4th EDITION – International Symposium on Translation
Specialists in the Translation Industry. Across Genres and Cultures
The Department of Humanities at the University of Palermo takes great pleasure in announcing the fourth edition of the International Symposium on Translation, which will be held on May 23rd at the Complesso Monumentale di Sant’Antonino. The symposium, entitled Specialists in the Translation Industry. Across Genres and Cultures, aims to explore translation issues in relation to legal texts and audiovisual products by looking at cutting-edge research in translation, on the one hand, and at the professional dimension in the translation industry, on the other. The event will be welcoming international scholars from various European universities and experts from well-known translation agencies and associations. Our special guests from the academic environment are Łucja Biel (University of Warsaw), Serenella Massidda (University of Roehampton) and Annalisa Sandrelli (Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma). From the translation industry setting, experts in subtitling, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, surtitling for the theatre, and audio description for the blind and visually impaired are Vera Arma (Director of ARTIS-Project and President of CulturAbile Onlus,Viterbo), Carlo Cafarella (CEO of MovieReading), Mauro Conti (Director of Prescott Studio, Firenze), Maila Enea (Production Supervisor, GoLocalise, London), Lorry Evans (Audio Describer, VocalEyes, London).
The 21stcentury scenario of wide multilingual and multicultural exposure, cultural and linguistic fluidity and advances in networked communication has accelerated the diversification of translation practices within different research areas. As a bridge and form of communication across cultures and languages, translation activities applied to the different varieties of texts and visuals have proliferated on digital platforms, and within public and institutional spaces. Viewed as a broad, complex and multi-faceted phenomenon encompassing linguistic, cultural and technical factors, translation is seen as a careful procedure of selection, combined with a skillful attention to text types. Investigating how new technologies are changing the global market, as well as the modalities by which we consume translation across and within languages, the scope of the symposium will be to shed light on how translation is produced, accessed and made accessible to diverse international, national and regional user groups with their varying backgrounds.
Particular attention will be paid to Accessibility, Audiovisual Translation and corpus-based legal Translation Studies from the aspect of the translators’ choices in relation to the different text types, with a view to developing new tools and resources for translators, as well as providing a platform for exchanging ideas and promoting cutting-edge research in the area of translation. The numerous contributions aim to lead to an understanding of the new and old more traditional mechanisms in translation, of the pros and cons of the innovative technologies and developments and changes in the translation industry. In particular, modes of audiovisual translation such as audio description for the blind and visually impaired (ARTIS-Project, MovieReading, VocalEyes), subtitling for hearers and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (GoLocalise, CulturAbile) and surtitling for the theatre (Prescott Studio) will be discussed within the professional field of the translation industry.
Scientific Committee: Silvia Antosa (University of Enna “Kore”), Lindsay Bywood (University of Westminster), Mikolaj Deckert (University of Łodz), Floriana Di Gesù (University of Palermo), Elena Di Giovanni (University of Macerata), Dionysios Kapsaskis (University of Roehampton), Giulia Adriana Pennisi (University of Palermo), Irene Ranzato (University of Rome “Sapienza”), Alessandra Rizzo (University of Palermo), Oleg Rumyantsev (University of Palermo), Chiara Sciarrino (University of Palermo), Maria Grazia Sciortino (University of Palermo), Cinzia Spinzi (University of Bergamo), Massimo Sturiale (University of Catania), Antonino Velez (University of Palermo), Marion Weerning (University of Palermo), Marianna Lya Zummo (University of Palermo).