones and there is an urgent need to establish a special model for In zones interpreters due to a number of reasons; the scarcity of studies and dearth of research about interpreting in conflict zones (Palmer 2007, Palmer and Fontan 2007, Baker 2006,2010, Moser-Mercer, Kherbiche and Class 2014) the lack of professional training and education for the field interpreters, the insufficiency of the existed models for conflict interpreters. the urgent need to deliver humanitarian aid to people in conflict zones, and the different challenges and risks faced by the field interpreters. Consequently, this paper is going to examine the existing models in conflict zones interpreting such as; the InZone's certificate of advanced Studies in Humanitarian Interpreting in Geneva University, the Association of International Interpreters Conference conflict zone field guide for interpreters, the Military Translation and interpretation Pilot program in Monterey institute, and the National Language Service Corps. Moreover, empirical evidence of the need for a special model for interpreting will be provided from the practice of the Action Contre La Faim agency in Jordan in the context of their work with the Syrian refuges residing in the Kingdome. 

- When the Voice of the Subaltern is Amplified by Self-Translation : The Case of Anne Nenarokoff Van Burek's Le Fil d'Ariane, Souâd Hamerlain

The present paper intends to shed light on Anne Nenarokoff Van Burek’s self-translated novel Le fil d’Ariane: les femmes de ma famille (Ariadne’s Thread: The Women in my Family, 2012). This autobiographical work recounts the moving family stories of the women who cuddled the author’s childhood. These were bound to leave their homeland and head straight to France after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Despite their illiteracy and low social stratification, which may reflect a subaltern state, Nenarokoff Van Burek strengthens in her work their active role in reinventing themselves and adapting to the new European life. It is also the aim of this paper to underwrite self-translation as a strong/faithful tool of heralding social equity especially when linked to gender studies. Connectedly, using the theoretical lenses of the term subaltern in various trends of thought (Critical Theory, Postmodernism, etc.) will, we trust, allow us to situate the author’s “literary catharsis”. Eventually, we come to conclude after a number of instances drawn from the text that part of the politics of translation is to give voice to those who are not heard through a self-explanatory kind of translation strategy.

- On the front line: the role of interpreters in protracted conflicts, Lucia Ruiz Rosendo

Language brokering in conflict zones is an activity that has been performed since antiquity due to the pervasiveness of conflict in human history. Although interpreting was recognised as a profession in the 20th century, interpreting in conflict scenarios has continued to be to a large extent a non-regulated occupation mainly carried out by ad-hoc interpreters who have not undergone any formal training. In some conflicts, however, interpreters working for international organisations have been present. This group of interpreters has presumably possessed adequate professional skills and experience that are much-needed for the parties hiring them. The literature on interpreting in conflict is limited in comparison to other spheres of interpreting, in spite of the increasing awareness and interest on this topic, and recorded evidence about the role of interpreters is scarce and seldom chronicled. Few studies have dealt to date with the specific role of interpreters in recent conflicts, and practically none of them have aimed to describe the role of the interpreter working on the ground for international organisations in protracted conflicts. The war in Bosnia is one example of a protracted conflict involving interpreters working for international organisations. The author drew on primary sources —direct testimonies— in order to explore the role of interpreters in this conflict. To this end, a survey targeted at interpreters who worked in the Bosnian war in the framework of an international organisation was conducted in order to shed light on the characteristics that define their profile and status, occupation, role that they have played in the different stages of the conflict (preparatory process, warfare or war operations as such, postwar scenarios), training, working practices and procedures, attempts at neutrality and ideology. Responses to the survey shed light on a number of important issues, including training backgrounds, potential challenges, modalities practiced and requirements —which are different from other settings—, and the relationship between the role of the interpreter and the stage of the conflict. The findings also highlight certain shortcomings related to the definition of the activities performed, the existence of specific training programmes, the role of the interpreter, the protection received, or the protocol of behaviour or action. The presenter would discuss these findings in detail and argue their relevance for understanding interpreting in areas of protracted conflict.

- Empowering Translation: Gender and Voice Politics, Naeema Ali Abdelgawad

Language brokering in conflict zones is an activity that has been performed since antiquity due to the pervasiveness of conflict in human history. Although interpreting was recognised as a profession in the 20th century, interpreting in conflict scenarios has continued to be to a large extent a non-regulated occupation mainly carried out by ad-hoc interpreters who have not undergone any formal training. In some conflicts, however, interpreters working for international organisations have been present. This group of interpreters has presumably possessed adequate professional skills and experience that are much-needed for the parties hiring them. The literature on interpreting in conflict is limited in comparison to other spheres of interpreting, in spite of the increasing awareness and interest on this topic, and recorded evidence about the role of interpreters is scarce and seldom chronicled. Few studies have dealt to date with the specific role of interpreters in recent conflicts, and practically none of them have aimed to describe the role of the interpreter working on the ground for international organisations in protracted conflicts. The war in Bosnia is one example of a protracted conflict involving interpreters working for international organisations. The author drew on primary sources —direct testimonies— in order to explore the role of interpreters in this conflict. To this end, a survey targeted at interpreters who worked in the Bosnian war in the framework of an international organisation was conducted in order to shed light on the characteristics that define their profile and status, occupation, role that they have played in the different stages of the conflict (preparatory process, warfare or war operations as such, postwar scenarios), training, working practices and procedures, attempts at neutrality and ideology. Responses to the survey shed light on a number of important issues, including training backgrounds, potential challenges, modalities practiced and requirements —which are different from other settings—, and the relationship between the role of the interpreter and the stage of the conflict. The findings also highlight certain shortcomings related to the definition of the activities performed, the existence of specific training programmes, the role of the interpreter, the protection received, or the protocol of behaviour or action. The presenter would discuss these findings in detail and argue their relevance for understanding interpreting in areas of protracted conflict.

- Interpreting politics - A methodological perspective, Carmen Delgado Luchner

Studying the political dimension of translation and interpreting requires adequate methodological tools that allow the researcher to apprehend the phenomena under study from a holistic perspective, while at the same time taking into account the power asymmetries between research participants. These asymmetries are particularly marked in studies involving participants from the Global North and the Global South, or subjects from different socio-cultural backgrounds, as is often the case in the field of translation and interpreting. An interdisciplinary approach, incorporating theoretical and methodological tools from disciplines such as sociology and anthropology, provides answers to many of the challenges associated with such research projects. This presentation suggests such an approach. In the framework of my dissertation entitled "Setting up a Master's Programme in Conference Interpreting at the University of Nairobi - An Interdisciplinary Case Study of a Development Project Involving Universities and International Organisations" I developed a methodological approach for case studies in interpreter training, taking into account power asymmetries between different actors, as well as the peculiar position of the researcher as “participant-observer” in her own research project. This method is equally suitable for other sociological and political studies within the field of translation and interpreting. It includes elements of ethnographic writing and grounded theory, in order relay the voice to research participants, while at the same time protecting particularly vulnerable groups and individuals. My presentation will briefly outline the key components of this methodological approach, namely ethnographic writing, sensitivity, reflexivity and reactivity, as well as aspects relating to research ethics and participant protection. I will furthermore suggest solutions to some of the challenges the researcher might encounter in studying translation and interpreting from a political perspective.

- An Alternative Voice: Sabiha Sertel as a Woman Translator and Culture Entrepreneur in the Early Turkish Republic, Cigdem Akanyıldız

Sabiha Z. Sertel (1895-1968) was a prominent woman intellectual, author, journalist, and translator who wrote on politics, society and culture, and translated political and gender-related texts in Early Republican Turkey, more specifically the 1930s and 40s, which witnessed an enormous modernizing project implemented by a republican and secularist political elite. Sertel’s commitment to enlightenment, gender equality, democracy and socialism defined her intellectual endeavors and translation activities. Her translations attempted to bring to the attention of the reading public a series of understated issues and concepts such as the so-called “woman question,” feminism, socialism, and modern democracy. Sertel’s translation of August Bebel’s Woman and Socialism (1913, trans. 1935), for instance, is one of the earliest book translations on gender, patriarchy and socialism in Turkey. Her translations of Marxist works contributed to the newly emerging socialist literature in Turkey. She also initiated the publication of the American series The Twins and Pocket Books in Turkey, thereby importing a “repertoire” from one cultural context to the other in order to “enlighten” a nation under construction. This paper aims to reposition Sertel as a woman translator by uncovering her agency in her translation activities within the context of the state-sponsored “culture planning” process in interwar Turkey, with reference to Itamar Even-Zohar’s culture theory (2005b, 2005c, 2005d). I seek to demonstrate how Sertel attempted to create an alternative culture repertoire by importing and incorporating alternative, and somewhat unorthodox, concepts and ideas into the state-sponsored enlightenment and acculturation project through her translations. A study of Sertel’s translations can also help reveal the travel of gender-related, socialist and democratic concepts and terms from English to Turkish in Early Republican Turkey.

Workshops:

Introduction to Professional Translation
Mazen Al Farhan
Meeting room 103

Revision and Quality Assurance in Translation
Ahmed Alaoui
Meeting room 104

The Teaching of Writing in Arabic: Process, Product, and Assessment
Mahmoud Al-Batal
Meeting room 101

Panel 6 The Linguistic Perspective, Chair Ashraf AbdelFattah

Meeting room 105

- Language policy and planning : the issues of creating language for special purposes versus domain loss, Frieda Steurs

Terminology is about the linguistic designations for concepts and objects in a given subject area, but it is also concerned with other units such as collocations, lexical combinations or phraseologies in actual use, which are all part of specialized languages and discourse. Ontologies are the most important way to describe the relation between concepts and to model a conceptual system. Through ontologies, we can make terminologies operational. Terminology and the study of language for special purposes is situated on the intersection of various fields of knowledge (logic, ontology, linguistics, information science, language policy, language planning…).
Terminological units can be seen as:
• Linguistic entities in linguistics.
• Concept entities in ontology and cognitive sciences.
• Communicative units in the more restricted framework of scientific & technical discourse.
The Cognitive Dimension: examines the concept relations and how the concepts constitute structured sets of knowledge units or concept systems in every area of human knowledge, as well as the representation of concepts by definitions and terms.
The Linguistic Dimension: examines existing linguistic forms as well as potential linguistic forms that can be created in order to name new concepts.
The Communicative Dimension: examines the use of terms as a means of transferring knowledge to different categories of recipients in a variety of communicative situations and covers the activities of compilation, processing and dissemination of terminological data in the form of specialized dictionaries, glossaries or terminological databases, etc. (Sager 1990) 
This paper deals with the challenges encountered in the creation of terminology for specialized, technical and scientific communication, and focuses especially on the issues of language planning and language policy as presented in the UNESCO guidelines for Terminology Policies. Languages that do not develop new terminologies will suffer domain loss in specialized communication.

- Translating New Vernaculars, Boris Buden

If it is said today that the process of revernacularisation has affected even those two languages that occupy a central position in the hierarchically organized world system of translation, German and French, then the question arises whether the traditional concept of translation based on the principle of homolingual address still applies to this new socio-linguistic reality? Homolinguality, as it is well known, implies not only an abstract commensurability of particular languages regardless of their rank in the hierarchy (“all different, all equal!”), but also a primal discontinuity of linguistic space and, consequently, of our socio-linguistic experience: as an in itself original unity each language occupies its own totally enclosed and transparent space, which only by means of translation – as a bridge over the abyss of linguistic difference – enter into relation with the space of another language, a relation that is understood in terms of communication. As such translation connects otherwise intrinsically separated linguistic spaces and their corresponding cultures, each in itself equally unique and original. This is how it retroactively creates continuity upon an original linguistic and cultural discontinuity. However, under the condition of revernacularisation of modern national languages the role and the very idea of translation have also undergone a radical transformation. While the revernacularization of a language is mostly seen from the perspective of its vertical degradation – submission to the rule of a lingua franca – which results in a loss of its cultural prestige as well as its social and linguistic use value, the process also has significant horizontal effects. In dissolving the homogeneous, clearly separated spaces of national languages it creates new linguistic and social continuities in which translational practice moves away from its “proper” location in between languages and saturates both vertically and horizontally the spaces of an old/new heterolinguality – a historically new socio-linguistic condition that still awaits to be politically recognized.

Panel 7 Translating the Religious, Chair Amer Al Adwan

Meeting room 106

- Behind the Power Turn - Exploring the Untranslatability of Religious References in Chinese Shakespeare, Jenny Yan Wong

Political and religious issues within a drama are often the subject of manipulation and re-writing in order to conform to the predominant ideology and socio-cultural conditions. In China, although state censorship is rare in theatre, religious resonance and racial conflicts in The Merchant of Venice, a popular Shakespearean play among Chinese audience, are often bowdlerized. The conventional view is that the omissions reflect the power play and the ideological conflicts among the different agents of translation and the society at large. But is this the only reason? In this paper, I will present two studies of the treatment of religious references in a The Merchant of Venice staged in Hong Kong and China. I will explore the socio-cultural conditions, cognitive conditions and situational conditions that give rise to the present treatment of religiosity in translated play texts. Interviews with directors and translators show that there are reasons behind such omissions other than politics - directors and translators consistently suppress religiosity contrary to their theology, which is often related to their unique religious experiences. The role of translators and directors in subverting or transforming the religious material will be discussed, as will the translatability of religious texts in a secular play. The study shows the internal conflicts (i.e. what exists inside the mind of translators) and external conflicts (i.e. what exists outside of translators) serve to reshape the image of translated literature, and points readers to view theatre translation not only as a linguistic process, but a complex hermeneutical, ideological process, subject to different political and market forces at play.

- The social function of translation Translation as a medium for inter-systemic communication, Mohammad Alavi 

Translations are made and observed in social contexts. As such, they have a potential to exercise influence on different spheres of society –such as politics, economy, religion, etc. To account for this very social function of and the disproportionate impact of translation, some scholars in translation studies (TS) have used the concept of system. Conceptualizing translation as a social (Hermans 2014, Tyulenev 2012) or a complex system (Marais) has revealed an enormous potential for opening up new avenues of (re)thinking epistemological questions of the field in a new light. Aligning myself with such conceptualization of translation, I wish to explore another social dimension of translation from a systemic perspective in this article. Accordingly, I will pursue two objectives, one at a theoretical and the other at an empirical level. With regard to the former, I will use social systems theory à la Luhmann to describe translation as a communication medium whose function is to increase the probability of inter-systemic communication. This understanding of translation might reinforce the current attempts in observing translation as a systemic phenomenon that suggest a way for TS to treat a broader understanding of translation as its subject of study. As for the empirical dimension, I will use the above-mentioned understanding of translation to analyze the way religious reformist movement in Iran used the intellectual journal of Kiyan during the 1990s as a communication platform to translate religious discourse into a politically relevant discourse. This discourse then allowed an inter-systemic communication between the systems of religion and politics. I will show how this translation proviso (Habermas 2012) played a role in the dissemination of a reformist political discourse of Islam that stood in sharp contrast with Iran’s post-revolutionary radical political discourse of Islam during the same period.

- Translating Hijab Verses in the Quran by Women: A Feminist Perspective, Najla Ali Al-Maliki

This paper tries to uncover the hidden ideologies in the four translations of the hijab verses in the Quran by Muslim women translators. The four women are Umm Mohammed, Taheera Saffarzadeh, Camille Adam Helminiski and Laylah Bakhtiar. This thesis looked at the theories of ideology in general and feminists’ ideology in particular. It is difficult to change or alter the language of the Quran, however translators mange to infuse their ideologies via translation. Applying critical discourse analysis helped reveal hidden ideologies and learn the real position of each translator. I examined each translation, analyzing it at the micro level by applying textual analysis. Then I zoomed out to the macro level by scanning the para-text of each translation in an attempt to find evidence of their ideologies. I found that Umm Mohammed opted to follow the classical exegesis, which is evident in her translation of the verses as well as from her explications and footnotes. Saffarzadeh, on the other hand, does not say explicitly that she follows any kind of interpretation or adopts any particular approach. However, it appears from her translation that she is supportive of the current conservative approach in Iran. This appears in her lexical choices, such as “subdue” and “control”. Both of the translators are invisible in terms of maintaining the classical interpretation of the Quran. Neither of the remaining two translators, Helminiski or Bakhtiar, presents herself as a feminist; but their approach is similar to the feminist one in terms of resisting inclusive language and calling for women’s rights and gender equality. Both of them refrain from using Hadith in their interpretation of verses, which is also in line with most Muslim feminists’ attitude towards Hadith. Moreover, Helminiski opted to translate only one part of verse 24:31, which talks about modesty and safeguarding chastity. Bakhtiar opted for formal equivalence and similarly to Heminiski, she does not go into details about what constitutes proper Islamic women’s dress. Neither of them explicitly expressed their opinion on hijab; however, neither of them has chosen to wear it. 

Panel 8 Ethical Stakes of Politics, Chair Salah Basalamah

Meeting room 103

- Translation and Censorship, Fatiha Guessabi 

The process of translation always is affected by the cultural, the religious, political and ideologies beliefs. Thus, in the case of censorship, many internal and external forces can affect the process of translation especially when the translator holds ideologies contrary to the source language (SL) regime or religion. Thus, even though ‘religion’ and ‘translation’ are two rather different concepts they are strongly interrelated. Furthermore, Prof. Dr Loreta Ulvydienė (2015) said: “if censorial ideology collides with the final translation, such kind of pressure leads to rewriting the text or conscious erasure of unwanted parts of the discourse. If internal or external forces of censorial ideology affect the translator before the actual translation process it ends up breaking the coherence between source and target texts”. In any way censorship is seen as an expression to consolidate one’s power and dominate over source language culture and ideology (cf. Peter Fawcett).Since the source culture is too different from the target one. Thus, a lot of SL culture lacks arises or overflows with the source ideology to the TL culture. In this case the translators have censorship adapted to their works while other translators, who are not in agreement that SL and TL texts should lose coherence, choose to censor translations on their own, however, in the most subtle way possible (in this particular case the translator becomes the censor). In the case of our country and its religion, the translator was influenced either by an external force (i. e., censorial government or its institutes) or internal force (personal beliefs). Therefore, from the view point of the censorial target language, translation was viewed as a tool for manipulation. Further on, in the case of Algeria censorship, translation has two aims: i) to protect TT readers from the unwanted influence and ideology coming from the SL culture and ii) to support and promote Arabian ideology, language and beliefs. In addition, according to Eugene Nida and Tomas Venclova, generally speaking it is impossible to avoid deformation and gaps during the translation process. There are various aspects for breach of coherence between source and target texts, for example, “insufficient competence of the translator or insufficient maturity of the very culture” (1979). However, he claims that the strongest force for the deterioration of coherence between source and target texts “is the conscious and planned ideological deformation characteristic to totalitarian countries” (ibid., 25). My article is based on a brief theoretical literature overview, analysis of activities translated from English into Arabic.

- Ethics question: translators of power and power of translators, Mourad Zarrouk (in Arabic)

Undoubtedly, the issue of the overlap between power and translation would never have caught the attention of researchers if it had not been for the direct effect of this situation on the translation process, and the resulting effects. Authority has utilized translators in various contexts, and some translators derived their authority from their positions of responsibility. The result was an overlap that contradicts the traditional mediating role of the translator, as defined by Valery Larbaud in his book “Sous l'invocation de saint Jérôme”.
This overlap took various forms, depending on the context and type of authority the translator served. It was clearly evident in the context of direct colonialism. Later on, we can find a clear effect of this overlap in the “war of semantics” that targeted the inhabitants of ex-colonies, specifically their culture and worldview, when traditional direct colonialism became impossible.
It has been difficult to address this issue from a scientific point of view because of the narrative and descriptive methodology most translation historians pursued. Additionally, the role of the translator has been generally glorified regardless of the requirements of professional ethics that started to materialize after World War II. Thus, we find ourselves facing a real issue pertaining to professional ethics of translators and historians alike. On the other hand, the concept of ethics that was tailored to freelance translators is no longer able to encompass all the conditions of practicing the profession of translation or interpreting.
In this situation we can no longer avoid expanding the concept of ethics to encompass translation professionals and researchers, with a view to bringing it out of the narrow perspective of translation and law studies to the vast scope of philosophy, and eventually deal with the structural issues of translation ethics.

- Should we translate or not? The translator’s dilemma of mistakenly translated quotes, Huda Moukannas (in Arabic)

It is widely accepted that when a translator finds in the source text a paragraph that has been translated from the target language, they resort to the original text rather than translate the paragraph themselves. For example, a translator is translating an English book into Arabic, and finds in the source text a quotation that was translated from Arabic into English. Here the translator should observe scientific integrity, by resorting to the original Arabic text and include it in his translation, rather than translating the quotation himself. This might seem easy at the first glance, and saves the translator the trouble of translation, but the problems a translator encounters in this regard are numerous. One of these problems, and by no means the most challenging, is finding the original text. In this particular case, he can find many ways out.
In my opinion, the biggest problem a translator faces in this regard is the following: when the writer unknowingly cites a wrong translation of the original text in his book, because he does not speak the source language. The translator would even adopt this translation and builds his analysis accordingly. What should the translator do in this case? Should he resort to the original text and refrain from translating himself, and in so doing he would spoil the analysis of the author who adopted the wrong translation? Should he translate it himself, bypassing the established rule for the sake of preserving the author’s analytical logic even though it hinges on a basis marred by wrong representations? Should the translator notify the readers in a footnote that he is back-translating a wrong translation?
In this paper, we will answer these questions through material examples derived from the translations of politics and history books addressing the conditions of the Arab world, drawing on Arabic citations and references in their analyses and representations. In our example, authors who do not master the Arabic language depended on bad translations in many cases.

Panel 9 How Western Culture and Ideology Entered China Through the Mediation of Translation, Chair Jian Zhao

Meeting room 105

Panel 10 Translation and the Political, Chair Nicholas Cifuentes-Goodbody

Meeting room 106

- The Translation and Reception of H.C. Andersen’s Fairytales in the Socio-political-cultural Context of China, Jian Sun

This presentation aims at exploring the translation and reception of H.C. Andersen’s fairytales in China ever since this Danish writer and his works were translated and introduced to the Chinese readers at the beginning of the 20^th century. I intend to show how the translators were affected by the social, political and cultural moments and the strategies they used to adapt these stories to this context. 

- The politics of competing pedagogies and curricular practices in a translation program: exploring trends and possible avenues and solutions, Fouad El karnichi

In the context of translation programs in academia, the politics of competing pedagogies and curricular practices represent a major challenge. Most of the time, this struggle is initiated and led by existing faculty whose profile, background and competences govern their way of facilitating their classroom interventions, designing and developing their courses. Some authors and groups of experts in the field of translator education and training (Kelly, 2008; Kearn, 2006, 2012; Calvo, 2009; EMT, 2013) have raised questions regarding translator trainer competencies in the 21st century and, above all, those with a professionally oriented mandate. The goal is for the faculty to agree on using common pedagogical frameworks a cluster of integrated pedagogies as well as translatorial disciplinary and praxis knowledge they can refer to in their pedagogical or curricular practices in order enhance quality and coherence in the program (Prégent, 2009). These frameworks are based on international research literature and best practices, which can be customized and adapted to local translation/interpreting education and training contexts. Similar concerns in instructor profile and competencies (Gabr, 2001, 2007; Ferghal, 2009; Al-Qinai, 2010), as well as the conflicting ideologies amongst faculty in a translation department were also raised in the Arabic context (Atari, 2012). In this case we may ask whether the infancy of the discipline in some cultures, like in the Gulf context and the very recent establishment of translation/interpreting programs in these contexts are possible reasons behind such struggles or are there any other more factors at stake?. Some of these conflicting orientations will be discussed in this presentation and possible avenues and research-based sources will be proposed as possible solutions to mediate for such power struggles in translation teaching contexts.

- Mediation in Translating the Chinese Classic of Tea and Sequel to the Classic of Tea: A Gadamerian Perspective, Mingli Qin

The role of mediation in translation is a debatable and a disputed agenda ever since pre-Socratic time. The paper offers a philosophical account of the role mediation plays in translation with a case of translation of the Classic of Tea written in the Tang Dynasty (A.D.780) and its Sequal to the Classic of Tea (written in the Qing Dynasty A.D.1734). Taking mediation in translation under the hermeneutic situation, the paper attempts to propose that mediation in translation performs three functions. First, it performs the function of “cognition” with the virtue of phronesis, allowing the translator to adapt himself or herself on the one hand to the targeted text and on the other the fusion of the audience’s temporal and spatial horizons without the exactitude on the primordial world experience. Second, the process of mediation is a way to familiarize the otherness in translation, which makes the primary step in the process of translation. Taking the unfamiliar text (In this case the ancient Chinese tea culture documents) into the target context will definitely facilitate the understanding of the version and make it reachable and identifiable to the audience. Lastly, mediation in translation is always a historical process. A text lies under a certain historical tradition of a culture or cultures (In this case two texts with about a millennium in between), the historical factor operates and invites interpretation for the translator ever before his or her endeavor for the translation. The effectiveness of history on the text and the audience requires and demands that the mediating process is always at hand. Thus mediation in translation by nature is a way of disclosure of truth.

- Translation and non-translation policy in newsrooms, Luc van Doorslaer 

Though sometimes in a relatively invisible way, there are hardly any other professional settings where translation and its reformulating power is so abundantly present as in newsrooms all over the world. Translation and rewriting activities as well as dealing with multilingualism form an integral part of journalistic work: a complex, integrated combination of information gathering, (both interlingual and intralingual) translating, selecting, reinterpreting, (re)contextualizing and editing. This reality is not only valid for multilingual societies, it also holds true for seemingly monolingual newsroom settings. Interestingly translation is not explicitly perceived as being so dominant in journalistic production, but that is mainly related to the status of translation. Translation in the journalistic field takes place in a multisource environment and challenges traditional characteristics of translation research, like the clear-cut ST-TT relationship or the concept of authorship. In journalistic text production, translating and writing are brought together in one process that is both creative and re-creative at the same time. In most cases it is impossible to distinguish the two activities involved in this integrated process. The blurring of the boundaries between the authoring journalist and the translating/recontextualizing journalist is an opportunity to empower translation and make language transfer more explicit (see for instance the research of Bielsa & Bassnett, Schäffner, Valdeón and van Doorslaer). The recontextualizing function of translation in newsrooms will be illustrated by examples of national and cultural image building. Recently the research on imagology (see the works of Leerssen) has extended its object to media discourse because of the interlingual and intralingual manipulation taking place in the news production process. The presentation will also show how every newsroom necessarily conducts a translation or non-translation policy. Such policies hugely impact on the selection and content of the news. Case studies will deal with the (non-)translation policy of transnational news media (both TV and online) as well as with more locally oriented radio stations in multilingual South Africa.

- The Introduction of Evolutionism into China and Japan: Selection and Representation by Yan Fu and Oka Asajiro, Jian Zhao

Whether a new idea or concept can take a foothold in a foreign society depends on whether there exists a basis of acceptance and a potential demand for this kind of new idea. During the late nineteenth century in both China and Japan, Evolutionism was a complete new foreign concept. Yan Fu (嚴復) and Oka Asajiro (丘浅次郎) were the two representative translators and introducers of the theory in China and Japan, with their Tianyan Lun (天演論) and Shinkaron Kowa (進化論講話), which were all the rage for many later decades thereafter and shaped new paradigms for the intellectual world in both countries. The wide permeation of Buddhist monism in Chinese and Japanese thought made it easy for Evolutionism to be adopted. Yan and Oka shared an identical critical stance towards their introduction of Evolutionism based on their respective humanistic solicitudes. The same encounter, however, drew quite different responses in the two introductory works, in terms of the selection of readership and introductory emphases, terminology and discourses and objectives. Yan Fu was more obsessed with the “survival of the fittest” (適者生存) notion from a marginalized laggard’s perspective and thus advocated “subjective initiatives” (人治), which, he believed, would help reverse the process of “natural selection” (任天). On the other hand, Oka was more alert to Social Darwinism, which was sweeping across the whole Japanese ideological world at the time. He was opposed to a so-called “excessive evolution”, to which Darwin paid very little attention and which, Oka believed, would lead to extinction of species, like what had happened to dinosaurs and smilodon. The different selection and representation of Evolutionism in the discourses of these two thinkers reflected the different concerns in the intellectual circles of the two countries regarding their modernization. 

- In search of relevance in translation of implied meanings in political speech: A reader-based study, Mohammad Saleh Sanatifar

Perceiving discourses that contain numerous implied meanings / implicatures as their typical feature, such as political speech, requires and imposes more processing effort upon the reader than other types of discourses. The problem gets more challenging in translation for the simple reason that target readers come from different cognitive backgrounds and might require extra processing effort to fill those gaps. The present article seeks to investigate, through a reader-based survey, whether ‘explication’ of implied meanings / implicatures in the translation of political speech would reduce the target readers’ processing effort and make it more ‘relevant’ to them and to what extent. ‘Explication’ is a mechanism that is hypothesized to reduce the degree of processing effort via the translator’s providing relevant communicative clues in or around the text/discourse to create contextual effects. Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory, as an ostensive-inferential theory of implicatures, combined with Gutt’s relevance-based account of translation serve as the theoretical model of the study. Van Dijk’s cognitive account of (political) discourse is further employed to feed the main theoretical concept with a model to justify the readership. The corpus of the study consists of a selection of Obama’s political speeches delivered between 2008 and 2013 along with their corresponding Persian translations. Both English transcripts and the (non-explicated) translations are retrieved from the official website of the US department of State. A number of 373 target readers are surveyed via a questionnaire, developed and validated for this purpose, for their evaluation of the degree of explicitness of the translated texts before and after explication of the identified implied meanings / implicatures. The findings reveal that ‘explication’ of implied meanings / implicatures is a cognitive scalar relevance-increasing mechanism which reduces the target readers’ processing effort to a certain degree. The findings of the study have both methodological and theoretical implications. Methodologically, a cognitive-pragmatic model as well as a readership model are conceptualized to analyze implicatures in political discourse and study their explication in translation from a cognitive perspective. Theoretically, the study highlights the explicitation hypothesis, and makes a step forward to establishing the idea of ‘political relevance’ in the specific context of political translation.

- Translations done by institutions vs translations done by individual translators in China: how they have done it and what they have achieved, Guohua Chen

The history of translation in China can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC), but little is known about the earliest translators and their translations. The first upsurge of translation occurred in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), when Buddhism was introduced into China, and reached its climax in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Since then, there have been two other upsurges, one in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties (around the 1600s), and the other in the last 150 years or so. Each upsurge produced a large number of very important and influential translations, some done by distinguished individual translators, others by translation institutions.  So far there appears to be little contrastive study about the roles played by the two sides. This paper attempts to give a brief survey of some of the most well-known translators and translation institution in each of the three upsurge periods in terms of how they have translated and what they have achieved. A tentative conclusion is that the individual translators have outperformed the translation institutions in terms of achievement. 

- Translating Democracy, Frederic Charles Schaffer

 There is growing interest among social scientists in the local meanings that people around the world attach to “democracy” and its rough equivalents in other languages. We want to know whether democracy, when translated, means what we think it does. Most work on this topic has been done by survey researchers, who have produced a massive body of evidence suggesting that people’s understandings of democracy are surprisingly consistent worldwide. Everywhere, they find, “democracy” is used to refer to civil liberties. In my paper I challenge this claim on methodological grounds. I develop my critique by comparing the results of a 2002 survey conducted in the Philippines with the results of my own 2001 fieldwork in one Philippine community where, using interpretive rather than survey-research tools, I also investigated how people understand democracy. The paper identifies three generic methodological problems—compression, compartmentalization, and homogenization—that have led survey researchers in the Philippines and beyond to simplify meanings and falsely twin roughly equivalent words in different languages. The global consistency in meaning that survey researchers have discovered appears to be the product not of converging worldviews, but of specific procedures used to record, code, and interpret interview responses. Complicated networks of similarity and difference exist between democracy and its rough equivalents around the world. This fact has great political import. Among other things, it unsettles the logic behind democracy-promotion projects—of which the failed American effort to install liberal democracy in Iraq is only the most spectacular example—that are premised on people in whatever place both conceiving of democracy in liberal terms and desiring it. It also raises uncomfortable questions about whether survey research on the meaning of democracy might be used to advance similarly ill-conceived projects in the future.

- The Problematic Role of Feminist Translation in China,Liping Geng

Welcoming gender into translation, interested Chinese scholars began in the recent past to stress the role of feminist concerns in matters of translation. However, confusion over the nature of translation and for that matter the productiveness and counter-productiveness of the Western feminist translation theory and practice results in questioning the fundamental function of translation. This paper intends to identify some of the problems that arise from embracing the Western phenomenon and point out the disservice this gendered discourse inadvertently does.

Workshops:

Introduction to Professional Translation
Mazen Al Farhan
Meeting room 103

Revision and Quality Assurance in Translation
Ahmed Alaoui
Meeting room 104

The Teaching of Writing in Arabic: Process, Product, and Assessment
Mahmoud Al-Batal
Meeting room 101