PEOPLE: MARIE SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE ACTIONS

International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)

Call: FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF

 

 

IDEO-TRANS: Ideological implications of intercultural translation

 

Project coordinator - Iwona Kasperska

Project number - 301070

Project duration - 36 months (September 2012 - August 2015)

 

 

Summary

 

 

The project “Ideological implications of intercultural translation — IDEO-TRANS” (7FP-PEOPLE-IOF-2011) was carried out at the Polish Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza (UAM) in Poznan. The outgoing phase (1.09.2012-31.08.2014) took place at the Mexican Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in Xalapa (Veracruz), and the return one (1.09.2014-31.08.2015) was conducted in my original University in Poland.

 

The primary objective of this project was to develop my individual research into Translation Studies through the publications illustrating my progress, and through my participation in thematic congresses and colloquia. It also included the improvement of my didactic offer, comprising a new specialised course of “Intercultural Translation” and the amendment to other classes that I teach, such as: “Text Translation”, “Audio-visual Translation” and “Latin-American Literature”. Besides, it contemplated intensive bibliographical queries of the corpus and references related to Translation, Literature and Culture.

 

Additionally, my main goal was to acquire some new skills as a researcher, a lecturer and a BA, MA and PhD theses director, co-director and reader, as well as to continue learning the Nahuatl language, in order to use it as an important tool in my translation and literary research and teaching. Moreover, I intended to reinforce the scientific and pedagogical collaboration between the Universities where the project was carried out and to enhance my competences as a manager of more complex international projects, such as IDEO-TRANS and the International Scientific Congress “IDEO-TRANS: Ideologies in Translation and Interpretation”, held in Poznan, in March 2015.

 

Some secondary objectives concerned the enrichment of my personal collections of didactic materials, as well as those of the Faculty of Modern Languages and Literature (UAM), the diffusion of translation as a social activity, the promotion of partnership between my University and UV, and also reinforcing of UAM students’ potential. Finally, the cooperation with regional Polish and Mexican cultural and educational institutions within the framework of common inter-cultural actions was contemplated.

 

Since the beginning of the project I have been focused on the publication of scientific papers and studies, as well as on the participation in thematic congresses and colloquia. Therefore, so far I have delivered 5 papers (4 already published in peer review journals) and 5 book chapters (2 already published in reviewed monographs). I have also participated in 7 international congresses (Poland, Mexico and Cuba), in 4 of them with individual contributions, and in 4 national congresses (Poland) with individual contribution in 3 of them. Furthermore, as a visiting professor and expert in Applied Linguistics, I have been engaged in two colloquia organised at the Faculty of Languages at the fellow University, where I evaluated research advances of PhD students in Linguistics, and one colloquium held at the Centre of Cultural Studies and Communication, where I evaluated one project of MA in Translation.

 

As an experienced teacher and supervisor of BA theses, in the academic year 2013-2014, I gave a series of lectures “Experiencia Educativa: Experiencia Recepcional” at the Faculty of Languages, the purpose of which was to teach some research methods and instruments to BA students. In the previous academic year I participated as a co-teacher in two editions of the course of “Translation of Educational and Literary Texts from French into Spanish” in the Institute of Educational Studies (IIE). Besides, I provided consultations in one PhD project on Translation and I directed or co-directed five BA theses on Translation and Literature, four of which were completed and approved. During one year (from April 2013 to April 2014) I also collaborated with a research group from the IIE “Linguistics Studies and Translation Teaching”.

 

In order to enhance my competences as a Nahuatl language speaker, I took the course of “Mesoamerican Languages” (UV) and a Nahuatl language course at the Amerindian Languages Academy of Veracruz. In addition to it, I took an intensive individual course, as well as a workshop of classical Nahuatl language, and I carried out a field work at the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural, campus Grandes Montañas.

 

In the first period of my research I was organising the bilateral cooperation between UV and UAM. I coordinated several academic visits: Dr Domingo Adame Hernández’s visit to the Institute of Romance Languages at UAM, in 2013, and four visits of my colleagues, Dr Małgorzata Spychała, Dr Magda Potok, Prof. Dr Teresa Tomaszkiewicz and Dr Paulina Borowczyk, to the Faculty of Spanish Literature and the Faculty of Languages at the UV, in 2014. Thanks to a close cooperation with the Faculty of Languages, a one-week International Workshop on Translation was held at the UV in August 2014. During the return phase of the project, I invited Dr Miguel Figueroa Saavedra Ruiz and Cristina Kleinert, both from UV, to give a cycle of lectures to BA and MA students at UAM.

 

The International Scientific Congress “IDEO-TRANS: Ideologies in Translation and Interpretation” (2015), mentioned above, turned out to be one the most important results of the cooperation between UAM and UV. Dr Irlanda Villegas from UV and two colleagues from UAM, Anna Skonecka and Dr Leonor Sagermann Bustinza, as well as a group of UAM students, gave their support to the organisation and implementation of the Congress.

 

In the academic year 2014-2015, a large group of researchers from the Institute of Romance Languages (UAM) participated as members of the jury in a translation competition addressed to the community of UAM students. The results of the competition were announced on the 26 of March 2015, the inauguration day of the IDEO-TRANS Congress.

The scientific, didactic and bilateral cooperation results have been discussed with the researchers from both universities on several occasions, such as seminars, workshops and meetings. A special presentation of these results, and at the same time a presentation of Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions that provide grants for all stages of researchers' careers, is scheduled by the Institute of Romance Languages for March 2016.

 

In the framework of cultural contacts between Wielkopolska region and the state of Veracruz, I gave an important support to the artistic project “The Tricycle”, ensuring a professional workshop for amateur actors “LekkoBezmyślni”, from a Poznan high school. The workshop given by Dr Domingo Adame Hernandez form UV was also a linguistic support for young learners of Spanish as a second language. Additionally, a documentary “The Tricycle”, as a recording of the troupe’s activities and IDEO-TRANS’ initiative, was produced by the Polish regional Television WTK. 

 

The project IDEO-TRANS was designed as a complex multi-task plan, characterized by diversity, complementariness, progressiveness and transferability of skills and competences. Consistent completion of all the tasks from the beginning of the implementation of the project, guaranteed the achievement of all goals. The main characteristics mentioned above reveal that, in IDEO-TRANS, I dealt with a simultaneous execution of multiple objectives. This is how it worked, for example, in case of the first academic, inter-cultural and linguistic exchange, coordinated and carried out by various people from several Polish and Mexican institutions. That is why this individual project turned out beneficial not only for its author, but also for the UV and the UAM staffs, the regions of Veracruz and Wielkopolska, and for Mexico and Poland where the project was carried out. Its wide social impact was guaranteed by its inherent features, namely the “mobility of ideas”.

 

Regarding the above, the project IDEO-TRANS allowed:

• to reach a higher level of professional excellence and maturity not only in my individual career, but also in the careers of other researchers, academic staff and many students of different degrees;

• to develop several theoretical and practical scientific issues within the framework of the academic research in Translation and Communication, such as: the translation as a process of ideological manipulation, the translation from the Nahuatl language or its learning/teaching process, the reception of multisemiotic texts of culture, giving just a few examples; all of this as a contribution to the development of Polish and European science;

• to achieve a multidirectional transfer of knowledge and skills: through the cooperation between academic institutions and social organisations, through the collaboration between individual researchers and students, through the teaching/learning process and the inter-cultural communication;

• to strengthen the competitiveness of UAM as a university with the highest level of research in the field of Translation and Hispanic Studies;

• to expand the administrative-managerial abilities through the organization of academic visits, an international congress, inter-cultural actions, publishing processes of research results and constant support for inter-academic student activities;

• to acquire the ability to academically supervise the PhD theses and to develop the skills to supervise the theses of MA and BA students; to share experience with Mexican researchers and discuss with them practical issues;

• to increase the competitiveness and the potential of European academics, especially as far as the research related directly to Mexico or Latin America is concerned, through acquaintanceship with Mexican researchers, the first-hand knowledge of the methodology used by them and also through a confrontation and discussion of the research results;

• to develop the cooperation between Wielkopolska and Veracruz regions through common inter-institutional actions and the mobility of academic staff;

• to collaborate with media in order to promote the idea of intercultural contact, multilingualism, research and international projects.

 

All the achievements of the IDEO-TRANS project are described on its website www.ikasperska.wix.com/ideo-trans.