Source: ITAINDIA staff
December 31, 2008, Jaipur
The recently concluded International Conference on “Translation Studies: Theory and Application” (December 29-31, 2008) organized and hosted by the LN Mittal Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), Jaipur, created a milestone for translation professionals and academicians.
The conference started with a welcome address by the Convener, Dr. R.P. Bhatnagar, followed by a special welcome address by Professor Vishwanath Sinha, founder Director of LNMIIT, Jaipur, who took proactive steps to organize this conference with a view to stimulate discussion on the need to integrate translation with technology.
The Convener of this conference, Professor (Dr.) R.P. Bhatnagar, is a well known academician, writer and translator and pioneer in propagating translation studies in India. It is worth mentioning that Professor Bhatnagar took the initiative to design and implement the first translation studies course in India in the University of Rajasthan, and later introduced an M.Phil. and a Doctorate in Translation Studies in the same university that has given Indian society many well known translators and academicians including various Sahitya Academy Award winners.
The Co-Convener, Dr. Manju Dhariwal is a member of the faculty at the LN Mittal Institute of Information Technology, a Deemed University, a public-private partnership University jointly set-up by the Government of Rajasthan and the Lakshmi & Usha Mittal Foundation as an autonomous non-profit organization. Dr. Dhariwal´s responsibility involves imparting communication skills to engineering students and increasing sensitivity towards the integration of language and technology, yet another testimony of the quality education for which LNMIIT stands.
The President and the Vice-President of the Indian Translators Association (ITAINDIA) were present at this international conference. The President of Indian Translators Association Professor Ravi Kumar who is also elected council member of International Federation of Translators (FIT) was there as keynote speaker, and Mr. C.M. Rawal as guest speaker. Mr. Ravi Kumar’s presentation on “Various Quality Standards in Translation Studies and their relevance in the Indian context” stimulated lively debates. He spoke of the DIN 2345, the ASTM Standard, the EN 15038 Standard, and various other standards including that of China, Canada and ISO. He went on to suggest that in the peculiar conditions of India the above standards will be of tremendous value. The presentation was followed by a lengthy discussion among the participants.
The Vice – President of ITAINDIA, Mr. C.M. Rawal presented views on “the use of CAT tools for translation in India”- a subject which is of great interest to peer professionals. Further, a number of academicians and theoreticians were present at the conference, including Dr. Roger T. Bell who is well known for his book “Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice”. Dr. Bell’s lecture on “Kings, poets and horses: interpretation, machine translation, and context” held the participants spell-bound.
In addition, the conference witnessed the presence of experts of international repute like Dr. Vijay K. Bhatia, City University of Hong Kong (Lost in translation: inter-discursivity and generic integrity); Dr. Farhatullah Khan, Prof. Emeritus, Aligarh Muslim University (Translating Ghalib into English: loss and gain in multiple translations); Dr. Zubeida Ibrahim Bell, University of Malaysia(The folktale and translation: “making sense” of an alien culture); Dr. Christi A. Merrill, University of Michigan (Rajasthani literature in Web 2.0: translating Folksonomies across languages); Dr.Krishnaswamy, Retd. Prof. of linguistics, CIEFL, Hyderabad (Translation: A pre-colonial perspective) and Dr. Rajul Bhargava, Former Prof. and Head, Department of English, University of Rajasthan(Positioning a new historiography-translating partition through personal narration).
It is important to note that the conference witnessed presence of young academicians who are working in remote areas of Rajashtan to empower semi urban students in languages. For lecturer Ms.Preeti Sharma and her colleagues from Ladnun, this conference was an eye opening event, and they expressed their desire to participate in such events in future as well.
The conference ended with a thanksgiving note by the current director of LNMIIT, Professor Dheeraj Sanghi, who expressed his desire to collaborate with translators and academicians in further organizing national and international level conferences and promoting linguistics and humanities as an integral part of engineering courses to empower future technocrats to become more sensitive towards society and become better human beings.
For More details Write to Secretariat of Indian Translators Association (ITAINDIA) at info@itaindia.org or Write to Convener Dr. R.P Bhatnagar at rpbhatnagar@hotmail.com; Co-convener Professor Mrs. Manju Dhariwal at manju@lnmiit.ac.in