Call for Papers: “Plurilingualism and Orality in Translation”, Delhi (within 15/10/2014)

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