job for researcher/translator, FR-EN, Chichester (respond before 3 March)

 This job looks interesting and may be of interest to some readers - feel free to pass on. I understand that enquiries are still being accepted for this post.

Research Assistant

Part-time Fixed Term Contract

From 1 March to 31 July 2011

Potentially 2 days per week for 3 months, then full time for 2 months (to be agreed)

Salary Grade 7

Salary range: £19,822 to £21,022 per annum, £11.69 - £12.39 per hour

___________________________________________________________________ 

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Research Assistant to assist the lead academic in the ‘First Kicks: translating early sources on the cancan’ project. You will aid in the identification of relevant French primary sources held in online repositories, translate these sources from French into English, and assist in assessing the necessity and viability of further archival research in Paris.

Your enthusiasm for this role and the research topic will be supported by excellent knowledge of French language and current professional translation practices. A qualification in translation studies (or equivalent) with extensive experience of translating French into English is essential. Translation skills in 19^th-century French would be desirable. You must have experience of undertaking an academic literature search using online catalogues and repositories and of producing translations that are suitable for academic publication.

In addition, you will need demonstrable administrative and time management skills and good communication and listening skills. You will also show initiative and have the ability to work both independently and within a team to achieve the overall aims of the project.

Informal enquiries are welcomed by:  Dr Clare Parfitt-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Dance on ext. 6489, or email: c.parfitt-brown at chi.ac.uk 

Interview date:          3 March (provisional)

call for papers on medical translation for Linguistica Antverpiensia

An interesting-looking call for papers - please pass on to your friends-and-relations:

LINGUISTICA ANTVERPIENSIA, NEW SERIES (11/2012) -Themes in Translation Studies

Journal of translation and interpreting studies published by the Department of Translators and Interpreters of Artesis University College Antwerp

CALL FOR PAPERS

Translation and knowledge mediation in medical and health settings

Guest editors: Vicent Montalt (Universitat Jaume I, Spain) & Mark Shuttleworth (Imperial College, UK)

This special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia NS - Themes in Translation Studies looks at medical knowledge mediation from the perspective of translation in two complementary and overlapping ways: on the one hand, interlingual translation is of critical importance to accomplish knowledge mediation; on the other hand, ‘translation’ can be a rich metaphor to refer to and explain knowledge mediation in medical and health settings. Both the immediate and the metaphorical uses of translation have a lot in common both theoretically and in practice, and this special issue is an invitation to explore those interfaces. Innovations in medical knowledge brought about by research are meant to improve clinical practice and ultimately the lives of patients. The communicative continuum across which medical knowledge is transferred and distributed is wide and complex, ranging from the lab to the mass media. At every stage of that transfer process there are multiple phenomena of recontextualization and reformulation between different knowledge communities with different knowledge backgrounds and needs —researchers, physicians, nurses, patients, students, technicians, managers, journalists, general public, etc.—, both within a given language and between different languages and cultures. The actual roles —as well as the potentialities— of translation and translators in these phenomena of recontextualization and reformulation of medical knowledge are the main focus of this special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia. For example, in the area of research that involves human experimentation, the needs faced by patients and health professionals motivate research processes, which can give rise to clinical trials, in which informed consents have to be obtained from the individuals participating in the trials. The results of clinical trials are often ‘translated’ into research articles which are eventually published in biomedical research journals. In their turn, these research articles are ‘translated’ into clinical guidelines aiming to assist health professionals in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. These research articles and clinical guides —and many other genres— are also often translated into other languages as well as being adapted into all sorts of texts for patients and the general public in the form of educational and popularizing
genres, which in their turn may also be translated interlingually. In a like manner, patient information leaflets (PILs) are summarized and simplified interlingual and intralingual adaptations of longer, more complex documents that are produced, often in a different language, for the development and approval of medicines, such as core data sheets and summaries of product characteristics. A summary of product characteristics of a given medicine usually gives rise to press releases as well as to advertisements addressed to health professionals, patients, and even the general public.
These are just a few of the multiple recontextualizations and reformulations that may take place in the two examples mentioned. The problems posed by such processes of intra- and interlingual knowledge mediation are varied —ranging from adaptation of terms to changes of structure to influence of the institutional context—, and involve not just equifunctional translation but also heterofunctional/transgeneric translation.

We invite proposals dealing with one or more of the following possible tracks:

1. Knowledge mediation/translation between researchers and health professionals
2. Knowledge mediation/translation between researchers and patients
3. Knowledge mediation/translation between health professionals and patients
4. Knowledge mediation/translation between researchers and the general public
5. Knowledge mediation/translation between health professionals and the general public
6. Cultural issues in knowledge mediation/translation, such as different ways of conceptualizing health, disease, pain, risk, safety, etc.
7. Medical knowledge mediation/translation at specific moments of history
8. Heterofunctional/transgeneric translation in medical knowledge mediation

Practical information and deadlines

Proposals: abstracts of approximately 500 words, including some relevant bibliography, should be submitted by 1 June 2011
Notification of the acceptance of the proposal: 1 September 2011
Articles: 1 February 2012
Notification of the acceptance of the article & queries: 1 April 2012
Publication: November-December 2012

Languages: English, French, German and Spanish

Contacts: Please send your proposals to
Vicent Montalt,Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain: montalt at trad.uji.es
AND
Mark Shuttleworth, Imperial College, UK: m.shuttleworth at imperial.ac.uk
More information at http://www.lans-tts.be.

Editing or editorialising...?

And now for something slightly different: when editing goes wrong. I just came across an interesting controversy rooted in the publication of Dalkey Archive Press's Best European Fiction 2011. The Croatian writer Mima Simić, who translated her own Croatian story 'My Girlfriend' into English for the publication, found that her story had been edited without her knowledge or permission. Among other changes, she was horrified to find that the narrator, who had been female in the original Croatian story and who was of deliberately unidentified gender in the English translation, had been 'straightened' in the published English version so that she became he, and 'my girlfriend' was the other half of a straight couple.
For Simić's full account see here; for comments on this story see here and here.I'm sure there's more to the story than meets the web, but it suggests that gender remains a live problem for translators. Readers might like to compare this tale of woe with other stories of gender-switching in the Galician translation of Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and editorialising in translation (see Lawrence Venuti on his translation of Melissa P.'s 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed).

Conference: Early Modern Translation, Washington DC, March 2011

There's a really great-looking conference on at the Folger Institute in Washington DC in a few days. 'Early Modern Translation: History, Theory, Practice' runs from Friday 4 March to Saturday 5 March. See the fantastic-looking programme here. One I'll be really sorry not to be able to attend.

Translation and terminology fellowships at the World Intellectual Property Organization

Seen at the Translation Studies Portal. This looks like a great opportunity for aspiring patent specialists (note 15 March deadline):

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Intellectual Property Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations with a mandate to promote the development and protection of intellectual property rights, notably in the form of copyright, trademarks, patents and industrial designs.   One of its major activities is the registration of patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

The PCT Translation Service of WIPO organizes on an ongoing basis a fellowship programme for assistant translators and for terminologists with an aim to providing on-the-job experience at an international organization. While duties vary according to the language combination, they may include assisting in the translation of patent abstracts and patent examination documents, participating in the development of translation tools and computer-assisted translation systems, and, especially for those with a specialization in terminology, extracting scientific and technical terms from suitable sources and creating or validating terminology entries in the PCT Termbase. Staff of the PCT Translation Service provide training and guidance to participants throughout the period of their fellowship. Fellowships may vary in length but in normal circumstances would not be shorter than three months. Participants in the programme are paid and WIPO may consider paying some travel costs in certain circumstances.

Requirements
Candidates should be currently pursuing or be a recent graduate of an advanced degree programme (Master’s, Doctorate or an equivalent level degree) in translation, terminology or a related linguistic discipline.

For Translation Fellows
Prior experience in technical translation would be considered an advantage and applicants are expected to be working into their native language. In 2011, applications are welcome from candidates working in the following languages combinations only: Chinese to English, German to English, Japanese to English, Korean to English, Russian to English, German to French, and Japanese to French. 

For Terminology Fellows
Prior experience in applied terminology would be considered an advantage and applicants are expected to be working in their native language.
For candidates having a specialization in terminology, applications are invited from native speakers of Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish only, who also have excellent knowledge of English.

Persons interested in applying for a fellowship should send their CV or resume, ensuring that their name is included in all file names, accompanied by a letter of motivation indicating periods of availability, to PCT.Fellowship at wipo.int mentioning in the Subject field “Fellowship application”, their language combination (e.g. Korean-English), and their preference either for “Translation” or “Terminology”. Following an initial screening, candidates will be required to take a translation test and/or a terminology test. Although applications may be submitted at any time, candidates for a fellowship in 2011 should preferably ensure their applications reach WIPO by March 15^th.

European Society for Translation Studies Book Grant deadline 31 March 2011

The European Society for Translation Studies Book Purchase Grant is awarded annually to enable an academic institution to purchase Translation Studies publications. The aim is to enhance translation research in new contexts.

Deadline: March 31, 2011

Amount: About 1000 euros per year

For rules and procedures and a list of previous recipients of the grant please see the EST website. 

AHRC PhD studentship: The Italian Academies 1525-1700: The First Intellectual Networks Of Early Modern Europe

This looks really interesting, though not strictly speaking related to translation:

The University of Reading is pleased to invite applications for a fully-funded three-year Doctoral Studentship, fully funded by the AHRC (UK/EU rate), to commence 1st October 2011.

The successful applicant will form part of an established, interdisciplinary project team working on Italian Academies, led by Professor Jane Everson and including scholars from the British Library, the Universities of Reading and Royal Holloway, London.

It is expected that the PhD candidate will work with materials relating to academies in one or more of the centres selected for the project: Venice, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara, Rome, Sicily and cities of southern Italy. The initial research for the PhD will contribute to the creation of the database that forms the basis for the current project (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ItalianAcademies/); training relevant to the database will be available at the British Library.

The successful candidate will pursue independent doctoral research throughout the studentship on a subject of their choice connected to the project, information about which is available on the website.

The PhD may engage with, but will not be limited to, identified research topics of the project, which include: the relationship between academies and other cultural or political institutions; the role of women, of illustrators and printers, or of foreigners in academies; the ways in which intellectual networks were maintained; the impact of censorship; the Academies' means of cultural self-representation; the role of theatre and spectacle in academic culture.

Supervision will be based at the Department of Modern Languages and European Studies, University of Reading, which has one of the largest and most prestigious centres of Italian Studies in the country with an outstanding record in teaching and research.

Applications are invited from candidates holding an MA or equivalent in an appropriate subject area, with a native or near native command of Italian, and experience of studying Early Modern culture.

Further information on the studentship and on the application procedure is available from the website: http://www.reading.ac.uk/research/res-pgr-degrees/FundingOpportunities/res-pgstudarts.aspx.

For further information on the project and regarding the application, please email Dr Lisa Sampson (l.m.sampson at reading.ac.uk)

Deadline for applications: 21 April 2011
http://www.reading.ac.uk/research/res-pgr-degrees/FundingOpportunities/res-pgstudarts.aspx

Ireland Literature Exchange bursaries for Russian and Turkish translators

Ireland Literature Exchange/Idirmhalartán Litríocht Éireann (ILE) invites applications from literary translators from Russia and Turkey who are working on the translation of a work of contemporary Irish literature and wish to spend a period of up to three consecutive weeks in Ireland during the period 1st March 2011 to 30th June 2011.

The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, 18th February 2011.

For more information click here. 

Proofreading, editing, spellchecking

I was inspired by a post from one of our MA students about editing and proofreading to put a few ideas together about checking work. There is lots of good advice out there on the net (see e.g. Philippa Hammond's blog here, Proz here or Dailywritingtips here). Catherine Hibbard has a very good post where she identifies common problems including the spelling of proper names, errors in numbers and dates, inconsistent or incorrect capitalisation, omissions of words, repeated words, incorrect punctuation, misspellings and non-agreement of subject and verb.

So how to avoid these? Some hints and tips:

• Print out your work if you have time, and mark it up in red or coloured ink before entering the corrections on screen.
• Read in a different font or a different size  to 'refresh' your view of the text. 
• Read the text out loud. This blogger recommends getting text-to-speech software to do it for you. 
• Many people recommend reading backwards for manual spellchecking.
• Get someone else to read your work, or buddy up with a colleague to proofread each other's work. 
• I don't use the 'show/hide formatting symbols' tool in Word but some people do. It may pick up formatting slips like extra spaces.
• I always run a spellcheck before the final proofread. It's a useful way of checking the consistency of spelling of proper names. Add the correct version to the dictionary as you go along and then misspelled versions will show up on the spellchecker. 
• Don't just proofread your submitted work: proofread your correspondence too, including emails.
• Check with great care for accents. 
• Check with great care for apostrophes when writing in English. Misused apostrophes are disproportionately irritating for your reader: 

Even the best speller has an off day. I would always recommend running a spellcheck, if only because a  'definately' or a 'seperate' or similar 'aaagh!' typo makes it look (a) as though you can't spell and (b) as though you didn't care enough about your client/reader/end user to run a quick spellcheck.

BUT

be aware that a spellcheck won't pick up misspelled words which are also real words, e.g. form/from, where/were, quiet/quite. It won't pick up misused homophones like

• principal/principle
• discreet/discrete (discretion is important, and it means being discreet)
• affect/effect
• complement/compliment (the decor of the restaurant compliments the food. Does it really?)
• counsel/council
• hoard/horde
• peak/peek/pique
• precede/proceed
• forward/foreword
• than/then, 
• two/too/to, 
• loose/lose (how has this become such a common error??)

See here for a useful list with definitions.

Spellcheckers find it difficult when you have words from more than one language in a text. They may not pick up on misspellings in the other languages, or worse, your spellchecker might be sabotaging your work by correcting words that you don't want it to (e.g. cognate words which are similarly spelled or words which are differently capitalised in different languages). Always proofread 'manually' after running a spellcheck.

English spelling is full of traps. You might like to check your familiarity with some spelling bugbears with a handy quiz or three - try the Oatmeal Twitter quiz, this quiz or this quiz which has a few tricky questions about American vs. British spelling.Those of you feeling bumptious about your spelling might like to try the ultimate Oxford dictionaries spelling bee (you'll need audio enabled).

EDIT: 12 February 2012, removed defunct BBC and Guardian quiz links and added the OED.

Languages at War final conference, 7-9 April 2011 (registration deadline 18 February)

Students taking the Translating History unit may be particularly interested in this conference. The deadline for registration and payment has been extended to 18 February 2011.

The Conference's Provisional Programme and List of Abstracts are now available on line at:

http://www.reading.ac.uk/languages-at-war/lw-conference2011.aspx

A Special Event will be held at the Cabinet War Rooms at 7.30 pm on Friday 8th April 2011, including a guided tour of the Churchill Museum and underground Cabinet War Rooms as well as dinner at one of the historic war time rooms. The deadline for registration and payment for this special event is 18th February 2011, and you will be able to register for both conference and special event by using the same form.

ViceVersa: Quinto laboratorio di traduzione italiano-tedesco (post in Italian)

Villa Morghen, Firenze, 27 giugno – 3 luglio 2011

Nato nel 2006 e giunto quest'anno alla sua quinta edizione, il laboratorio offre ai traduttori professionisti che traducono dall'italiano al tedesco e viceversa un'occasione unica e preziosa di incontro e di scambio.

Basato sul coinvolgimento attivo dei partecipanti, il laboratorio si articola in sei giornate durante le quali sei traduttori di madrelingua italiana e sei di madrelingua tedesca avranno la possibilità di presentare un proprio testo, per analizzarne insieme ai colleghi tutti gli aspetti ed entrare così nel vivo del processo traduttivo, dall'interpretazione del testo originale alla sua resa in un'altra lingua. La compresenza di traduttori italiani e tedeschi non è finalizzata soltanto a chiarire dubbi interpretativi dei testi originali, ma è anche uno stimolo all'approfondimento, alla riflessione, alla consapevolezza e all'arricchimento dei propri mezzi a partire dalla pratica e dall'esperienza viva di ciascuno. Fra gli obiettivi, anche quello di far nascere fra i professionisti della traduzione letteraria provenienti dall'Italia, dalla Svizzera, dall'Austria e dalla Germania, uno scambio durevole e fecondo.

Partecipanti: traduttori di letteratura, saggistica, poesia, che abbiano pubblicato almeno due opere. Possono essere accolte candidature da parte di aspiranti traduttori che si siano già misurati con i problemi della traduzione letteraria.

Coordinamento: Marina Pugliano (Firenze) e Andreas Löhrer (Amburgo)

Costo: contributo di 150 Euro a copertura delle spese di vitto, alloggio e organizzazione. I costi del viaggio saranno rimborsati fino a un massimo di 150 Euro.

Arrivo: lunedì 27 giugno 2011, entro le ore 19.00 – Partenza: domenica 3 luglio 2011, entro mezzogiorno.

Iscrizioni: entro il 15 aprile 2011.

L'iscrizione sarà considerata valida solo se la documentazione pervenuta sarà completa. I testi dovranno essere estratti da una traduzione ancora in corso d'opera o comunque non ancora pubblicata alla data dell'inizio del laboratorio.

Documentazione da allegare alla domanda di partecipazione:

1. Breve curriculum vitae

2. Circa 5 pagine della traduzione che si intende discutere durante il laboratorio (interlinea doppia, numerazione delle righe sul margine sinistro, spazio per annotazioni sul margine destro);

3. Testo originale (numerazione delle righe sul margine sinistro);

4. Breve presentazione dell'autore e dell'opera (max. 1 pagina).

Si prega di indicare il proprio nome su tutti i documenti da inviare preferibilmente per posta elettronica su file in formato Word o .pdf.

L'iscrizione avrà validità per l'intera durata del laboratorio e dovrà essere inviata agli indirizzi riportati di seguito.

Promosso da: ViceVersa (programma varato nel 2011 dal Deutscher Übersetzerfonds e dalla Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH per promuovere i laboratori di traduzione da e verso il tedesco), Pro Helvetia, Casa dei Traduttori Looren, Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne dell'Università degli Studi di Bologna e con la partnership della cooperativa di traduttori NTL.

Per i colleghi di madrelingua tedesca:
Andreas Löhrer Brigittenstr. 5 D-20359 Hamburg Tel. ++ 49 (0)40 43 27 43 56 E-mail: Andreas.Loehrer at gmx.net Per i colleghi di madrelingua italiana: Marina Pugliano Via di Camaldoli 26 I-50124 Firenze Tel. ++39 055 229 85 33 E-mail: marina.pugliano at gmail.com

Per informazioni su Villa Morghen: http://www.villamorghen.com

PhD funding and scholarships for PhD research training

For readers looking for PhD funding in Translation Studies: 

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth is currently taking applications for bursaries to support full-time PhD study, starting in October 2011. Translation and audiovisual translation are included in the possible research topics. Candidates may apply for study within any of our Research Centres including the Centre for European and International Studies Research and the Centre for Studies in Literature.

University funding is for three years subject to satisfactory progress. Bursaries include payment of fees, a maintenance stipend (£13,590 in 2010-2011) and an allowance for fieldwork. The bursary agreement includes a requirement to undertake up to 6 hours teaching per week during each semester.

Closing date: 28th February 2011. Interviews will be held in late March. For more information see  http://www.port.ac.uk/fhss/bursaries

There are also PhD studentships available for translation at the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh (see here for more information). Any language combinations may be proposed in any field, but the Department has particular research interests in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, English and minority languages, including Irish Gaelic, Galician and sign languages. Applications are particularly welcome from suitably qualified candidates interested in any aspect of the following themes:

• Language use in the corporate and public sectors;
• New technologies in translation research, practice and consumption;
• Developing identities: the role of history, culture and translation;
• Communication, justice and security.

Deadline is 31 March 2011. For more information on eligibility, please contact Ms Caroline Murray (c.a.murray at hw.ac.uk).
There are also funding possibilities at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Manchester. 
Lastly, two scholarships are available to assist attendance at the  2011 Translation Research Summer School (UK) which takes place in Manchester from 27 June to 8 July and offers intensive research training for prospective researchers in the fields of translation, interpreting and intercultural studies. The scholarships will cover the tuition fee as well as travel and/or living expenses, up to £1,000.  Applicants must be studying for a PhD or must be in possession of an unconditional offer of a place to study for a PhD, to start before the end of 2011. Preference will be given to candidates from countries which come under the UN's classification of Least Developed Countries and candidates from other countries with low GDP per capita.  See the Summer School website for more details and an application form.


N.B. Image is entitled 'Translations'. Copyright quinn.anya at Flickr. Reproduced with warmest appreciation under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence.

MA graduate student poster presentations, ITI conference: deadline 15 February

Hello gentle readers,

It's been a little while, what with the new year and the snow and the tottering inbox. I hope you're all well! There's a bunch of fun stuff coming up. A snippet for current students and recent graduates of MA translation programmes:

ITI is offering current or immediate past MA/MSc students the opportunity to present a poster session at the Institute’s 25^th anniversary conference in Birmingham, 7-8 May 2011.
The poster session may be based on work you have done in connection with your translation and/or interpreting course, dissertation or project or on an aspect of translation and/or interpreting work that particularly interests you.
The aim of the poster sessions is to enable practising translators and interpreters to learn about ongoing research and study as part of MA/MSc courses and to give grant recipients an opportunity to meet and network with practising and established translators and interpreters.
The conference is being held at the NEC Galleries, Birmingham, which offers good road, rail and air connections.
If you would like to present your poster, please send an e-mail to education at iti.org.uk with:
Your name, university, and university department
Year of study
Title of your poster session and a short outline of the content (max 300 words)
Your daytime telephone number, email and postal address
Final date for submissions: 15 February 2011
We will select a maximum of four dissertations. We would like to include both translation and interpreting topics.
If you are selected to take part, you will be required to:

• produce and set up a poster display illustrating your research (for tips, Google ‘poster session’ or see http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/speaking/poster/)
• be available to discuss it with conference participants
• give an 8-minute presentation in a conference session organised for this purpose
• write a short article for ITI Bulletin.

You will receive £100 towards your travel, materials and expenses, and free registration for the conference day when you are presenting.
The platform presentation is scheduled for the pre-lunch session on Sunday, 8 May 2010. More information on the 2011 Conference is available at:
http://www.iti-conference.org.uk/conference-2011/