translation – Page 2 – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

International Translation Day 2023

International Translation Day, established by the United Nations in 2017, occurs on 30 September every year. English PEN is holding an event this year to celebrate.

Join English PEN in London or online from anywhere in the world, 12–7pm BST on Friday 29 September 2023 for a day of workshops, talks and networking opportunities, culminating in a “2023 State of the Translation Nation” plenary discussion. Featuring 30 leading translators, writers, publishers, agents, booksellers and language experts, this year’s sessions include an “ask me anything” with five UK publishers, workshops on negotiating contracts and translating sensitive work, and talks on rights, events and reviews.

International Translation Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development, and strengthening world peace and security. This is an appropriate occasion on which to thank all of the translators who have taken time from other responsibilities to help CID prepare translations of our publications into a remarkable 32 different languages. We could not do this without you!

NOTE: If you want to translate one of the publications into a language in which you are fluent, please contact us before you start, to learn whether anyone else is already working on that publication in that language.

Why ‘Hamilton’ Is Tough to Translate

Paulson, Michael. (2022, September 14). Six Lyrics That Show Why ‘Hamilton’ Is Tough to Translate. New York Times.

Translation is central to intercultural dialogue since there are so many different languages in the world. This article is a pragmatic example of the need to take context into account when translating. The example is a translation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton from the original English into German.

There were many moments when Miranda et al. allowed the German translators to bend the original meaning in order to preserve lyricism and melody. But there were other moments when they insisted on literalism…

Six specific sections of the musical are analyzed in detail, focusing on different issues from avoiding hyperbole, to quoting rap songs, from providing new imagery to prioritizing meaning. The translators worked hard to display intercultural competence. (For a one-page introduction, see KC3: Intercultural Competence.)

International Translation Day

International Translation Day, as established by the United Nations in 2017, occurs on 30 September every year.

International Translation Day is meant to be an opportunity to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development, and strengthening world peace and security.

Therefore, this is an appropriate occasion on which to thank all of the translators who have taken time from other activities to help CID prepare translations of our publications into a remarkable 32 different languages. We could not do this without you!

Dreaming of Words Documentary

Dreaming of Words is a documentary film about Njattyela Sreedharan, a fourth standard [grade] drop-out, who compiled a dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages in India.

Travelling across four states and doing extensive research, he spent twenty five years making the multilingual dictionary. This unique dictionary offers a comparative study of Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. Dreaming of Words traces Sreedharan’s life, work, love for languages and the struggles to get the dictionary published. The film also explores the linguistic and cultural diversity in India.

Dreaming of Words had its world premiere at the International Mother Language Day Celebrations 2021 organized by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and the Ministry of Education (India) in partnership with UNESCO. It was an official selection at the DC South Asian Film Festival, RapidLion Film Festival and Micheaux Film Festival. It won the Kerala State Television Award for Best Educational Documentary. It has been screened at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association and the annual conference of the Linguistic Society of America in January 2022.

The film was directed and produced by Nandan. For further information about him and/or the film, find him on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Atika Alkhallouf Profile

Atika Alkhallouf is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Communication, American University, Washington, DC.

Atika Alkhallouf

Her research interests lie at the intersection of global media, technology, and the Arab world. She has a master’s degree in Intercultural and International Communication from American University’s School of International Service. In 2020, she held the position of Adjunct Professor at American University’s Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies Department: Arab World Studies Program.

As an experienced translator, she believes in the power of translation in building bridges of mutual understanding and dialogue. Translation for her is an invigorating mental exercise that she highly values as a tool for knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer.

Publications:

Alkhallouf, A. (2021). Parental cyberbullying through a global lens: Children’s digital rights and social media policies. Journal of Children and Media, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2021.1942662

Aufderheide, P., Lieberman, D., Alkhallouf, A., & Ugboma, J. M. (2020). Podcasting as Public Media: The Future of U.S. News, Public Affairs, and Educational Podcasts. International Journal of Communication, 14(0), 22. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13548

Work for CID:

Atika Alkhallouf translated KC27: Globalization, KC55: Stereotypes and KC77: Negotiation into Arabic, and also has served as a reviewer for Arabic.

Paola Giorgis Interview

Dr. Paola Giorgis was interviewed about the concepts of critical discourse analysis and translation as an intercultural practice on March 25, 2021, by Rehana Paul, CID intern.

Dr. Giorgis answers the following questions:

Can you explain teaching English as a foreign language with a hidden agenda?
What is Critical Discourse Analysis and how does it relate to intercultural dialogue?
Is translation an intercultural practice?

For further information, see her one-page summaries:

Giorgis, P. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 51.

Giorgis, P. (2015). Critical Cultural Linguistics. Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 88.

as well as these guests posts:

Giorgis, P. (2015, November 24). Teaching EFL with a hidden agenda: Introducing intercultural awareness through a grammar lesson. Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

Giorgis, P. (2016, August 10). On translation as an intercultural practice. Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

Giorgis, P. (2017, February 27). Intercultural communication or post-cultural communication? Reflecting on mistakes in intercultural encounters. Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

Translation is a Place of Resting

Cutler-MacKenzie, Kathryn. (2020, December 15). Translation is a place of resting, of being in common. Lucy Writers.

In this article, artist and art historian Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie describes her experience during an Erasmus exchange in Paris, including this wonderful comment about translation:

Thus when we speak of the relevance of translation today, we speak of the importance of shared conversation, shifting perspectives and creating spaces of together. Translation, like collage, is conversation, across geographical and time-bound zones: it is the space between, rather than of, voices. And in translation, just as in collage, we always lose something of the original picture – we must be content in not knowing the full picture. Indeed, speaking, thinking and making between languages has taught me that what we have now is never all that there is; in other words, that we can always surprise ourselves, that change is possible, even in the most confined of settings with the most limited of tools.

Ghent U: Research Assistant: Multilingual Website Evaluation (Belgium)

Research Assistant for MULTIPLES Research Group, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. Deadline: 10 January 2021.

The MULTIPLES research group at the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication wants to hire a part-time research assistant (80%) for the project “Evaluation multilingual website fedasilinfo.be”. This research is situated in the field of multilingual and intercultural (digital) communication. The project aims at an evaluation of the use of the multilingual Fedasil website on the basis of an analysis of the current and desired situation by means of qualitative-quantitative research among (1) applicants for international protection and (2) collaborators who are active in collective and individual reception initiatives.

The research combines among others:

(a) in-depth interviews and/or focus interviews with applicants for international protection and/or persons who do not (or no longer) have right to reception

(b) screencaptures of user experiences on the fedasilinfo.be website

Uygar Doğan Profile

Uygar Doğan is an Agile Program Lead with Capital One Tech and a language enthusiast. She holds an MBA degree from State University of New York (SUNY) Albany.

Uygar Dogan Born in Turkey, she immigrated to the USA in 1998. She studied English and German as part of her school curriculum in Turkey, and she enjoys translating between the languages of Turkish, German and English. In her current job, she helps software engineers accomplish their goals via Agile methodologies. She currently lives in New York City and appreciates the immense diversity the city has to offer. Her other interests include traveling the world and discovering good Plant Based food wherever she goes. She is happy to be a part of CID’s research community and hopes that through such exchange, the world will learn to become one and appreciate our differences as well as our similarities.

Work for CID:
Uygar Doğan translated KC35: Media Ecology into Turkish.

Huan Zou Profile

Huan ZOU is a lecturer at Shanghai International Studies University. From 2021 to 2023, she provided professional service as coordinator of onsite data/material collection for projects of climate change, migration, and adaptation at the Education University of Hong Kong. Before this, she worked as an editor in social sciences and foreign literature at Shanghai Translation Publishing House (2016-21).

ZOU Huan She graduated from Fudan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Translation and the University of Hong Kong with a Master’s degree in China Development Studies. Her research interests span China studies, historical climate change and its educational practice, comparative literature, and native American studies. She has contributed to publishing projects of notable prize winners including The Sympathizer (100th Pulitzer Prize winner) & The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Collected Poems: 1931-2001 by Czeslaw Milosz (Nobel Laureate), No Room for Small Dreams: The Making of Modern Israel by Shimon Peres (former Israeli President), as well as works by Paul A. Cohen, Ezra F. Vogel, and Henry Kissinger.

She also works as a translator. Published translation works include:

Ishiguro, N. (2024). Common ground [共有之地]. [Zou, H., Trans.] Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

Johnson, D. (2022). Sisters [姐妹] [Zou, H., Trans.] Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.

Johnson, D. (2021). Everything under [深水] [Zou, H., Trans.] Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.

St. Aubyn, E. (2020). Never mind [算了] [Zou, H., Trans.] Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

Lum, C. M. K. (2019). Media ecology and media education: Reflections on media literacy in a globalized communication ecology [媒介环境学和媒体教育: 反思全球化传播生态中的媒体素养] [Zou, H., Trans.] Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication, 41(4), 2019.

Buckley, P. (2018). Classic Penguin: Cover to cover [经典企鹅：从封面到封面] [Zou, H., Trans.] Shanghai: People’s Publishing House.

Work for CID:
Huan Zou has served as a reviewer for Simplified Chinese.

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