[Commlist] CfP "Translation and the News: State of the Art, Dialogues, Reflections"

*Call for Papers*

*“Translation and the News: state of the art, dialogues, reflections” 
CECC - Universidade Católica Portuguesa*

*Lisbon, 26-27 June 2023*

*CFP Deadline 10 March 2023*

In a political TV commentary for the Portuguese private channel SIC on 
May 24, 2022, journalist and translator José Milhazes mentioned a punk 
music concert held in Saint Petersburg where the spectators were 
protesting against the war in Ukraine. As he offered to translate what 
the demonstrators were chanting, Milhazes shocked the primetime 
newscaster by using a very strong swear word in Portuguese. Even though 
the commentator claimed to have simply provided a literal translation, 
the experienced journalist Clara de Sousa rushed to say on live 
television that “there was no time to add a beep to it”. This episode 
went viral all over the Portuguese news outlets and social media. 
Similar cases, where literal or less literal translations become the 
news abound both at a local and global scale (e.g. the controversies 
around Amanda Gorman’s European translators or the translation into 
English of the French PM Jean Castex’ letter about the UK fishing row). 
These cases shed light onto translation as part of journalism: what can 
be said and must be silenced, the (in)visibility of translation and 
translators in the news and specific translation strategies particular 
to journalism. All in all, translation has always been a part of news 
writing even though journalism and translation studies have only very 
recently crossed paths.

The present conference seeks to enquire into the various intersections 
that can arise from putting journalism and translation studies in 
dialogue. Translation studies’ scholars have initiated a discussion 
around translation practices in the news (Bassnett & Bielsa, 2009; 
Valdeon, 2022), with clear attempts at establishing a new subarea of 
research termed by Valdeón (2018) journalistic translation. 
Alternatively, journalism studies have not yet addressed the relevance 
of translation as a key practice in news writing. Namely in the second 
edition of the /Handbook of Journalism Studies /(Wahl-Jorgensen & 
Hanitz, 2020), translation is only briefly discussed (cf. in contrast: 
van Doorslaer 2010) within the context of the history of journalism 
(Conboy, 2020), ideology in news writing (Kelsey, 2020), and journalism 
in war and conflict (Tumber, 2020). Notwithstanding, these approaches do 
not take into account the research conducted by translation scholars 
about these same research issues (Valdeón, 2018, 2022; Bielsa and 
Bassnet, 2009; Davier, 2017).

Journalistic translation opens up new research avenues concerning news 
and translation. These include: a) conceptual and terminological 
reflections regarding common keywords and categories shared by both 
fields [such as conflict, framing, media, (news) agent]; b) 
methodological challenges in the study of journalistic translation 
(methods, tools, sources, archives); c) empirical research on 
translation in/and the news and on the role of journalists-translators 
among other agents that collaborate in news production and dissemination 
(translation in journalistic routines, ethics of journalistic 
translation, the role of news values and agenda-setting in translated news).

All in all, this conference aims at contributing to the development of 
journalistic translation research as a subarea of both translation and 
journalism studies. Therefore, we invite scholars from both fields 
working on the following topics, but not exclusively, to contribute to 
this discussion:


● History and theory of translation in the news

● Methods used in the study of translation in the news

● Sources available for the study of translation in the news

● Different types of translation in the news (collaborative, indirect, 
transediting, rewriting, etc.)

● Different text types and journalistic genres in translation

● Translation policy and politics in the news

● Imperial/peripheral languages and news translation

● The translatability of pictures published in news contents

● Voice (over) in translated news contents

● News translation and censorship

● Translation and accessibility in the news

● Fictional representations of journalists-translators (in film, 
literature, creative writings, in the

Arts)

● Age, gender and race in translation in the news

● News agencies and translation

● The (in)visibility of translation – and translators – in the news

● Training journalists-translators

● Journalists as translators and translators as journalists

● Translators as news/ in the news

● Translation as fact-checking or creation/ fabrication in the news

● Agency and ethical responsibility in news translation

● Translation in/and journalistic routines

● Commentators as translators in the news / Commenting news translations


*Keynote speakers*

Roberto Valdeón (Universidad de Oviedo)
Lucile Davier (Université de Genève)
Nelson Ribeiro (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)


Selected presenters will have a 20-minute slot to present their work 
followed by Q&A.

Please send a proposal, including: a title, a 250-300 words abstract in 
English or Portuguese, name of author(s), institutional affiliation(s) 
and contact information until March 10, 2023 to: 
(translationnews2023 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(translationnews2023 /at/ gmail.com)>.

Authors will be notified by March 31, 2023.

**

*Conference fee*

Full fee: 80 euros (early bird) / 100 (standard fee)
Reduced fee for students: 40 (early bird) / 60 (standard fee)

The fee includes conference materials and coffee-breaks.

Participants should enrol using the form available at 
https://fch.lisboa.ucp.pt/translation-and-the- 
<https://fch.lisboa.ucp.pt/translation-and-the->news

**

*Local organizing committee*

Catarina Valdigem (CECC-UCP)

Joana Moura (CECC-UCP)

Rita Bueno Maia (CECC-UCP)


*Scientific committee*

Carla Baptista (FCSH-UNL)

Diana Gonçalves (CECC-UCP)

Isadora Ataíde Fonseca (CECC-UCP)

Jane Duarte (CECC-UCP)

Jessica Roberts (CECC-UCP)

Marco Neves (FCSH-UNL)

Rita Faria (CECC-UCP)


*References*

Bielsa, Esperança and Susan Bassnett. 2009. /Translation in Global 
News. /New York: Routledge. Davier, Lucile. 2017. /Les enjeux de la 
traduction dans les agences de presse/. Lille: Presses universitaires du 
Septentrion.
Valdeón, Roberto. 2018. “On the use of the term ‘translation’ in 
journalism studies. /Journalism 19(2)/. Valdeón, Roberto. 2022. “On the 
Role of Indirect Translation in the History of News Production.” /Target 
34 (2).
/Van Doorslaer, Luc. 2010. "Journalism and translation" In: Handbook of 
translation studies. Vol. 1, 180- 184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin, e Hanitzsch, Thomas, orgs. (2020), /The Handbook 
of Journalism Studies/, /ICA Handbook Series/. New York and London: 
Routledge.

*Other sources*

“FactFind: What exactly was said in the French PM’s letter about UK 
fishing row?”:

https://www.thejournal.ie/factfind-castex-letter-uk-france-fishing-row-brexit-5589055-Nov2021/ 
<https://www.thejournal.ie/factfind-castex-letter-uk-france-fishing-row-brexit-5589055-Nov2021/>

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