The Fourth Asian Translators' Forum of the International
Federation of Translators (FIT) opened on Friday morning at Tsinghua
University in Beijing.
FIT President Betty Cohen and Lin Wusun, executive vice
president of the Translators Association of China (TAC), spoke at
the opening ceremony of the forum, whose theme is "Translation,
Cognition and Interdisciplinary Studies."
Cohen spoke about the impact of globalization on the translation
profession, saying that demand was growing in scope of languages as
well as in volume of service.
"Professional translation is crucial for good international
communication and efficient trade and exchanges between countries
and economies. It is our role to make the public aware of the
significance of translation," she said.
"We hope the range of venues will spread wider as a result of
growing public recognition of the role translators and interpreters
play in society and in international exchanges, and as a result of
the growth of FIT membership on our continent," agreed Lin.
Lin also expressed hopes that participants would seize the
opportunities provided by the forum to forge new ties, strengthen
old friendships and exchange information and ideas. Such sharing
will help to improve the status and standards of the translation
profession.
Forum participants will hold parallel discussions under five
sub-themes: translation and cognition, teaching of translation and
interpretation, translation and mass media, translation and
intercultural communication; and translation corpus and machine
translation.
In addition, workshops will be held on the topics of "Western
Translation Theories in China: Application and Critique" and
"Translation and the Formation of Chinese Modernity." A round-table
discussion on regional translation practices will also take
place.
A number of renowned scholars in the field of translation and
interpretation are taking part in this year's forum. They include
Edwin Gentzler, director of the Translation Center and professor of
Translation Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in
the US; Cay Dollerup, editor-in-chief of Perspectives: Studies
in Translatology and professor at the University of
Copenhagen, Denmark; and Theo Hermans, professor of Dutch and
Comparative Literature, University College London.
The translation associations of China and South Korea initiated
the FIT Asian Translators' Forum in 1995. Previous conferences were
held in Beijing 1995, in Seoul in 1998 and in Hong Kong in
2001.
Under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Education, the
current forum is co-hosted by TAC and Tsinghua University. It will
close on October 31.
During the forum, an international exhibition of books on
translation and interdisciplinary studies will be held.
The Foreign Languages Press will publish a collection of
selected dissertations by participants to the forum in both English
and Chinese. Some outstanding papers will be recommended to
international and Chinese academic magazines, including
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology and the Chinese
Translators Journal.
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Chen Chao, October 30,
2004)
