First Call for Papers:
SPORT AND TRANSLATION: INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
Thursday 29th and Friday
30th May 2014
University of Bristol, U.K.
Across the
Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, sport has become a considerable object of
academic interest in recent years. In June 2014, the FIFA World Cup will be
held in Brazil, for the first time since 1950. Two years later the Olympic
Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Much research has been carried
out to locate these games within their global social, cultural, political and
economic histories, paying particular attention to the role of visual cultures,
mega-event organisation, nationalism and even individual sportspeople in
shaping the spectacle.
Very few
studies have paid attention to the role of Translation as an obstacle or
opportunity in global sports history, politics or cultural studies. But translation
is an essential process in almost every sporting encounter. During the Brazil
World Cup in 2014, for example, how will the rest of the world understand the
games being played and the images being displayed, viewed on their televisions,
mobile devices, tracked online or commented upon on their radios? Multiple
translations, linguistic and otherwise, will shape these processes. Furthermore,
how will commentators, interpreters, producers, journalists and academics
translate Brazil for foreign audiences? And how will footballers from across
the world interpret Brazil – and how will this affect their performances?
On the eve
of the World Cup, this conference will draw together scholars for an
interdisciplinary conference to examine this new set of research questions,
across history and in the present day. Questions which might be considered by
conference participants include:
-
How
is sport translated across cultures, and how does this differ today from in the
past?
-
Do
multilingual players/teams compete more successfully away from home than their
monolingual counterparts?
-
How
have sporting ideologies been translated across cultures?
-
Does
sport transcend translation because of its hybrid nature and its global origins
in histories of migration?
-
Are
some sports untranslatable?
-
How
do art and visual media translate sport across linguistic boundaries?
-
How
have radio and television translated sport across nations and around the world?
-
How
have colonialism and colonial legacies shaped sporting translation?
-
Is
there a Universal Language of Sport?
-
What
is the relationship between Twitter, sport and translation?
-
Might
the England team be more successful at Brazil 2014 if they employed as many
translators and interpreters as nutritionists and coaches?
We welcome paper proposals (maximum
500 words) from any discipline that aim to uncover links between sport and
translation. Please send to matthew.brown@bris.ac.uk.
The principal language of the
conference will be English. We welcome paper proposals in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Russian. We may be able to offer some assistance with interpretation
depending on pending funding applications.
Deadline for Paper Proposals: 10
December 2013
Confirmation of Acceptance: 20
January 2014
The
conference will bring to a close a year-long programme of events on Sport and
Translation at the University of Bristol, including workshops on Sport and
Interpreting, and Sports Writing and Translation, as well as work with local
Bristol schools and public engagement activities. Sport and Translation was
generously supported by a grant from the University Research Strategy Fund.
Conference
organising committee: Matthew Brown, Jonah Bury, John Foot, David Goldblatt,
Gloria Lanci, Mike O’Mahony, Carol O’Sullivan, David Perkins, Aris Da Silva,
Ana Suarez.
Further information on the
conference and programme will be posted at www.sportandtranslation.blogspot.com.
