FACING THE FUTURE – TRANSLATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Glendon College, York University (Toronto) – March 14, 2020

Into the second decade of the 21st century, technology continues to play an increasing role in translation processes and translator environments. What is translatable or not translatable through the mediation of machines is a central question as we head into the era of neural translation and AI. At the same time other questions emerge: are the existing models of collaborative translation, crowdsourcing, machine translated corpora, and cloud-based CAT tools leading us towards a new era of multi-modal plurality or to a fragmented dystopia where quality becomes a casualty? Is the interaction of human and machine in present and future translation ecologies a harbinger of an enlightened posthumanism or a problematic process that favours disembodied networks, algorithmic decision-making, and unsustainable growth in a time of runaway climate change and environmental degradation? This year’s graduate student conference will address what Minako O’Hagan (2019) describes as a kind of quantum entanglement, the link between human and machine, a crucial issue for our century.

We invite proposals for papers from a variety of fields and perspectives that engage with issues including, but not limited to:

• Translation, technology and colonialism;
• Gender issues in technologically mediated translation;
• Technology and untranslatability;
• Translation ecologies and eco-translation in a technologized era;
• Translator (in)visibility, status, and role in the context of advances in machine translation, AI, collaborative platforms, copyright issues, and non-professional translation;
• Technology and politically engaged translation, including crisis translation and disaster management;
• Technology and translation process, including neural machine translation, automated content enrichment, recent CAT tools, and the expansion of post-editing machine translation;
• Technology and specialized/technical translation, terminology, and localization;
• Technology and translation ethics;
• Technology and issues in audiovisual translation and interpreting.

Our one-day multilingual conference will address these and related topics. We welcome proposals for papers (20-minute presentations) and posters. Those interested are invited to submit an abstract of 250-300 words by December 23, 2019 to transconf@glendon.yorku.ca. Submissions must include the title of the paper and the author’s name, affiliation, and contact information.

Keynote speaker – Sharon O’Brien is Professor of Translation Studies at the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University. She obtained a PhD in 2006 on the topic of controlled language and post-editing effort (Irish Research Council Scholarship). She holds an MA in research on language for special purposes, text linguistics and machine translation (1993 – EU-funded) and a BA (hons) in applied languages (Translation, French and German). She has published numerous book chapters on the topic of translation and technology.

References – O’Hagan, Minako “Introduction” in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, edited by Minako O’Hagan, Routledge, 2019, p.18.