Report on the Symposium "The Translation of Multilingual Films"
This
symposium was the first public presentation of the TRAFILM project (FFI2014-55952-P),
which researches the phenomenon of multilingualism in films. The seminar
started with a plenary lecture by Dr. Carol
O’Sullivan, University of Bristol, “Translating
Multilingual Films: from the Multiplex to the Arthouse”
which presented an inspiring historical and theoretical overview of
multilingualism in the cinema and its relevance for translation.
This was
followed by papers from all TRAFILM members.
Dr. Corrius and Dr. Espasa, as coordinators of the project, reviewed the
general theoretical and methodological framework of the project. The titles of
their papers were “From multilingual texts to Trafilm: A pathway to
validate and refine the theoretical models on AVT” (Corrius), and “An overview
of Trafilm project: methodological considerations and corpus selection”
(Espasa). 
Then, Dr. Zabalbeascoa and Dr. Sokoli showed how the theoretical and
methodological foundations of the project can be articulated and integrated in
an online plataform of metadata, an essential tool for the TRAFILM group, which
is open to the collaboration of other researchers working in this field. The
titles of their papers were “From
pretty theory to messy reality: adapting L3 models and variables to the Trafilm
design of a usable online form for collecting metadata” (Zabalbeascoa), and “Collecting
data analyses of L3 instances in multilingual films: towards the Trafilm
consultable database” (Sokoli).
Last but definitely not least, the seminar ended with
papers by Dr. Santamaria and Dr. Pujol, who showed the versatility of the
TRAFILM project to account for relevant phenomena in multilingualism in film,
such as cultural referents, or the presence of constructed languages in films
and transmedia projects: “L3 as a cultural referent” (Santamaria), and “Constructed
languages as L3 in Transmedia films” (Pujol).
This
was followed by a hands-on open research seminar in the afternoon, which let
all participants test the design and use of the TRAFILM database. Among the
participants, Dr. Carol O’Sullivan, who provided feedback from her expertise,
as well as doctoral students, including Guillermo Parra, who officially joined
the TRAFILM team in that seminar and incorporated his findings from his ongoing
PhD project. A phrase in the seminar that was often repeated was “From pretty
theory to messy reality”. This does show the complexity of this research, but
does not do justice to its positive effects: the richness involved in
collaborative research, and the fruitful interchange of information and
perspectives that this provides.
A total of 36 people attended this seminar:
apart from guest speaker Dr. O’Sullivan, all TRAFILM members, lecturers of the Department of Translation and
Interpretation (UVic), doctoral students of translation (UVic, UPF and UAB), as
well as students of Translation and Interpretation (UVic).
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