*CFP: Legal translation and interpreting in a technologized world
*
The ubiquity of technology and its often-touted benefits are sources of
potential friction in legal and regulatory environments where
translation and interpreting activities are carried out. Concerns have
surrounded its ability to influence, constrain, or alter the
implementation and quality of T&I work, thereby resulting in somewhat
slower adoption rates in the field. Yet despite technological advances,
this trepidation may persist, given the ever-expanding range of
technologies at the disposal of legal parties and translators and
interpreters who enable plurilingual encounters. Additionally,
socioeconomic and policy factors complicate what is currently possible,
with increasing attention paid to not only which tools are used, but
how, when, and why.
It is now more important than ever to investigate the impact that these
technologies have in legal translation and interpreting contexts across
a range of variables, including productivity and quality metrics,
ergonomic and physiological measures, as well as other indicators
related to language access and rights, language policy, technology
adoption and use, and more. Here, we broadly consider technologies that
not only have been developed specifically to aid translation and
interpreting professionals (such as machine translation, translator
workbenches, glossary/terminology management tools, remote interpreting
platforms) but also tools that have been adapted for use in these
specific contexts (such as video conferencing or telephonic
technologies, tablet computers, document and data repositories, audio
equipment, corpora). The performance of the technologies can and should
also be the subject of investigation, to understand how they are used by
legal translators and interpreters, how they might be improved, or how
their implementation might differ depending on contextual variables of
their use. These performance indicators are of particular importance
with respect to less-resourced and minority languages, since these
languages are often counted among those within the long-tail of
localization and have been secondary to development efforts, while
simultaneously representing an area of increasing need to facilitate
language access. Conversely, more still needs to be known about how the
use of technologies in legal contexts affects the communicative
environment in which they are employed, including the influence on how
and to what extent various parties interact and where and when
multilingual communication is possible with certain technologies. Even
the means by which technologies are evaluated within legal and
regulatory areas require critical reflection and study, not only in
relation to majoritarian languages, but also when working with
less-resourced languages and their intersection with language policy and
planning.
This special issue seeks to bring together a broad range of studies
related to the use of technologies in legal translation and interpreting
domains. Such a topic has received limited treatment to date and is
relevant in a wide variety of legal domains such as legal institutions,
law enforcement, corrections, private law practice, immigration, asylum,
or quasi-legal settings that occur in any sector that interacts with the
law, such as social services or education.
For this special issue of /Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of
Language and Law/, we welcome contributions from a variety of
perspectives and disciplines, including but not limited to, translation
and interpreting studies, applied linguistics, information and
communication technologies, legal studies, and technology studies. The
issue comprises both theoretical and data-driven empirical work, or a
combination thereof. While by no means exhaustive, the list of topics
below would be of particular interest:
* Impact of technologies on legal translation/interpreting quality for
both majority and minority languages
* Influence of technologies on legal communication in multilingual
contexts
* Legal and regulatory frameworks that influence the use of
technologies in legal T&I contexts, including language policy and
language planning
* Use and development of technologies for different language pairs,
including less-resourced languages
* T&I technologies developed specifically for legal contexts
* Big data and legal T&I technologies
* Legal, economic, or ergonomic factors that influence technology
adoption and use
* Role of technology in affordance or impediments to language access
and rights
* Intersection of technology, language planning and policy,
particularly as it relates to the documentation and development of
less-resource languages in legal contexts
* Standards development and implementation for technologies in legal
environments
* Legal T&I pedagogy and its intersection with technology
* Technologies and transcription/translation practices
* Historical development of technologies in unique legal T&I contexts
*Timetable*
Abstracts (400–500 words) due to guest editors 1 January 2021
Decisions on abstract proposals 15 January 2021
Submission of full manuscripts 1 June 2021
Decisions to authors 1 September 2021
Final versions to guest editors 1 May 2022
Final versions to journal 1 July 2022
Publication of issue December 2022
*Submission Information
*
Abstracts for consideration should be sent to both guest editors
(jkill...@uncc.edu <mailto:jkill...@uncc.edu> and cmell...@uncc.edu
<mailto:cmell...@uncc.edu>) by 1 January 2021. Abstracts (400–500 words,
exclusive of references) should be accompanied by a tentative title, set
of keywords, and a bionote/affiliation for each author, as well as any
cited references.
--
Mikel L. Forcada
Dept. de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics
Edifici Politècnica IV,
Universitat d'Alacant
E-03690 Sant Vicent del Raspeig (Spain)
Phone: +34 96 590 9776
m...@dlsi.ua.es
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