Navigating through the Dark Matter:

FeatureFEATURES

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The conference “Understanding Wikipedia’sDark Matter: Translation and MultilingualPractice in the World’s Largest OnlineEncyclopaedia”, as announced in theprevious issue of the newsletter, wassuccessfully held from 15 to 17 December2021, drawing more than 68 participantsfrom ten time zones.

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#03 31/12/2021

Over the years Wikipedia has become asource of knowledge to be reckoned with.Nevertheless, translation in Wikipedia haslong been somewhat of a “dark matter”:mysterious, uncharted, and difficult tolocate. As what is believed to be the firstacademic event dedicated to Wikipediatranslation, the conference provided anexcellent opportunity for participants todelve into a range of topics surroundingthis massive multilingual database,including research methodologies, corpus-based studies, translation quality,collaboration in translation, and manymore. In fact, as Conference Chair Prof.Mark Shuttleworth mentioned in hisopening remarks, a number of proposals ontopics the organizers had not anticipatedwere received, epitomizing the immensepotential for academic research.

Online Conference on Wikipedia Translation

Julie McDonough Dolmaya

Keynote title:Digital research methodsto identify, analyze andvisualize conflicts inWikipedia’s translation-related articles

Henry Jones

Keynote title:Corpus-based Wikipediastudies: Theoretical andmethodological challengesfor translation scholars

Jun Pan

Keynote title:Tales of the “fish in yourear”: How does Wikipediahelp to shape a publicnarrative on interpreting?

Mark Shuttleworth

Zhilu Tu

Workshop Convenors

Workshop title:Scraping Wikipedia articles

Workshop title: Digital tools for researching Wikipedia

Keynote SpeakersThe conference featured three keynotespeeches, two workshops, and 17presentations. We were delighted towelcome back Dr. Julie McDonoughDolmaya (York University, Canada) and Dr.Henry Jones (University of Manchester,UK), both keynote speakers in previousconferences and symposiums organized byCTN, to reprise their roles, with Dr. JunPan (CTN Fellow) completing the line-upof keynote speakers. The workshops wereconvened by Prof. Shuttleworth and Mr.Zhilu Tu (PhD student of HKBU’sDepartment of Translation, Interpretingand Intercultural Studies) respectively,who gave their insights about the moretechnical aspects in researching withWikipedia.

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Given the wide spectrum of topics covered,the conference is bound to inspire futureendeavours and facilitate interdisciplinaryexchanges. It is hoped that the conferencewill serve as a milestone in navigatingthrough the “dark matter”.

For more information, please visithttps://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/

The keynote speeches and the workshopswill be available soon. Please visithttp://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk for further updates.

BA students share their thoughtson first commissioned project

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Most of the five students we interviewedhad never undertaken a commissionedtranslation project before. It did not takelong for them to spot stark differencesbetween the project and their classassignments, the most important being theconnection with the real world, in contrast tothe hypothetical contexts used in class. Thetranslated texts were used by the childcouncillors for the debate, and would besubsequently published in the event report.The fact that the translation would be usedby third parties motivated the students to beextra meticulous about the accuracy of thetranslation, as they understood that the finalproduct would be documented and availableto the public.

CTN once again had the honour to providetranslation services to the Children’sCouncil (兒童議會), an annual communityproject to which CTN attaches greatimportance. This year, 36 BA students fromthe course “Practical Translation” taught byDr. Wai-ping Yau translated three motionpapers. By assuming the roles of projectmanager-cum-proofreader and translator,they gained valuable experience in a real-world setting.

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We have highly treasured our collaboration with the Centre for Translation in association with theDepartment of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies of Hong Kong Baptist Universitythroughout the years. The kind and professional support from the students and teachers in helping totranslate the motion documents prepared by the Child Councilors, and in providing simultaneousinterpreting services on the day of the Children’s Council Meeting have made the project more childfriendly and inclusive by meeting the diversified needs of the Child Councilors recruited all over HongKong. HKBU’s involvement provided easy access to the materials for the non-Chinese speaking paneland attending guests, allowing them to participate and communicate with the young people directly.This made the atmosphere of the discussion much more lively, genuine and meaningful. We wouldalso like to express our heartfelt gratitude to your team, in particular Ms. Esther Kwok. She showedherself to be very attentive, sincere and selfless in supporting this project in various ways, such asarranging for the venue, facilities and support staff as we always needed to make last minutechanges, particularly when the project faced the unstable social situation and pandemic conditions inrecent years.

A Message from the Coordinating Committee for Children’s Council: Against Child Abuse and Hong Kong Committee on Children's Rights

The students all concurred that being part of acommunity project was gratifying, and wouldwelcome the inclusion of other types ofprojects in their course. However, as thesaying goes, all good things must come to anend. The event has now drawn to a temporaryconclusion. CTN would like to express ourdeepest gratitude to the Children’s Council fortheir long-standing trust over the past 17years. Going forward, we will continue toexplore and engage in projects of a similarnature, so as to allow our student translatorsthe opportunity to apply their translation skillsto benefit the community.

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Child councilors voting on a motion

The students also found it refreshing tocooperate with their peers since groupprojects are not the norm in the BAprogramme. The students considered thediscussion between the project managerand the translators in the course of vettingand editing the translations to beparticularly rewarding.

A child councilor answering questionsraised by other members

Nicole ChanHilda Hui

Joyce LuiMinnie Fung

Edwin Chan

Translation usually involves making decisions byyourself. It was interesting that we got tocommunicate with others and choose the best way todo the translation.

Nicole Chan, Student Translator

It was truly a real-life project. Other than feedbackprovided by our teacher, the client also gave uscomments. It was almost like an internship.

Edwin Chan, Student Translator

Working in small groups to translate speechesfor the Children’s Council, students were able toput to practical use the skills and knowledgelearned from the course, and to contribute to ameaningful event that aimed to motivate andempower children to express views on importantissues such as equal education access for all andchildren's right to political participation. Sadly,this was the last time the Children's Council washeld. I wish to take this opportunity tocongratulate the students for their efforts andthank the Children's Council for providingvaluable learning opportunities for translationstudents over the years.

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A Message from Dr Wai-ping Yau, Project Supervisor:

A plaque received from the organizers

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THE LATEST FROM OUR FELLOWS

By Dr. Catherine Hardie

In the last few decades, Tibetan Buddhismhas made deeper missionary inroads inHan Chinese society than ever before. Notonly have Tibetan Buddhist teachersgarnered dedicated followings in Taiwan,Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, the pasttwo decades have also seen TibetanBuddhism establish popular roots amongmainland China’s urban middle class. Thegrowth of digital technology has played animportant role in this religious spread,especially the mainstreaming of thesmartphone and the popularisation of themobile-based social media app, WeChat.In recent years, WeChat’s ‘official account’(Ch: gongzhonghao 公眾號), anintraplatform microblog, has been widelyutilised as a religious propagation interfaceamong Tibetan Buddhists in the PRC. Inview of the cultural labour that hundreds ofteachers and followers of TibetanBuddhism have invested in producing andcurating religious content that isaccessible, relevant and appealing toChinese-speaking audiences, I argue thatWeChat official accounts should berecognised as a fertile site for investigatingTibetan Buddhism’s “sinicisation” incontemporary China.

Digitally mediating Tibetan Buddhismfor Han Chinese audiences: A study ofthe missionary milieu of SinophoneTibetan Buddhism on WeChat

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My current GRF project therefore takes asits focus Chinese language WeChat officialaccounts dedicated to Tibetan Buddhism,and seeks to investigate how TibetanBuddhism is being constructed as an objectof knowledge and religious consumption forSinophone audiences. Not only do I seek tocritically examine the visual and linguisticdiscourses through which TibetanBuddhism is being represented within thiscontext, I also plan to ethnographicallyexplore, through fieldwork in China, thesocial processes through which theseaccounts and their content are producedand consumed. The influence of WeChatofficial accounts dedicated to TibetanBuddhism among ethnic Tibetans in Chinaand among Tibetan Buddhist followers inHong Kong and Taiwan will also beinvestigated. Through my research findings,I hope to enrich current understandings ofthe locally-inflected transmission of TibetanBuddhism in contemporary Han Chinesesociety and the importance of the digital inthis process.

GRF project

Note: GRF stands for "General Research Fund",provided by the University Grants Committee ofthe Hong Kong Government.

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This book consists of eight chapters. The scene-setting first chapterbegins by arguing, with all due respect to critics favouring the turn-taking narrative, for a ‘paradigm-expansion’ perception of thedevelopment of translation studies as an academic discipline, beforeintroducing positive translation studies as the conceptualframework for the research featured in the subsequent chapters. Tostudy translation positively, the book adopts an issue-driven,phenomenon-focused, and theorization-oriented approach inlooking into a variety of issues fundamental to the linguistic natureand textual operation of translation, such as meaning making(Chapter 2), unit of translation (Chapter 4), transitivity augmentationby modification (Chapter 5), signification of repetition (Chapter 6),and cognitive effects of syntactic iconicity (Chapter 7). From thispositive perspective, translation is viewed as an undertaking ofcross-cultural and trans-societal text production and dissemination,which, as observed in the book, is in essence an operation of signmaking that may generate in receivers various, and sometimesconflicting, discursive experiences as conditioned by actual socialsituations (e.g. Chapters 2 and 8). A critical engagement withsystemic functional linguistics and speech act theory, among otherlinguistic, literary, sociocultural, and aesthetic theories, enables theauthor to identify information structuring as the basis for meaning-experience correlation in translation, as well as other modes ofcommunication. As such, discursive experience, varying as it may befrom situation to situation, is, and must be, an ‘undergoing’alongside the ‘doing’ in John Dewey’s terms (Art as Experience) thatis textually accountable in both source text interpretation and targettext creation. As argued and demonstrated in the book, positivetranslation studies, as an ever-expanding intellectual paradigmencompassing theories and methodologies individual researchersmay adopt, has as its ultimate goal to help facilitate and advancehumans’ understanding of themselves and of the world.

Fathoming Translation as DiscursiveExperience: Theorization and Application

New Book by Honorary Research Fellow

By Prof. Chunshen Zhu

https://www.routledge.com/Fathoming-Translation-as-Discursive-Experience-Theorization-and-Application/Zhu/p/book/9781138335875

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Min-hua Liu

Nicodemus, Brenda, Minhua Liu, and Sandra McClure. 2021. "The Reading Habits ofProfessional Signed and Spoken Language Interpreters." Translation and InterpretingStudies (DOI: 10.1075/tis.20079.nic)

Pöchhacker, Franz, and Minhua Liu. 2021. "Editorial." Interpreting 23.2: 165-167. (DOI:10.1075/intp.00064.edi)

Neather, Robert. 2021. “Comment.” Invited scholarly comment on “Value in Context:Material Culture and Treblinka”, by C. Sturdy Colls and R.M. Ehrenreich. CurrentAnthropology 62.5: 559-560.

Neather, Robert. 2021. “Museums and Translation.” In Handbook of Translation Studies,Vol. 5, edited by Luc van Doorslaer and Yves Gambier, 159-164. Amsterdam: JohnBenjamins. (DOI: 10.1075/hts.5.mus2)

Robert Neather

Catherine Hardie

Hardie, Catherine. “Liberating Lives.” In Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping TibetanBuddhism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Holly Gayley, 175-208. Boston:Shambhala Publications.

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RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY FELLOWS

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Robinson, Douglas. 2022. The Strange Loops of Translation. New York: BloomsburyAcademic.

Robinson, Douglas. 2021. “George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion and the Ontology, Ethics,and Epistemology of Translation.” In Jahrbuch für Übersetzungshermeneutik/Annual forTranslational Hermeneutics, Vol. 1, edited by Marco Agneta, Larisa Cercel, and BrianO’Keeffe, 103-38. Hildesheim, Germany: Hildesheim University Press and Olms Verlag. (fulltext)

Robinson, Douglas. 2021. “The ⼼ of the Foreign: The Feeling-Based Hermeneutics ofTranslation as Influenced by Ancient Chinese Thought.” In Cognition and Comprehension inTranslational Hermeneutics, edited by John Stanley, Brian O’ Keeffe, Radegundis Stolze,and Larisa Cercel, 169-204. Bucharest, Romania: Zeta Books.

Robinson, Douglas. 2021. Review of The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner, edited by RonRapoport. American Literary History online review series XXI.

Douglas Robinson

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譚載喜，2021，⟨關於中國譯學話語體系建設的思考⟩(Reflections on the development of aChinese discourse on translation)，《上海翻譯》(Shanghai Journal of Translators) 2021(4)：7-8。

譚載喜，2021，⟨翻譯的界、兩界與多界：⼀個關於翻譯的界學闡釋⟩(The duality andmultiplicity of translation: A boundary theory based interpretation)，《外語教學與研究》(Foreign Language Teaching and Research)，2021(6)：937-947。

譚載喜，2021,《西⽅翻譯史學研究 (Researching the Historiography of Translation in theWest) 》，北京：外語教學與研究出版社。

Zaixi Tan

Zhu, Chunshen. 2021. Fathoming Translation as Discursive Experience: Theorization andApplication. London: Routledge. (DOI: 10.4324/9780429443497)

Chunshen Zhu

張旭，2021,《現代時期詩譯莎劇活動尋蹤》，《中國翻譯》2021(6)：29-37。

張旭、肖志兵編，2021,《中華翻譯家代表性譯⽂庫：伍光建卷》，杭州：浙江⼤學出版社。

張旭、張⿍程編，2021,《中華翻譯家代表性譯⽂庫：⾺君武卷》，杭州：浙江⼤學出版社。

Xu Zhang

https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk ctn@hkbu.edu.hk Centre for Translation, HKBU @ctnhkbu

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The 3rd HKBU International Conference on Interpreting:Technology and InterpretingDate: 7-9 December 2022Keynote Speakers: Sabine Braun, University of SurreyClaudio Fantinuoli, University of MainzMore details to come at https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/

Conference

Visit our website for details on the latest Translation Seminars!https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/activities/translation-seminar-series/

Centre Members

DirectorAssociate DirectorResearch FellowsHonorary FellowsExecutive OfficerProject Assistant

Min-hua LIU Mark SHUTTLEWORTHCatherine HARDIE, Robert NEATHER, Janice Jun PAN, Wai-ping YAUJane LAI, Douglas ROBINSON, Zaixi TAN, Xu ZHANG, Chunshen ZHUEsther KWOKKa-lok CHUNG

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Arts Does Method Lecture on corpus methodologyDate: 10 February 2022Speaker: Bart Defrancq, Ghent UniversityMore details to come at https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/

Prof. Silvia Hansen-Schirra (University of Mainz, Germany) andProf. Masaru Yamada (Rikkyo University, Japan) will hold theirseminars in the first half of 2022.

Talk

Translation Seminars