QScience Connect - Issue 3 -Tenth International Translation Conference

It is my pleasure and honor to present the proceedings of the 10th International Translation Conference, which are the result of a careful selection by peer reviewers. This special issue in QScience Connect Journals is dedicated to the papers submitted to the 10th International Translation Conference “Translation Beyond the Margins.” The Call for Papers for this conference invited contributions that fit in the following thematic area:

“Translation, by nature, deals with margins. Translators and interpreters still hold a marginal position in society, as they often work in the shadow, and go unseen, even though global economy and politics hinge on their work. Translation Studies (TS) holds a similar position in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. This has multifold consequences on professional recognition, leads to further marginalization of vulnerable minorities or invisible end-users, publics and audiences, and has an impact on the advancement of knowledge in and beyond translation.

As a discipline, Translation Studies challenges and transcends disciplinary frontiers, as it converges with and diverges from sister disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences, while mapping new territories in dialogue with other domains. Translation Studies not only crosses over in terms of the subject matters of the materials (verbal, auditory, visual, or otherwise) it works with, but also imports, appropriates and expands on knowledge and methods from other disciplines. In so doing, Translation Studies contributes to advancing new knowledge in interrelated domains of enquiry.

One of the remits of higher education, and of science in general, is to expand the borders of knowledge and that can only be achieved if researchers, teachers, students, professionals and all those involved in reflective practices look beyond the margins of what is presently known. Looking beyond the margins may mean to tackle topics that have never been addressed, or to address mainstream topics from a new angle. It may also mean taking the viewpoint of other disciplines or simply running the risk when applying innovative or crosscutting approaches to practices and/or research.” [https://tii.qa/en/tenth-annual-international-translation-conference]

The 10th International Translation Conference Program was an excellent occasion to start enriching the conference experience by inviting the speakers for a Call for Papers in a peer-reviewed venue so that their conference presentations be anchored in an academic journal, which could at the same time been seen as a Festschrift celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Translation Conferences organized by the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII), part of Hamad bin Khalifa University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. As a result of the Call, we received five outstanding papers and we are proud of bundling these in a first special issue of QScience Connect, the academic open access publication of HBKU.

When addressing localization within Translation Studies, we think of translating web content for a new linguistic and cultural reality. At times, localization is seen as making a text “adequate” to the new readership taking into account local sensitivities and requirements. When the addressees of a given web-based product have a disability, localization alone will not be sufficient to guarantee true access, for the needs and requirements will entail and also go beyond language and culture. This paper is highlighting the issues that need to be addressed to make online learning spaces accessible to all. The take on transadaptation, in the context of accessibility to educational environments, is holistic in nature, given that online learning platforms are required to be set up in line with WCAG directives from inception and that all uploaded content is made available in a variety of formats, among which are alternative texts, captions, audio description, sign language, just to name a few. Only in so doing with the service providers be guaranteeing that users with (sensory, cognitive or physical) impairment will benefit from such educational offers. To convey clearer understanding of the specificities of inclusive online education, two institutions from Portugal are presented in this paper showing the problems they faced and their efforts to make online learning spaces and MOOC accessible: the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria and the Open University. Examples are given from ongoing exercises, and reflections are shared on the cycles of improvement that are necessary to ensure the highest possible standards of inclusion. Included is a comparative analysis of the needs and challenges expressed by students with either hearing or visual disabilities to ensure access to all types of online contents, including spontaneous content (e.g. messages in forums, collaborative online tools).

This article presents the adaptation of the visual elements and how the illustrations have been adapted to fit new cultural and social context. The Swedish original of Astrid Lindgren’s book and the Polish translation will serve as the research material.

In the current analysis of the graphic aspect of Astrid Lindgren’s books published in Poland, Edwin Panofsky’s iconological approach to the image is combined with Roland Barthes’ semiotic approach. The application of these two methods enables an explanation to be formulated as to why the visual representation of certain elements of the Swedish cultural code disappeared in translation. The represented world in the original differs from the represented world in the translation, especially in the recreation of the Swedish village. In the Polish illustrations, the Swedish village setting has been placed higher up the social ladder than in the original illustrations, thereby avoiding a direct portrayal of village life, traditionally regarded as inferior in Polish culture. Polonization also happens in the purifying strategies adopted by the illustrators. Because of the reduction of illustrations representing children and adults engaged in agricultural work, as well as children in direct contact with nature or animals, the book’s character has considerably altered through its adjustment to the Polish cultural code, mainly in the protagonists’ outward appearance as inhabitants of the town.

In the Polish illustrations, a folklorization also appears, through the introduction of folkoric elements from the region of southern Poland symbolizing the superior status of this culture over the peasant culture of other regions.

In addition, the illustrations that accompany the translations are anachronistic in relation to the time setting of the plot as related in the text.

The rise of machine translation and translation memories along with the technologies of the Web 2.0 have brought about new flavours and workflows, setting new challenging research pathways for translation studies. Emerging crowdsourcing-based models have been presented as defacto mainstream approaches in the translation industry. Therefore, exploring the newborn approaches and processes is a priority for translation studies for better insights and further understanding of relevant impacts that may reach the stage of deprofessionalizing the discipline and marginalizing the profession.

To pursue this question, the present paper explores a unique and interesting model of translation that is both crowdsourced and collaborative, the non-profit organization Translators Without Borders or TWB. TWB does not only resort to crowdsourcing to provide humanitarian translation services on pro-bono basis but also maintains a global network of volunteers and deploys a fully fledged environment for translation management as well as quality assurance and control. This paper demonstrates the array of processes adopted by TWB to manage quality and the myriad of challenges it presents. Through TWB model study, this paper investigates the way various theoretical concepts are confronting the industry realities and implications and examines the extent of dynamicity and tolerance thresholds in the application of such concepts.

Background: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the ideology vacuum it left behind, the question of national identity became one of great importance. Adopting the Benedict Anderson constructivist idea that nations are imagined – or socially constructed communities that have to be continuously reproduced in order to exist, we aim to analyse whether and in what ways historical and archaeological museums can serve as tools in the process of building or reshaping national identity in the post-Soviet landscape in order to achieve the state ambitions of the nation. Museums are a powerful tool for policymakers; they not only present neutral objects but also usually enter into dialogue with visitors and create a certain vision of history. The stories told in museums can incorporate selected episodes into a national narrative. Aim, Method, and Discussion: The author aims to verify whether there is a disconnection between two or three parallel texts, between the texts and the visual image, and finally between the texts in question and the master narrative, as imposed by the policymakers. The materials for the analysis are captions, labels, audio guides, and texts from the websites, from the Museum of Soviet Occupation, Tbilisi, Georgia; the Museum of Occupation and Fights for Freedom in Vilnius, Lithuania; and the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kiev, Ukraine. The research demonstrated that the analysed texts in the museums in question are a key element of building the museums’ narratives. In addition, the choice of language version is a significant factor that strengthens the museum’s discourse. Captions and labels are an integral part of the narrative styles. Conclusion: The caption is a key element in relation to what a spectator thinks they are seeing: if the contextualising text is changed, the meaning of the artefacts and of the exhibits changes to a large degree.

After presenting the concept of communicative autonomy and how it can help professionals with ethical decision-making (micro), I draw on two different visual examples to analyze framing strategies for the profession by society at large (macro). One strategy relies on experiences of identity and belonging, while the other moves away from considerations of identity. I discuss what their respective advantages and disadvantages might be. I connect these strategies to the concept of “identity politics” and its counterpart “identity override”. For the final step of this article, I resort to some examples of groups that have made progress in the political agenda with their civil rights claims. It helps me make the case for a bi-faceted strategy for the advancement of community interpreting that both leverages identity group dynamics and is simultaneously able to appeal to the overarching concept of communicative autonomy.