Current Research Projects

Changing the Translation Landscape: Stateless Cultures in Translation

Dr Olga CastroLink opens in a new window

Dr Olga Castro's main area of specialism is Feminist Translation Studies. Her most recent funded projects, however, combine her interest in translation in non-hegemonic cultures, cultural diplomacy and publishing. Her latest project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, focuses on Spain Guest of Honour 2022 at the strategically important Frankfurt Book Fair, which was seen by the Spanish Government as a crucial opportunity to display Spain’s diverse literary heritage and multilingualism. This project studies how multilingualism is materialised (and to which extent it was achieved) at the Frankfurt Book Fair, with a special focus on the internationalisation of literatures in non-hegemonic languages. This project has a crucial impact and public engagement component, as the overarching aim is to contribute to changing the UK publishing landscape in translation (and ultimately, British readers’ perceptions) raising a greater awareness about Spain’s multilingualism. It is a sequel of my previous project Stateless Cultures in Translation: the case of 21st century Basque, Catalan and Galician literature in the UK, funded by the British Academy (2018-2021), in which I had examined patterns of creation, circulation and reception of these literatures in English translation between 2000 and 2018, engaging with regional publishers’ associations and policy-making institutions, namely the Ramon Llull Institute, Etxpare Institute, Xunta de Galicia and Generalitat Valenciana.

Translated love stories in 20th-century China

Dr Jane Qian LiuLink opens in a new window

Dr Jane Qian Liu's research examines the creative translation carried out by Chinese translators at the beginning of the twentieth century, how they read, misread, and rewrote foreign fictional works. She also discusses the intertextual relationship between Chinese writers and the translations of European literature that they read. Her first book, Transcultural Lyricism (Brill, 2017) focused on the intricate process of literary influence in translingual and cross-cultural settings, and in particular that which is reflected in literary translation and creation. Her current project explores the reception of translated love stories among Chinese readers in the early twentieth century and contains the scenario with a brand new conceptual framework, combining the examination of translated texts with that of cross-cultural understanding, and ultimately that of metaphysical reflections on the phenomenon of morbus litterarius.

Franglais in commercial advertising

Dr Will AmosLink opens in a new window

Dr Will Amos' latest project is exploring aspects of languaging contact in commercial advertisements photographed in the streets of Toulouse, southern France. The research uncovers great variety in the way English and French are used in tandem, and how elements of both are being stitched together in different ways to form creative examples of what researchers are calling 'polylanguaging'. This bears relevance not only for our understanding of the boundaries of both languages in an ever-globalising world, but also in how ideas relating to fashion, food & drink, telecommunications, and other aspects of the commercial world are transferred between languages, for different audiences, and for different means.

Sociological Perspectives on Translation and Publishing

Dr Mila MilaniLink opens in a new window

Dr Mila Milani's research explores the relationship between translation and publishing institutions in post-WWII Italy. At the junction between sociology of translation, history of publishing and history of culture, it analyses untapped materials from the archives of key Italian publishers to reconstruct the meta-discourses related to the publication of foreign literature and to national and transnational networks of intellectuals. Translation is seen as a way to modify power relations within the publishing field and to reshape publishers’ identity as intellectuals. In her latest project, Mila is looking at the strategic influence of the Italian Communist Party on the publication of translated literature and the role of translation in forging a politically committed narrative in 'post-hegemonic' Italy.

Translation is also an important area of interest within the wider School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Warwick:

Translating historical texts

Professor Ingrid de SmetLink opens in a new window

Professor Ingrid de Smet is currently studying a previously unknown, contemporary Italian translation of the Satyre Menippee (1596). Ingrid's research concerns sixteenth- and seventeenth-century intellectual culture in France, the Low Countries and Italy, as it finds expression in the vernacular and Neo-Latin (post-Medieval Latin). Among other projects, she has published a critical edition of a 3,000-line Neo-Latin poem on falconry, with a translation into modern French that pays heed to the highly specialized falconers’ jargon. Ingrid has broad interests in multilingualism in the Renaissance and the methodology and challenges of editing and translating historical texts.