Past Editions

The first edition of the international scientific conference Translaton. Current paradigms in research on translation and interpreting. Opportunities and challenges took place on 27th and 28th September 2018 in the building of the Faculty of Philology, University of Wrocław. The talks and plenary lectures were attended by 58 scientists from 11 countries, who represented 25 research centres. Professor Anna Małgorzewicz from the University of Wrocław and Professor Monika Płużyczka from the University of Warsaw were the originators of the conference.

The event was opened in a historic Professor Władysław Nehring lecture hall by the authorities of the University of Wrocław and the Faculty of Applied Linguistics of the University of Warsaw.

The plenary session was inaugurated with the lecture by Professor Sambor Grucza (University of Warsaw) titled On the subject of eye-tracking translation studies. The following plenary lectures were given by Professor Jerzy Żmudzki from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (Transcendences in translation and translation transcending) and Professor Iwona Bartoszewicz from the University of Wrocław (Film adaptations of Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express – you watch and are being watched). All the three lectures were given in Polish, however, simultaneous interpreting was provided for the foreign conference participants.

Subsequently, the conference was continued in separate thematic sections. The five sections: Specialized Translation, Translation Industry, A Look Into Translator’s Mind, Translation as a Means and Goal of Teaching and Audiovisual Translation involved in total 16 talks. The first day of the event closed with a gala dinner in the Dwór Polski Restaurant located on the west side of Wrocław Market Square.

The second day of the conference was opened with two plenary lectures in English. They were given by Professor Łucja Biel from the University of Warsaw (Research Methods in Specialised Translation: A Multi-Perspective Framework), Professor Pius ten Hacken from Leopold-Franzens-Universität in Innsbruck (On the Cognitive Difference between Literary and Specialized Translation) and Anna Kuźnik PhD from the University of Wrocław (Establishing Competence Levels in the Acquisition of Translation Competence in Written Translation. The PACTE’s NACT project).

Later the conference was continued in five thematic sections: Linguistics and Other Aspects of Translation, Translation Theories, Translator’s Competence and Translation Teaching, Artistic Translation oraz Culture in Translation. In total, 18 papers were presented in them. Selected papers from the whole conference were published in the scientific journal Studia Translatorica. A workshop titled Translation Quality Assurance in Translation Didactics was conducted in Polish by Kwiryna Proczkowska MA simultaneously with the last two sections of the conference.

A guided tour around the historical centre of Wrocław was a highlight of the evening before the first day of the conference. During the first day of the conference, an exhibition “Karl Dedecius Prize” devoted to a prize awarded to Polish translators of German-speaking literature and German translators of Polish literature was opened.

The second edition of the ‘Translaton’ scientific conference was a joint initiative of the Department of Translation Studies and Glottodidactics at the University of Wrocław and the Department of Translation Studies at the University of Warsaw. The event was held under the scientific leadership of Prof. Anna Małgorzewicz (University of Wrocław) and Prof. Monika Płużyczka (University of Warsaw). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was held online.

Over the course of two days, the conference featured 6 keynote speeches and 31 papers presented across 10 sessions.

The event was attended by 51 researchers from Poland, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as from Bangladesh and Kazakhstan.

The proceedings opened with a keynote address by Prof. Ricardo Muñoz Martín, titled ‘Cognitive Translation & Interpreting Studies: From the black box to a colorful palette of situated approaches.‘ The speaker outlined the key stages in the development of cognitive science and explored its applications in translation research. He placed particular emphasis on the importance of empirical methods in the analysis of multimodal communication and identified promising directions for future study.

This was followed by a presentation from Prof. Alessandra Riccardi, who provided a cross-sectional overview of the most significant stages in the development of interpreting studies, current trends, and achievements, particularly within the field of public service interpreting. She discussed psychological and cognitive research strands in the field and demonstrated how specific research areas have evolved in Germany and Austria. A key element of her presentation was highlighting the importance of the methodological foundations developed through intensive collaboration and the exchange of expertise among researchers across Europe.

The first day of the proceedings concluded with a keynote speech by Prof. Heike Elisabeth Jüngst, dedicated to popular science books for children that aimed to explain the coronavirus phenomenon to young readers. The speaker presented potential classification methods for these publications, categorized by their subject matter, illustration style, and linguistic approach.

The second day also featured three keynote speeches. In her presentation titled ‘Level Up: Current Trends and Future Perspectives in Game Localisation,’ Dr. Carme Mangiron focused on the issue of video game localization, analyzing the scientific challenges faced by translators in this field. Using specific examples, she discussed research models that enable the tracking of selected translation processes. In the concluding part of her talk, she addressed the role of artificial intelligence, pointing to the growing importance and potential of computer-aided translation tools.

The next presentation, prepared by Prof. Vahram Atayan and two of his doctoral students from Heidelberg University, examined the issue of manual annotation and the use of tools that support and streamline the text creation process (‘Manuelle Annotationen und Datenvisualisierung für sprachkontrastive und übersetzungswissenschaftliche Fragestellungen‘). The research team presented three annotation projects that applied specific semantic and pragmatic categories. In the summary, various methods of visualizing the collected data were discussed, and the possibilities of using correspondence analysis and multiple correspondence analysis were outlined.

The final keynote speech, titled ‘Progi i bariery w przekładzie‘ [Thresholds and Barriers in Translation], was delivered by Prof. Jolanta Lubocha-Kruglik, who presented significant reflections on the complexity of the translation process. She noted that the difficulties faced by a translator arise not only from cultural factors but also from linguistic and semantic differences. At the center of her considerations, she placed the axiological and mental dimensions of perceiving reality, pointing out that insufficient consideration of these aspects can lead to serious dissonance in the construction of a translation strategy.