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.