Univer-Cities: Translation, Languages, and Internationalization

Dates: 6-8 Nov 2008
Call for Papers Deadline: 15 Aug 2008
Location: University of Alicante, Spain 
Website: /www.ua.es/personal/iliescu/univercities/index.html  

The current trend for most universities is to (re)discover the language phenomenon, as part of the new experience of intercultural worlds that we are facing. Although intercultural interaction is not confined to universities (but has been part of our everyday life for centuries), these are having to redefine their position, not only in terms of enrolments, but also in terms of programmes, goals, staff members, target groups, etc, and the Bologna (and Sorbonne and Lisbon) declarations have given official shape to this redefinition. On the other hand, universities still depend to a large extent on national governments and policies, while maintaining their own local and regional traditions.

Given the ultimate purpose of universities (universe-cities), ?globalization" is a key concept and the language issue is a strategic one, be it on campus, in classes, within everyday society, or as a challenge for international success and efficiency. But there are strong indications concerning the insufficiency of our language (and translation) programmes within this new (globalizing) environment.

Translation Studies might be symptomatic of this situation: translations were envisaged on a rather local basis, as operations taking place between two languages, but it has now become obvious that the binary view on language(s) is outdated. The use of worldwide and permanent communication is no longer exceptional, but forms part of the unavoidable and basic functioning of almost all universities. By changing their approach to language(s), they change their own composition and even identities and goals.

Many members of academia make use of traditional political views on languages; the question is whether academic societies will really function as "universe-cities" when sticking to the traditional language policy (approach) that is used within the nation-state model. Interdisciplinary research worldwide indicates that our future approach to societies will need to avoid defining "globalizing? tendencies in terms of - just - stereotyping or standardizing. Diversity may need to support our attitudes toward communication (with the whole world, not just with the pre-selected so-called elites).

The aim of this symposium is to find out and discuss the exact implication(s) of the various communicative changes entailed by the internationalization (globalization) of language (and translation) strategies.

In order to go beyond the translation/languages field and open our perspective to other disciplines, we welcome paper presentations discussing research in relation to any of the following areas:

?Languages, multilingualism and society
?Translation/Interpreting studies in the global era
?Translation and social psychology
?Organization theory and univer-cities
?Translation and political studies
?The international book market
?The (print/audiovisual) media world

Papers involve a 20-minute presentation in English, Spanish or French, followed by a 10-minute discussion.

A selection of papers and reports will be published: the possibility of combining volumes in different languages (English/Spanish) will depend on the actual proposals. Texts for publication (first draft, open to revision) should be handed in to the organizing committee during the symposium.

Please send maximum 300-word abstracts (in English, Spanish or French) including keywords, together with a 100-word biodata paragraph by 15th August 2008 to the organizing committee (univercities@gmail.com).

Successful proposals will be notified of their acceptance by 15th September 2008.