Zhiqing Zhang
Published: 2020-05-26
Total Pages: 503
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With the implementation of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, the demand for translators and interpreters continues to grow in China. The breakthrough in artificial intelligence, which has contributed to an enormous improvement in the quality of machine translation, means challenges and opportunities for translators and interpreters as well as studies of translation and interpreting. Studies of translation and interpreting have been further expanded and diversified in the era of globalized communications. The interrelation between translation and globalization is essential reading for not only scholars and educators, but also anyone with an interest in translation and interpreting studies, or a concern for the future of our world’s languages and cultures. By focusing on the connection between the two, various researches have been conducted in all forms of communication between languages, including translation, interpreting, cross-cultural communication, language teaching, and the various specializations involved in such activities. This has resulted in The Third International Conference on Globalization: Challenges for Translators and Interpreters co-organized by the School of Translation Studies, Jinan University on its Zhuhai campus and South China Business College, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, November 16-17, 2019. The response to the conference was once more overwhelming, which was partly attributed to the previous two conferences held successfully under the same title. Apart from five keynote speakers, over one hundred and fifty participants came from universities, institutions or organizations from mainland China, Spain, New Zealand, as well as Hong Kong and Macao to attend the event, contributing over 130 papers in total. Among the keynote speakers are internationally renowned scholars in translation studies, such as Dr. Roberto Valdeón, professor of English Linguistics at the University of Oviedo, Spain, and the Chief Editor of Perspective: Studies in Translatology; Dr. Sun Yifeng, chair professor of Translation Studies and head of the English Department at the University of Macau; Dr. Tan Zaixi, distinguished professor of Shenzhen University and Chair Professor of Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Professor Emeritus of Hong Kong Baptist University. After careful evaluation and compilation, 90 papers have been selected for this conference proceedings, which was summarized into the following four topics: “Translation and Interpreting Theory and Practice,” “Translation and Cross-cultural Studies,” “Evaluation of Translation and Interpretation,” and “Studies on the Teaching of Translation.” By no means is it difficult to find some interesting and thought-provoking papers under each topic. For example, concerning “Translation and Interpreting Theory and Practice,” “To Translate or not to Translate? That is the Question----On Metaphor Translation in Chinese Political works” (by Dong Yu) explains that in judging whether or not a Chinese metaphor can be translated into English, an indispensable step is to decide whether or not the two cultural connotations can be connected. But this can easily be influenced by subjective factors. Yu has suggested some ways in which subjective factors could be controlled to some extent so that the translator could be more confident in his or her decision. He has also suggested three steps. The first step is to assume that the cultural connotation of the Chinese metaphor can be connected with that of its English version. For example, the metaphor ???? in ??????????? could be translated as rain or shine; The second step is to find out whether or not this translated version is acceptable both linguistically and culturally in English. The third step is to consider the systematicity of the metaphor in regard with the context in both the source and target texts. This involves a process of recontextualization. When it comes to “Translation and Cross-cultural Studies”, “On Translation of the English Guide-interpreter from the Perspective of Intercultural Communication” (by Fengxia Liua and Xiaoning Bi), points out that inbound tourism serves as a window through which foreign tourists get to know China, so the interaction between the guide-interpreters and foreign tourists are the typical activity of cultural communication. Foreign-language-speaking guides are usually regarded as “people-to-people ambassadors” or “cultural ambassadors”, who have played an essential role in the international tourist industry. Therefore, they argue that it is extremely important for tourist guides to cultivate their cross-cultural communication awareness, enhance their overall communicative competence, observe and distinguish east-and-west differences with multi-dimensional perspective, transcend cultural barriers and learn to use translation skills. “Studies on the Teaching of Translation” is another interesting topic that has attracted enormous attention, such as “Business Translation Teaching from the Perspective of Metaphors” (by Dandan Li) which explores application of conceptual metaphor theory in the translation process of business lexicons, business discourse and business English culture so as to provide a new perspective in business English pedagogy. Another study entitled “Cognitive Studies in Translation” (by Xin Huang), analyzes the cognitive studies of translation / interpreting processes over the past three decades, with focus on the issues examined, the findings reached as well as the recent development. She explains that cognitive studies of translation process examine the translation competence, on-line translation behaviors such as how the eye gazes and how the words are typed and the brain activities when doing translation. Special interests are paid to the working memory, problem-solving, the executive function and some linguistic relative factors such as text difficulty. Over the past thirty years, the interest in the field has been gaining considerable momentum and increasing issues have been involved. Finally, she concludes that with the advancement of technologies and interdisciplinary approaches, the black box, the previously unforeseeable cognitive activities of how human process translation, can be unfolded. Considering the importance of integrating theory with practice, the proceedings are therefore compiled in such a way as to be balanced and inclusive in the hope of summarizing current accomplishments as well as providing certain insights for teaching and further research in the field of translation and interpretation studies.
