Metaglossia: The Translation World

1813-2013:
Two centuries
of reading
Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s
seminal text
“About the different methods of translation”

7th Colloquium on Translation Studies in Portugal
24-25 October 2013
Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon

Call for Papers
Two hundred years after his famous lecture at the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, during the Napoleonic era, Friedrich Schleiermacher still remains an assiduous presence in Translation Studies bibliography all over the world. His definition of two (and only two) methods of translating has become indispensable to the common core vocabulary of both translators and researchers of translation alike. This binary opposition dates back to Saint Jerome, or even Cicero (De Oratore) and still retains all of its attractiveness, being referred to by different designations such as translation methods, strategies, procedures or norms. Among its best-known contemporary representatives are Gideon Toury’s initial norm of adequacy vs acceptability (Toury 1995) or Lawrence Venuti’s foreignizing vs. domesticating strategies (Venuti 1995), in either empirical or post-modern studies. Many other researchers, however, also structure their reflections on translation according to binomials that, when submitted to closer scrutiny, immediately reveal their close resemblance to Schleiermacher’s proposals.

However, such proposals are far from being circumscribed to the definition of methods of translating, since they encompass a basic reflection on the relationship between thought and discourse, the translator, the typologies of translation, translation quality assessment, the reader/addressee, or even the need for a translation policy within the framework of a language policy, which is evidently relevant for the cultural dynamics he aspired to find in his country and language at that time. Despite some features that may be considered controversial nowadays (such as the idea that “one must be loyal to one language or another, just as to one nation, or else drift disoriented in an unlovely in-between realm”, which is so dear to the proponents of the hybridity and the “in-betweenness” of the translator), Schleiermacher still inspires important reflections on translation to this day. This conference seeks to offer a privileged forum for such contemporary reflection on translation.

Papers will be accepted on the following topics (among others):
•Contemporaneity vs. timeliness of Schleiermacher’s proposals
•Translation and Language
•Language and translation policies
•Methods, strategies, tactics, procedures and translation norms
•Translation and ethnocentrism
•Translation and nationalism
•Translation and power

Keynote Speakers
Lawrence Venuti
José Justo

Conference Languages
Papers may be presented in Portuguese, English and German.

Submissions should be sent to schleiermacher.2013@gmail.com
and they should include:

Title of Paper
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Abstract (500 words in English)
Bio-Note (max. 100 words, mentioning main research interests, projects and selected publications)
Audiovisual Requirements

Deadline for proposals
31 December 2012

Communication of Acceptance
31 March 2013