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SEIS Academic Forum Series （No.740）
Forum on Translation Studies
Cities in Translation
主讲人： Professor Reine Meylaerts
Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at KU Leuven
时间: 10:30-12:00.
日期: 2019年10月30日(周三)
地点: 图书馆四层学术报告厅
Abstract:
As a result of past and present migration waves, today’s metropolis are sites of unprecedented social, cultural and linguistic diversity. ‘While there is no precise count, some experts believe New York is home to as many as 800 languages (…) It is the capital of language density in the world’ (Roberts 2010) and there is a growing need ‘to provide translations for more than 100 languages in New York City courts’ (Macmillan 2017). This linguistic diversity creates enormous challenges indeed in terms of accessibility of public services. Public services (e.g. health care, emergency services, fire services, public transport, public administration) are provided by the public sector (local, regional or national government) to its citizens. By definition public services should be equally accessible to all citizens, without linguistic discrimination. As a consequence, translation becomes of major importance for cities today: cities need a language and translation policy. However, the legal decision power to conduct these policies is often not in the hands of the city but in the hands of national authorities. This lecture will take Brussels, the capital of Belgium, as an example of an officially bilingual city with a multilingual population, where translation plays a crucial role in granting citizens access to public services. It will first discuss four prototypical language and translation policies for communication between authorities and citizens in public services. It will then analyse current language and translation policies in Brussels and their link with issues of integration and non-discrimination of its citizens.
About the speaker:
Reine Meylaerts is Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at KU Leuven where she teaches courses on European Literature, Comparative Literature and Translation and Plurilingualism in Literature. Currently (2017-2021), she is Vice Rector of Research Policy at KU Leuven. She was director of CETRA (Centre for Translation Studies) from 2006-2014 and is now board member. Her current research interests concern translation policy, intercultural mediation and transfer in multilingual cultures, past and present. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on these topics. She was coordinator of 2011-2014: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN: TIME: Translation Research Training: An integrated and intersectoral model for Europe. She is former Secretary General (2004-2007) of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) and Chair of the Doctoral Studies Committee of EST.
