Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication: Radical and Extremist Narratives

Date: 31 October 2024 – 02 November 2024
Location: University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Contact Person: Maria Constantinou
Conference Email: mconst04@ucy.ac.cy

Call Deadline: 29 February 2024

Conference Website: https://www.ucy.ac.cy/tradex/

The international conference T-RADEX aims to bring together scholars working on any form of radical, extreme or extremist narratives from a translational, cross-cultural and intercultural perspective.

T-RADEX is part of the communication and dissemination activities of ARENAS (Analysis of and Responses to Extremist Narratives), a highly important research project co-funded by the European Commission.

Call for Papers:

Although extremism and radicalization have attracted scholarly attention in the fields of Critical Discourse Studies and Communication Studies, and with a particular focus on Islam-based extremism (Wignell et. Al. 2021; Bouko et al. 2022; Hamdi 2022) and far- right political rhetoric, these topics have been little researched in translation and cross-cultural communication studies (Sari and Syauqillah 2022; Moustafa 2022). However, this neglected topic is crucial, as translation and cross-cultural communication appear to play a significant role in reproducing, manipulating, and spreading such discourse, and in promoting a transnational cohesion and common ground among like-minded people.
We want to consider extremism in a broader sense, i.e., we look at any form of extremist discourse/extreme or radical narrative that goes beyond what the majority considers extreme/extremist or radical. Such narratives can be found in both far-right and far-left discourse, and include radicalization discourse, social and/or exclusion narratives based on sexual orientation and gender; these are often found in mainstream and alternative media as well as on social media. At the same time, we consider certain dominant discourses/narratives that some communities view as extreme or extremist, insofar as they are seen to restrict democracy and human rights, jeopardize the political and social order, and suppress dissenting voices.

We welcome papers using a diverse range of perspectives and approaches to translation and cross-cultural communication, including Critical Discourse Analysis, Narrative Theory, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Appraisal Theory, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, and Social Semiotics. We are inviting papers based on a variety of contexts (mainstream and alternative media, social media platforms), types of translation (translation, adaptation, localization, audio-visual translation, including dubbing and subtitling of videos of extreme or extremist content) and cross-cultural communication.

Possible topics for the International Conference T-RADEX include but are not limited to:

• critical discourse analytic approaches to translation of extremism or radicalization in mainstream and alternative media from a micro and/or macro perspective;
• linguistic approaches to translation, or cross-cultural communication focusing on lexico-grammatical and stylistic choices;
• multimodal approaches to translation and cross-cultural or intercultural communication that consider affordances (translation of memes, videos, or use of affordances such as emojis in translating extreme narratives);
• experimental investigations into the perception of extreme or extremist narratives from a translation or cross-cultural perspective;
• multimodal studies focusing on visual aspects of extreme or radical narratives in various cross-cultural, multilingual, or intercultural contexts.

Submission Guidelines:

Proposals for paper presentations must provide a title and abstract, contributor’s current position and affiliation. Abstracts can be written in either English or French and are limited to 450 words in length, including references. Individual paper sessions will be allocated 20 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes for questions and discussion.

The conference registration fee is 200 Euro, which includes entry to all sessions, lunch, coffee breaks and conference materials.

Selected papers will be published in a collected volume and/or special issue.

Abstracts and all questions about submissions should be emailed to: tradex@ucy.ac.cy

Keynote Speakers

Mona Baker, Sustainable Health Unit, University of Oslo

Andreas Musolff, University of East Anglia

Simo K. Määttä, University of Helsinki