Guest editors:Dr. Paola Giorgis (Italy), Prof. Dr. Ivanka Mavrodieva (Bulgaria), Dr. Bilyana Todorova (Bulgaria), Dr. Andrea C. Valente (Canada).
“We are pleased to invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of Languages, in partnership with the European Society for Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Dialogue, following its 6th ESTIDIA Conference at Alicante University (June 2022, Spain). As ESTIDIA members and In Other Words (IOW) Dictionary researchers, we welcome contributions that explore issues, concerns, and dilemmas in the translation of the Other from various scholarly perspectives. Translation studies are is informed mostly by linguistics, literature, and psychoanalysis. Similarly, studies on Otherness tend to be interdisciplinary, being enriched mostly by discussions from critical discourse analysis, rhetoric, anthropology, and philosophy. Thus, this Special Issue aims to collect original and innovative studies that articulate theories and practices from interdisciplinary approaches in order to understand how Otherness travels and is translated into other languages and contexts.
The Special Issue aims to showcase micro and macro analysis of translated material, from word/morphological to semantic-pragmatic levels in interlinguistic, intersemiotic, and or intercultural translations of Otherness. We will collect articles that present and discuss challenges, theories, and/or empirical research in translating Otherness”
Giorgis, P. (2020). Análisis Crítico del Discurso. (J. E. Mosquera Pérez, Trans.). Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 51. Available from:
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
NOTE: A prior class of Paola’s won 2nd prize in the CID Video Competition in 2018, and then prepared a reflection on making that video to aid potential 2019 competitors. This video shows how a group might create a video for the 2020 competition, despite quarantine orders.
The idea came in the middle of the eye of the hurricane of COVID-19 in Italy. It was mid-March 2020 and, in the north of Italy where I live, the number of infected people was tripling every day, the hospital system was nearly collapsing, and the death toll was appalling.
I had been meeting my students online regularly. Before starting our lessons on English Literature and Visual Arts, we always had short conversations about how they were, how their family members were, and how they were coping with the situation. Looking at their faces through the screen, I saw their sense of bewilderment, but I also saw their resilience. Their young bodies and their youthful energies were confined, but their minds were not.
Therefore, I thought that maybe we could try together to get out of our physical confinement, and send a message of resilience, solidarity, and hope which could reach other people outside our homes. Yet, such a message was also directed inward to ourselves as an act of resistance and as the possibility to open our inner window on the future.
I proposed that my students make a video in which each of them would read some lines of a poem or a song. Participation was voluntary, yet the majority of them accepted immediately. I looked for some poems on a website which is very well done and which I often use for my lessons too: www.poetryfoundation.org. I chose some lines from four poems which I found particularly inspiring for the purpose we had in mind. I then proposed the poems to the participants: we read the poems together, I translated some parts for them, and then they decided which poem they preferred. Then, each participant read the whole poem that s/he had chosen, recording it on her/his mobile phone or computer. Meanwhile, I had asked a friend of mine, Luca Gasparini, a professional film editor, whether he could edit the different recordings. He accepted immediately and willingly. So, I collected all the different videos and uploaded them for him on a platform. He promptly edited them, and finished in only a few days.
I am so proud of my students! To spread such a message, they accepted to foreground the fragility and the vulnerability of speaking in English, which is not their native language. Even the students who have more difficulties in speaking English agreed to participate, showing that exposing one’s frailty can be a great act of courage. I think they all demonstrated great generosity, hope, and trust.
A final note on the title. The title was inspired by one of the poems, but it was important to convey plurality and solidarity by using use the inclusive pronoun ‘we’ – referring to ‘we’ in the video, but also to ‘we’ in not only our immediate communities, but also in the global community. Then, the verb ‘to rise’ which means ‘to stand up’ and indicates resilience and hope; but at the same time ‘to rise’ also references the rising sun. Therefore, our message also points out that after darkness comes a new dawn.
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
Continuing translations of Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, today I am posting KC#51: Critical Discourse Analysis, which Paola Giorgis wrote for publication in English in 2015, and which Radosław Płotkowiak has now translated into Polish.
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
The Center for Intercultural Dialogue publishes a series of short briefs describing Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue. Different people, working in different countries and disciplines, use different vocabulary to describe their interests, yet these terms overlap. Our goal is to provide some of the assumptions and history attached to each concept for those unfamiliar with it. As there are other concepts you would like to see included, send an email to the series editor, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. If there are concepts you would like to prepare, provide a brief explanation of why you think the concept is central to the study of intercultural dialogue, and why you are the obvious person to write up that concept.
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
If you are interested in translating one of the Key Concepts, please contact me for approval first because dozens are currently in process. As always, if there is a concept you think should be written up as one of the Key Concepts, whether in English or any other language, propose it. If you are new to CID, please provide a brief resume. This opportunity is open to masters students and above, on the assumption that some familiarity with academic conventions generally, and discussion of intercultural dialogue specifically, are useful.
Call for papers: Special Issue of Languages: Translating Otherness: Challenges, Theories, and Practices. Deadline for abstracts: 31 January 2023; deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2023.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 