Indraprastha College for Women
University of Delhi
Conference-Festival on Plurilingualism and Orality in Translation
2-4 March 2015
Call for Papers
Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, in collaboration with the Translation Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and translation, the international journal of transdisciplinary studies, is organising a ConFest, which plans to combine an academic conference with a festival of arts (theatre, film, folk art, handicrafts, etc.) around the two main themes of plurilingualism and orality.
Moving from ortho-centric traditions and the notion of original texts, to cultures of memory and orality problematizes the idea and act of translation. The circulation of texts in a social climate of mass illiteracy adds further complexity to the question of how texts travel. The Conference-Festival foregrounds two issues: firstly, the nature of oral translation in cultures and traditions of orality, and secondly plurilingualism and the role of translation in plurilingual cultures.
Background
For too long Translation Studies has ignored the presence and importance of oral traditions in creating a translated text. Orality is present in all kind of translations. Translation Studies must thus contend with orality and plurilingualism. As far as plurilingualism is concerned, the Western tradition based on linguistic difference in terms of national difference, still dominates in Translation Studies, and needs to be challenged and transcended.
The reality of translation, both in the West and the East in our globalized world, needs to be represented and studied with theoretical and methodological tools that take into consideration plurilingualism and orality at a variety of levels: the internet, global cultures, diaspora communities, arts, tourism, just to name a few. As a consequence of the inclusion of these two issues, traditionally relegated more to interpreting studies than to translation studies, is that we envision the bridging of the divide between these two areas, since the practices of translation and interpreting are more intertwined than we care to admit.
The event itself will signal this wider and more open perspective towards translation and will be organized as a “ConFest”–Conference and Festival together—since different forms of expression in translation will be included: academic papers will be presented together with performances, films, music, exhibitions, debates and round-table discussions.
Site
Situating the conference in Delhi is a strategic choice and with this location the organizers want to underscore the importance of going beyond traditional Western perspectives to achieve the goal of inclusion of the perspectives presented above.The ConFest will showcase how in this geographical region orality translates into polysemiotic representations.Translation through the perspectives of plurilingualism and orality thus will not be limited to literature and literary texts, but will include expressions and acts of artists and artisans in the interpretative act of translation of the literary and the non-literary.
The keynote speakers on the occasion are:
Prof. Roma Chatterji
Department of Sociology
Delhi School of Economics
University of Delhi. Delhi. India
Prof. D.Venkat Rao
Department of English Literature
School of English Literary Studies
The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU)
Hyderabad. India
Prof. Judy Wakabayashi
Professor of Japanese Translation
Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies
Kent State University. USA
Due Dates:
Abstracts (ca 300 words) may be sent to ipc1924@gmail.com and marked Confest 2015
When submitting, please consider the possibility of including present performances, art works, videos, as alternatives to theoretical papers. We would encourage submissions that consider forms of expression other than the written language.
Submission of Abstracts : 15 Oct. 2014
Notification of Acceptance: 15 Dec. 2014
For any other information please contact :
Dr. Vinita Sinha
ipc1924@gmail.com