Convergence: human-machine integration in translation and interpreting

About the conference

This year, the University of Surrey’s Centre for Translation Studies celebrates its 40th anniversary since its foundation. To mark this occasion, and as a natural progression from the Convergence lecture series, CTS is proud to announce its first Convergence conference. This conference is an opportunity to bring together innovative research that reflects on the complexity of contexts and the effects of the use of digital and AI-driven technologies in translation and interpreting. 

In a globalised society and economy, few people remain unaffected by the design and delivery of language services. As the demand for these services increases, the use of technologies adds new layers of complexity to the processes of translation and interpreting, calling for innovative and adaptive multidisciplinary approaches. The ‘technological turn’ in translation and interpreting requires all stakeholders to develop a better understanding of the impact and potential of translation and interpreting technologies, and of the products and services they facilitate. This understanding will help mitigate obstacles and barriers, driving genuine innovation that harnesses the full potential of the digital transformation and the ‘AI revolution’. 

The broad aim of the Convergence conference is to promote responsible and smart integration of the capabilities of human agents and machines in the fields of translation and interpreting, embedded in a multidisciplinary framework that enables the generation of new theoretical perspectives and practices of research. Our point of focus is the integration of research on human, machine-assisted, semi-automated, and fully automated translation and interpreting workflows, exploring the crucial role each workflow can play in supporting effective global and local communication, and in building a sustainable society. 

Panels

The conference will consist of a series of individually tailored thematic sessions, each bringing together experts who will discuss innovative perspectives, new empirical approaches, and an analysis of use cases for the most advanced language technologies. The planned themes of the conference are: 

• Embracing the complexity: hybrid practices for interlingual communication in real time 
• Convergence and collaboration in translation and research 
• Remote interpreting: towards a convergent research agenda
• Translation of creative content and technology 
• Natural language processing augmenting translation and interpreting 
• Widening media accessibility in the digital age  
• Reducing language barriers in mental healthcare for refugees and other migrants
• Bringing together corpus linguistics in translation studies and machine translation 

Schedule (GMT / UK time)

1 February (morning) 

• 10:00 - 12:00 Workshop: Teaching neural machine translation to translators 

1 February (afternoon) 

• 14:00 - 14:15: Start of conference
• 14:15 - 15:15: Keynote 1: Dorothy Kenny: Human and machine translation: a meeting of modes and minds?
• 15:30 - 18:00:Parallel sessions
  • Session 1: Embracing the complexity: hybrid practices for interlingual communication in real time  
  • Session 2: Convergence and collaboration in translation and research   

2 February (morning) 

• 9:00 - 10:00: Keynote 2: Will Lewis: Machine translation and natural language processing in crisis response scenarios
• 10:15 - 12:45: Parallel sessions
  • Session 3: Remote interpreting: towards a convergent research agenda 
  • Session 4: Translation of creative content and technology  

2 February (afternoon) 

• 14:15 - 16:45: Parallel sessions 
  • Session 5: Widening media accessibility in the digital age 
  • Session 6: Natural language processing augmenting translation and interpreting 
• 17:00 - 18:30 Reception: CTS anniversary celebration (CTS presentation + reception) 

3 February (morning) 

• 9:00 - 11:30 Parallel sessions 
  • Session 7: Reducing language barriers in mental healthcare for refugees and other migrants 
  • Session 8: Bringing together corpus linguistics in translation studies and machine translation  
• 12:00 - 13:30: Final panel - Convergence: Human-machine integration in translation and interpreting

Practical information

The Convergence conference will be held from 1 to 3 February 2023. Onsite participation in Guildford (UK) will be restricted to speakers but everyone is welcome to join us online, as the event is free of charge and will be streamed online. We will not be issuing a call for contributions, but the registration for online participation is free.

More practical information related to the conference will be added closer to the date. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us on cts_inquiries@surrey.ac.uk.